Oh, So Feelgood

You know that saying about not appreciating something until you’ve lost it? A lot of people, including myself, have had that epiphany about love. And the moment you no longer have love, what do you do? Let thoughts of it consume you. Yearn for it. Ache for it. Do anything to have it again…

The thing about love is that no matter how much we say we aren’t looking for it, don’t want it, we do. It’s an inherent part of who we are as humans. We need that closeness to another person. The people who do not crave that closeness, who do not care anything for their fellow man, who can murder them and feel no remorse, are the deviants. Those of us who want to be loved are the norm.

Now, granted there are those who would do anything, manipulate and lie and hurt others to have love. Those people are deviants too of a sort. Usually, what’s wrong with their pysches can be fixed whereas the murderers cannot. (Yeah, I don’t think you can rehabilitate a cold-blooded murderer.) Still, the majority of us aren’t killers or liars. Most of us sit and wait for love to happen and get panicked if it doesn’t.

In my case, I’ve had love. Several times. Different men. If the relationship I’m in now doesn’t work out, I rather have the sense that I’ve used up my allotment of love. But I suppose it could happen again. I almost feel like I’m too old for love, but in my heart I know that’s not true. None of us are too old for love. Just because our hair has turned white doesn’t mean our emotions stop.

In my books, the inhabitants of the Darkworld (except for the humans) all have pre-destined mates. Someone played matchmaker, uncaring of sexual preference. The “gods” have chosen for them and they must either accept their mate or remain alone. In the case of the dragons of the Darkworld, finding their mate is a distinctive part of who they are. It’s more than just cultural. Their mate truly is part of who they are.

When a Darkworld dragon finds their mate, the clock starts ticking. The long the two of them go without actually mating the more pain they find themselves in. The pain grows incrementally until one, or both, of the dragons goes insane from it and dies or kills themselves. Not a pretty thing at all. Yet on the other side of the coin, those dragons who embrace their mate, find their lives enhanced immeasurably. Their dragon clan mark becomes two dragons, usually entwined. The can easily share thoughts and feelings telepathically with their mate. Their sexual drive increases, as does their sexual stamina. And their built in birth control is deactivated once they mate. Yes, you got it… only mated dragons can get pregnant.

For the vampires, the Acerbians, of the Darkworld, mating isn’t mandatory. However, when a vampire meets their mate, they often dream of them and the dreams take on a surreal quality because they can sometimes be shared dreams if their destiny is strong enough. Once the vampires share blood – bites – they become bonded. Bonded bloodmates don’t have to both be vampires, although the bond tends to be strongest between a couple that is vampire-vampire. If one half of a two vampire bonded couple dies, the other vampire could starve to death. Usually, they chose to end their life as well and follow their mate to the Afterworld. Death by starvation is a horrendous fate after all. If the vampire half of a single vamp bonded couple is left alive, the same thing applies. Vampires are very dependent upon their mates.

In the next installment of the Tales of the Darkworld (due out the first week of April) an vampire and a Magia (someone of the magical race) are mates. The vampire is happy to have a mate and looking forward to their future together. However, the Magia (the wizard) has issues. He has enemies. He has doubts. He's afraid taking a mate would make that man a target. So he walks away.

The self-sacrificing wizard of Breathe Me In thinks he's given up his chance of happiness to keep his mate safe. In reality, he's just fed his own fears. Lucky for him, his mate is a fighter and willing to do whatever it takes for them to be together. We should all have a mate like that!

I suppose I came up with these ideas because I’ve lost people I’ve loved in the past. It would be nice to have that bond of love that cannot be broken even by death. It would take away a lot of the uncertainty in life and that fear of being alone and unloved.

People ask me all the time where I get my ideas. I always say, “Oh, here and there. From just about anything.” I suppose the truth of the matter is that my ideas are born of my heart. The things I want and need and wish for. The things I dream about. I spend a lot of time alone in my head and creating worlds where happiness reigns supreme and love always wins gives me comfort. Makes me believe – if only for a little while – that maybe I can have that too. Because, as I said, the truth about love is that we all need it. And finding someone to fulfill that need can leave you feeling as if nothing else in the world matters. Because really, nothing else does. If you have a mate, a life partner, someone to always be there for you, no matter how you might stumble in life, that person will be there to comfort you and love you. Their love will make all the bad stuff shrink to nothing.

Love is a powerful thing. It’s no wonder we all crave it like addicts over drugs. It’s no wonder we all write about it and readers are driven to buy the books. Nothing beats the feel-good of love. And that’s the truth.

Series Addiction

I have series addiction. I freely admit it. I have difficulty writing a single stand alone book. Other characters besides the hero and heroine begin clamoring for their stories as I write and plot bunnies multiply in my head until I find myself stopping in the middle of a book to jot down plots and characters for what will later become a sequel or part of a series.

Little did I know back in early December 2008 that my little Christmas freebie Christmas Hookup would be a popular download. And I certainly never realized that a year later I would feel the urge to return to the fictional town of Heil, California for a pair of sequels. Once I'd done the sequels though, I knew I'd do another and another. Somehow I'd expand the world of Riley and Elle and Forbes Ranch in order to create a Christmas love story every year. The key elements: a cowboy or cowgirl with some sort of tie to Riley, Elle, and Forbes Ranch and a Christmas Eve HEA. This year's book was released last week and a kernel of an idea came to me for next year's. I had to re-read Christmas Catch to get the kernel but it's there now and I'll nurture it to fruition come next December.

I suppose you could say that my problem lies in the fact that I vest myself in my characters, even the secondary ones. I know them. I know their motivations. Even the secondaries have depth. And that's why it's hard for me to let them go. I've already put time and thought into who they are and why they are. Why waste that? Besides, readers seem to like series an awful lot. I know I've received fan email regarding characters in books.

After Hot Water came out, I received fan mail about Corey Green who got his own story Sunstroked this year. When Sunstroked came out, I got email about Wilson North. (Yes, I'm working on Will's story now.) When Where There's Smoke came out, I had email asking about the world of the Vashon clans and the cobra shifters. And everyone wants more Holden Antaeus and Garret Renquist from Fire Season (which they'll get in Fire Storm.) Probably my biggest request is for Sean Antaeus though. The head of the black dragon Antaeus family is equal parts hero and asshole, but he intrigues a lot of readers of the Tales series. And my newest requests are for more stories from the fictional town of Forza, California, the setting of Afterburner, my DADT novella in the Honorable Silence anthology.

Something about Forza and it's history, even though it's bare bones, must have appealed to readers. And their suggestions that Afterburner's hero Sebastian Marchetti had plenty of quirky family members to fuel other stories struck home with me. Could it be that creating those memorable characters - whether secondary or not - and creating a memorable setting be the fuel, the catalyst, for not only my own imagination but that of the people who read these books? Are they just as addicted as I am?

Regardless of my addiction (and any reader addiction), at some point a series has to end. Take the Tales series for example. This is a ten book series that I've already stretched a little by adding a 6.5 book, a sequel to Sunstroked because of reader (and my editor's) comments about Wilson North. When the series does end upon the release of Sean Antaeus's book Force Majeure, what the heck do I do then? This publisher has an option for all things Darkworld and I'm not sure that with book ten I'll be ready to leave the dragons and other creatures behind. There are a lot of layers to this world. And so, when Tales ends, a new series will begin, but it won't be anything like Tales. In fact, the new series will take readers back into the Darkworld's dragon history and begin anew with a dragon warrior who discovers she's a princess.

Don't ask me for details. Don't ask me for names or titles. I've got a long way to go to finish Tales. When it's done, or close to done, I'll reveal this new Darkworld series. I'm nurturing this idea and bringing it along slowly, incorporating the ideas from the original Dark Realms stories I wrote more than twenty years ago. But if you like fantasy, well, the new series may well be your thing. It will still have romance and explicit sex, but it's more of a traditional fantasy world with swords and sorcery.

You see? My addiction knows no bounds. When it comes to ideas, I'm like a dog with a bone, gnawing at it, chewing on it, unable to leave it alone until I've found my way to the sweet marrow. For me, it means a lot more work. For the readers, it means more books and more books in worlds they already know from prior books. I have a couple of stand alone stories to bring you hopefully in the next year, but other than those, my work is all series related. From a trilogy to a series that stretches to ten books, you'll find that my addiction is a key ingredient to the drive that keeps me turning out books for you.

I don't know about you, but to me, this addiction doesn't seem to be such a bad thing.

A Different End

Every author feels a sense of accomplishment when they type two words, "The End." Sometimes they experience relief and sometimes they're let down because the characters they've spent so much time with are now committed to paper and the story is over. Usually, they get over it quickly because the follow up to writing "The End" is edits and then release. There's no author that doesn't enjoy release day, the day we get to share this new work with all our readers.

But there's another kind of ending that some authors have to write and this one is a lot bigger and lot more emotional than the end of a book. The end of a series can have a serious emotional impact on an author and, in turn, on the readers. Recently, I read some of Kate Douglas' thoughts about the end of her popular series "Wolf Tales." Reading her emotional words made me start to think about the end of "Tales of the Darkworld."

On October 7, Sunstroked, Tales of the Darkworld Book 6 releases. This is the second of the M/M stories in this series. It is also a quietly intense romance, almost sweet despite the hot scenes and fiery sexual tension. To me, it also serves as notice that this series is drawing to a close.

Tales of the Darkworld started with two novellas about brothers and sisters. Two vampire siblings who own a cemetery in the Darkworld and two black dragon siblings, one who suffers from unrequited love and the other who feels cast out of her family. From Shifting Winds and Hot Water came the bigger picture of the Tales. Two families, three best friends, and a man with a mission to ensure that all his friends and relatives find their mates. Ten tales of love, lust, betrayal, pain, triumph, redemption, life, death, rebirth, sexuality, and friendship.

The series revolves around the machinations of three Machiavellian best friends, black dragon Sean Antaeus, vampire Marius Granville, and the man with a mission, magia Alfred Stone. Alfred's task is to ensure that his friends and family find their mates. However, the reason for Al's task isn't clear until Book 9 Rain of Tears, Al's own story. At that point, I'll close out the series with the story of the most dominant character across all of the books, black dragon Sean Antaeus.

The release of Sunstroked next month means I'm on the downslope of the series. Each book from this point on is less standalone. Each book will bring me closer to The End. And I'm not sure I'm ready to face that. Sure, I have other ideas and another series in my worlds planned. I know my publisher and editor is rubbing her hands together in anticipatory glee of receiving the next of my Five Dark Realms series. We've had long discussions and conversations about all my ideas for these worlds.

Even so, I feel the emotional pinch of ending the Tales and I know when it's time to write "The End" at the end of Force Majeure (Book 10 Sean's story) I will probably sit and have a long cry. It will be time for me to let go of the Antaeus dragons, the Granville vampires, the Stone magia, the McCallan werewolves, the wildling, and the demons. I'm sure it will be difficult for some of the series fans as well. Letting go of Holden and Garret, Colin and Eden, Emily and Vahid, Sean, Marius, Declan, Alfred, Careen, Corey, and all the others will be emotional at best for them too.

This series launched my career and it will be with profound sadness and a huge sense of accomplishment that I write the final book probably sometime late next year. Between now and then, as I write the last four books, I'll be working to showcase the series as a whole. With each of the last releases, I'll be talking about not just that story, but all of them. Because in the end, when I write "The End", I'll have given my readers one very big love story that encompasses more than just dragons, vampires, werewolves and demons but also includes the relationship between me... and them.

Happy reading!

Characters Come to Life

My DH (Rott) and I watched Inkheart the other night. At first, it didn't capture my attention much. Of course, that could be cause I was drooling over Brendan Fraser. Then the premise of the story began to get to me. The hero of the story (Fraser) is a Silvertongue. When he reads aloud, the characters in the books are brought into the real world. That means the good ones and the bad ones too. And the bad ones that came alive when he read have now imprisoned his wife and kidnapped him and his daughter. Some of the characters just want to go home (back into their book) and others would rather stay in this world because it's more advantageous for them. And in the end, the author of Inkheart gets his wish to be transported into the world he created.

What struck home for me as I watched this movie was that I think the best romance authors DO want to be transported to the worlds they create. Maybe not forever, but for the time it takes to tell the story and put forth the happy ending. Also, some of us want to bring our characters to life. We want them to feel so real that the reader almost expects to run into them on the street one day.

Rott and I laughed a little at what it would be like if the characters in my books were brought into this world by a Silvertongue. I tried to imagine what it would be like to go to work and discover I was at Granville Cemetery with Colin, Marius, and Elysia. I wondered how I would feel staring up at the uber tall Declan Antaeus, gazing at the sinfully handsome Holden Antaeus, or trying to match stares with the forceful Sean Antaeus. I figured I'd laugh my ass off with Max the Pixie Prince and his snarkastic side kick Alexa Harte. I knew that Brenna Thorne's familiar Rambo would look just like my own Rambo. I could sit and eat lobster at Jason Rockham's Rockport restaurant. I'd visit the BDSM club Insolence and drool over Aric Calderwood or go for a motorcyle ride down the coast with Zander and Voth. I know that I'd certainly never feel another lonely or boring moment if my characters lived in my world.

In a very real sense, writers - good writers - deliver this to readers with every release. My Darkworld is meant to suck you in and give you the sense that it's real, that you're there with the characters. I want to rip you from the world that gives you stress and deliver you to a place where the heroes are men you would want to be with and where you can identify with the heroines. I want to make you believe in dragons and vampires as much as love and happy endings. I want the characters to be real. I want to be an Antaeus and know that Sean will do his best to see that I find my mate and spend the rest of my days blissfully happy and sexually replete. And I strive to give that sense to everyone who picks up one of my books.

To say that Inkheart struck a chord within me isn't exactly correct. It wasn't the movie or the hotties (Paul Bettany shirt off with flaming sticks rotating in the air oh baybee) in it. It is what the story itself represents to readers and writers. Finding that story that takes you away from the mundane and serves you up the thing you want most whether it's love, adventure, sex, or happiness.

Now, here's a taste of my latest release. You tell me if Marius and Sair don't invite you to leave this world for theirs...

Tales of the Darkworld Book 5, Common Ground
Pink Petal Books

BUY LINK

BLURB:
Werewolf Sair McCallan escapes the confines of her brother’s pack with the help of a mated werewolf couple who believe in open sexuality and relationships. With Weylyn and Keir Randall, Sair experiences freedom in all things for the first time in her life. When she meets her mate, she’s shocked to find he’s a boring, broody vampire. Uptight Marius Granville has his staid and orderly life completely shattered by the arrival of his bloodmate, a beautiful werewolf who steals his heart and expects him to join in her kinky play with the Randalls. Marius is forced out of his hum drum existence and opens himself to new sexual experiences to please Sair. As her new mate strives to give her everything she needs, Sair battles internal demons that threaten their fragile new relationship.

Warning: This book includes sex on a washing machine, a make out session ala From Here to Eternity, sex between best friends (F/F), double penetration of a female (oh, baby!), and the best blowjob in the world (M/M) all within the confines of the hottest ménage a quatre the Darkworld has ever seen.

EXCERPT:

Sair shoved at him and Marius stumbled back a step. She dropped to the floor and slipped around him, trotting out of the bathroom. He followed her down the stairs and onto the deck at the back of the house. With a graceful leap, she jumped from the deck into the thick grass.

Marius came to an abrupt halt. With the silvery moonlight gilding her skin, naked Sair was a sight to behold. He sucked in a breath, his cock becoming even harder at the erotic tableau of his bloodmate stroking her hands over her moon dappled flesh.

“By the gods, Sair! You’ve no clue what you’re doing to me,” he complained as he stepped down into the grass.

Grinning wickedly, she backed away from him. “Yes, I do.” She laughed softly and darted around a tree as Marius took the shortest path toward her.

“You’re going to make me fuck you out here, aren’t you?”

She laughed again and skipped easily away from him when he tried to catch her arm. “What’s wrong with that? Are you allergic to grass?”

“No.” He stopped in a beam of moonlight, his head turning to watch her cavort naked in the dark, flitting between the trees. “But won’t the moon turn you furry?” he joked. “I don’t think I’d like to find myself coming inside a wolf.”

Momentarily startled, she stopped weaving in and out of the trees and turned to look at him. “You’d best be joking, my biter,” she said sternly. “You don’t see me assumin’ you can turn into a bat or become a pile of ash in the sun. Or, the gods forbid, sparkle.”

Her face scrunched up in an exaggerated grimace and Marius laughed. “I’m teasing about the moon. But you still haven’t shown me your wolf. Does she not wish to meet me?”

The grimace turned to a frown on her beautiful moon gilded features. “Do you ever go to the pet store and play with the puppies?” she asked in a cautious tone.

Shit, Marius thought. I’m caught.

Sair’s brows rose and he knew she’d heard his thoughts. “Yeeeeesss,” he replied, drawing out the single syllable of the word.

“This isn’t the same.”

Her sharply humorous statement hadn’t even faded from his ears before the outlines of her body began to shimmer. Marius had seen dragons shift before, their bodies becoming golden confetti in the air before solidifying. Sair’s shift didn’t take that long. The shimmer of her form took a split second and in the next moment, her human form disappeared, replaced by a grey wolf.

The wolf’s tail wagged and Marius smiled. Sair trotted over and thrust her cold, wet nose into his palm. He stroked her soft head and sank his fingers into her thick coat. Just like her human form, her wolf wasn’t big. Larger than a German Shepherd, but not nearly as large as other wolves he’d seen. She bumped against his legs, pushing him as her tail brushed his ass.

“You are all stuck on my ass tonight, aren’t you?” he teased.

You don’t like me admirin’ that firm masculine flesh?

“I didn’t say that. It’s just that other firm masculine flesh is crying out for attention.” With his free hand he stroked his cock.

You better hope no one sees you like this. Standin’ naked in the moonlight, pettin’ a wolf and strokin’ your dick. You’d get arrested and maybe sent to the psych ward.

Marius laughed and let go of his cock. “You’re right.”

When his fingers loosened on her fur, she dropped down to the ground and rolled to her back, displaying her belly. The fur there was lighter and he knew it would be softer. Kneeling beside her, her rubbed her belly with both hands, knowing that she had put herself in that vulnerable position to show him that she trusted him.

She whined as he stroked her and then shimmered. Instantly, her human form returned and Marius found himself stroking her naked belly, just above her mons. He grinned.

“Now, isn’t this convenient?” he murmured and slipped a hand between her thighs. He found her wet, her delicate folds slippery with arousal. She whimpered as he stroked her lightly.

Fitting his body between her thighs, he rubbed the tip of his erection in her wetness. She moaned, her hips surging toward him. With a hand on her belly, he held her down as she squirmed, trying to take his cock inside her.

“No, I don’t think so, my beautiful wolf.”

She gazed at him wide-eyed and moved urgently beneath his hands. “Yes. I want you. Please, Marius.”

“Oh, you’ll have me, just not like this.”

Deftly, with a swiftness and strength that gave away his preternatural nature, Marius flipped her onto her belly, then pulled her up on her hands and knees. Briefly, his palms caressed her ass cheeks. He pushed them apart and rubbed the head of his cock against the pink pucker of her anus. Her moans grew louder and she thrust her hips backward, silently begging him to take her in the ass.

“Not tonight, little wolf. But soon,” he whispered.

Thanks for coming by!




Author Website: lexvalentine.com
Personal Blog: sunlightsucks.com
Series Website: talesofthedarkworld.com
Twitter: lexvalentine
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