Cover Reveal: Familiar Taste of Seduction

A new adult steampunk paranormal romance is coming out: Familiar Taste of Seduction! It is up for pre-sale on Amazon.

Title: Familiar Taste Of Seduction

Authors: Elizabeth J. Kolodziej and Juls Berghammer

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/Familiar-Taste-Seduction-Elizabeth-Kolodziej/dp/0616002920/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396918954&sr=8-1&keywords=Familiar+taste+of+seduction

Release Date: October 13, 2014

Synopsis: Every captain dreams to find the haul worth more than his existence and Captain Henri is no exception. Far from land and her home, Lola gives the captain a run for his heart when he captures her from the sea. However, the beautiful siren soon discovers she can't sing her way out of this one.

When Matrick, a great sorcerer, learns about captain Henri's treasure, he craves the siren for his Midnight Carnival and his personal menagerie. Matrick must own the sea goddess by fair means or foul. With the aid of the demon seductress, Ink, Captain Henri may be able to take the siren back from the evil grasp of Matrick. But, at what cost? Demons don t work free.

Ink is attracted to Lola more than she will admit and after one explosive night together Lola is hooked. Will Lola stay with Ink? Be confined by the evil sorcerer? Can Captain Henri win his prize catch back and be able to show her what real smoldering hot love is?

What's a Selkie?

If you haven't already, you can still go to Kelly Walker's Jaded Stone post for a chance to win $50 in either Amazon.com gift cards or Paypal cash. You'll want to come back tomorrow (November 22) as well for another giveaway.

That giveaway will have to do with Susan Hayes' novel Riptide, a male/male/female erotic romance featuring two brothers who are selkie shape shifters. What exactly are selkies? They're similar to mermaids, but not exactly the same. For the best answer, let's turn to Barbara Sjoholm's oceanic folklore-logue The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea. 

Sjoholm writes:

"Like tales of mermaids who take off their scaly nether parts and walk on land, the better to lure unwitting men to their watery kingdoms, transformative stories of the seal folk abound in the northern islands [of Scotland, namely the Shetlands and the Orkneys]. But seals embody an old animism, when animals were regarded as powerful and numinous, and when humans would mimic them and wear their skins to take on their power. So many stories of the seal folk, selkies or silkies in the local tongue, seem to be about humans trying to capture the spirit of the selkie. One common version begins when a man spies a group of girls sunbathing naked on a beach or a rocky shore.

"When he approaches, most of the girls get away, but one doesn't, for he steals her spotted skin and hides it somewhere secret in his house. He takes her home, and she tries to be a good wife to him. But always in the story comes a time when she finds, or one of her children tells her where to find, the box or the chest with the skin inside. As soon as she finds it, she's gone. Although the tales often seem to be about love, they are never about renunciation. The choice of [Hans Christian] Andersen's Little Mermaid, to become human and to suffer, is not for the selkie wife. No, she's tricked into living in a human body for a time, but she always escapes back to her true element at the end.

"The many stories of seal folk aren't all about capturing seals for wives. Some are about seal men seducing women (an explanation for out-of-wedlock pregnancy, perhaps) and about crossing a boundary between human and animal, about understanding the connection across species. Sometimes men who are great hunters of seals are taken below and shown the wounds of their prey, after which the hunters hunt no more. But many of the stories are about shape shifting, about changing from animal to human and back. The appeal of the selkie, and indeed the seal, is its amphibious nature. That possibility of living in both worlds is what humans hold to, especially seafarers, fishers, coast dwellers. What if drowning were only a dream from which you woke into a beautiful marine world filled with lavish meals and luxurious houses? What if the fathers and brothers who never came back from fishing were safe and sound under the waves? What if the large gray seal lifting his curious head from the sea to look at you were a relative? How comforting that would be."



So the selkies are the seal men and seal women of Northern European folklore (although I'm sure such creatures exist in the folklore of many coastal dwellers, under different names). Now you're up to speed for tomorrow's post.

The Weekly Dish ~ All Things Disney

This week's Weekly Dish with Bella and Nat theme is "Disney." (See also: "Five Disney Dudes I'd Most Like to See Lewd.")



Like Natalie, I like Alice in Wonderland best of all the Disney cartoons.

The Princess and the Frog is pretty good, too.

Ariel is certainly one of the least feminist of the Disney heroines.

Sometimes, it seems, it's more fun to be one of the bad girls.

You really don't want to mess with the good girls, either.

Of course, just about every readergirl identifies with Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

For some reason, Disney characters seem to lend themselves easily to "bitch" memes.

https://amzn.to/3X8oKYW - this is an affiliate link

Blue Monday: Under the Sea

If it's Monday, it's time for...

If you love to read about the ocean or fantasy stories about mermaids, you may want to investigate the Under the Sea Giveaway Blog Hop, going on through Sept. 20th and hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer.

Inspired by some of the gorgeous sea-themed book covers I came across while exploring the hop (any of which you might win if you participate), I present my favorite underwater-inspired pins. If you're anything of a reader of YA books, you'll recognize that once one or two bestsellers in the genre start a theme (red dresses, white dresses, the lip close-up, hand-holding or, in this case, mermaids), it spreads like wildfire...er, wild water. See, for example, Jillian Audrey's analysis.

You can see my previous underwater-themed Blue Monday post HERE.



The deep sea blue of this cover and the little bit of golden highlights in the cover model's hair could have been  the inspiration behind this little gem.

I've been wanting to read Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs for years now, but I never have. A touch of blue on the lips, shades of blue on the eyes...

...could have inspired this look...

...or this.

Blue Monday ~ Underwater

These beautiful pins all have something in common: the color blue. They all come from my  Pinterest boards: http://pinterest.com/erinlovesbooks/.

On Monday I link up with Baxtron{Life} and A Night Owl for Pinning! On Wednesday it's The Vintage Apple for Oh, How Pinteresting!!! If you're dropping by from either of these blog hops, welcome, and please leave a comment!

I don't know the story behind this one, but it looks very cool.



This is the stained glass mermaid window I need for my prefects' bathroom, to inspire me as I'm hiding out from Moaning Myrtle and trying to listen to my dragon egg.



This one makes me think of Ponyo. Is this what Ponyo looks like when she grows up?



A warrior-mermaid of Atlantis



This is simply a gorgeous animal. Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forest of the...river?



From the always-wonderful Shah Wharton, I received the Sunshine Award. It comes with a series of questions, and then I get to pass it on to ten other bloggers.

 

Favorite Color: Since it’s Blue Monday, you would think it would be blue, but it’s actually green.

Favorite Animal: James the cat. Before I got James, my favorite animal was my dad’s yellow Labrador/Akita mix, Amy. My favorite wild animals are wolves.

Favorite Number: 22

Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink: A hot green tea latte

Facebook or Twitter? Don’t make me choose! OK, Facebook.

My passion: Reading and writing fiction

Getting or Giving Presents? Giving in the fun one. Picking out is fun, too.

Favorite Pattern: Do vampire bite marks count as a pattern?

Favorite Day of the Week: Thursday, ‘cause I’m so addicted to Vampire Diaries and, now, Person of Interest too. Plus, Bonnie Samson's Even Hotter Thursdays.

Favorite Flower: Violets

The 10 Bloggers I’d Like to Pass the Award on to, in no particular order:

1. Close Encounters
2. Pamela's Place
3. Mumfection
4. Musings From a Breast Cancer Optimist
5. Keynotes
6. Wayward Girls' Crafts
7. Writers Get Together
8. The Book Nympho
9. Chronicles of a Dime
10. Life Through Preppy Glasses

Popsicles, Icicles and Other Not-So-Little Mermaid Songs

Earlier this week, I wrote an article for SexIs about Scarleteen and some of the other websites young adults can turn to for accurate sexuality advice. Today my writing mission, should I choose to accept it, is to start a scholarly-humorous piece about the association between fish and female genitalia. One of the research materials I've gathered is A Mermaid's Tale: A Personal Search For Love and Lore by Amanda Adams.

I've had this book from the library before, and I recall that it contains several versions of the European fairy tale of Melusina. I first heard of Melusina in 1999, when I was a college student taking a course on women and religion. One of the texts I read was Sexes and Geneologies by the French feminist Luce Irigaray, which introduced me to the half-fairy princess considered to be the mother of some prominent French families and the architect of a number of castles. (I'm thinking she's associated with Brittany, but that could be wrong.)

Melusina, whom I remember best as Melusine, was cursed by her fairy mother for the crime of imprisoning her human father. Once a month she turned into, depending on your source, either a mermaid or a snake-creature. Like the bean-sidhe (Gailge for "woman of the fairy mounds," appropriated by the English language as banshee), Melusine's cries can be heard to foretell the deaths of her descendants.

I found this fairy tale fascinating and stored it away in my brain for a decade. (Writers, in case you didn't know, are like walking encyclopedias.) Finally I wrote my own version, "Melusine's Secret," which appears in the Hearts of Tomorrow anthology from Melange Books. In my version, Melusine's transformation has less to do with fish or serpents...but I won't spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say there's magic and sexual exploration.

In the Disney version of the The Little Mermaid, Ariel loses her voice in exchange for legs to walk around on land. In the Hans Christian Andersen version, the mermaid gets her legs but must suffer terrible pain when she walks. In the midst of my dual crush on Indiana Pacers Reggie Miller and Rik Smits (see "Pairs of Really Big Ones"), I remembered this aspect of the fairy tale at the tail end of Rik's career, when he was having ongoing foot problems. Putting two and two together, I determined that the big, blond Netherlander was, in fact, a merman.

That's what I know about men and fish tails. Now I must be off to discover the secret behind women's tails and fishes. P.S. "Popsicles and Icicles" is an oldie pop hit for a singing group called The Murmaids, in case ya didn't know.