Category Archives: Storm Season
Release Day: Two to Tango (and yes, I’m running a contest!)
Happy Thursday, you gorgeous people! I was planning on having a huge, splashy release day event, but we wound up adopting two young cats on Monday and I’ve had to be the Cat Whisperer and integrate them with the current feline population.
But enough of my new little fuzzbutts — today is the official release day for my rollicking romp of a SF erotic romance caper novel Two to Tango, now available from Evernight Publishing, Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Bookstrand, and other purveyors of fine erotic romance.
Rory MacLellan, AKA the Highlander, may be the most successful interstellar art thief in the Known Worlds, but he still has a conscience. So when he runs into a suicidal museum worker during his latest job, he has no choice but to stun the man and rescue him from certain death.
Dr. Dmitri Grigoryev was an up-and-coming exoarchaeologist until a disastrous dig left his career in tatters. Hungry, broke, and desperate, the last thing he expected was a dashing thief to come along and save his life.
Thrown together by accident and with interstellar police on their tail, Rory and Dmitri reluctantly join forces for a major heist. But will their simmering attraction get in the way, or prove that they were meant to be together?
But wait, there’s more! I’m also running a contest with the following prizes:
- A $25 Amazon Gift Card
- A pair of 14K gold and opalite earrings from Belaurient Arts
- A grand prize package of all my ebooks, plus a sneak peak at the first three chapters of the second book in the Olympic Cove series, Breaker Zone.
To win one of these prizes, simply leave your name and email address in the comments below before midnight CST on June 13, 2014, and answer the following question: What is your favorite gemstone? You MUST answer the question to be entered in the contest.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with the contest!
Look what arrived in the mail today!
I stepped out to check on a storm in the distance, and found a storm on my own doorstep! The back has a blurb from The TBR Pile and the standard description of the story, and it all looks so great! Even better, I’m having lunch tomorrow with the woman who’s in the dedication so I can give her a print copy of her very own. Hmm — I’ve never autographed an erotic romance before. Better come up with something clever toot sweet.
In other news, Breaker Zone and “The Art of Grant Management” continue apace — I’m hoping to have the short story finished and submitted to the Executive Assistant antho by Monday, and I’m really pleased with the way I’m revamping Breaker Zone. In a way, having to take such a detour on it has been a good thing because it’s made me look at the three leads more closely and adjust their personalities in a more realistic fashion.
Luckily that won’t be necessary for Book Three (tentatively titled Deep Water), since the main characters in that one will be Poseidon (yes, the big man gets his own book), his consort Amphitrite, and someone who is going to turn out to have a very interesting past relationship with both of them. I hope people don’t mind that 1) I’m changing lead characters with each book, although Ian, Aphros, and Bythos will play a major role in each book, and 2) not all of the books will be M/M/M. Only the first two will be M/M/M — Book Three will be M/M/F, Book Four M/M/M/F/F (yeah, that’s gonna be interesting), Book Five M/M/F, and Book Six M/F. It’s just the way the story is working out in my head.
So I’m sitting here crying
I’m of an age where seeing my work in print is still very important to me. I love and am very grateful for e-publishing, don’t get me wrong — it’s a totally awesome publication avenue, and I take advantage of it all the time. That being said, as a writer born in the 1960s there’s still a part of me that wants to see a book in my hot little hands with my name on it in order to feel fully validated. When my first shared novel came out, I wanted to dance around Dallas in utter glee, waving it over my head like a flag, and immediately added it to my book shelf that held various anthologies with my short stories.
So when I published my first standalone novel Storm Season with Evernight last year, I was immensely proud. But there was also a tiny twinge that it would never be tangible, printed words on a page with my writing name on the cover that I could put on my bookshelf. Oh, I knew there was a chance that Evernight might add it to their print collection if it sold well enough, but it was my freshman novel, no one really knew me, and so I put it out of my mind and just concentrated on writing more stories and becoming the best damn writer I could be.
And then, this morning, I opened my email and saw something from Evernight with PRINT in the Subject line. I tell you, I felt like my heart stopped for a moment. Part of me was scared to open it, thinking that it couldn’t be what I thought it was. I was scared to hope, silly as that sounds.
But I opened it. And started crying when I read, “Your book Storm Season is now available in our print store…”
So, yeah, Storm Season is now a print book. It’s currently available directly from Evernight via CreateSpace, but will be available at Amazon in a week and other online booksellers in 6-8 weeks. I’m not saying this so that anyone feels like they have to buy it — I figure anyone who enjoys this particular genre already bought it as an ebook.
But damn. My first novel is now in print. And so, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go flail like a Muppet around the house for the next hour or so.
Mid Week Tease: Storm Season
Happy Hump Day! Here’s another delicious Mid Week Tease, courtesy of the lovely and talented Sandra Bunino. This week, I’ll be sharing a teaser from my debut novel Storm Season.
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
Ian West had his summer all planned out — go down to Florida, stay in his family’s beach cottage on Olympic Cove, and work on his science fiction novel. But his plans get thrown for a loop when gorgeous twin sea gods Bythos and Aphros show up in the cove and inform him he’s their fated consort. As if that wasn’t enough, something in the Gulf of Mexico is turning mermaids into legendary monsters and gods into demons. Now, Ian not only has to navigate the complicated waters of a ménage relationship with twin sea gods, he also has to stop an insane deity and save the whole damn planet. No pressure.
###
He grabbed the shampoo he’d bought the day before and squirted a dollop into his hair, closing his eyes as he worked it through. Memories of that first night, and his fantasy of having Bythos and Aphros in the shower with him, crossed his mind. His cock stirred at the thought.
Before he could grab the conditioner and work himself up to a halfhearted jackoff session, a baritone voice said, “You are damnably difficult to resist, beloved.”
Ian gasped in shock, sucking in droplets of shampoo foam. Frantically coughing and spitting, he stuck his face directly in the spray and scrubbed the soap away from his eyes.
And opened them on the beautiful sight of Bythos and Aphros standing in front of the enclosure, naked and waiting for him. He wiped wet hair back from his face, fighting the urge to jump out and into their arms. “You came back,” he said stupidly.
Bythos gave him a wry smile. “Yes, well, I hate to hear a grown man grovel.”
Aphros elbowed him, and the grey-eyed demigod winced. “And brother dearest here rightly pointed out that we should have explained everything more fully to you last night, before we took you to bed.”
Aphros nodded. “Love, we’re not trying to push you into anything, we swear,” he said, his face open and beseeching. “You’re absolutely right—we don’t really know you any more than you know us. And finding out about the agapetos marks was understandably a shock. It’s just the way these things work for our kind. And we’ve known about you a lot longer than you’ve known about us, so we might have gotten a little ahead of ourselves.”
“Might have?” Bythos murmured.
Aphros glared at his brother, then turned back to Ian. “But we want to get to know you, if you’ll let us. Please, love, let us.”
Ian stood there for a fraction of a second, before pulling back the glass door of the enclosure. “Get in here.”
The demigods didn’t hesitate. Suddenly he was surrounded by slick male flesh, hands touching and caressing him everywhere. Ian moaned in delight under the onslaught, and again when Bythos dropped to his knees and swallowed his half-hard cock in one gulp. The sudden shock of wet heat and a mobile velvet tongue made his knees wobble, and Aphros had to grab him around the waist and hold him securely while Bythos let his cock slide free, ducking lower and laving each ball before mouthing them.
Aphros slid long fingers under Ian’s chin, tilting his head around until their lips met. Ian lost himself in the demigod’s kiss, flickering tongue moving slick and hot against his.
Bythos turned his attention back to Ian’s cock, working what felt like magic on it. Ian came with a shout swallowed by Aphros. Bythos also swallowed, then pulled off and licked him clean. He got to his feet with a satisfied smile. “You’re delicious, beloved.”
With a groan, Ian dragged the grey-eyed demigod into his arms, kissing him and tasting his own pleasure mixed with Bythos’s unique flavor, a bittersweet combination that was irresistible. “Don’t you ever leave me again like that, you hear me?”
“We won’t, we promise,” Bythos said quietly, cupping his face. “We love you.”
Ian stopped resisting the pull he’d felt from the first moment he’d seen them in the ocean. “I love you, both of you,” he said hoarsely, feeling it resonate in his soul. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
Aphros pressed close behind, his rigid cock rubbing along the groove of Ian’s ass. “Because you belong to us,” he said. “And we belong to you, love.”
Ian let himself be pushed harder against Bythos’s chest. Aphros’s fingers slid along the cheeks of his ass, caressing the muscled curves before sliding deeper into the crease between them. He teased the tight opening for a moment, a fingertip circling the puckered muscle, before gently pressing in.
Ian panted at the sweet—and undeniably slick—penetration. “Where the hell did you get lube?” he said.
Aphros chuckled in his ear. “I conjured it down from the bedroom. Demigod, remember?” His finger slid deeper and curved in, rubbing that one delicious spot, and Ian moaned happily.
Bythos leaned down and claimed his mouth again, kissing him with a hungry ferocity. “I love you,” he muttered in between hot, wet kisses. “Oh, Gaia, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” Ian hung onto the demigod’s shoulders as one finger turned to two, huffing under his breath at the pain-pleasure of the stretching. Then three, until finally he felt them pull out and the thick head of Aphros’s cock pushing into him. The thick shaft filled him slowly, inch by inch, until Aphros abruptly stopped.
“No, that’s no good,” he said. “Angle’s wrong. By, some help?”
“How’s this?” Strong hands slid around Ian’s thighs, spreading them open. Suddenly he was lifted up and held against Bythos, his own hardening cock rubbing against the grey-eyed demigod’s rigid shaft. He wrapped his arms around Bythos’s neck and clung closer.
“Oh, yes, that’s much better,” Aphros said, moving faster now. Ian savored the depth the demigod achieved with each thrust, pushing him more firmly against Bythos. The rhythmic pressure kept their cocks rubbing deliciously past each other in the hot, tight space between their bodies.
The thrumming in Ian’s groin took on a rising note. “Oh, fuck yes. Harder, Aph, please.”
Aphros obeyed. His thrusts turned savage, shoving Ian hard against Bythos with each pistoning move. Lost in pleasure, Ian nuzzled Bythos’s shoulder, then bit down.
The demigod yelped, but his hips jerked as he came in a warm spurt between their bodies. That triggered Ian’s orgasm, and he threw his head back onto Aphros’s shoulder, coming hard and keening.
“Yes!” Aphros shouted. With another thrust, he exploded inside Ian.
For an endless moment the three of them leaned against one another under the now-cooling water, panting and trembling from the aftershocks. Finally, Ian got enough breath back to laugh softly.
“Well,” he said, brushing his lips across the love bite on Bythos’s shoulder, “at least this is going to make cleanup easy.”
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We all need affirmation
So, thanks to the lovely people at http://hiddlestonhellodarling.tumblr.com, here is my affirmation of the day.
And just for my amusement, since this is a lovely concept and they were kind of the physical inspirations for Bythos and Aphros, after all…
No, don’t thank me. Noblesse oblige, after all.
Folks, I need a favor from you
I just got my 3Q royalties statement from Evernight, and after I stopped flailing like a happy Muppet I sat down to study the numbers. Storm Season, unsurprisingly, has been my best seller to date, and I love each and every one of you who bought a copy.
Thing is, I need to sell a minimum of 25 copies through Evernight’s website in order for it to be considered for a print run, and I’ve only sold 20 copies so far. It’s a stupid egoboo thing, I know, but I would so very much love it if this was available in print. If you haven’t purchased Storm Season yet and want to find out how the whole Olympic Cove saga began, I would ask that you head over to the Evernight website and get it directly from the publisher. Plus, today is the last day of their 40% off everything sale, so if you buy it today you’ll get it on sale as well!
I thank you for your support!
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…
Release Day: Storm Season (and yes, I’m running a contest!)
Happy Friday, you gorgeous people! Let’s kick off the weekend right by celebrating the release of my debut novel Storm Season, now available from Evernight Publishing, Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, Bookstrand, and other purveyors of fine erotic romance.
Ian West had his summer all planned out — go down to Florida, stay in his family’s beach cottage on Olympic Cove, and work on his science fiction novel. But his plans get thrown for a loop when gorgeous twin sea gods Bythos and Aphros show up in the cove and inform him he’s their fated consort. As if that wasn’t enough, something in the Gulf of Mexico is turning mermaids into legendary monsters and gods into demons. Now, Ian not only has to navigate the complicated waters of a ménage relationship with twin sea gods, he also has to stop an insane deity and save the whole damn planet. No pressure.
But wait, there’s more! I’m also running a contest with the following prizes:
• A Nereid’s Band, as featured in the book. The 7.25″ bracelet is made from hand-wound silver metal chain mail links and constructed in a Full Persian weave, with shimmering pale blue crystal rondelles and a leaping dolphin toggle. Bracelet courtesy of Belaurient Arts.
• A $20 Amazon gift certificate
• A $20 Evernight Publishing gift certificate
To win one of these prizes, simply leave your name and email address in the comments below before midnight CST on April 28, 2013, and answer the following question: Did you ever unexpectedly fall in love with someone, and if so, how did it happen? You MUST answer the question to be entered in the contest.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with the contest!
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