Category Archives: Books
Mid Week Tease: Breaker Zone
Happy Hump Day! Let’s celebrate it with a Mid Week Tease, courtesy of the lovely and talented Sandra Bunino. This week, I’ll be sharing a teaser from my current WIP and Book Two in the Olympic Cove series, Breaker Zone. When Dr. Nick Gardiner goes on the run from a psychotic ex and shows up at Olympic Cove, he never expects to get pulled in Ian’s new life as a God — and he definitely doesn’t expect to be courted by a pair of gorgeous mermen.
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
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Their tongues met, clashed, tangled with an intensity that set Nick’s nerves on fire. Fingers slid between his own, clenching down and pinning his hands against the mattress. The knowledge that he was trapped under the merman’s body poured gasoline on his need, and he mewled into Aidan’s mouth.
“You like that?” the merman said, grinding his cock against Nick’s. “You like knowing you’re mine?”
“Yes,” Nick gasped. “Oh, God, yes.”
“Good.”
That wet, hungry mouth left his, sucking open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, down the side of his neck. Teeth nipped the tender space under his ear, and Nick bucked up uncontrollably, desperate. Aidan chuckled, the filthiest laugh he had ever heard. “Yeah, you like that. You want me to own you, make you mine. You want me to fuck you, angel.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll fill you up, nice and deep. You’ll have to wrap those long legs around me, because I’m not gonna let you move. I’ll make you lie there and feel my cock pushing inside you over and over again. I’ll keep hitting your sweet spot and you’ll go crazy because it feels so good. And I won’t come until I feel you pulsing around me, coming hard and screaming my name. Then I’ll mark you, make you mine. You want that?”
Nick couldn’t speak. He could only nod, his throat clicking dryly.
“Mmm.” Aidan worked down his body, leaving a trail of livid bites and suck marks in his wake. That wicked, perfect mouth closed around his nipple, tongue teasing it hard, then nipping. A little shock of pain shot through his body, grounding out somewhere between his cock and balls. Nick drove his head hard into the pillow, feeling the promise of pain turning into pleasure, the lure of subspace.
Aidan switched to his other nipple, nipping and licking it until it was erect. He switched off between the two until they were swollen and aching, glistening from his mouth. “I’m going to let go of your hands.”
Nick whined, and flinched at the hard bite on his sternum. “You’re going to grab your headboard and hold on, like a good boy. You understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
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Mid Week Tease: Grading the Curve
Happy Hump Day! Let’s celebrate it with a Mid Week Tease, courtesy of the lovely and talented Sandra Bunino. This week, I’ll be sharing a teaser from my new Romance on the Go story Grading the Curve, featuring virginal college student Ellen who’s about to enjoy the hot professor she’s been lusting after all semester long. What can I say — I think teachers are sexy.
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
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Alex carried Ellen through the house and up a flight of stairs. With no other option, she buried her face in the crook of his neck. His scent was more concentrated there, and she breathed deeply, wanting to taste it.
And then they were in his bedroom, plainly decorated with grey walls and dark wood furniture. The bed, a king, was the only real luxury in the room, covered with a thick maroon duvet that looked silky in the low light. Pillows in black and maroon cases were piled at the head of the bed. Cord eased her to her feet, keeping an arm tucked around her as he slid off his glasses, tossing them on the nightstand next to a framed picture. “So. Here we are.”
She stared at the bed, wondering if he could hear her heart pound. “You’re the teacher. Tell me what to do.”
His hands slid around her face, cupping it and turning it towards him. “I think we should start out with a nice kiss.”
The phrase bounced around in her head, then slotted into place. She couldn’t stop her grin. “Not leaping for the clitoris like a bull at the gate, then?”
His eyes narrowed in appreciation. “Oho, a Monty Python fan. My admiration for you grows with each moment. But no, I think we’d be best with a nice, soft kiss.”
He brought his mouth to hers, a brush of lips that caught and clung. She closed her eyes, reveling in the firmness of his lips, the slight rasp of stubble on his chin. He gently sucked her upper lip, then lower, before nudging her mouth open and slipping his tongue just inside, licking at the satiny inner flesh.
He tasted wonderful, like salt and wine and something that was uniquely him. Their tongues tangled, teasing slides that caused heat to pool between her thighs. Everything she’d read about French kissing made it sound disgusting. This was nothing like that.
Oh, God, this was so much better.
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Grading the Curve is available from the following retailers:
Evernight / Amazon / All Romance Ebooks / Bookstrand
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Soon, my precious, soon…
My new Romance on the Go story, Grading the Curve, will be released this Thursday from Evernight, and I just got the final cover art today. And as you can see, yes, that is a woman on the cover.
*pauses so that people can recover*
I know, I know, but I don’t always write M/M erotic romance. I don’t. Stop laughing. Look, sometimes an MF story will hit the “I must write this NOW” button, and Grading the Curve just happened to be one of those stories. And yeah, the fact that I have a rather pronounced teacher kink and my male lead is a gruff but sexy professor may have also had something to do with it, but we won’t get into that right now.
And no, Alex isn’t based on anyone in real life, so if (God forbid) any of my previous teachers somehow stumble across this website, don’t worry, I’m not writing about you. Anyway, here’s the blurb:
Ellen Ragsdale is a scholarship student who just wants to get her college degree and start her life. Alexander Cord is an English professor who hides his loneliness behind an arrogant facade. School rules have kept them at arm’s length all year long. But on the last night of Ellen’s college career, the two of them risk everything to find out if their mutual attraction is more than a classroom crush.
And because I love you all to bits, here’s a teaser:
“Did you know that you always blush when you talk to me?” he said quietly. “It’s charming. You look like a medieval maiden receiving her first suitor.”
It felt like someone had painted fire across her skin. She ducked her head, staring dumbly at the hallway’s scarred paint. He couldn’t know. Nobody knew that about her. It wasn’t that obvious.
Was it?
“Interesting.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I meant it as a compliment, but perhaps I struck closer to the truth than I’d intended.” He moved closer, and she could feel the heat from his whole body now, warming her like an invisible caress. “Are you?”
She swallowed hard. He couldn’t be asking what she thought he was asking. “A-am I—”
“A maiden. A virgin. I believe a popular term is ‘unicorn bait.'” His voice dropped, turning into a soft rumble. “I have to admit, I’m puzzled as to how someone as lovely and intelligent as you could still be virginal.”
Her entire face now felt like it was on fire. She’d gone on the occasional date, usually doubling with Keisha or Dianne, but once the guys found out what her schedule was like they didn’t bother calling again. “Too busy, I guess. Working, studying.”
To her surprise, cool fingers slid under her chin, gently turning her face up. “What a shame,” Cord said, his voice low and soft. “But if it’s of any consolation, men your age do tend to be rather slapdash and impatient when it comes to women. I assure you, you haven’t missed out on much by skipping the undergraduate sexual circus.” The façade of the academic disappeared. Underneath was a man she didn’t know, warm and standing so close to her. “That being said, I wonder … would you be willing to consider me?”
“What—” Her throat clicked, it was so dry. She swallowed and tried again. “What are you saying?”
He tilted his head to the side. “I want to take you to bed, Miss Ragsdale. I want to kiss that pink mouth of yours, undress you ever so slowly, play with those gorgeous breasts and suck your nipples before I caress every inch of your body. I want to bury my tongue between your legs and lap at your clit, and when you’re dripping wet I want to bury my cock in you. I want to see that sweet mouth of yours open and scream my name as I make you come over and over again.” Now she could smell his cologne, something masculine, woody, and underneath that, the musk of clean male. “Come home with me tonight, Miss Ragsdale. Let me make love to you. I promise you, you won’t regret it.”
Evernight Publishing at the Gay Romance Northwest Meet-up Conference
BOOYAH! I just found out that Evernight Publishing will be advertising new or recent GLBT titles at the Gay Romance Northwest Meet-up Conference, and one of the titles will be HIS: Manlove Edition with my story “In His Name.”
So if you’re in the Seattle area and enjoy gay romance, you may be interested in attending this shindig, to be help at the Seattle Central Public Library. I wish there was some way I could attend and help promote the antho, but barring a sudden Lotto win I can only say go, it’ll be nifty!
Houston, We Have Cover Art!
COMING AUGUST 15th
Strength. Power. Experience. There’s nothing like a man who knows how to get what he wants, both in and out of the bedroom. And these dominant alphas want nothing more than to please and possess the men they love. No kink is too risqué as these men ensure their lovers never want to be anywhere but under their command.
Come and find out how good it feels to be HIS.
HIS: Manlove Edition includes my short story “In His Name.”
After his late-blooming sexuality prompts a crisis of faith, Father Sean Halloran is placed on sabbatical to reconsider his vocation. Taking a job at a homeless shelter, Sean is determined to rededicate himself to celibacy and return to the priesthood.
There’s only one problem: Matt McCormick, the authoritative shelter manager who has begun to haunt Sean’s dreams and challenge his ideas of what it means to serve God. Now, Sean must choose between a life of celibate service, or the possibility of love with another man.
Fabulous Friday Reads: Dark Hunter
Welcome to the weekend, and let’s kick it off with the new paranormal erotic romance Dark Hunter from Shannan Albright, now available from Evernight Publishing and other purveyors of fine erotic romance.
Vampire Mari Ankamunan struggles to pick up the pieces of her life after her bar The Asp becomes a war zone between the Enforcers and members of the Preservation Society, who want all dark breeds wiped out. The sudden appearance of the only man she ever loved brings her world to a crashing halt, for she witnessed his brutal murder two thousand years ago.
Navar’s spoken oaths to his Sire cost him Mari. Torn from her side by the sidhe queen, he is her Hunter, delivering justice for crimes against the breeds. Now freed he returns to his lovers side only to be caught in a dark plot where Mari is targeted for death.
The stakes are high, can they uncover a deadly plot against the Enforcers or will Navar lose Mari, forever by an assassin’s hand?
Story Excerpt
“I will do everything in my power to protect her, even lay down my life if it comes to that.” Navar’s words rang in the still air, spoken as an oath.
“Marcus will be relieved to find out Mari is well protected. I know after the incident with the Preservation Society, he has been concerned for her safety. Someday you must tell me how you secured your release.”
Mari blinked at the two men, feeling left out of the loop in the XY-chromosome chat. Males. Can’t live without them and can’t kill them. Irritation spiked into the red zone, her patience threadbare for the bullshit. Placing her diminutive self between the two towering males, she gave them both a fearless glare and fisted her hands on her hips.
All conversation stopped as they stared down at her with surprise. Good, now she had their attention. “I’ve been alive since the time of Cleopatra. I didn’t survive all those centuries by being a fucking weak female. I can fight, strategize, and I damn well have enough intellect in this ‘girly’ brain to figure out what I need to do to save my own hide, thank you very much. Now, if you don’t mind talking to me, not about me, it would be appreciated and might save your ball sacs from relocating somewhere north on your body. Are we clear, boys?”
Adrian threw his head back and roared a large rolling laugh that reverberated throughout the room. She blinked in surprise. She’d never once seen any enforcer laugh. Sure, they smiled, chuckled, and even smirked, but never laughed. She found it…disconcerting.
“Point taken. You will have your hands full with this little hellion, hunter. I don’t envy you.”
“Little hellion indeed. Yet well worth the extra trouble,” Navar agreed, his pale eyes darkening with hunger.
Where to Buy
Evrnight Publishing
Amazon
All Romance Ebooks
Bookstrand
About Shannan Albright
Growing up I was called the dreamer of the family, something not always thought of as a positive thing. As a child, I would draw and build stories around my pictures, so writing was a natural extension for me. Recently a family member told me that from now on she would encourage those dreamers she knew. Stating “with hard work and focus dreams can come true. Shannan Albright is proof that dreaming can be a positive thing.”
When not writing I spend my time between oil painting and reading. I love writing paranormal, urban fantasy, historical and fantasy romances because of the world building and rich characters I feel a connection to. I’m drawn to dark, edgy heroes and heroines overcoming impossible odds internal and external.
I’m a “hopeful” Romantic who believes a healthy relationship built on respect and a strong partnership is the key to a happy ever after.
Where to Find Shannan Albright
Getting a little loud there, Nic
I once read an interview with the delightful and talented Jeffrey Combs (horror fans will know him from Reanimator and other Stuart Gordon films; SF fans will know him from Star Trek:DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. I may also have a small crush on him, never mind, moving along) where he talked about preparing for his one-man play Nevermore, which is an imagined lecture/performance by Edgar Allan Poe. The play includes a great deal of Poe’s poetry, and apparently Jeff spent a lot of time walking around his neighborhood quietly reciting to himself in order to memorize all that verse. He joked that his neighbors probably saw him wandering around talking to himself and thought he’d gone nuts.
I mention this because actors aren’t the only people who talk to themselves a lot. Writers do this, too, only we come up with dialogue as we’re walking/driving/making dinner/whatever. Or in my case, cleaning the pool. See, we’ve been having problems with the little algae eater that connects to a hose on the side of the pool and runs around the bottom merrily sucking up algae and small leaves. Basically, it stopped doing that. And since our pool cleaning company hates us because our neighbor’s trees badly overhang our yard and shed leaves into the pool every time there’s a hint of a breeze (yes, we’re getting that fixed next week, but you need the background), they don’t really bother to do anything if the algae eater fails.
Which means that the bottom of our pool is a disaster, and it’s up to me to fix this. Luckily I am descended from engineering and DIY gods, so I can do this messy and time-consuming task by myself, which includes snaking out the cleaner pipe and breaking up any blockages, running a hose down it to flush out said blockages, checking to make sure the suction is back up to snuff, re-priming the pool pump, burping out all the air, and running a hose-driven vortex cleaner to get the big crap off the bottom while the now-working algae eater starts puttering along.
Oh, and I did all this in 95°F heat, because this is Texas and spring don’t last long ’round here. Anyway, to distract myself from the fact that I was melting and desperate for a shower, I started developing dialogue for Olympic Cove Book 3. Why Book 3 and not Book 2, you ask? Well, because my subconscious dropped a beautifully juicy subplot on my head last night for Book 3 that literally made me spin in glee, it was so wonderful (I will give you a hint — it involves snakes). However, this subplot requires a lot of discussion between Poseidon, his consort Amphitrite, and Geoff Gordon, who will turn out to be the gods’ agapetos (if you don’t know what that means, for God’s sake go buy Storm Season, it’s all explained in there). There will be much angst, recrimination and shouting going on while the three of them work all of this out, and since it’s dialogue I started trying it out verbally to see how well it worked. After all, if dialogue doesn’t sound right when said aloud, you’re doing something wrong and you’d best start over.
It was only while I was running the vortex cleaner that I realized I was, er, kinda yelling. At myself. As different characters. I have no idea if anyone heard me, but the neighbors are close enough that if any of them were in their back yards tonight, they were treated to me doing two different accents and genders as I diligently worked out what my characters would say to each other. So, yeah, just in case any of my neighbors ever stumble across this blog and wonder why I talk (and occasionally yell) to myself in the back yard, now you know.
But damn, Book 3 is going to tear your heart out and stomp on it with hobnailed boots. I cannot wait.
Go home, May, you’re drunk
I live in the clavicle of Texas, which means that as soon as May rolls around I prepare myself for the oncoming hell that is summer in Texas. My lawn guy (yes, I have a lawn guy — I’m busy and Ramón doesn’t do yardwork) was just mentioning to me yesterday that our city will be going to Stage 3 water restriction as of June 1st, as we stood outside in short sleeves and chatted in the 82°F sunny weather.
So will someone tell me why the temperature outside currently stands at 46°F, the trees are whipping back and forth like Willow Smith’s old hairstyle, and I’ve heard reports of snow? Apparently it’s actually snowing in Kansas City right now, which must come as quite the surprise to all the RT attendees (one woman tweeted that she’d packed a nice summer sundress, and had to go out to buy warmer clothes). Granted, I don’t mind cooler weather, especially if it keeps the triple digit days down to July/August, but this is ridiculous. Not to mention it’s seriously fucking with my budget, since by now the A/C should be on permanently and I’m keeping a nervous eye on the electric bill. Instead, I’m wearing thick socks and a shawl, the heat is on and I have to mentally adjust how much gets paid to the gas company and how much gets paid to the electric company. I’m old — I don’t like surprises. So sue me.
The good thing about the crappy weather is that I feel no need whatsoever to go outside, and indeed am stuck back into Behind the Iron Cross with a vengeance. The goal is to have it done and dusted by May 15, then let it sit for the rest of the month while I crack open Breaker Zone. The only problem with BZ is that I’m still kinda sorta working out the middle of the book — I know how it starts and ends, but hooking those two terminii up is my current mental cud chewing task while doing housework or crafting.
And then there’s Two to Tango, which is also calling for my attention, not to mention the alternate history mystery and the SF novels in my to do queue. There are times I really wish I didn’t have to sleep. Or had minions. Yeah, I could really do with some minions.
In other news, Storm Season continues to rise like a slow tide, which is heartening. I don’t have any “official” reviews yet, but it’s going over a treat at Goodreads, I have a nice 4-star review at Amazon, it’s slowly climbing the Paranormal/Horror bestseller chart at All Romance Ebooks, and it’s currently the highest-rated Evernight book in Bookstrand’s 30 Day Bestseller list for paranormal romance. Plus it’s selling steadily at Amazon, and I’m hoping that I’m close to 25 sales through Evernight’s website or have already cracked that. I figure as I build my backlist the sales will slowly increase and I’ll start developing a name for myself. Granted, that name will probably be, “Oh, that chick who does those weird SF/fantasy/suspense/erotic romance mashups,” but I’ll take what I can get.
And we have our winners!
Thanks to everyone who entered the Storm Season Release Day contest! Thanks to my random number generator, I’ve selected the three winners:
- Sheri V: Evernight Gift Certificate
- Jackie L: Amazon Gift Certificate
- Anna N: Nereid’s Band bracelet
The GCs have been sent, and the bracelet will go in the mail tomorrow. And if you were hoping to get the bracelet, fear not — I have it on good authority that Belaurient Arts will be making it available for sale Very Soon Now.
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks again to everyone who entered!
To quote my friend Roger, “Well, this is jolly.”
Storm Season released on Friday. As of now, I’ve gotten 3 five star reviews on Goodreads, a five star review on Amazon, a five star rating in All Romance Ebooks plus a killer hella good review, I’ve made it twice into three genre bestseller lists on Amazon.de and once into a genre bestseller list on Amazon.com, and the general impression seems to be that it’s a good book and the start to a good series.
Which is a fucking relief.
I can hear you out there — “Dramatic much, Nic?” But it’s my first book, it’s the kickoff to a proposed series that I really, really want to write, and I’ve learned over the years that what entertains me doesn’t always entertain normal people. And I’ll admit, I was worried about the reception Storm Season would get from the reading public. Yes, it’s MMM erotic romance, but it also has a strong mystery subplot, a fantasy/paranormal setting, and includes some big ol’ science fiction elements (as you may have guessed, I have some problems coloring inside the lines).
And readers don’t always like it when a writer mixes and matches genres as extensively as I did here. I was concerned that they might feel I pulled a bait and switch on them, which was never my intention. So to find out that Storm Season is getting a good reception and readers are enjoying the genre mashup (at least so far — I rest assured in the knowledge that I will get reviews questioning my literacy, my humanity, and my general right to exist) is a pleasure that renders me somewhat lightheaded. One reviewer at Goodreads who doesn’t read nontraditional romance even said, “I was completely in awe of this book … So unlike anything I had read in a long, long time.”
And I was compared to Spielberg. Whoa. Still grinning over that one…
