I put a spell on you...

If Valentine's Day isn't the time for magic in romance, then what time is?

The other day I was tooling around Palm Springs, doing my usual Saturday stuff - banking, grocery shopping, eating lunch with friends. As I was looking for something good to listen to music-wise, I heard a bit of that moldy oldy I Put a Spell on You. Wow, the singer really sold that song. It got me to thinking about my newest release Freeing the Beast, book one of my Taming the Beast series.

Becca definitely puts a spell on Eric in this fun, flirty, erotic and oh-so-romantic tale.

I'll give you a meal scene from it in a sec. Here's the blurb first:

Blurb:

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Magic is Becca Salt’s business, but it ain’t happening in her bedroom. The half-witch proprietress of From Crud to Stud performs miracle makeovers for paranormal creatures. Once she’s done with them, they’re out the door hunting for hot babes, not hanging around for a too-curvy, plain Jane like her.

Her newest client is hot, hung, mouthwatering perfection. What could she possibly improve upon?

Eric Diletto. Descendant of Cupid, bred for courtship, courtesy, and all that other gentlemanly junk. What has it gotten him? Dumped time and again for bad boys. He needs Becca’s help for an entirely different reason—regression therapy to release his inner beast. Grrrr.

Two potions later, they’re crawling all over each other. Becca aches for a man who loves her as she is, not because he’s under the influence. But Eric isn’t as impaired as she thinks. And he intends to take Becca here, there, and everywhere—anything to convince her his desire isn’t just the potions talking.

Product Warnings

A witchdoctor’s nightmare. Contains potions with weird side effects, a sorceress with limited magical skills and a yearning heart, plus a minor god who wants to get down and dirty. Bad, bad boy!

Excerpt (dinner scene):

He noticed again how smooth her skin was, how flawless, not even a mole. No wrinkles either. “How old are you exactly?”

Becca choked on her wine and put her hand up as she coughed. “I’m okay,” she rasped, then frowned. “Twenty-seven. You?”

“Thirty-two. Mortal years?”

“Me or you?”

Smiling, he pointed at her.

“You do know that asking a woman her age or her weight makes you a jerk.”

“I’m many things,” he murmured, “but definitely not a jerk. I think your weight is just fine. I’ve already told you, most women are too skinny.”

Becca’s throat bobbed with her swallow. She got that faraway look again. One filled with sin that he really enjoyed. “Ah, mortal. That is, I’m twenty-seven in mortal years.”

“Is that why you went to a regular school?”

Becca fingered the stem of her glass and sighed. “Dad insisted upon it. He said it’d be a great experience.”

“Well yeah, if you’re a cheerleader or football captain.”

She nodded knowingly.

“My parents insisted the same with me. We both know how that turned out.” Eric threw back his head and opened his mouth as if someone had punched him out.

She laughed.

He grinned then asked, “Did you pretend things were okay at school? That you enjoyed it?”

“What other choice was there? I’d do anything not to hurt my dad.”

“Just like your mom always has?”

“Oh yeah.” She glowed. “They’re so much in love it’s nauseating.”

Eric smiled.

“Bread and olive oil,” Desi growled, putting the basket and bottles in front of them. “Enjoy.”

“You’re sure you want that?” Eric asked.

Desi clenched his jaw. “My wife says you should, so you should. Okay?”

“Send her my everlasting gratitude.”

“He gives you trouble,” Desi said to Becca, “you let me know. I’ll take care of him.”

“Don’t worry,” Eric said, his attention on her, nowhere else. “She has Zoe to do that.”

Becca lowered her face to hide her smile.

“Zoe?” Uncle Desi asked.

“Her pit bull,” Eric lied. “Little thing but mean.”

Becca’s shoulders and words shook with her laughter, “Careful. She has unusually good hearing.”

Desi frowned. “What are you two talking about? Oh hell.” He turned at his wife tapping his shoulder again. “I’m not bothering them.”

“Then come and help us, like you’re supposed to,” she said.

Grumbling, he left.

“Pit bull?” Becca asked.

Eric lifted one shoulder. “I couldn’t tell him she’s a demon, could I? She is, right? I mean with the sulfur smell, smoking hair and all.” He shuddered. “She couldn’t possibly think that’s attractive to men.”

“It is to other demons. However, Zoe’s doing her best to convert to the mortal way of doing things.”

Eric poured the oil and tore off a piece of bread. “How’s that coming along?”

“She hasn’t possessed or pulverized anyone for months.”

“Good for her.” With the bread lightly soaked in the oil, Eric offered it to Becca. To his delight, she scooted her chair closer, allowing him to slip the bite into her mouth. A dribble of oil slipped over her bottom lip. Eric captured it with his finger and licked it off.

Becca’s chews slowed then stopped. “This is really good.”

He sensed she wasn’t talking about the bread, but the bewitching time they were having.

“It gets even better,” he promised, not meaning the food at all. Rather, the way they were going to eat.

Once Desi delivered their appetizer and made himself scarce, Eric planned to feed Becca.

She must have had the same thought about him because she slipped a wedge of Camembert cheese and a marinated artichoke heart between his lips. Eric licked the deliciously spiced marinade from her fingers. Becca blushed and smiled.

He just about died from the happiest feeling he could remember.

They fed each other the pasta e fagioli, laughing as they both recalled the cheesy pasta artwork they’d created for their parents as kids.

“I did one of my dad’s trucks,” Becca said. “He gushed like mad. Said it was the best drawing of a piggybank he’d ever seen. I wouldn’t speak to him for days.”

Eric grinned. “I did Cupid. On steroids. Arrows flying everywhere, taking the bad fuckers down. My mother cried and kept suggesting therapy.”

Becca’s face turned red from her laughter.

They enjoyed their medium rare steaks next, the meat seared and seasoned to perfection. Eric pretended to accept the slice Becca held out to him, then nibbled on her thumb instead, making her giggle. He slipped a bit of his steak into her mouth, captivated by her tongue capturing its juices before they slipped past her lips.

At the end of their meal, Desi insisted they try his tiramisu, which he promised would be the best Becca had ever tasted, decadently layered and just brimming with espresso.

“So you don’t fall asleep while you’re driving because you had so much wine,” he said.

Eric hadn’t even finished the little Desi had given him. Nor had Becca enjoyed all of hers. They’d forgotten the booze, not needing it, clicking during their meal as though they’d been dating for years.

Desi handed Becca a fork. “You can share your dessert with my nephew. If that’s okay with you,” he said to Eric, sounding as if he couldn’t care less.

Eric’s attention slipped from Becca’s mouth to her breasts, the hard tips of her nipples pressing against the stretchy fabric, calling to the beast within him. “I’m full,” he said. “You?”

She nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll wrap it up,” Desi said. “You can take it with you.”

Eric didn’t want to wait that long. “Another time. You have my AmEx number.” He helped Becca from her chair.

Desi scowled. “You’re leaving already?”

To Eric it seemed they’d been here most of his life, and yet, not that long at all.

“We have plans,” Becca said.

Eric hoped hers were as good as the ones he was imagining.

Buy link: https://www.samhainpublishing.com/book/5354/freeing-the-beast

Please help support my Thunderclap campaign for Freeing the Beast:

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Available for pre-order Feb 8 - ready to read March 10

About Me:

I’m an award-winning, bestselling novelist in erotic, paranormal, contemporary and historical romance for Samhain Publishing, Ellora’s Cave, Siren Publishing, Booktrope, and Kensington. Yay! Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, Romantic Times and numerous online sites have praised my work, and trust me, I’m forever grateful for that. I’ve had my books reach finals in the EPIC competition, one title was named Book of the Year at a review site, and others have won awards in RWA-sponsored contests. I’m actually featured in the 2012 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. Talk about feeling like a freaking star. Before my writing career, I was the editor of an award–winning Midwestern newspaper and worked in Story Direction for a Hollywood production company. Outside of being an admitted and unrepentant chocoholic, I’ve flown a single-engine plane (scary stuff), rewired an old house using an electricity for dummies book, and have been known to moan like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally whenever I’m eating anything Mexican or Italian. Yeah, I like to eat (burp).

You can check me out here – yes, I am everywhere! 

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Gods and Goddesses of Love and Lust Around the World

     Since my blog post is close to Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d dig up some interesting tidbits about the love and lust gods and goddesses of old.

Familiar & Beautiful

     We all know of Eros and Cupid, Aphrodite and Venus… but let’s also take a peek into the darker realm and at some lesser known deities.

The Sacred and Profane

     The Albanian love goddess and queen of beauty was Prende.

     In Armenia, Astghik was the love and fertility goddess.

     Celtic goddesses of love, beauty and fertility were Aine and Branwen. Cernunnos was the horned god of virility and sexuality, while Angus was the god of young love. The goddess Maeve needed thirty men daily to satisfy her sexual hunger. Perhaps she was the first nymphomaniac.

     The Aztecs had a very unusual set-up. Xochiquetzal was the goddess of female sexual power and fertility. Excess and desire are her adjectives. The fertility god, Xochipilli, was her twin brother. He was the patron of male prostitutes and homosexuals. Tlazolteotl was the goddess of vice, lust, carnality, deviant behavior and adulterers. It was said she filled you with wicked desires, then ‘ate’ them for you, offering purification. Her ‘area’ was filth, vice, disease, lechery and unlawful love. She was blamed for causing sexually transmitted diseases. Forgiveness was guaranteed as long as you told her everything. She was the goddess of steam-baths, a primary manner of purification back in the day.

     In Mesopotamia, the goddess Astarte was a beauty, revered throughout the ancient world. Like Venus, she was the goddess of love, sexuality, fertility and war. Qetesh was also a Mesopotamian goddess, associated with sexual pleasure and sacred ecstasy. Inanna was a goddess of sexuality, fertility and war.

     In Chinese mythology, Yue-Lao was a god who used invisible red string to bind lovers together. Tu Er Shen was the patron of homosexual love.

     In ancient Greece, lesser known love gods are Pothos, the god of sexual yearning and desire, and Anteros, the god of unrequited love.

     In ancient India, Hindu mythology gave us Rati, the goddess of passion and lust. She is associated with arousal and sexual delight, and was the companion and lover of Kama, the god of love.

     Freyja is the goddess of sexuality and creativity in the Germanic and Northern lands. She wore a magical amber necklace forged by dwarves, and was said to have had sexual relations with each of them. Her brother, Freyr, was the phallic god who bestowed pleasure upon mortals. 

     A lesser known Roman goddess was Suadela. She was the goddess of persuasion in matters of seduction and romance.

     Let’s close with an unusual goddess and god:

     Quandisa, a goddess of Northern Morocco, was known to ignite lust that hooked young men and then drove them to insanity.

     Kurupi, from the Guarani people in central South America, had a penis so long it wound around his waist several times. It extended through doors and windows to impregnate women as they slept. He was often blamed by adulterous women who got pregnant. In modern culture, Kurupi is used to warn young virgins to stay that way.

     Do you have a favorite god or goddess to share with us?

     Happy Valentine’s Day~make it special!

Cupid Revealed ~ Rose Anderson

Yes, I'm teaching myself Photoshop. Funny, those thought bubbles were blank when I started...

:)







With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought I’d give a nod to that rascally cherub – Cupid.

Depending on which mythology you ascribe to, this pudgy little deity is the immortal son of Venus (Aphrodite) and Mars (Ares) – an allegorical blending of love and war. Because he was the uniting power of love and therefore the bringer of order and harmony to the universe, some mythic tales make him a fundamental contributor in the formation of the world. A little known detail that gets overlooked as the lover’s holiday approaches: Cupid carries two arrows in his quiver – one of love and another of hate.

To the Orphic and Greek philosophers, he was the son of Nyx the Night and Boreas the North Wind – the first complete manifestation of Divinity. In other depictions, Cupid is considered a primordial god – an old one who came before Zeus and even before Zeus’ grandparents Gaia and Uranus. From the very beginning, even before the fabric of the universe was woven, Cupid personified love.

As Eros, his Roman counterpart, he was known far and wide as the god of passionate love. Fertility cults, and other things, rose in his honor. Some tales even have him with multiple heads, four eyes and various animal attributes. In other mythic versions, Cupid is blindfolded, and only the truest hearts will draw his blindly shot arrows. I had no idea Cupid was such a multifaceted little amorino.

When I met the love of my life, it was literally love at first sight for us both. I wasn’t looking, he wasn’t looking. It was fate. The arrow struck us both and it was totally unexpected. I write that love in my romances. I can see Cupid in my mind’s eye… his arrow notched on his bow. He’s tucked behind a tree or rock, poised to let his charmed arrow fly at just the right moment. When it hits, it’s totally unanticipated. It’s fate. Sometimes love is like that. Sometimes love waits in unexpected places. Has Cupid ever stuck an arrow in you? Please share in comments.

In honor of Cupid and his day, I’ve collected a few snippets from three of my favorite storylines. To me, they show the moment the arrow hits. I hope you enjoy.

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Enchanted Skye
Inspired by an actual family legend and mythology. Here, an ancient charm captures a Selkie's heart.

He watched with mild interest from the rocks, but when Angus and the reverend walked back to the house, his interest got the better of him. He scooted a little closer and lifted his head to get a better view. He didn’t recognize this young woman on the land but watched her kneel before the pool. Her dark sable hair covered her face as she keened and for some reason he felt compelled to go to her side. He slid into the water and the closer he drew, the stranger he felt. Only feet from her now, he blinked the saltwater from his eyes and watched her. The wind whipped at her hair and the sea mist clung to her clothing as she hugged an urn tightly to her chest. He knew what he was seeing then. They’d scattered ashes on the water. He considered her. Who was this woman to Angus MacLeod?

The woman must have felt his presence for she looked up from her grief. Meeting his eyes, she looked startled to see him so close. She rose slowly and backed away.

His heart ached to watch her go and he found the feeling both perplexing and extraordinary. Then and there, he knew he had to meet her. Taking a breath, he plunged under the water and swam to the far side of the cliff where the sea cave sat undetected. On dry land now, inside the dark chamber, he peeled away his waterskin. And where flippers were a moment before, a man’s arms and legs appeared. Shaking out his spotted skin with a snap, he rolled it into a tight bundle and headed toward the passage.

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The Witchy Wolf and the Wendigo
Inspired by the very real legend of the Wisconsin Wolfman. 


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Ash rolled side to side, his tail wagging and teeth bared. Livie laughed, and it made him pause. He’d heard her laugh when she talked with Jenni, but he hadn’t heard her laugh like this, and never for him alone. The sound was merry and genuine and it made him happy. To his surprise, he wanted more. He craved her touch. He craved her. He nuzzled his nose under her hand. Touch me Livie.

She asked. “How did you heal so quickly? This just doesn’t make sense.”

Ash knew she spoke more to herself than to him but listening to her eased him. Heal? Yes, that’s what’s was happening. He felt the flutter in his chest and knew it for what it was. His heart was healing. He’d loved his wife with his heart’s every beat. He’d loved their precious child with his every breath. He always would. But because of this gentle, caring woman, he felt his shriveled heart expand for the first time since that monster stole his family from him. After a while her hand stopped its gentle caress and Ash knew she had fallen asleep. Listening to Livie’s regular breathing, he crawled up beside her and laid his heavy head across her chest. He closed his eyes and let her heartbeat lull him.

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Loving Leonardo
Inspired by today's news headlines. An unusual, polyamorous, Victorian love story, with a touch of reader-interactive art history.

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I sat Ellie and pulled a chair for Mrs. Ormont as she waited for her husband. A moment later, Colonel Ormont brought the historian to our table and made introductions. Luca Franco, late of Florence, was a Professor of Antiquities returning from London. I found the Italian quite the attractive fellow, impeccably dressed as he was. When in the presence of true beauty, my mind often imagines the person unclothed as the artists of the ages might have seen him. Sitting at my table was a statue carved in marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; an artist known for his remarkable ability to capture the essence of a narrative moment. And I found Luca Franco to be exactly that — a moment indelibly captured in time — a moment of meeting the mind could revisit in its entirety.

From every angle, he was beautifully made: black-haired, of medium build, and physically fit. He possessed a warm hue to his skin, his lineage no doubt stamped centuries past by the darker Moors or Turks. In startling contrast, and quite handsomely framed by black lashes, he had striking eyes the color one might see in a shadow falling across snow — not quite sky blue nor exactly steel gray, but a blending of the two in gradated rings.

I rose to shake his hand and felt the unmistakable current of compatibility. If this man weren’t forward in his mutual attraction, it was there nonetheless. I watched him bow over the ladies’ hands and found it curious that he lingered over Ellie’s fingers a tad longer. It made me smile. I had the distinct impression I was in the presence of a fellow dual-nature like myself.

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About Rose
Rose is multi-published, award-winning author and dilettante who loves great conversation and discovering interesting things to weave into stories. She lives with her family and small menagerie amid oak groves and prairie in the rolling glacial hills of the upper Midwest. 

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Love Waits in Unexpected Places - Scorching Samplings of Unusual Love Stories https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/333971
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