Ravaged Promo Blog Hop - 5 blogs, 10 authors, 10 copies to be won!

Welcome to the Ravaged Author Blog Hop!

To celebrate the release of Ravaged this weekend the authors have done a little Q&A hosted by five of the authors on their blogs. My guests are authors Leona Bushman and Persephone Jones. 

Each blog features two interviews and if you comment you have a chance to win one of 10 PDF copies of Ravaged kindly donated by all the authors. Comment through Monday, August 6 for a chance to win; winners will be chosen at random on Tuesday.

The blog links can be found below, so please go and check out all the interviews. 

SJ Thomas - http://sjthomaswpr.weebly.com/blog.html

Silvia Violet - http://silviaviolet.com/blog/

DF Krieger - http://dfkrieger.blogspot.co.uk/

Persephone Jones - http://persephone-jones.blogspot.co.uk/

Annabeth Leong - http://annabethleong.blogspot.co.uk/

Persephone Jones

About the Story

Title of your story, main characters and what it is about?

My story is titled “Heart of Stone” and it features Sabra Pearson, a journalist who falls in love with Griffin Lux, a multi-billionaire with a dark secret. An afterhours incident brings them closer than they could ever imagine.

Where did you get the inspiration for your story?

I started thinking about shifters and wanted to write about something a little different. I love gargoyles and Grayson and Sabra kind of popped into my head. The rest is history. And hopefully, enjoyable reading.

Favorite line: 

His moist sigh in her ear made her wet between her thighs. “Make a stone of your heart, Sabra.” Dear God, let home be right around the corner. “Then make a fire of your body.”

About the Author

How long have you been writing and how did you become a writer?

I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. I started consciously working toward publication after I graduated high school. It took years of hard work, but I’m finally achieving my goals.

Have you got anything else out/due out?

I have recently submitted another short story for Breathless Press’ Crimson anthology. I am very excited to think what’s on the horizon for me as an author.

Top tip for writing/publishing?

Read. You were a reader before you were a writer and chances are, it’s why you’re a writer. If you write, call yourself a writer. Don’t wait for others to validate what you do. Keep at it. There’s something to be said for the breed of people that become authors. With the exception of the occasional overnight success, most of us will shed various amounts of blood, sweat and tears before we reach our goals. Do not give up. What will set you apart from the next writer is what you do after you file away that rejection letter.

Just for Fun

If you were a shifter what animal would you change into?

If I had the choice to be any shifter, I think I would be a werewolf. I feel a special kinship to wolves and always felt the werewolf was the unsung hero of many a horror movie.

Favorite food and drink?

Other than Coca-Cola, I love iced tea. If I could have one drink for the rest of my life, that would be it. I love food of all kinds. As a Texan, Tex-Mex is close to my heart (or should I say, stomach?). I adore homemade spaghetti and meatballs, pot roast, a good Chinese buffet and love sushi. Sweets are my weakness, dark chocolate especially. Brownies are a gift from God.

Favorite movie?

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool horror buff. I have a large collection of horror DVDs and am constantly on the lookout for more. I’m fond of good science fiction, too.

Boxers or Briefs?

It’s not the package, it’s what’s in it.

Finish this sentence: I have never...

been any further west than San Antonio. Seriously. I’ve traveled extensively throughout the East. I’d love to visit Colorado, Arizona, California and Washington.

Stalker Links:  

Twitter:  @PersephoneJones

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/persephone.jones.73

Blog:  http://persephone-jones.blogspot.com/

Leona Bushman

About the Story

Title of your story, main characters and what it is about?

Hi. Barely There is the name of my shifter story. The two main characters, a lone werewolf, Bill Fang, and a single mom werebear Fern Bextrum, come together in a dangerous situation. As they talk, sparks fly and the rest…You'll have to read the book. But I will say, it's HOT HOT HOT!

Note: This is a bit of a prequel for The Ulfric's Mates and introduces the werebears and Bill whom we will continue to see in the series.

Where did you get the inspiration for your story?

I had a contract for The Ulfric's Mate and used this as an awesome chance to fill in some side stories. The kind I always want to know about when I'm reading my favorite series.

Favorite line:

She came hard, screaming into the forest, ending on a small growl of her own as he kept pounding into her, his engorged dick like an engine piston that was revved too high.

About the Author

How long have you been writing and how did you become a writer?

I've been writing all my life. I used to tell my siblings stories. But, I became serious about 4 years ago and started learning about the life of a writer.

Have you got anything else out/due out?

The Ulfric's Mate (Book 1 in The War of the Weres Series) is already out. I have an erotica, Rick Sexed up the Doc coming out November 23 and I'm furiously trying to finish another short side story that'll hopefully come out this year.

Top tip for writing/publishing?

I have two, depending on you. One, NEVER GIVE UP, and two, READ. READ. Read.

Just for Fun

If you were a shifter what animal would you change into?

Werejaguar

Favorite food and drink?

Chocolate and caffeine. But fruit, vegetables, and red meat are also dearly loved.

Favorite movie?

This is so hard for me to answer. My favorite movie depends on my mood and who I'm watching it with. But some of my favorites are The Princess Bride, Man from Snowy River, Serenity, The Phantom of the Opera, Moulin Rouge, Repo Man: Rock Opera, Zombie, and The Underworld. There are plenty others. (Star Wars, Star Trek—think geek and I generally like it :D)

Boxers or Briefs?

Commando :D

Finish this sentence: I have never...

Won the Nobel Prize

Stalker Links:

@L_Bushman for Twitter

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLeonaBushman

Intimate Strangers + New Cover Art for 'Ravaged'

This is the cover art for Ravaged, the anthology that will contain my short story "Sheep Shifter." I'm on round 2 of edits right now.

When I wasn't editing yesterday...or drinking beer and eating veggie pizza...or watching the Vampire Diaries next-to-season-finale, followed by a particularly poignant Person of Interest (dead ex-girlfriends and all that), I was reading Intimate Strangers by Laura Taylor.

Intimate Strangers by Laura Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The cover blurb says "Ms. Taylor writes with the power and sensuality of the best authors in romance." This may be the case, but if so, this book must represent one of her earlier efforts, before she attained that status. This erotic romance automatically lost one star for use of the phrase "throbbing loins." Twice.

There are two extremes the erotic romance writer can fall to that make the book less than pleasurable for the reader: so much clinical detail that it reads like a gynecologist's report, and not enough sensual detail. In Taylor's case, the actions of unlikely lovers Nicholas Benteen and Hannah Cassidy are buried in so much purple prose, this reader could hardly keep track of what was actually happening - a case of the latter extreme.

Some lines made me laugh, such as, "Her breasts plumped against her chest, her nipples stabbing like delicate daggers through the barrier of their clothing." I'm sorry, but when you start telling me about dagger nipples, you make me think of the Austin Powers fembots.



I really wanted to like this book, too. Since my current pop cultural obsession is Person of Interest, I found the premise of Nicholas - a lonely, isolated former CIA operative, similar to the TV character John Reese - intriguing. In actual practice, this novel is full of not-quite-believable/unnatural dialogue and telling where it should be showing, which was disappointing. Intriguing set-up, but less than ideal execution.

It should be noted, however, that instead of a Unabomber shack, Nicholas has a gorgeous multi-level home in the Nevada wilderness, complete with a roaring fireplace and a personal library. He's not only a survivalist, but also - secretly - a bestseller author of thrillers. Hannah doesn't figure this out until the very end of the novel - right before Nicholas' marriage proposal - but it's through Nicholas' printed words that she knows, deep down, he's a good-hearted person.

'Cause, you know, he did kill a bunch of people, so the goodness is somewhat buried under layers of growly alpha-male aggression. Like Bella Swan, Hannah Cassidy is quite readily willing to forgive the taking of human lives - and the overt threat to her own life, since at the moment they met, Nicholas was holding a knife to her throat. I really didn't mind his aggression, though. The reader knows he never intended to hurt her; his intent is to scare her out of his territory. I respond well to the emotionally damaged, outwardly mega-aggressive but inwardly sensitive type, which is why Zsadist is my favorite Black Dagger Brotherhood character and Lover Awakened is my favorite J.R. Ward book.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

WIP Wednesday - Sheep Shifter and BWWM

Authors needed - all genres! Are you an author who'd like to share a 100- to 200-word blurb about a current work in progress on a future WIP Wednesday? If so, please send an e-mail to Erin O'Riordan (erinoriordan AT sbcglobal DOT net).

This week I'm editing "Sheep Shifter" for the Breathless Press anthology Ravaged, an all-shifter anthology. The short story is accepted, but just on the first round of edits. I just went through this with my story for the Breathless anthology Ad-dick-tion Vol. 2 - there are four or five rounds of edits.

Over the weekend, I kept running with the Person of Interest fanfic I started on Friday (see ...in which the term 13-inch is thrown about shamelessly). Yes, my level of obsession with a Thursday-night network TV show is a little bit sad at the moment. Yes, one does not count fanfics as "real" writing, because one receives pre-created characters from someone else's imagination. They're lazy writing, and I thought I'd given up on them forever when I became a professional in 2007.

The last TV show that I wrote fanfics for was Homicide: Life on the Street, and that was when I was in college, more than a decade ago. Inspired by someone else's crazy Homicide/Pinky and the Brain crossover called "Timmy and the Frank," I even wrote a Homicide/Scooby Doo crossover. (It may be lost, or it may be hiding in a box of old diaries from the '90s.)

Guinevere and Lancelot - Free Art License

One thing keeping me from self-censoring and forcing myself not to write these things that cross my mind is knowing that fanfics are a time-honored literary tradition, dating back at least to the days of the wandering troubadours. They would regale their audiences with tales of Arthurian legend. When the affair between Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot proved to be a crowd-pleaser, the troubadours embellished upon it. At least, this is one theory I read years ago. In more modern times, the fanfic phenom can be blamed largely on - or credited largely to - Star Trek fans.

For an interesting fanfic that takes place right after the end of the The Hunger Games (the first book), go to Mumfection to read Eschelle's work. The book blog BookishTemptations collects Twilight fanfics.

This is about half of what I wrote between Friday night and Sunday night - the lead-up, the teaser. This is raw, unedited, the first and only draft. WIP Wednesday seems like as a good a place to post this as any. If you're following along, this would obviously happen before the events of Friday's fic. I'll post the second part next Wednesday.

Next I may get inspired to return to working on Billy's Color Palette, my interracial-erotica literary collaboration with Ken Charles. I suddenly seemed to remember working on another BWWM (Black Woman/White Man) story with Ken.

Joss Carter sighed and looked down at her drink, which she’d barely touched. As usual, crossing paths with John had preceded an extremely stressful night at work. They both needed to blow off some steam. He’d taken her up on her suggestion that they hit the bar and was on his second beer, but he’d barely said a word to her the whole time. Typical.

She definitely wasn’t drunk, so it must have been the tension between them that made her say it. “John, how long has it been?”

He set his bottle down, but he didn’t look at her. “How long has what been, Detective?”

“You know,” she said, wishing they weren’t in such a public place. No one sat near them, and the bartender seemed preoccupied at the other end of the bar, but the room suddenly felt too crowded. “Since you’ve been with a woman.”

“A long time,” he said, still not looking at her.

“It’s been a long time for me, too. Too long.” She paused to breathe deeply. “Have you ever thought about – you and me?”

He looked at her then, his cold blue eyes seeming to stare down deep inside her. “Too many…complications.”

She took another sip of the drink she didn’t really want. “What if there were no complications? No strings, no feelings. Just…stress relief. We both need it.”

He didn’t answer her, but turned back to face the bar and finished his drink. Her cheeks flushed, Carter calmly reached into her purse, counted out the bills to pay for her unfinished drink and set them down. She got up and walked away without so much as a goodbye – she’d already said too much.

As she neared the door, Carter suddenly felt John Reese’s arms around her. He pulled her into the hall leading to the ladies’ room and said into her ear, “Is this what you need, Josselyn? Do you want me this close to you, touching you?”

She closed her eyes; the way he said her name gave her familiar shivers of pleasure. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this way. “I think so, John,” she said, trying to sound as cool as possible as his firm grip on her loosened. “I think I need this. The question is, do you? Could you ever be that…vulnerable…with me? Naked?”

He made a sound somewhere between a deep laugh and feral growl. “This isn’t the place.” He let go of her; they stood eye to eye.

“I know a place,” she said.

****

“Where do you know this place from, Detective?” John looked around the motel room, and Carter figured he was plotting an emergency escape route. “Crime scene?” He took off his black jacket and laid it carefully on the back of the chair.

“I didn’t hear you offering to take me back to your place, John,” she said, emphasizing his name. So he was back to calling her “Detective,” was he? Did she make him nervous? She supposed he had reason to be; she had, after all, betrayed him to the Feds before her sudden change of heart.

“That would be…complicated, Josselyn.”

She watched him take off his shoulder holster. She was strapped too – still wearing her service weapon, of course – but watched with fascination as John took out the semiautomatic, checked the safety, then stashed it under the bed. Hidden in case anyone kicked in the door, but accessible. He did the same with the large-caliber revolver from his other side, then unbuttoned his shirt.

Carter started to undress, setting her weapon next to the TV. She let her jacket and blouse fall into a loose pile on the floor. John sighed as he laid his shirt over his jacket on the chair. Underneath that suit, he looked exactly as she’d imagined him: athletic, but not overly muscular, with a smooth chest. Since he didn’t strike her as the waxing type, it must’ve been natural.

“I did that, didn’t I?” she said as he turned to her, noticing the small, jagged scar on his belly that could only have come from a bullet wound. She may not have pulled the trigger, but it had been her fault all the same. He’d almost died that night.

“That’s complicated, too.” He held out his hand and she took it, accepting his invitation to come in closer. She resisted the urge to run her hand over the scar, afraid it might still cause him pain.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know.” He pulled her in closer, running his hands down her sides, and Carter wanted more. She heard – felt – him inhale deeply as she reached back to unhook her bra. To his credit, John didn’t go straight for her breasts.

She was also grateful he didn’t try to kiss her. That seemed too intimate, too…complicated. It did feel good to be pressed up against him, though, his long fingers raking through her hair softly. Okay, he smelled slightly like beer, but also like a soft aftershave that reminded her of cloves. He hadn’t shaved recently, though. She could feel the barest hint of stubble on the underside of his jaw.

She wasn’t sure which of them made the first move over toward the bed, but soon they stood on opposite sides. She watched him unbuckle his belt, then turned her back, almost shy, while she stripped down to her favorite pink lace panties. Carter was glad she’d worn them, though she couldn’t quite explain why she had.  

She turned back around in time to see him unstrap the K-Bar knife from his leg. If he were anyone else, she’d have been alarmed at the arsenal he traveled with. She’d arrested gangsters who carried fewer weapons. Hell, she hadn’t been that strapped over in the Gulf.

Their eyes met, and she returned his smile. “I like to be prepared,” he said, almost apologizing.

“Speaking of which…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a condom, then slid it over to his side of the bed. Then she took off the panties, challenging him to step out of his last remaining bit of clothing, those black boxers.

He accepted her challenge. Damn – talk about weaponry.