Demon Lovers – An Anthology


And what a kickass anthology it is, too!   So I’m glad that when Holly and Lori with Ravenous Romance
 emailed to ask if Dave and I (aka Kilt Kilpatrick and Inara LaVey) wanted to edit an anthology of succubus and incubus stories for Ravenous that we said yes, desite very busy schedules.

How busy, you ask?

Well, we didn’t just have full plates; we had “all you can eat” buffet piled high type plates. And yet… the idea of reading other peoples’ work and putting together an anthology sounded like fun.  And it was.

We sent out a call for submissions (Submit!!  All Kneel Before General Zod!) both as an open calls via social networking, as well as emails to specific writers we knew would be perfect for this book.  We got an amazing response and ended up with a selection of sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always sexy stories from thirteen talented authors (listed here in no particular order):  Lisa Lane, Kat Sheridan, Elena Derring, Red Hanner, Ray Garton, Anastasia Greumach, Angela Cameron, Olivia Cunning, Loren Rhoads, Courtney Sheets, Elizabeth Black, Kilt Kilpatrick, and yeah, my alter ego Inara has one in there too.  

Anastasia, btw, is as of yet too shy to reveal her secret identity so we will leave her unlinked. 🙂 

Demon Lovers is available for sale at Ravenous Romance and just came out for Kindle at Amazon

too!

And for a little taste of what’s inside…

They come for you in your sleep…

The Succubus, nocturnal seductress of men; the Incubus, the perfect male no woman can resist; enticing demon lovers who haunt your bedroom, slip into your fevered dreams and drag you into delicious sins of the flesh…

Demon Lovers is a fresh new collection of seductive, frightening, hilarious, adventurous, sumptuous, thrilling stories of succubae and incubi from today’s hottest and most exciting authors in paranormal erotica!

A girl with something extra finds her match in a mysterious carnival jack; in Victorian London, a celebrated singer with a secret plays a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a lover; girl sleuths at a finishing school must solve a series of deadly seductions before they are the next to succumb; a female UPS driver discovers that the most unlikely of prospects can lead to an unforgettable erotic encounter; to gain an ancient treasure lost to the Arabian Desert, a roguish archeologist in 1927 must gamble on surviving a seductive Moroccan she-demon! You can find these and many more hot paranormal tales in Demon Lovers!

 

Ripping the Bodice Cover!

Or ‘Squeeee!!!’  EIther expression works.  Anyway, I just got the jpg of my new book cover with Ravenous Romance and am VERY happy with it.  To quote my own sell sheet:

Got sex and romance on the brain? So does Cassandra Devon. She also has hard-boiled private eyes, dashing pirates, jet-setting super spies and other sexy rogues entertaining her in her surprisingly explicit subconscious. All these erotic daydreams make it hard to stay focused on Cassandra’s current dilemma: namely, rebuffing the advances of Connor, a wild Irish rascal who wants to play the starring role in her fantasies. Cassandra is only interested in getting together with Raphael, the tall, dark and handsome man of her dreams. May the best romance hero win!


Walter Mitty meets Erica Jong in this wickedly funny and sexy hot comedy-romance from the author of Succubusted.




My original cover concept was this:


A play on a stereotypical historical romance cover from the ’80s: our heroine, Cassandra (lots of long, wavy dark brown hair) bent over backwards in the steely armed embrace of a tall, dark auburn-haired, muscular man kissing her neck. He’s either bare-chested or dressed in dashing pirate/cavalier garb. Cassandra, however, has her green eyes covered with glasses and is reading a romance novel, cover clearly visible, over the man’s shoulder. Her expression and interest are clearly more on the book than the man holding her.


While I still love my idea, I am equally fond of the cover the Ravenous artists came up with.


Ripping the Bodice will be out on Ravenous Romance…(drumroll) tomorrow!  So if you like comedy, romance and a little bit…okay, a lot of sex, please check it out!

My First Story for Ravenous Romance

I just got word that my first story for Ravenous Romance will be published on December 1st, the day the site officially launches.  Needless to say (oh, okay, I DO need to say it!), I’m totally chuffed that my story Succubusted has been chosen to be part of the big day. I’m publishing under the pen name Inara LaVey (the first name is for all you Firefly fans and the second because it appeals to my inner Goth) – ‘Dana Fredsti’ doesn’t work for either romance or erotica.  Or erotic romance, for that matter.  At least I don’t think it does.

I have been learning a lot about the distinctions between romance, erotica and erotic romance from readers and writers of the various genres, some of whom have been kind enough to give their recommendations and also guide me to sites like Romance Wiki, specifically the sub-genre page. I’ve definitely learned that readers of romance, regardless of genre, have very definite expectations from these genres (how many times can I use the word ‘genre’ in one paragraph, you ask?).  If it’s labeled romance, be it paranormal, contemporary or erotic, it had better have a satisfactory emotional story arc between the two main characters.  Fair enough.  I’m going to be very careful when it comes to describing my various books so readers will know what they’re getting.  Trust me – you don’t wanna get romance readers or writers mad at you.  They can be scary.  🙂

I’ve downloaded a couple of books from Ellora’s Cave, specifically Dragon’s Warrior and The Hunters: Declan and Tori, by Shiloh Walker. The little I’ve had time to read of Walker’s work tells me I’m gonna enjoy both books.  Her writing style (in these two books) is terse, action packed and sexy, and she manages to create vivid and believable characters very quickly.  These are short books – one is 137 pages, the other 165 – so her ability to draw a reader into her worlds so quickly is definitely a plus.

The most frustrating thing is knowing I have limited time to read because of my writing deadlines and I do love to read…  So I’m not downloading anything else until I finish these two books, as well as the last few chapters of Jean Henry Mead’s Senior Sleuth mystery, A Village Shattered, which is so far a cracking good mystery!  Jean will be my guest December 2nd on the second stop of her upcoming blog tour and I’m delighted to host her.  And not just because her lead character’s name is Dana. 🙂

Passion’s Purple Prose or Bookish Factoid #5

It’s Thursday morning and I’m riding the L Muni car into work.  Sitting about five rows in front of me is a teenage boy with headphones on, the volume on his music pumped so high I can hear it from where I’m sitting.  I am fighting a nearly unbearable urge to go up to him, lift one side of the headset and yell, “CAN YOU HEAR ME? BECAUSE YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO IN A FEW YEARS, YOU IDIOT!”  But that would involve getting out of my seat and having to stand the rest of the long, crowded ride to Embarcadero Station, so I’ll continue to resist the urge.  But jeez Louise, isn’t the point of headsets, iPods and Mp3s so you can enjoy whatever you’re listening to without inflicting it on other people?  And wait a sec…nope, teenage boy with headset, I impugned you falsely.  It’s actually a pre-teen girl with an iPod, her earplugs dangling off her shoulders so she can share her music with her friend.  And the rest of us.  Now I’m thinking more along the lines of earplugs as garrote.  Does this make me a bad person?  No, just the antithesis of a morning person who resents having to listen to crappy music before I’ve had my first cup of coffee. It takes my nerve endings a while to crawl back into their sheathes in the mornings.  I don’t wake up bright and chipper when I’m forced to leave my bed at the command of an alarm clock.  And while I’m not what I’d consider homicidal as a rule, infringing on my personal space (and yes, this includes auditory assault) makes me think bad things.  The voices tell me it’s a GOOD thing.

And boy, am I off track for my post today!  Yes, it’s Bookish Factoid #5 time!

When thinking of ideas for stories and books for Ravenous Romance, I went through a suitcase full of my old writing.  We’re talking stories and partial novels from grade school (including my epic one paragraph short story THE END OF THE SUN) through my ’20, back when everything was either handwritten or typed on my handy IBM Selectric.  I used to stay after work at the IRS (yes, I worked at the IRS back in the day) and type up our Murder for Hire scripts, short stories, and whatever else Maureen and I were trying to sell/produce, including two spec Moonlighting scripts.  As a side note, we didn’t sell the Moonlighting scripts, but we did get invited to the wrap party.  We had good food and drink and were treated to the sight of a young, drunk Bruce Willis boogying on the dance floor and periodically pumping his fist in the air, shouting “Fuckin’ A!”

Maureen and I also had a bunch of outlines for original TV series, movies of the week, and other projects. I have all of them, including a completed script for a romantic comedy heavily influenced by Romancing the Stone and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  We originally wrote this for an independent producer in San Diego who wanted to make an erotic romance with a decent script.  Not quite porn, but certainly not the light headed fluff we turned out.  He wasn’t interested in the script, so Maureen and I came up with the bright idea of filming it ourselves. One video camera, no lights, and a group of gung-ho actors later, we actually filmed a decent portion of the script, filling up three 6-hour videotapes. We even went on location, spending a day at the Strawberry Creek Inn (thank you, Jim and Diane!), which was owned by my ex parents-in-law.

I don’t remember why we stopped filming, but it’s probably just as well.  The results were about as amateurish as you’d expect given our ‘let’s put on a show’ mentality.  I have a camera!  We can use your barn…’

But as embarrassing as it is to watch some of this (I cringe whenever I’m on screen), I’m still proud of the moxy it took to fill those three tapes and the fact we had actors willing to give us their time because they liked our script and enjoyed (I hope) working with us.  Plus we fed them lots of home baked chocolate chip cookies.

I still have these tapes and I still have the script.  And when I got an email from Ravenous saying they were looking for serialized novels, I pulled out the script, scanned and sent them the first 25 pages with explanation, and received a positive response. So it looks like it’s going to finally fulfill its original purpose as a more adult romantic comedy.  And I’ll have a chance to take out some of the truly sophomoric jokes originally we originally put in that now make us wince, especially when we think of how funny we thought they were at the time.