Where Have All the Balls Gone?

Having bored you with endless nattering about my weight loss long enough, I'm going to now talk about erotic romance again.

My current fangirl crush is JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood. I love those damn books. I've read all four of them three times, and I scarf them like chocolate every time one of them shows up in the store. I think I've figured out what it is about them that just fascinates me -- and by implication, what's wrong with mainstream romance, and why paranormal has suddenly become so hot.

First, JR has giant brass balls. Really. Who else would create a misogynist hero who hates his own penis, like Zsadist, or a hero with a crush on another guy, like Vishous's stealthy love for Butch? Now, this is the kind of thing that could easily make a reader throw a book across the room, but Ward pulls it off. All her guys are so damned sexy, tortured and generally fascinating, you love them BECAUSE they're weird. And part of the appeal is "What the HELL will she do next?" I have no idea, but I desperately want to find out.

Speaking as somebody who's been reading romance since she was 17, it's damned difficult for me to find a writer who consistently surprises me. That's because so few of us romance writers have any balls. And I'm including myself in that category.

In these politically correct times, I think writers feel heroes have to be so damned NICE. They can be sexy, yeah, but they can't be really nasty anymore. Otherwise, God forbid, you might offend somebody.

It wasn't always that way. When I was reading romance during the bad old days of the 1980s, we had all those bodice ripper bastard heroes. I loved those books. I remember reading one, STORMFIRE, over and over again, and crying. Now, that guy was a real bastard. He broke the heroine's ribs, raped her, and left her in a dungeon until she was half-starved. In retrospect, I have no idea why I found him so hypnotic. Probably because he might have been a prick, but at least he was interesting. You didn't know what he was going to do next. There was nothing heroic about him whatsoever, but he was fascinating.

Now, before somebody rips me a new one, I absolutely do NOT think there is anything at all heroic about rape. Heroes should not rape heroines, any more than they should murder people or rob banks. But there's a BIG difference between committing felonies and being a six-foot-three poodle. And there are entirely too many poodle men in mainstream romance.

I tried reading a historical the other day by an author who is an auto-buy for me. Oh, God. I got through about twenty pages and realized I didn't give a rat's ass. The hero was just too frickin' GOOD. He was honest and upright and straightlaced. And borrrrrring.

The problem with poodles is they're predictable. You know they're not going to do anything really nasty, because they're Good Guys. Which, okay. But really, they shouldn't be so damned good they never say anything sexist or rude or just plain MALE. Some of these guys talk and act just like women in Hessians. No wonder I don't find them sexually attractive.

And they're not historically accurate, either. Part of the appeal of historicals is that those guys hadn't been Dr. Phill'd to death. If you so much as open your mouth and say ANYTHING stupid now, you must be publicly pilloried, then methodically spend a month flogging yourself on camera. No, I don't like racists or sexists or bigots in general, but I'm really fond of free speech. And I think people have a right to occasionally put a foot in their mouths without being proclaimed Asshole for the Ages.

Be honest, now. Haven't you ever said anything you KNEW was stupid, insensitive or just plain ignorant? I have. I'm a Southerner, after all. We've built an entire culture out of being assholes. I work really hard against my asshole tendencies, but I sometimes I miss. After all, I'm human, and being politically correct is hard work.

That's why I love JR. She's not afraid to let her heroes be assholes. And really, there's not a man alive who hasn't been an ass at one time or other. That's part of why we love them. They're annoying, they're infuriating, they make you want to smack them, but they're GUYS, and that's what guys do. And every woman knows it.

I think that's why readers have fallen in love with paranormals. Vampires and werewolves, after all, are not expected to be politically correct. They get to bite people, grow hair, and run wild in the woods. They don't have to wear bows, paint their toenails pink and sit in your lap gazing at you adoringly. You have to chase them -- or maybe run from them -- and that makes them a lot more interesting to be around.

So I think for my next novella, I'm going to try writing a bastard.

It should be fun.

For the curious...

Here's my BEFORE picture.

The Big 100!!!!

I'm definitely doing the dance of joy now, folks. Today I've officially lost 100 pounds since Aug. 29. When I got out of the hospital, I weighed 316 pounds. Today I weigh 216. I feel about twenty years younger, and I'm told I look it too.

I'm thinking back on what I've learned the last eight months since I started this journey.

I remember how scared out of my mind I was the weekend before the surgery. I basically melted down as I imagined every possible nightmare scenario. I was afraid I'd have complications -- perhaps even die. I was afraid my writing would suffer. (My editor says she thinks I'm actually better now than I was before the surgery.)

I was afraid the depression I've struggled with at various points of my life would be made worse by my new diet. I was afraid it wouldn't work -- that I'd pay out this huge sum of money only to end up regaining the weight.

I was afraid, period.

In retrospect, it was very similar to when my son was born. I was afraid of the pain, but I was more afraid of the way my life would change in ways I couldn't anticipate. But like the birth of my child, I now believe everything I went through was worth it.

I had reason to be afraid. Gastric bypass surgery is dangerous, especially if you don't do what your surgeon tells you to do, or if you don't choose the right doctor. I'm happy to say I did choose the right man -- Dr. Paul Ross, who had performed more than 300 gastric bypass procedures. If you're contemplating gastric bypass, I must stress how crucial it is to get a surgeon who's done at least 100 Gastric Bypass surgeries. Studies have shown that's the point when the complications go way down.

However, I will say that for all people talk about how dangerous it is to have gastric bypass surgery, it's far more dangerous to weigh 316 pounds. And a hell of a lot more miserable, too. I remember what it was like hauling my bulk out of a car, or getting on an airplane and having to ask for seatbelt extenders, or being afraid I was going to have a heart attack when I had to run catch a plane. I remember how my knees hurt when I'd have to get off the toilet. I remember the constant humiliation of being morbidly obese. One time I was riding with my girlfriend in her car, and her seatbelt wouldn't fit. I panicked. I hate riding without a seatbelt, but I was too freaking fat.

Another time I had been assigned to do a story about riding in a 60-year-old B-17 Bomber. They showed me to a seat in the plane's nose -- a rickety thing with a tiny seatbelt made for an 18 year old boy. I almost didn't get the belt to fit, and I was so humiliated. I was afraid I'd have to get off the plane.

And I knew good and damned well I was going to die young. I was headed for diabetes and the possibility of blindness -- and how would I work as I writer then? Sudden death from a heart attack was another real risk.

So I truly believe having the surgery, paying out all that money -- because my insurance didn't pick up a dime of it -- was worth it. It has probably added 10 or 15 years to my life. It's definitely made my life more worth living. And studies of those who've had the surgery confirm that.

But I won't kid you -- there have been times it wasn't fun. The first three months right after the surgery seemed endless. I was so damned weak there were times that just walking across the floor almost laid me out. My voice quavered as if I were eighty. I'd almost faint in the grocery store or the mall.

And adjusting to the tiny quantities of food was really hard at first. Here I was, used to eating anything and everything I wanted, whenever I wanted. That first couple of weeks, just watching TV was torture because of all the food commercials.

We coined a new phrase for the Food Network programs we used to love. I call them Food Porn, because you're watching all this decadent activity you can't do.

It's true what they said -- food is an addiction. And not being able to get your fix can be unbelievably frustrating. There were times I'd sit down and cry because I felt so weak and sick. Recently I went to a meeting of my gastric bypass group, and there was this poor girl there who kept crying. "When will I be able to eat?" She kept throwing up all the time. We assured her it would get better. And it has.

Right after the surgery, I couldn't eat salads or raw vegetables, beef, pork, or fruit, or anything with seeds. Rice was out. Sugar was off the menu, and still is. I had to give up caffeine. The only thing I could eat was scrambled eggs, soup, sugar-free Jello and sugar-free popsicles. If I even thought about transgressing, my body made me pay. I'd end up bent over a toilet, yarking.

I spent a lot of time that first four months yarking. When I ended up with a stricture -- scar tissue around the opening from my stomach to my intestines -- every time I ate for about a week, I'd throw up. But worse was the horrible pain as I waited and prayed to throw up. Once I did, the pain and sickness would abate. I finally had a minor procedure to open the scar tissue, and that problem went away. It was the only real complication I've had.

Since then, my stomach has healed, and my diet is a lot more varied. I can eat just about anything now -- salads, vegetables, beef, fruit, even the chicken that for a while there made me sick as a dog.

You may be thinking, Man, I'd love to lose the weight, but aren't you hungry? No, oddly enough, I'm not. I can remember diets pre-surgery that drove me nuts with hunger -- with little to show for it -- but hunger isn't a big problem anymore. Cravings sometimes are, especially at certain times of the month or when stress is especially great. I sometimes sneak a tiny piece of chocolate or a bite of brownie, which I can get away with without dumping syndrome. But if I try to eat anymore than that, I get pretty sick. That's good, because sweets have always been my downfall.

I've learned my willpower is a hell of a lot better than I always thought it was. If there are real, immediate consequences to doing something stupid, you don't do the stupid thing. Before the surgery, and a waiter asked, "Would you like the creme brulee?" I'd think -- "I really shouldn't -- I'm already the size of a horse...Oh, what the hell." Now I grimace and say, "No." 'Cause the momentary pleasure is not worth ninety minutes of being sick as a dog.

The weight loss has been phenomenal. I remember one week post-op, when I lost 20 pounds. Good God. Even after that, there were days when I'd lose a pound a day. I'm not kidding.

Now, recently, there was a month where I didn't lose a single pound. My grandmother was in the hospital, and I was having to stay with her to spell my poor mom every day for three weeks. My grandma has severe Alzheimer's, and half the time she doesn't know who I am. That's bad enough, but she'd shattered her arm -- for the third time since October -- and she kept trying to take off the bandages and get out of bed. The woman is 89, and if she fell, which was likely because of the drugs, she'd break a hip. So I spent hours at the hospital trying to keep her in the bed and in her cast. Not to mention trying to get her to eat, because she looked like the victim of a Nazi concentration camp.

All that was bad enough, but there was a while there she kept trying to attack the nursing staff and my mother and father. One time a nurse was trying to get a blood sample, and I saw my grandmother cranking up her foot trying to kick the woman in the back of the head. Good grief! I had to pounce on her to keep her from doing it, too.

This is the kind of high stress situation that drives morbidly obese people to eat like little pigs. I came about as close as it's possible for a gastric bypass patient to get. I even hit KFC one day, despite the fact that the thought of fried chicken makes me sick. And yes, I ended up nauseated and guilt-ridden. I won't be doing that again. It's just not worth it.

But Grandma is back in her nursing home recovering now. I've finished my latest novella, and made friends with Lean Cuisine. Those little 250 cal Lean Cuisines are now about the perfect size for me. Back in the day, I'd have to eat two of them.

I've lost four pounds in the last week. People compliment me all the time. My husband is beside himself with joy. He loves playing with my newly thin fingers and my collar bones and the shoulders he hasn't seen in years.

I've still got 66 pounds to lose, but I know I can do it. I also know the real challenge will come when the weight is finally off, and I have to adjust to maintaining. But I've learned important lessons, and I'm better equipped to deal with my eating addiction.

Gastric bypass is not magic. You still have to have to learn the self-control not to do stupid stuff, and sometimes it's not easy. But I've learned that every time I say no to something self-destructive, I get a little stronger. And that's not a bad lesson to learn.

Milestones

It's been TOO long since my last blog, so I decided I should update you folks on what's going on.

I'm delighted to say I've finally adjusted to my new lifestyle. That's not to say it hasn't had its challenges. I've nicknamed myself the Duchess of Yerk, because every once in a while, my stomach stages a palace revolt.

One of those was around Christmas. My husband is a cop, and he took me to his department's annual Christmas party a couple of months ago. We sat with a bunch of Mike's friends from the bomb squad, who, being cops, were proving their skill with sick humor. (This poor, dumb 17-year-old kid had built three pipe bombs just for the hell of it, and one of them went off before he could get clear. Luckily, he survived, but his thumb didn't. One of the bomb squad found it in a light fixture. Since the kid was missing a chunk of his hand, there was nothing to reattach it to. The way cops deal with horror is by making sick jokes, so these guys got into a pun contest. "Hey, he gave me the FINGER!" I was laughing so hard, I forgot to watch how I ate. I ate too much, too fast, and realized I'd obstructed. So Mike and I had to leave.

On the way home, we had to pull over so I could yerk. There's something about standing in a ditch beside a patrol car tossing your salad that really puts things in perspective. I guess it serves me right for laughing at those horrible jokes.

So anyway, I am now down 81 pounds at this point, six months after my surgery. This weekend, I was invited to Philadelphia to speak to the Valley Forge chapter of Romance Writers of America. Now, flying in the past has always been a huge source of humiliation and pain, because regular seat-belts didn't fit. Last year, I had to ask the flight attendant on each plane for seat belt extenders. But this time, no extenders were needed. I felt comfortable on a plane for the first time in years! Oh, it was wonderful! And I was able to scramble up and down the ladders and walk through the airport without feeling as if I was going to pass out or have a heart attack.

There are some problems, of course. I have a really bad cold at the moment, but gastric bypass patients can't swallow pills, and anything asprin related is out. So finding a cold medication is a challenge. But I found I could swall Dayquil Liquid Gel pills without obstructing, so I was able to get through the flight. (Though for a while, I was worried I would yerk up the pills. My stomach is REALLY picky about large, hard things.)

Anyway, I can honestly say I'm glad I had the surgery. Yes, there are times I think longingly of the chocolate I can't eat, or the desserts everyone else is enjoying, or the drinks I can't have. But wearing a size 20 instead of a size 28 is a very nice consolation, and so is feeling so much more healthy.

I still have 60 or 70 pounds to go, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take to reach my goal. My weight loss has been slowing down. Ironically, as my body has gotten smaller, it hasn't needed as many calories, so it's not burning fat as fast. But I'm losing at a good, healthy pace -- about two or three pounds a week (There were days early on when I'd lose a pound a day). Hunger isn't a problem (though cravings do hit, and you have to control them. Luckily, because sugar gives me dumping syndrome, it's much easier to stay out of the cookies and candy than it once was.)

If you're morbidly obese, and there is a GOOD, experienced surgeon in your area who does gastric bypass surgery, you should give the surgery some thought. (I'm not talking about some quack who does them every once in a while. You need a guy who has done at least 100 Gastric Bypass surgeries and has a low rate of complications and mortality. Any time you operate on someone who is more than 100 pounds overweight, there are very serious risks.) God knows it's not cheap, though, and you may have to jump through hoops to get your insurance to pay for it, but I think it's worth the effort.

Oh, by the way, the Valley Forge chapter was GREAT to me! I had a ball talking to them. They're a fine group of ladies, and they're very friendly and welcoming.

Angela Knight

Attack of the Chicken Taco

It's been two weeks since my last post, and I'm down a total of 31 pounds. You'll notice my weight loss has slowed a bit. That's because I went three days without losing anything. I had a minor infection of one of my incisions, and my body took its revenge by lowering my metabolism. I had kind of a reverse fever, with a body temp running around 95.3 at one point. Uck. Three days ago, that finally lifted, and I'm losing a pound a day.

My doctor tells me my energy level will continue to "drift" for another week or more as my body fights the weight loss. This means that I often feel like I've been run over by a tank.

The only way to avoid feeling like hell is protein, which has become my drug of choice. The post-op pain is basically gone, and I'm off all the interesting pain meds. Yay!

Trouble is, protein is a challenge, as I indicated last time. There's shakes, but I hate those suckers. Then Tuesday night, I decided to take a go at the baked chicken at the local grocery store. It was WONDERFUL. So I ate as much as I dared, knowing that I need the protein desperately.

The next day my strength level felt almost back to normal. I went to the doctor and got a couple of stitches out that were causing the incision problem, then decided to go to lunch with my husband. My nurse had suggested I might try Mexican food -- refried beans and a tiny amount of chicken. I know, sounds nuts, but hey, I was feeling cocky. I got a chicken taco and carefully picked little tiny bits of chicken out of it. No lettuce or sauce; I knew that would get me. And a couple of bites of refried beans.

Big mistake. Biiiiiiig mistake. I think that damned restaurant slipped me some sugar. I hadn't even finished eating before my chest started hurting. I expected the pain to decrease, but it only got worse.

I got home, and decided to go see my mother, taking her a copy of my new book. I ended up pacing the floor, fighting waves of chest pain. Before I knew what hit me, I was bent over her sink getting rid of the chicken. Disgusting as that was, it ended the pain.

Staggered home and passed out for four hours. During which, obviously, I didn't eat.

So as a result, I'm in a protein deficit. I've got to get my hands on some protein, but the thought of one of those shakes makes me feel faintly green. And obviously, not big on chicken right now.

This will get better. I know that. I have only another couple of weeks, maybe two months on the outside, to endure. Then my pouch will be healed and I'll start on the road to a better version of me, thinner and more healthy.

I just have to get through the next couple of months.

Building Knight 2.0

Aug. 29, 2006

I lay on the hospital gurney listening to the click click of the wheels as the young woman wheeled me down the corridor. A pair of double doors appeared ahead of me. A big white sign on them said OR. My heart started pounding as the doors swung wide and the gurney sailed through.

For a moment, I had the sensation of riding a roller coaster -- that instant when you reach the top of the first great hill and see the endless swoop ahead of you, and your every instinct screams "I WANT TO GET OFF!" But of course, you can't.

I had been working for this moment for months. I could have bought a mini-van for what I spent on this particular E-ticket. I'd swung from panic to exhilaration, and I'd had to reschedule the deadline for a book. I'd read countless books on the subject, and I was convinced I was doing the only thing I possibly could -- the right thing for me.

Gastric bypass surgery.

Unlike many MO -- morbidly obese -- people, I had not been hugely fat from childhood. In fact, I exercised and watched my weight until I got pregnant with my son. Unfortunately, I took my pregnancy as a licence to eat.

By the time Anthony was born 21 years ago, I was 40 pounds overweight. I then hit the yo-yo diet syndrome with a vengeance, dieting, exercising, trying everything I could to lose weight. Then sabotaging myself between diets by yielding to every tempting sweet that came my way. Not surprisingly, I only got heavier and heavier. The last five or six years, I'd given up on dieting completely and begun a free fall into weight gain.

Finally my mother told me she thought I should have the surgery, because otherwise I was going to die. I was stunned. Mom had always been violently opposed to bariatric surgery, viewing it as dangerous and ineffective. For her to suggest I had come to the point of needing something that radical suggested I was indeed headed for self-destruction if I didn't do something.

So I started doing research, deeply interested in anything that would help me out of the hole I'd dug for myself.

I had somehow come up with the idea that gastric bypass surgery was the "easy" way out, and that I would never have to diet again. I quickly found out there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Yes, gastric bypass comes with a wonderful honeymoon period in which people lose huge amounts of weight in very short periods of time. And yes, it can be very effective, allowing people to lose hundreds of pounds, going from obese to slim and healthy in a couple of years.

This miracle takes a good deal of surgical engineering.

The surgeon creates a small pouch at the top of the stomach and then re-routes part of the small intestine to it, where the two are surgically fused. Though a normal stomach is about the size of a human head, the new pouch is only the size of an egg. And immediately post-op, it's actually smaller than that, holding only about an ounce of food.

Yet the patient experiences no real hunger for months. The tiny pouch is so quickly filled, hunger is short-circuited. The pouch will come to hold more as it heals, but not as much as it did before. Hunger eventually returns, but I'm told it's never as savage as it is pre-op. It can be managed by concentrating on proteins and keeping fat and sugar to a minimum.

(Actually, many patients can't eat anything with fat or sugar for years afterward without experiencing dumping syndrome, a condition peculiar to gastric patients. Rich food hits the small intestine and the liver dumps insulin into the blood, which causes increased heartbeat, chest pains, dizziness, nausea and vomiting for one really miserable hour. It's the ultimate in negative conditioning; many people lose all taste for the cakes and candies that they were once addicted to.)

Unfortunately, some people learn to "eat around the pouch," by grazing on small amounts of food all day long, or by breaking the rules and drinking alcohol or eating high-fat food. That's when they put back on the weight they lost.

But for 80 percent of gastric bypass patients, the surgery is successful, allowing them to keep off the majority of their weight permanently. Studies show the surgery can lengthen the life expectancy of a MO person by fifteen years or more. Many serious problems, like diabetes, sleep apnea, joint problems, and even heart disease are all but cured.

Unfortunately, because it's major surgery, there is a small risk of death. Any time a MO person goes under the knife, there's a higher risk of death from a variety of causes, including blood clots, pneumonia, and unforseen complications. My surgeon, Dr. Paul Ross, had done over 300 surgeries with two fatalities, which is pretty good. Ross is a compassionate, caring man, who is dedicated to helping morbidly obese people reclaim their lives. I really liked him, so I felt very comfortable putting my life in his hands.

Well, as comfortable as you can feel putting your life in anybody's hands. Which is why I was having an anxiety attack as they wheeled me into pre-op to get my IVs inserted.

That was a major challenge in itself. I was dehydrated from the bowel prep the day before -- I'll spare you the details of THAT little adventure-- and I was scared out of my furry little mind, so my veins had shrunk down in my arms. The nurses stuck me repeatedly but couldn't get the IV to thread. They eventually had to wrap my arms in hot towels and wait 30 minutes while I went slowly out of my mind. I wanted it over so bad.

Finally they succeeded, and off I went to surgery. I was surrounded by briskly moving figures in green, with huge white lights hovering over my head. Then the doctor put me to sleep, and that was that.

There's something in the drugs that keep you from remembering the immediate aftermath of the procedure. I don't remember the recovery room at all. The first thing I do remember is the agonizing process of getting to my feet with the help of my husband and a physical therapist soon after coming back from surgery.

Yes, I had just been gutted like a carp, but if they didn't get me up and moving, my chances of a blood clot or pneumonia were really high. So I took three steps one way and three steps the other before I was allowed to collapse back into bed.

The pain was not good, but I had a happy little morphine pump that helped a lot. My dreams are normally vivid, but that morphine gave them a real kick.

What maddened me the most was thirst. I wasn't allowed anything by mouth until the day after surgery, because they had to make sure my new digestive system wasn't leaking. Hours of thirst resulted, with me sucking on little sponges on sticks to try to keep my mouth wet. I wasn't actually dehydrated, because of my IV, but my mouth didn't know that. By the time I went down for the x-rays, my tongue felt the size and texture of an old athletic sock, and tasted about that good.

Luckily, everything was fine, and I went back to my room for a glorious sugar-free popsicle and water.

Over the days that followed, my husband removed any doubts I ever may have had about how much he loves me. He left the hospital only to change clothes and shower, staying with me all the rest of the time and gently badgering me to drink. Solid food wasn't on the menu, but I could have jell-O and protein drinks. I finally went home last Friday, four days after the surgery.

In the week since then, I have lost --according to my home scales -- 21 pounds. From 316, I'm down to 295. That's a staggering amount in such a short time.

They weren't kidding about not being hungry either. I can only eat about half a scrambled egg before I feel stuffed. Yet though my stomach isn't hungry, I found food commercials maddening at first. Now they don't bother me as much.

I am still struggling with weakness -- not surprising, considering I'm only getting about 300 to 600 calories a day -- and pain is nagging. But that was to be expected. In truth, I'm doing much, much better than I feared.

But my relationship with food is changing. Instead of being something I crave as a sensual indulgence, it's become a somewhat grim necessity. I need about 60 grams of protein a day, but when you can only eat a tablespoon of food at a time, you simply can't get that much in. You have to drink protein shakes, each of which has 20 grams of protein. Some of the shakes I've tried in the past week would make a vulture gag, but without them, I feel too rotten to move. Protein is the only thing that helps the energy level, as is drinking 64 oz of fluid a day.

I'm also deathly afraid of dumping syndrome. I experienced a minor episode with some creamed chicken soup that made my heart race and my chest hurt. I definitely do not want the full-fledged deal, not with my insides still healing. My sister and I went grocery shopping, and I studied ingredient lists, searching for hidden sugar and considering fat content. It seems if something's low sugar, it's high fat and vice versa.

I am only eleven days into my quest for the new Angela Knight. I have a great deal to learn, new habits to acquire and bad ones to break.

Wish me luck.

Oh, for more on gastric bypass surgery, check out this support group:

http://www.livingafterwls.com/


--Angela Knight

A few words about women's erotica

Summer is here, and with it the usual romance writers' conferences. Once again, editors of various romance houses are talking about acquiring erotica and erotic romance. But some of the things I'm hearing have started to worry me.

(This is not, by the way, a comment about my own wonderful editor, Cindy Hwang, who really does get it.)

Erotica and women's erotica are extremely new markets, and the houses aren't sure yet what's going to sell. So they're trying all kinds of stuff to see what works.

Since both erotica and women's erotica are topics I care about, I decided to share my thoughts -- (and hope I don't get myself blackballed in the process.)

Now, when I was 20, before I became a really diehard romance reader, I read erotica. And since nobody was publishing women's erotica, there was nothing to read but erotica for men. I was desperate enough to read it anyway, because frankly, I had more libido than boyfriends. (This was MANY, many pounds ago, and before I met the man of my dreams.)

I found men's erotica unsatisfying stuff, frankly. Yes, some it was arousing, more or less, but mostly it was just frustrating. The heroines were all life support systems for genitalia, which made it difficult to care about them, while the guys were cads who treated the women like toilet paper. Even when a female character had a bit more to her, she usually loudly declared her independence by the end of the book and flounced away, leaving the hero a broken man.

As for plot -- surely you're joking. Men don't read erotica for plot. It only takes them 10 minutes to beat off. If they want a plot, they'll go read WAR AND PEACE. Now, me -- it takes me a bit longer, which gave me far too much time to think, "This doesn't make any sense."

As a reader, I wanted characters I could care about, male and female. I wanted a happy ending. I wanted a ROMANCE. And I wanted hot sex. I was obviously not going to get that from men's erotica, so eventually I got disgusted and went off and started reading romance.

At the time, the hot sex was more implied than anything else, and most of the heroes in those bodice rippers were jerks, but there was a happy ending and a romance, and I decided that was as close as I was going to get to what I wanted.

In the meantime -- around 1990 or so -- I started writing what nobody else was giving me. Steamy sex, happy endings, and romance. Utterly unpublishable at the time, of course, because the stories were too short and the sex was WAY too hot for the romance market.

So, fast forward to 2006, when romance houses have suddenly discovered erotica. So what do some of these editors say they're looking for? Plot? Not particularly important, one said.

"We don't really want to see the hero's point of view," another said. (Sounds to me like he's going to become a life-support system for genitalia. Sound familiar?)

"We don't necessarily want a happy ending. We want a series of sexual encounters. These are not romances."

Well, SNOT. Here I waited 20 years for New York to start publishing what I want to read, and most of the houses (with the exception of the splendid and wonderful Berkley) are doing the exact same damn thing as the men's erotica that turned me off when I was 20. Except maybe more artsy. As one writer friend explained, "These books are supposed to be voyages of sexual self-discovery for the heroine."

Hell, THAT doesn't sound like any fun!

And that's the real problem. Erotica is supposed to be FUN. That's the whole point. If I am sitting here getting all warm and yummy reading about some marvelous hunk, I am NOT, thank you, in the mood for a voyage of sexual self-discovery.

Let me be crude: I WANT TO GET OFF.

Do not hand me an endless series of depressing and meaningless sexual encounters. I did that when I was in college, dammit, and I hated it the first time.

Here's a clue, ladies: orgasms and depression are not a good combo. In fact, where there is depression, there is no orgasm. Orgasms are fun. Sex with a handsome, horny guy is FUN. It's supposed to be fun.

Now, if I pick up your work of erotic fiction expecting to have a warm, happy time, followed by molesting my husband, and instead you leave me feeling like it's 1982 and I've just woken up next to yet another jerk...

Well, the next time I see one of your books sitting on the shelves at B&N, I will keep right on shopping.

On the other hand, if you show me a good time, at the end of which Our Heroine finds warmth and joy with a guy with a really big d**k...well, you've got a new fan.

Consider this a message to all you budding newbie Women's Erotica writers. Keep this post in mind, and I think you'll find many happy sales.

Angela Knight

Steam 101: A Guide to Writing Romance

I thought I had posted this here, but apparently not.

By the way, if you're a kid -- GO AWAY. This is not for you. You don't write romance novels anyway. Go download somebody's music.

Erotic romance is hot. Readers love it, and publishers are actively working to acquire it. Yet surprisingly, editors say it’s hard to find people who write erotic romance well, despite the fact that almost every romance has at least one love scene in it.

So if you can write erotic romance – or even just regular romance with good love scenes – you’ve got a real advantage when it comes to finding a publisher. I’m proof of that: a couple of years ago I was approached by an New York editor who’d read my novellas in the Secrets anthologies. She e-mailed me to ask if I was willing to write something steamy for Berkley.

As anybody knows who has spent any time trying to get published in romance, editors simply do not approach writers who’ve never been published by a New York house.

Apparently, I’d done something right; I ended up with a two book contract.
This article is an attempt to share a few techniques and principles with those interested in writing romance – including the non-erotic variety.

Repeat after me: Romance does not equal porn

A year or so ago, I saw an RWA-sponsored ad to the effect that romance novels don’t really have all that much sex in them. It then listed various books and the number of love scenes in them – generally just one or two.

That ad really ticked me off, because it implied that a book with only one sex scene is somehow more moral than one with four or five. I’ve encountered that attitude a lot in other romance writers who sniff that they write love scenes only because their publishers demand it.
Apparently, like Victorian wives suffering the attentions of randy husbands, they lie back and think of England.

My personal belief is that somebody who writes mechanical sex solely to placate a publisher and make money is a lot more guilty of being a pornographer than I am.

No matter how much some writers might like to pretend otherwise, at their core, romances are about a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, not a purely spiritual union of souls. After all, when was the last time you read a romance staring Ghandi?

I’ve heard writers argue that their readers don’t care about sex, that in fact, they skip the sex scenes. My response is: then you’re doing something wrong. Anytime a reader can skip any scene in a book, the writer has screwed up. Every scene should advance the plot, characterization, or conflict -- preferably all three. That includes love scenes. A scene your reader can skip needs to be rewritten.

Now I’m going to make a confession: sometimes I skip love scenes too. But it’s not because I’m somehow too moral to read them. It’s because they’re boring! Too many of them are just like every other love scene I’ve read in my twenty years as a romance junkie.

The worst sin, the very worst sin, a writer can commit is boring the reader. When you bore her, you cheat her out of the seven bucks she paid for your book.

Not only that, but you’ve cheated the characters you’ve worked so hard to make real in the rest of the novel. You’ve basically turned them into porn actors, moaning and going through the motions because your publisher wants so many sex scenes per book.

Worst of all, you’ve cheated yourself as an artist. You haven’t had the guts to realize your artistic vision for that book because you’re either afraid of being called a pornographer or you’re worried the neighbors will think you’re kinky.

Screw the neighbors. Screw the critics. Tell the story of those two passionate people you’ve created without flinching and without chastely averting your eyes. That’s what being an artist is all about.

Sex is action

One of the hardest things about writing a good love scene – particularly when you’ve written a lot of them – is how to keep them fresh and different.

After all, the physical actions of sex are basically the same – kiss this, stroke that, insert tab A into slot B. You can spice things up by using different positions, locations and props, but that only works so many times.

Besides, readers are not dumb. They notice when you’ve got three sex scenes, and you tick through the basic positions in them: “Okay, we’ll do missionary in this one, and female superior in this one, and in this one he’ll...”

Yuck. Getting into porn territory again.

I’ve found that to keep sex fresh and different, love scenes needs to grow out of the characters themselves, not my reference copy of the Kama Sutra.

Every time the hero and heroine go to bed together, it should reflect where they are in their relationship. In fact, ideally you should be able to read through the sex scenes alone and track the progress of the romance through the book.

In that first scene, maybe they’re uncertain or cautious or exploring – or maybe they just go nuts from pent-up sexual tension.

In the next scene, maybe they’ve had an argument right before going to bed together, and that anger bubbles under the surface so that the love scene becomes another expression for the conflict. And so on, until the last scene in the book, when we see how they make love now that they’re really in love and committed to one another.

Sweet, tender action will do more than flowery declarations of love to tell the reader that these folks really will live happily ever after.

Remember, too, that each love scene should not only mark the progress of the relationship, but advance it. The characters are sharing a deeply personal interaction, exposing themselves to each other emotionally as well as physically. It should change how they relate to each other.

Some Examples

To illustrate, I’m including the opening paragraphs from loves scenes from my Berkely novel, Jane’s Warlord.

Baran, my hero, is a warrior from the future who has time-traveled to the 21st century in order to protect reporter Jane Colby from Jack the Ripper – who, it turns out, is also a futuristic warrior.

Baran comes on very cold and hard in the first few scenes of the book, so in the first love scene, I wanted to show another side of him: the tender lover. The idea was to demonstrate that Baran is someone both Jane and the reader can trust.

For me, that’s one of the keys of developing a sexy hero: you’ve got to first establish that he’s not a bully and that he respects the heroine’s needs, even when he’s being sexually demanding.
It’s absolutely vital to set up his heroism and concern for the heroine as another human being before you let him start playing dominant bedroom games.

If you don’t, you can end up with a hero who comes off as a selfish brute interested only in his own pleasure. And the reader’s just not going to like him.

Jane looked up blindly in the darkness, saw the shimmer of his eyes an instant before his mouth came down over hers. She tried to pull away, startled, but long fingers tangled in her hair and held her still. The kiss was an easy, practiced slide of his mouth against hers, carefully undemanding.

Jane had expected skill, but Baran’s tenderness took her by surprise. His tongue caressed her lower lip, then entered her mouth in a long erotic stroke. He mouth tasted of a sweet, spicy something she couldn’t identify. Strong hands closed gently around her shoulders, turned and lowered her to the mattress. She cupped her palms around the curve of his shoulders. They more than filled her hands. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Probably not,” he murmured. “But it seems we’re going to do it anyway.”

The second love scene in Jane’s Warlord follows some heavy revelations of the characters’ personal histories. They’re more comfortable with each other, and they express that in playfulness. Too, the tension had gotten pretty thick, and I needed to lighten things up a little.

Baran grabbed the door just before she managed to slam it in his face. Shouldering through, he purred, “Are you running from me?”

She retreated quickly to the glass stall that took up one side of the room. “Who, me?” There was a definite squeak in her voice. Whirling, she started fumbling with a set of chrome knobs that made water shoot from a nozzle in the wall of the stall. “Why would I do that?”

“Maybe because it’s a good idea?” He strolled over to snatch her against him, grab the hem of her T-shirt, and jerk it over her head. She hadn’t bothered with a bra that morning, and her bare breasts bobbed with the motion. Those pretty nipples were delicately erect, pink and tender. He swooped in to sample one, sucking it into his mouth as he grabbed the waistband of her baggy trousers and started pulling them down her thighs. “I thought I told you not to wear these ugly pants again,” he growled between nibbles.

“And I don’t ... AH!... take fashion advice from a guy with beads in his hair. Baran!” The last word was a yelp of protest as he snatched her off her feet, one hand around her backside, the other arm circling her torso.

Here’s another point: don’t pair a dominant alpha hero with a dishrag heroine. He’ll come off as a bully, because she can’t or won’t give him a decent fight. So I let Baran try to give Jane orders, but I make it equally clear that she obeys them only when she thinks she should. This strengthens the conflict, because Baran thinks that unless Jane obeys him without question, he won’t be able to keep her alive. Jane thinks this is just dumb, and tells him so.

Humor is a great weapon for heroines to use against alpha heroes. Part of what makes alphas so attractive is the idea a powerful, physically overwhelming male. But those same characteristics makes it difficult for the heroine to hold her own with him. You need to demonstrate that she’s his equal in wit and will so the reader will respect her. And letting her get off a good joke at his expense is a great way to do that.

In the next scene, I use a sexual encounter to express Baran’s growing fear that he can’t protect Jane from the killer. I also play with his more erotically superhuman qualities to give the scene a special kick for the reader.

Baran had taken her before in calculation and in heat, but this desperation was new.

Jane could taste it in the way he kissed her, open-mouthed and fierce, his long fingers curling around the back of her skull, angling her head just the way he wanted it.

He took her in a long, sweet stroke of tongue and lip, hot and wet and hungry. Somewhere in the endless tumble into delight, she heard the rumble of a passing car, accompanied by the short, mocking toot of its horn. A tiny measure of sanity returned. Prying her mouth away from his, she panted, “We can’t do this on the side of the road, Baran!”

“Yes, we can,” he growled, and captured her mouth again, the kiss drugging, hungry.

Jane wrestled free and threw a desperate glance around them, trying to determine if they were being watched. She realized she knew the area from her wild teenage years. “There’s a spot down by the woods. A stream. We could....”

He looked down at her. The lust in his eyes was so intense, it didn’t seem quite human – and not just because of the fiery glow.

His lips pulled back from his teeth in a slow, erotic smile. “Run. Before I take you on the hood of the truck.” His powerful hands reluctantly relaxed their hold.

It wasn’t an idle threat. Jane whirled and fled as if chased by something that would eat her. And with a little squirt of heat, she knew he intended to do just that.

In the last love scene in Jane’s Warlord, I wanted to demonstrate just how far they’d come in their relationship.

“No!” she panted. “I want... I want....”

That got his attention. He stopped and looked at her, leaning his face against her thigh.

“What? Anything you want me to do, I’ll do.” Turning his head, he gave her thigh a tempting little nibble.

“I want to be on top!” she gasped.

He lifted a brow. “Of course.”

“No, I mean...” She drew in a deep breath and managed to bring her desperate pants under control. “I want to be in charge this time. Dominant.”

He lifted his head in surprise, then shrugged. “Your wish is my command.”

Jane managed a cheeky grin. “That’s the idea.” She sat up. “Lie down on your back. I want to tie you up this time.”

Because she was looking directly at him, she saw his eyes flicker. “All right.”

That moment of unease reminded her of that horrific story he’d told her of being paralyzed while the Xer tortured him. They hadn’t discussed it, but she strongly suspected the abuse had been even worse than he’d let on.

And yet, he was willing to allow himself to be bound if she wanted it that way.

“Just... extend your hands over your head,” she said, hastily modifying the game. “Grab one wrist, and keep them there. Don’t let go.” She watched while he obeyed, slowly stretching his big body out, assuming the position she directed.

It was her turn now.

The role reversal demonstrates that Baran loves Jane enough to yield to whatever she wants, including tying him up, even though that’s something he’s got a phobia about. She, on the other hand, modifies her request when she realizes this hits one of his hot buttons.

The final sex scene should, I think, demonstrate the fact that the characters know and love one another. Whether it’s tender or kinky, their lovemaking should show that this is definitely love.

They’ve reached the happy-ever-after ending readers crave.

And that, after all, is what romance is all about.

Saving the Book From Hell

It happens to every writer, no matter how skilled you are: the book from hell. This is a book that absolutely does not go where you want it to go, and which limps like a three-legged dog as it wanders away. When you read over it, you get this sick feeling in your stomach that whispers, "This book sucks."

Having said that, I will admit that I always get the "this book sucks" feeling with every single book I write. But it's usually late in the process. For me, it tends to hit in galley edits, when it's too damn late to do anything because the book has been typeset. When I get that feeling, I end up going to my editor or my critique partner and whimpering, "It doesn't really suck, right? You'd have told me, right?" And they always pop me upside the head and say, "CUT IT OUT! It's FINE."

End-of-book suckitus is just part of the writing process, because writers are all neurotic. (This is another argument against doing too many rewrites during the early part of the process. If you start rewrting too early, you'll get suckitus before the book is even finished, and then you'll never complete it. This was why I never finished a novel until I hit 40.)

However, whenever I start getting that feeling early in the process, it's a bad sign. When I'm in the heat of a book, I'm always convinced it's brilliant. There's a kind of high involved that's like the first buzz of being in love. You're convinced the loved one is without flaw. You don't let yourself even notice his habit of leaving his underwear on the floor.

Fact is, I think you need that high in order to get through the grueling process of writing a book. That's why critique partners like my wonderful friend, Diane Whiteside, are so invaluable. Diane doesn't have to love my book, because she's not writing it. She can usually tell me when I'm going off-track early enough that I can fix it without killing my forward momentum. (If you don't have a CP and you want to write, you need to get one. Join one of the many yahoo groups for romance writers and ask around. My own AK loop is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/angelaknight/)

But whenever my gut starts telling me the book sucks when I'm in chapter five or so, it's bad news. This happened to me in an early draft of MASTER OF WOLVES. As I mentioned in the previous blog, I hadn't thought the book through far enough, because I had a cute, high concept idea I couldn't resist. Werewolf hero goes undercover as a police dog and falls in love with his handler.

So I wrote four chapters of the hero and his beautiful police officer partner, and just had a ball. They chased drug dealers. He turned into a man and snuck sandwiches because he couldn't stand kibble... It was really fun, and I thought it was funny. Unfortunately, it wasn't a romance. It was the Shaggy Dog with a badge. Diane Whiteside finally said, "AK, this ain't working. Where'd your romance go?"

So I realized I had to spring the hero's secret sooner. I decided the heroine was going to have to become a werewolf early in the book. But all that meant the plot I'd come up with wasn't going to work. I threw out all but a chapter and started over. Sixty pages down the drain, and my deadline coming up. Argh. So I replotted and wrote all the way out to chapter eight before that little voice started whispering again. "This book sucks."

ARGH!!! What was wrong? I read it. My critique partner read it. I read it on the plane to the RWA conference. The book sucked. I didn't know why. Diane couldn't tell me why either. She'd gotten too close to it too. Finally, in desperation, I asked my agent to read it. Now, I rarely ask Roberta Brown to hold my hand on stuff, but this time I had no choice because I did not have a clue. Roberta started reading it and called that first day and said, "This book is wonderful! I love it. What's the problem?" I said, "There's something wrong. I just can't put my finger on it."

Then the next day she called and said, "This book goes off the rails on page 103." She had it down to the PAGE NUMBER. We discussed it. Finally I realized my kickass cop heroine had started whining like some bimbo from an eighties romance. Kickass heroines do not whine. So I gutted 80 pages, replotted the book AGAIN, and proceeded to write 300 pages in a month. It turned into a rollercoaster of a book that I think the readers are really going to enjoy.

This has happened to me before, by the way. MASTER OF THE NIGHT did the same thing, and so did FOREVER KISS. From what I gather, it happens to almost every writer, even the really big names.

There are three things you need to remember when dealing with this kind of problem. First, as I said in the previous blog, you really need to plan the book and consider how it's going to work as a romance. You need to look at the structure and make sure you have a strong internal plot, an external plot, and a romantic plotline, all of which you need to weave together. I'd write them out on notecards or something and color code them, to make sure one of the threads doesn't disappear on you. You particularly can't afford to lose the romantic storyline, because you're writing a romance.

Second, when a book goes off, you often don't see it. You need to find somebody objective to look at it. Even your critique partner may not spot the problem. Diane had a similar problem with one of her books that I didn't see coming, because I'd been reading it chapter by chapter, and I had gotten too close to it.

Finally, you may just have suckitus. An objective reader can tell you if the book really sucks or not, or whether you're just being neurotic. You may want to find several trustworthy readers who are willing to give the manuscript a read, and see if any of them agree on the problem. If they agree, that's your flaw.

But even if your book really does suck, don't give up. As long as the underlying structural idea is sound, you can fix it. You may have to gut it and start over, but believe me, you won't be the first.

Happy writing!

AK

How NOT to take 20 years becoming an "overnight" success

First off, if you're stopping by my blog after seeing a mention of it in ROMANTIC TIMES, thank you so much for coming. And if not -- thank you so much for coming! LOL!

When I saw the magazine was out, I started thinking about what would be the one message I'd give aspiring writers who are just getting started in the business. The answer was obvious -- don't do what I did.

Now, on the face of it, I've done pretty well since my first book came out in June, 2004. I've had four novels out, the latest of which was on the USA Today list for three weeks. One of the anthologies I was in, HOT BLOODED, won the Borders Group Award for best selling romance anthology last year, and another book, FOREVER KISS, won RT's Critics Choice award for Best Erotic Romance.

All of which sounds pretty good, until I tell you how close I came to blowing it. I want to share my mistakes with you, because I'm pretty sure some of you are doing the exact same things.

I decided I wanted to become a novelist when I was nine years old. From then on, I always had a book going. There were maybe two years in the past 36 when I wasn't actively working on a book. The trouble was, until I turned 40, I never FINISHED any of them. I always convinced myself they weren't good enough. I'd write a few pages, and I'd immediately start rewriting, and I'd rewrite and I'd rewrite and I'd rewrite, seeking perfection, until I became so thoroughly SICK of the idea that I'd just walk away. Then I'd start another book and do the same damned thing.

So my first piece of advice is this: DON'T REWRITE UNTIL YOU GET THE FIRST DRAFT FINISHED. Or at least more than halfway done. The editing function of the brain is different from the creative function. Once you turn that editor on, creativity comes to a screeching halt. So resist the impulse to rewrite. Then, when you do get it finished, give the book two complete rewrites and send it out the door. Do not let yourself tinker the book to death.

After you finish the book, SUBMIT IT. Fact of the mater is, I was probably publishable fifteen years ago, but I never submitted anything (Because, hey, never finished anything.) You're going to get rejections. Ignore 'em. If the editor has any suggestions about how to make the book better -- THAT WORK FOR YOU -- make them. Otherwise, send the book out again. Repeat the process until somebody buys it or you realize you can write a better book.

As to agents -- Kids, I hate to say this, but for newbies, messing with agents is generally a waste of time. Yes, there are some markets that require agents, but agents are like the rest of us: they don't like to work all that hard. It's a lot easier to get an agent after you get an editor's interest.

True story: in 2000, I decided I was by God going to finish a book. Wrote FOREVER KISS. (The one that won the Critics Choice award.) Sent queries to ten agents, got ten rejections. I was really discouraged, so I mentioned it to Alexandria Kendall, who publishes the Red Sage erotic romance series SECRETS. I'd been writing novellas for Alex for years, and she believed in me. She said send it to her, and she bought it. We ended up making a ton of money on it. Anyway, soon afterward, I got a call from Cindy Hwang at Berkley, who had discovered my Secrets stuff and wondered if I would be willing to write something for Berkley. Youbetcha. I came up with two ideas that weekend, pitched them on Monday, she said send a proposal. Then I got online and asked my Secrets author pals if any of them knew any agents. Emma Holly suggested her agent, Roberta Brown. I called Roberta, sent her a copy of an anthology I did for Ellora's Cave, and she accepted. Within a month, I had a tw0-book contract AND an agent who got me more money that I would have been able to get myself.

The point of this story is that it's MUCH easier to get an agent after you've engaged an editor's attention. The second point is that once you have engaged an editor's attention, GET AN AGENT. A good agent -- check them out and make sure they're not thieves before you sign anything with them. Agents can get you more money than you can get yourself, but only if they're honest. Mine is! (Many, many writers and artists have been ripped off by dishonest agents. Protect thyself.)

Next -- I realize a lot of people swear by the fine art of seat-of-the-pants writing. Many of them are writers I personally worship. You may be one of those people who can't write any other way, in which case, God love you. But if you're not sure whether you're a ploter or a panster, TRY PLOTTING FIRST. Spend time thinking about your book. What are your conflicts? What is the thing that keeps your hero and heroine from instantly falling in love on Page 1? And there had better be something, or the book is going to be impossible to write. Here's a trick I've learned: the more conflicts there are, the easier the book is to write. Figure all that stuff out. Figure out what your hero wants, what your heroine wants, and what your villain wants. Then figure out the steps each will take to GET what he wants, and how the others will react to those moves. They're going to do something to get in each other's way. The villain is going to try to murder the heroine, and the hero will try to stop him. Or the heroine will decide to steal the hero's priceless antique whatzit, which she needs to stop the villain. How is the hero going to react to that?

THINK about your cool book idea, and whether it will really work as a romance. I had a nifty high-concept idea: werewolf hero goes undercover as a police dog to investigate a murder, and ends up falling in love with his handler. Cute idea, huh? Only thing is, I had neglected to consider a simple detail: If the heroine thinks the hero is a dog, she's not gonna fall in love with him. DUH. Thus I got 100 pages into the book, going nowhere, before I realized I had a serious problem. I had to go back and gut that book four times before I figured out how to get it to work. If I'd sat down and really thought about the implications, I would have seen the problem coming.

Now, in case you're wondering, I did do some stuff right. First, I learned my craft. I learned how to write a clean sentence, and I studied the market. I read the stuff I'd written, and I looked for my strengths and weaknesses. Reading the stuff I wrote in the early 1990s, I realized that the scenes that worked best were the love scenes. I tried to figure out why the love scenes worked and the other scenes didn't, and realized it was sensual detail and emotion. Then when I found a publisher that was publishing sensual stuff, I targeted that market and was quickly accepted.

Finally, when I DID have an opportunity thrown in my lap -- Cindy Hwang's phone call -- I did not let my fear and insecurity keep me from writing the best book I was capable of. I seized the opportunity and ran with it.

I firmly believe if you apply these lessons to your own writing career, you'll be off to a good start.

Remember: never give up!

Best,
Angela Knight

Something Yummy!

I just love vampires...


HIS DARK DESIRES by Jennifer St. Giles
(Pocket Books, Nov. 2005)

Can any woman resist the fire in his eyes—and the danger in his kiss? From award-winning author of The Mistress of Trevelyan (2004 National Readers Choice Award for Best Historical and Best First Book, and 2004 Maggie Award for Excellence in Historical Fiction) comes the sensual tale of a woman haunted—and a man possessed—by an all-consuming love. . . .

You are in danger. Trust no one. The terrifying words from a mysterious letter echo in Juliet Bucheron's mind. Destitute ever since her husband disappeared in the Civil War, Juliet has turned her New Orleans ancestral home into a boarding house -- despite the rumors of ghosts, the whispers of scandal, and the stain of murder. But even more unsettling is Juliet's new tenant, a handsome stranger named Stephen Trevelyan. Wealthy, educated, and seductively compelling, Stephen fills Juliet's heart with uncontrollable longing -- and her head with suspicion. Something, she senses, is lurking beneath the surface. And someone is stalking the hallways after midnight. As the danger draws nearer, Juliet wonders if she can really trust Stephen. But as he pulls her closer, she knows she cannot resist him...no matter what the price.

Excerpt:
http://www.jenniferstgiles.com/hisdarkdesire.shtml

Cover:
http://www.jenniferstgiles.com/hddsmall.jpg


ABOUT JENNIFER ST. GILES
A former nurse and home educator, this award winning author loves to create unforgettable heroes and heroines, who against all odds, fight and win the battle for love—the human need that drives us all. She lives in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three children.


REVIEWS
A wonderful Americana suspense thriller.. St. Giles provides a fabulous reconstruction era tale—Harriet Klausner.

Winner of Rendezvous Reviews Magazine’s Rosebud of the Month! Who cites His Dark Desires as Powerful and emotional, with complex characters…an excellent journey into the past you won’t forget.

A riveting sequel…a sexually charged romance that satisfies whether they’re seeking suspense or passion---Romantic Times Book Club.


WEBSITE: http://www.jenniferstgiles.com/

More Nummy MaryJanice!

“Night Mares” featured in BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BE-VAMPYRED by MaryJanice Davidson
(Triskelion Press)

Welcome to Brokenoggin Falls, where the housewives are not only desperate, they’re Witches! (And one of them might be a Harpy) The spells cast by moonlight frequently go awry. And there are times when toads and Chihuahuas seem abundant as black flies in the summer, the dragons are a little touchy, the Forest Trolls are in danger of extinction from teeny-boppers, the Gryphons need help conceiving and...the scientist are crunchy and good with ketchup...

All proceeds from the sales of this book will go to the International Red Cross.

At a birthday party for the Disdaine Triplets, the little darlings decide they aren’t pleased with the party or the guests and use magic to create their own fun. That night the town and all its residents are visited by the infamous Night Mares who wreak mayhem as only giant ponies prancing through your house can. (First episode with story & characters created by Lynn Warren.)

Be on the lookout for MYSTERIA, an anthology expanding on the episode MaryJanice created in BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEVAMPYRED. MYSTERIA (Berkley) hits shelves in August 2006!

Cover:
http://www.triskelionpublishing.com/images/Bewitchedthm.jpg


ABOUT MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
MaryJanice Davidson is the best-selling author of several romance novels, including UNDEAD AND UNWED and HELLO GORGEOUS. Her books have been on the USA Today best seller list, as well as the New York Times list. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, two children, and dog, and is secretly addicted to Peanut Buster Parfaits.


WEBSITE: http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/

New website is up!

My new website is up at www.angelasknights.com. I'm a terrible perfectionist, but I actually think this one doesn't suck. :>

I'm also hard at work writing my lessons for my class on writing erotic romance for Passionate Ink, the erotic romance chapter of Romance Writers of America. The class is free to those who join PI. (Which means that though the class is free, joining PI and RWA is not.) On the other hand, I plan to come out with a paperback version of the class, so that may be something you'll be interested in.

Passionate Ink is here, by the way: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/erw_org/

If you're interested in writing erotic romance, that's definitly the loop for you.

I'm also involved in renovating the house. This is proving to be, not surprisingly, a bigger PITA than I expected. The flooring guy is coming next Monday, Oct. 24 to install new floor, which means I have to get the walls painted before then. Which shouldn't be a problem, except I've got these flipping wallpaper borders up. I have a kit with wall paper paste removeal stuff and this claw thing and a scraper, and it's still just a huge hassle. If anyone has suggestions on how to do this without pulling my hair out by the roots, I'd love to hear it. :/

What I'm up to right now

Yes, I know my blog has been mostly a place to advertise other people's books lately. I've been racing to meet my deadline on my new Berkley book, MASTER OF WOLVES. It's finished -- with any luck, my Berkley editor is reading it this weekend. (Hope she doesn't think it sucks!) So now I can do things I've been wanting to do, like get caught up on this blog and finish the desperately needed site redesign on my www.angelasknights.com site. I've been doing some artwork I really like, by the way. Hopefully the new site will be up in three or four days.

If anybody is interested in the fiction writing process, I'm currently teaching an online class on writing the Erotic Romance for the month of October. Once the class is finished, I plan to get it published by either Loose Id or Changeling, if they'll take non-fiction. So you'll be able to buy it, maybe even in paperback form.

One of the things I'm doing in the class is telling people about how to avoid some of my more boneheaded mistakes, like the ones that made MASTER OF WOLVES such a bloody nightmare. I started that book in May. I should have had it finished two months ago, but the book kept going offtrack. For one thing, I didn't think out the logistics of it.

Ok, hero is a werewolf who goes undercover as a police K-9 to investigate the murder of his best friend. He falls in love with his beautiful handler, only she thinks he's a dog. Cute idea, right? So I plotted the thing and started writing. But as I'm writing this book, I realize I'm on page 80 and the hero is still a dog, and the heroine doesn't know he's a werewolf. Well, this is a romance. Duh -- if the hero's a dog, no romance is occurring. So I gut the book, replot it, and start over from scratch, including killing a first chapter that appeared in Master of the Moon as a teaser. This time I make it to page 180 beforeI notice I'm having the devil's own time just sitting down to write the book. Deadline is fast approaching, and I don't want to write. Now, when I get like that, it's cause there's a problem in the story.

I knew the story had a problem, but I was damned if I could figure out what it was. Went to the Romance Writer's of America conference still wrestling with it. I read it, and realized I outright hated the book. NOT good. Sent the 180 pages to my agent, and she said she was in the first 100 pages and loved it. Then she called and said, "This book goes off the rails on page 103."

Which was pretty well where I thought it went off. Something had happened to the heroine, and she wasn't handling it well. In fact, she was whining. So I had to gut out 80 pages of the book, and replot it AGAIN with a big change in the heroine's personality. Between August 1 when I got back from RWA and Oct. 1, I wrote 300 pages and did two rewrites on the book. It's now MUCH better, I think -- knock wood. It's one of those rollercoaster ride books I love to write. We'll see what my editor thinks.

Cindy also gave me the new cover. Isn't it pretty? That guy is hot, IMHO. :)

Anyway, now I'm planning my next book while taking care of stuff like painting the house and putting in new flooring. You can be sure I'm going to plotting the next one a LOT more carefully!

Big Bad Werewolves

I love werewolves -- I just finished a werewolf novel. Here's another cute story by an author in my ring. And the profits go to a good cause, too.

“Candy Cox and the Big Bad (Were) Wolf” featured in BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEVAMPYRED by PC Cast
(Triskelion Press)

Welcome to Brokenoggin Falls, where the housewives are not only desperate, they’re Witches! (And one of them might be a Harpy) The spells cast by moonlight frequently go awry. And there are times when toads and Chihuahuas seem abundant as black flies in the summer, the dragons are a little touchy, the Forest Trolls are in danger of extinction from teeny-boppers, the Gryphons need help conceiving and...the scientist are crunchy and good with ketchup...

All proceeds from the sales of this book will go to the International Red Cross.

Godiva Tawdry casts a spell and shy, unassuming teacher Candy Cox finds the were-lover of her dreams; Janice’s cousin Romeo meets Joe, the veterinarian for unscheduled surgery.

Be on the lookout for MYSTERIA, an anthology expanding on the episode and characters PC created in BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEVAMPYRED. MYSTERIA (Berkley) hits shelves in August 2006!

Cover:
http://www.triskelionpublishing.com/images/Bewitchedthm.jpg


ABOUT PC CAST
Award-winning author PC Cast is a dynamic, entertaining orator and an extraordinary teacher. Currently, her realm is in Oklahoma, where she resides with her daughter and spoiled cat.


WEBSITE http://www.pccast.net

KICKASS!!

My antho, KICKASS is out. Besides my own story, WARFEM, there's a cool novella from my best buddy MaryJanice.

“The Misadventures of Boo and the Boy Blunder” featured in KICKASS by MaryJanice Davidson
(Berkley, September 2005)

They're sexy. They're smart. And they aren't afraid of a little danger-not even when it comes to matters of the heart... Four of today's hottest authors present a quartet of stories about bold women who take no prisoners-either in a fight or in love. Whether it's in the bedroom, in the outer limits of the galaxy, or out on the mean streets, they kick heart-stopping action to the next level. These are women who can hold their own and aren't to be trifled with. The men in their lives know that-and they love it...



A tale of a woman who knows how to save the day - and enjoy the rewards at night.
“The Incredible Misadventures of Boo and the Boy Blunder” by MaryJanice Davidson. Former police officer Gregory wonders how life can be so unfair. Recently, he was turned into a vampire and to make matters worse, he has met his soulmate (that is, if he had a soul). The problem is his beloved wants to kill him as Boo is a bona fide vampire hunter.

Excerpt:
http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/KickAss%20Chapter.htm

Cover:
http://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/05052316011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9700000/9702750.jpg



ABOUT MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
MaryJanice Davidson is the best-selling author of several romance novels, including UNDEAD AND UNWED and HELLO GORGEOUS. Her books have been on the USA Today best seller list, as well as the New York Times list. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, two children, and dog, and is secretly addicted to Peanut Buster Parfaits.


REVIEWS

These four women live up to the title so anyone who enjoys strong women kicking butt and hog tying their beloved will enjoy this fun often amusing but always exciting anthology -- Harriet Klausner

Website: http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/

Here Be Dragons!

HEART OF THE DRAGON by Gena Showalter

(HQN Books, September 2005)

He’ll make you burn…

He is a Dragon, a rare breed of warriors able to transform into the legendary creature at will. Though the mighty warlord breathes fear into the minds of his enemies and fire into the blood of his women, no one has ever stirred his heart -- until he encounters Grace Carlyle of modern day Earth. He burns to possess this proud, alluring beauty . . . but he has sworn to kill her.

Journey to the mythical world of Atlantis, where the gods’ hid their greatest mistakes – the vampires, demons, dragons, and other creatures of legend – and experience white-hot passion, exciting adventure, and a love that defies the boundaries of time and magic.

Excerpt:

http://members.cox.net/genashowalter/excerpt.htm

Cover:

http://members.cox.net/genashowalter/images/dragoncoversm.gif

ABOUT GENA SHOWALTER

Gena Showalter holds a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics (lie), is an expert in Krav Maga (bigger lie), and once worked as a body guard for the stars (the biggest lie of all). Actually, Gena Showalter is just your everyday, average girl who enjoys creating sizzling paranormal tales of kick ass women and the men who can't resist them.

REVIEWS

"Sexy, funny and downright magical!" -- USA Today bestselling author Katie McAllister

This romantic fantasy is a magical work where dragons take on human form and have different values than the surface dwellers. Atlantis is an exotic city populated by dragons, vampires, centaurs, and other beings of myth and legend. There is plenty of action as well as romance in the storyline as the book will appeal to a wide range of readers. Gena Showalter has the magic touch to make readers believe in what she writes. -- Harriet Klausner

(In Heart of the Dragon) Showalter pens a bold and exciting new vision of both Atlantis and dragons. Lots of danger and sexy passion give lucky readers a spicy taste of adventure and romance.   – RT

Bold and witty, sexy and provocative, Gena Showalter's star is rising fast! -- Carly Phillips, New York Times Bestselling Author

 
Heart of the Dragon is a bang-up twist to the old fairy tail with its dragon
hero. Grace's character brings a refreshing change to the damsel in distress
with her full steam ahead attitude and persistence. Ms. Showalter leads the
reader on a thrilling adventure that even the coldest heart will acknowledge
and love. – The Romance Reader’s Connection

Website: http://www.genashowalter.com/

Really Unusual

MaryJanice Davidson is up to her hysterical ways again in REALLY UNUSUAL BAD BOYS.(Brava, September 2005)

THEY'RE JUST THE SEXY BOYS NEXT DOOR.
IF NEXT DOOR IS A WEIRD, WEIRD PLACE.
Meet Damon, Maltese, and Shakar - three noble brothers from an enchanted kingdom where wooing and pleasuring is practically a royal commandment. They're hot. Irresistible. And just a little different. But what woman doesn't like a guy with a few surprises?


Excerpt:
http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/RUBB%20excerpt.htm

Cover:
http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/unusual%20bad%20boys.jpg


ABOUT MARYJANICE DAVIDSON
MaryJanice Davidson is the best-selling author of several romance novels, including UNDEAD AND UNWED and HELLO GORGEOUS. Her books have been on the USA Today best seller list, as well as the New York Times list. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, two children, and dog, and is secretly addicted to Peanut Buster Parfaits.

REVIEWS

These three amusing erotic romantic fantasies are terrific fun stories starring strong females who match up well with REALLY UNUSUAL BAD BOYS. Once again nobody combines humor, romance, otherworldly elements (including that), and erotica into fabulous tales like MaryJanice Davidson. -- Harriet Klausner

REALLY UNUSUAL BAD BOYS is a sizzling fast beach read with an interesting, unique and creative plot. – Armchair Interviews

Website: http://www.maryjanicedavidson.net/

Garden of Eden

“Garden of Eden” featured in ELLORA’S CAVEMEN: LEGENDARY TAILS II by Jaci Burton
(Ellora’s Cave, June 2005)

Dr. Eden Mason has spent the past hundred years orbiting the Earth in stasis. Since a nuclear war destroyed everything, she and the other inhabitants of the space pods are the only survivors of the global meltdown.

One special passenger has joined them-Adam-an alien sent to recreate what was once a thriving, beautiful planet. But Adam needs Eden to fulfill his goal, in a way she never expected.

Adam has loved Eden since he first came to Earth, but her father refused to allow him to meet her. Instead, the brilliant scientist kept Adam secluded while they engineered a way to save some of Earth's inhabitants before the inevitable destruction. Now Adam can touch Eden, taste her, love her like he's always wanted to, at the same time fulfilling his duty to revitalize the planet.

His love for her is energizing and Eden begins to hope that life on new Earth will be a lush garden of sensual pleasures. But Adam's not telling her everything that will happen, and his secret may end up destroying them both.

Excerpt:
http://www.jaciburton.com/newrelease.html#Excerpt

Cover:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1419951521.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg



ABOUT JACI BURTON
Jaci Burton was born and raised in Missouri but now lives on an acre-and-a-half in Oklahoma with her husband Charlie. Jaci loves to write about passionate relationships with sometimes stormy outcomes but always a happily ever after. She’s a sucker for romance and a happy ending!


REVIEWS
“Jaci Burton does it again! What an amazingly hot and steamy story!” -- Fallen Angel Reviews

“Garden of Eden by Jaci Burton is a yummy little taste of fantastic science-fiction romance with beautiful balance. – eCataRomance

“Garden of Eden has a very interesting plotline. Ms. Burton gives us a very imaginative not to mention fun way for Adam to get his energy to re-create a new world. Adam and Eden are well developed characters even for a short story, and the emotional bond that develops between them is very moving and believable. With steamy sex scenes a plotline with twists and turns this one was an enjoyable read." – Cupids Library Reviews



Website: http://www.jaciburton.com/

Hurricane Relief

I know a lot of us don’t have much money. But if you can afford it, please consider a donation to the Red Cross for the Hurricane Katrina victims. I made one yesterday, but I suspect it wasn’t enough after watching the heartbreaking coverage of the hurricane.

I was shocked to see so many reporters crying. I’ve never seen on-air reporters cry before, though God knows I cried plenty of times doing stories. Tells you how bad it is, when even CNN hardcases are breaking down.

http://www.redcross.org/

HEART CHOICE by Robin D. OwensPublisher: Berkley (July 5, 2005) Tracker Straif Blackthorn has returned to Druida City after his last rescue mission, intending to repair his home and resume the noble duties he abandoned at seventeen, when he lost his family to disease.

He's futilely searched Celta for a cure.

But he may be too late! A secret enemy schemes to claim his title, his lands, and destroy the woman he loves.

As an interior designer Mitchella Clover dreamt of someone saying "no expense spared." Unfortunately it's a wildly attractive GreatLord who offers her the chance of a lifetime - to restore an ancient showplace. She knows she can never give Straif what he truly wants, but can she resist him? The job isn't easy. Both the sentient Residence and Straif's new snobbish Fam cat have remodeling ideas, and Mitchella's ward instantly dislikes Straif.

Everyone's back! Characters from HeartMate, Heart Thief and Heart Duel appear to help renovate the Residence, solve the mystery, give advice on the perfect duel - or meddle. And the first baby of the nextgeneration is born...


Excerpt: http://www.robindowens.com/images/HeartChoiceWebsite.pdf

Cover: http://www.robindowens.com/images/heartchoice_cover.jpg

ABOUT ROBIN D. OWENS

Robin D. Owens has been seriously writing longer than she cares to recall, but is very happy with how her writing career is proceeding. She was named the Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers in 2004, and 2003 Writer of the Year by the Denver Area Science Fiction Association. Robin has been the librarian, contest co-chair, and President of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. She has given seminars at Pikes Peak Writers Conference, the Colorado Gold Writers Conference, and Romance Writers of America as well as other groups.


REVIEWS “Character-driven story, brilliant dialogue...Terrific writing with a very realistic and sensual romance, make HEART CHOICE a fantastic read” -- Jani Brooks, Romance Reviews Today "

Dara Joy fans, rejoice! Robin Owens has created a unique world of her own…fun and sexy." -- Anne Avery


Website: http://www.robindowens.com/

Nobody does suspense like Rebecca York

Rebecca York is one of those writers other writers read just to find out how she does what she does. I'm a huge fan of her wonderful, twisty plots. She's one of the few romance authors whose work actually surprises me every time. I've been reading romance so long, usually I see it coming every time. Anything by Rebecca, however, is an exception. And this is definitely one I'm going to go out and get!


BEYOND CONTROL by Rebecca York
(Berkley, August 2005)

BEYOND CONTROL, by Rebecca York, tells the story of telepaths who discover and develop their powers only when they sexually link with another of their kind.
Jordan Walker and Lindsay Fleming meet at a Washington, D. C., cocktail party. When they touch, they experience an electric moment of psychic awareness. As they explore the unique bond forming between them, they discover that the more intimate their contact, the more their psychic powers develop.
As with York’s Moon books, Lindsay and Jordan must work out their personal relationship against a background of danger and suspense after they stumble onto his murder cover-up at a secret biological weapons lab. At the same time, two other telepaths who want all the psychic goodies for themselves set out to wipe Jordan and Lindsay from the face of the earth.
Rebecca York says that, "Publishers wouldn’t touch a story with this unique blend of suspense and sensuality 15 years ago. But the characters and the plot wouldn’t let me go, so I held onto them until the time was right."

Excerpt:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/glick/sneak-p21.htm

Cover:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/glick/beyond-control-big.jpg



ABOUT REBECCA YORK
Ever since she can remember, Ruth Glick has loved making up stories full of adventure, romance and suspense. As a child she corralled her friends into adventure games or acted out romantic suspense stories with a cast of dolls. But she never assumed she could be an author, because she couldn't spell. Her life changed, however, with the invention of the word processor and spelling checker--and the help of her husband, Norman Glick, who spots spelling errors from fifty paces away. Writing as Rebecca York, she has authored or co-authored over 45 romantic suspense novels, many for Harlequin Intrigue's very popular 43 Light Street series, set in Baltimore, and many with paranormal elements.

REVIEWS
WOW! This was certainly one very hot, steamy, mind boggling and exciting suspense thriller. . . an absolutely riveting tale of suspense . . . with well-developed characters, stunning sensuality and some clever twists. A truly dynamite read! --Romance Designs

BEYOND CONTROL . . . plays out on two interwoven levels. The storyline is action-packed from the opening sequence at Maple Creek and never slows down until the lead couple learns what happened there. The tale also contains a delightful romance between Jordan and Lindsay that starts off with A Strangers in the Night encounter . . . and plays out on physical and paranormal planes. .. . a strong suspense-laden romantic tale. --Harriet Klausner

Four plus, Top Pick --RT Book club

Website: http://www.rebeccayork.com

Moon Magnetism

“Moon Magnetism” featured in STAR QUALITY by Lucy Monroe
(Kensington Brava, May 2005)

Ivy Kendall dreads the full moon. For generations, women in her family have been extremely magnetic on that day—which was fine fifty years ago but not in the age of hard drives and cell phones. That’s why the hotel manager has resisted the technological improvements her boss wants her to implement. Now, the sexy, dynamic Blake Hawthorne is coming to insist on the upgrades in person. Shoot, he’ll probably fire her. Being around Blake makes her body go as haywire as a full moon, maybe even more. And as long as she’s going to be out of a job soon, there’s no reason not to use a little of that magnetism to her advantage, luring him into an elevator where the only electricity that will work is the kind they generate themselves…

Excerpt:
http://www.lucymonroe.com/ExcerptsSQ.htm

Cover:
http://www.lucymonroe.com/images/sq2.jpg



ABOUT LUCY MONROE
Award winning author Lucy Monroe sold her first book in September of 2002. Since then she has sold more than 30 books to three publishers and hit national bestsellers lists in the US and England. Her highly charged, sensual stories touch on the realities of life while giving the reader a fantasy story not easily forgotten. Whether it's a passionate Harlequin Presents, a sexy single title for Kensington or a steamy historical or paranormal for Berkley, Lucy's books transport her readers to a special place where the heart rules and love conquers all.


REVIEWS
"Monroe creates a sassy heroine and gives her a delectable rogue to help solve her unusual dilemma." 4 Stars - Romantic Times
"Their [Blake & Ivy in Moon Magnetism] dialog is priceless and will keep the reader smiling throughout this wonderful tale." Reader to Reader Reviews
"Star Quality is a delightfully funny read. The common full-moon theme is pulled together masterfully by three "quality stars" of the romance genre." - Sensual Romance Reviews

Website: http://www.lucymonroe.com/