Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Whatever Might Fall Out of the Sky

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Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors.  It’s strange here in Oregon. We’re experience this phenomena called “winter”. There’s been ice and snow, ice and snow.  If you stand outside too long, your toes start to hurt.  So in other words, perfect writing weather.

I’m continuing to share from my current project, Death by Starlight, the sequel to Betwixt and Between.  This picks up right where we left off last week, with Ezekiel the dark elf returning to Seattle from a journey to his homeland.

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Zeke wasn’t used to giving a second thought to what anyone might think of his comings and goings, but he knew Ian would be worried. Although Zeke’s bond with his lover was strong, Ian’s powers weren’t steady enough yet to track Zeke through the dark realm. Even if they were, Zeke wouldn’t allow Ian to expose himself by keeping open a connection. The dark realm was still full of creatures who wanted nothing more than to destroy Zeke’s half-human, half-liosa lover. Zeke wasn’t too popular himself.

Zeke hunched his shoulders, shrugging off the cool, damp air. The world of humans was colder, brighter, more porous and open to whatever might fall out of the sky. For a moment Zeke was tempted to slip back into the hot, enclosed world he’d just emerged from, but that urge was quickly swept away by an overwhelming need to see Ian, to hold him, touch him, reignite their bond.

He’d dampened his connection with Ian in order to protect him, but now that Zeke was back, his body vibrated with desire. Suddenly the air wasn’t so cold and he opened his long leather jacket, letting the breeze ruffle his silk shirt.

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Here’s the scoop on book 1 in the Edge of Night series: Betwixt and Between

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The Blurb:

Obsessed with magical creatures since childhood, tabloid reporter Ian Evers never experiences satisfying proof that the magical realm actually exists until he falls into an entrapment spell set by a handsome but dangerous elf.  Barely escaping with his soul intact, Ian is able to undo the hex, but he can’t escape the very real infatuation he’s developed for the fierce elf.

Ezekiel Stormshadow is a svarta, a dark elf who serves the queen of the dark realm. The realm of darkness needs the power of light to survive, and while hunting the last few magical beings on earth, Ezekiel discovers Ian, a light elf who’s unaware of his true nature and ripe for the plucking.  Their brief encounter awakens a great hunger in Ezekiel, and he’s determined to feast on the light elf’s power and body before the queen intervenes and claims Ian for herself.

Driven apart by the ancient imbalance between the dark and light realms, an evil queen starved for power, and their fear of each other, Ian and Ezekiel are relentlessly drawn together even though their union might destroy them both.

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Available at these retailers:  Amazon   Kobo   Barnes & Noble

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight to ten sentences from a published work or perhaps their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or use the address: http://www.wewriwa.com

My Sexy Saturday ~ Blame the Equinox

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Hello and welcome to another round of My Sexy Saturday.   This week’s theme is A Sexy Paranormal Romance.  I didn’t have to look far for inspiration, as fantasy is my favorite genre to write and contemporary fantasy, or paranormal, adds the extra spice of weaving magic into everyday life.

My seven paragraphs are from a work in progress which I hope I’ll have finished by this summer.  The title is A Familiar Fury.  Ezra is a magical creature who’s taken human form in order to hide from those of his kind who hunt him.

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The heat of hundreds of bodies pressed together in the crowded bar irritated Ezra. Usually he took comfort in a warm flock of rutting humans, knowing he was well insulated by their radiating passions, often getting swept up in the mating and connecting with a pleasing companion for an hour or two.

Ezra enjoyed sex, but it was never fulfilling and he never experienced an orgasm, merely a welcome release. This was the price he paid for being free. Only his bonded human could bring him to ecstasy. That was how humans had captured his kind in the first place and Ezra often wondered at the sheer stupidity of it.

Yes, he enjoyed physical sensation as much as the next creature, but to give up not only your own freedom, but the freedom of your kind, for all eternity? No physical experience was worth that, although any of these humans would sell their kind down the river for it, Ezra suspected, the way they pawed and ground into him and licked his neck and fondled him through his clothes.

Tonight, he didn’t appreciate the attention. Stimulation would only lead to frustration and weakening thoughts of how it would be with his master.

Master. The very word made him cringe.

Another fruity drink appeared magically before him. A tall muscular Hawaiian offered it to him, a bribe for a friendly fuck. Ezra appreciated the cut of the man’s jib, but even this brawny, tanned human seemed to pale to insignificance before the image of Ezra’s . . . person. Lately, he’d seen Quinn Nerada in his dreams. The equinox was to blame. Ezra’s stars were unsettled due to his about-face on destiny. They wanted to bring him into alignment, make him bow down before fate. The whole universe conspired against him.

“Drink up,” the tall man said, “You look sad.”

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My assignment for next weekend will be to write the blog for this WIP!  Hope you enjoyed it.  Don’t forget to continue the hop to discover a wonderful array of sweet and steamy romance at My Sexy Saturday.

 

Howloween Hop

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Welcome to the Howloween Paranormal Romance blog hop, hosted by Hops With Heart (www.hopswithheart.blogspot.com).  Don’t forget to keep on hopping to discover amazing writers, enter to win prizes, and sign-up for the grand prize drawing of a $50 Amazon gift card!  Enter my own give-away by leaving a comment with your email below my post.  I’ll randomly draw a winner after the hop is over.

 

 

Release date October 28th!

Release date October 28th!

 

True love or wicked trickster? In my new novel, To Catch a Threeve, two men play a game of dark desire, neither knowing if the other offers danger or deliverance, love or death.  My Howloween post considers the allure of  falling in love with the enemy~

 

Dark Desire by Alexis Duran

“Love is giving someone the power to destroy you but trusting them not to.” Unknown.

Sex and violence. Love and hate. Trust and fear. Protagonist and antagonist. Hero and villain. When opposites collide, sparks fly. All we have to do is look at two of the most popular TV shows of all time, Game of Thrones and The Sopranos, to see how popular those conflict-generated sparks are. There’s no arguing that these elements are intricately entwined within the human soul and so naturally, they make their way into our stories. As a writer of erotica drawn to explore the dark side of desire, I’ve occasionally questioned the value of such stories.

As early as my pre-teens, I remember flinging my sister’s Harlequin romances and “bodice-rippers” against the wall in disgust when the so-called “heroes” forced themselves on simpering heroines who then promptly fell madly in love with their abusers. Rubbish! Crap! Horror!

Imagine my embarrassment when the editor of my new novella Touch of Salar informed me that one of my sex scenes was actually a rape, and that Loose Id prefers their romantic heroes not to be rapists. Apparently no does mean no. A few subtle shifts of language and voila, acceptability is attained. But how in the world did this come about? Why did I write my characters into such a situation? Why would a writer who should know better feel compelled to send her characters into the murky realms of sexual violence?

I decided it was time to take a look at the role of villainous lovers, submissive heroes and what happens when combatants fall in lust.

Dark Fiction takes us into the breach and over the cliff on our own writer’s journey through hell and damnation. Others on ShadowSpinners* have explored the function of horror, mayhem and death in fiction. They found value in the impulse to endanger lives, threaten comforts, kill off gods, upend reality and kick over rocks, and so too have I found rewards in the risky behavior so often present in dark erotica.

In fiction we can safely press beyond the confines of reason, rationality, common sense, political correctness. We can send our characters back into the haunted house or into the arms of Mr. Oh-So-Wrong. What if the protagonist falls in love with the antagonist? Now there is some delicious conflict.

When I first allowed myself to write about terribly flawed characters with a penchant for dangerous partners, I discovered that the challenges of loving a villain, of forcing my characters to the edge of reason, is every bit as compelling as threatening them with death, loss, and destruction in other areas of their lives. There’s no scene quite so intimate, so revealing, as a sexual encounter that challenges everything a character believes about themselves and the other person. They know it’s “wrong” and they do it anyway. Through this self-sacrifice and self-abandonment, perhaps the hero will learn the truth and come out stronger.

And what about the villain/lover? Is she a flawed hero? A wounded aspect of the protagonist? A dangerous other who threatens to bring out the worst in everyone they encounter? The Dark Man or Dark Woman does not have to be a malevolent outside force but a catalyst, a key to unlock passions buried within, a mirror of repressed longing. The dark lover might be the one person who can help the hero experience a sexual freedom they cannot achieve themselves.

And so we conscript our characters to wrestle with deeply buried desires that can’t be acknowledged by the rational mind. There are a hundred reasons not to give in to the dark lover, but reason has little to do with the decision to risk everything. Our characters can be stupid. Our characters can be scandalous.   Our characters can embrace vulnerability and overcome fear. Usually it is society that must be defied, along with constraints of fear, shame and propriety, but often it is one’s very own demons blocking the road to liberation and any author worth her salt knows the benefits of confronting those bastards.

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So do you love it or hate it when the hero falls for the bad guy?  Leave a comment and you’ll be automatically entered into a highly scientific Names in the Hat drawing for a $10 gift certificate to Loose Id!  

Don’t forget to enter  the grand prize drawing : here’s the link to the  Grand Prize Drawing Rafflecopter Dingus!

Continue the hop with more chances to win neat stuff at Hops With Heart!

 

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*This post was first published on ShadowSpinners.Wordpress.com

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Official Blurb for To Catch a Threeve ~ Release date October 28th ~

Axel Blackwood catches a thief and is astounded to see that he closely resembles Liam Alloway, the love he lost seven years ago in an attack by the evil woodland folk known as threeves. Axel suspects he’s fallen prey to dark magic, but can’t help becoming infatuated with his prisoner. He’s overwhelmed with the hope that he can at last bring his lost lover home, despite everything that warns him it’s all a diabolical trick.

Bryn Darrow, the half-threeve, half human orphan sent to trick Axel and rob him of much more than a simple gem finds himself equally as fascinated with his handsome human captor and the lure of someplace to call home, but he knows deep down that the constable is in love with a dangerous illusion. When he’s commanded by the threeves to murder Axel and steal a witch’s powerful grimoire, he’s forced to decide between the only family he’s ever known and the one person who might rescue him from a life of isolation and pain.

Will Axel and Bryn be forced into a deadly confrontation before they can discover the truth?