There’s no way I belong in her universe – #OppositesAttract #BDSMRomance #MFRWHooks

Greetings! It’s Wednesday again (so soon!) which means it’s time for another MFRW Book Hooks blog hop. I’ve selected a never-before-shared excerpt from what might well be my most romantic book, The Gazillionaire and the Virgin. (One of my sexiest, too...)

Hope you enjoy it.

Blurb

Trust can’t be bought—it has to be earned.

She’s the billionaire. He’s the virgin. Still, he knows how to make her melt. One word from Theo, one touch, and Rachel surrenders to bliss. It seems that love and complementary desire may harmonize their differing values, until Rachel’s unwitting violation of Theo’s trust tears them apart.

The Hook (Theo)

I pull on a tee shirt and a pair of gym shorts and head for the kitchen. I know I’ve got some chicken breasts in the freezer. With some couscous and a salad, they’ll make a decent supper. Probably not up to Rachel’s standards, but she’ll just have to make allowances.

The damp, rumpled quilt on the dining room table and the ropes scattered over the floor give me a slightly queasy sense of satisfaction. I can hardly believe it happened, but here’s the evidence. I—no, we—actually did it. Can’t tell Dr. Hopkins about this, of course. Although he’s pretty laid back, I suspect there may be limits to his tolerance. No, this will have to be our secret—mine and Rachel’s. My smile’s so broad my cheeks hurt as I coil up the lengths of cord and stash them in a drawer. The emergency release process shortened them, but they still might be useful in the future.

The future. I ponder the possibilities as I putter around the kitchen, putting the chicken into the microwave to thaw, whisking together olive oil, lemon juice, basil and tarragon for the marinade, tearing romaine leaves and slicing vine-ripened tomatoes. Did Rachel and I have a future? Was there any way I could fit into her high-flying, super-charged, billionaire executive life?

We connect sexually. I have no doubts about that, not anymore. Despite her position, or maybe even because of it, she has a natural desire to submit, a desire that I can apparently satisfy. And make no mistake, I’m happy to oblige—to push her to her limits, and beyond. I’ve never felt the kind of power and certainty I felt this afternoon. And that was just the beginning. There are so many things I want to do to her—with her. I’m getting hard again as a parade of X-rated images runs through my mind.

But sex is not enough. Entertaining as it might be to fantasize about a life with Rachel as my 24/7 slave, I know that’s ridiculous. We come from different worlds. We have different values. Rachel measures everything in dollars and cents.

That’s not fair. I arrange the chicken in a baking dish, dump in the marinade, sprinkle chopped garlic over the top, and leave it to sit for ten minutes. From what I’ve seen so far, she also values creativity, innovation and hard work, just like I do. She’s super-smart, energetic, funny. And brave. It took guts for her to take me to Home Depot. I’m sure she realized I might have had a total melt-down. Hey, I almost did.

She’s a lot braver than I am. Would I ever have admitted my interest in kink if she hadn’t found my stash?

Vinegar, oil and Grey Poupon make a quick, tasty salad dressing. Too early to pour it over the greens, though. I put the chicken in the oven, setting the timer for half an hour.

Now the cat’s out of the bag. And she didn’t run away screaming—quite the contrary! It’s pretty likely she’s going to want more.

So now what? She lives almost an hour away, even if there’s no traffic. She runs a billion dollar company. She’s glamorous and self-confident, with a taste for luxury. And me? I’m just a nerdy computer scientist with a touch of Asperger’s and a penchant for bondage. People scare me. Change terrifies me. There’s no way I belong in her universe.

Even if she wants you there? A startling notion. Dr. Rachel Zelinsky always gets what she wants.

 

Find all the buy links at: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/gazillionairevirginbook.html

Be sure to visit the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

---

Things that inspire me – #HistoricalFiction #Ballet #Giveaway

By MG da Mota (Guest Blogger)

Inspiration comes from very different things and sometimes from quite unexpected sources. For example, years ago when I visited on holiday the Portuguese Islands of the Azores, I saw a beautiful house, a little derelict, but which I could see it had once been glorious. It stood in the middle of a garden and small park with tall, ancient trees. I remember looking at it and asking my husband to take a picture because I’d need it for a novel. The impact of the house and the islands with their rugged, in places wild, beauty was so strong I instantly felt a story and its characters populating my head. I tend to have a small notebook in my handbag or rucksack and I took it out and jotted down furiously the ideas that seemed to explode inside my brain. After returning home, I eventually wrote a novel entitled The Dark Side of Dawn. 

Music, great opera or ballet also inspire me. I wrote a novel based on grand opera and a type of voice I particularly like (a tenor’s voice) with an Italian title as a homage to opera, Canto di Tenore. This novel is currently out of print but I will be revising it and republishing it at some stage. Of course the book in this tour, Arabesque¸ was inspired by ballet and ballet dancers. 

I can also get inspiration from dark events. For example in my trilogy The Triptych one of the characters is imprisoned for a few years in a basement by a man and forced to have his child. I heard a similar story in the news and it didn’t let go of me until I began writing the novel. Of course for this trilogy the other inspirations were the biography of the intriguing, unconventional life of Guilhermina Suggia—a Portuguese cellist from the first half of the 20^th century—and the beauty of the instruments made by Antonio Stradivari, particularly his cellos. People are aware of the violins but know little or next to nothing about the cellos.

A poem can also be the inspiration for a novel and I’ve had a couple of cases when that happened, as for example my novel Unbowed, inspired by the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley.

Historical periods or events are often a source of inspiration like East Germany before the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Arabesque and Portugal during the years of WWII in my novel Stars Maintain Their Glow.

I hope to have shown how many different things can inspire me to write a novel. The point is that a writer never knows (or at least I don’t) where inspiration will come from. Often when I least expect it an idea just turns up in my head. It is probably different for other people but this is how it is for me personally.

Blurb

A woman living alone in a coastal Sussex town in 1998 plants a copper beech sapling at 3 a.m. on a dark, cold night. Why? 

A ballet dancer in 1960s East Germany is oppressed, longs for escaping with his little daughter but not his wife. Why? Will he make it?

In 2022 Karsten von Stein, widower and principal of the Royal Ballet, with two young children, meets Ivone Benjamim, a Portuguese, newly-arrived principal dancer. They discover a magical chemistry when dancing and soon it transfers to their private lives.

Against the background of ballet and its dancers, a woman called Grace tells her story from a rehab centre. Obsessive, delusional she begins believing Ivone robbed her of the man of her dreams—Karsten. And then a skeleton is found in a garden...What connects all these people and their stories?

You’ll be the audience facing the stage of this balletic novel.

Excerpt

Prologue

Southeast England, late November 1998

She looks out of the window. Dark night. Black but clear. Twinkling dots punctuate the raven velvet of the sky. Stars shimmer cold and icy. Their light slightly wavering. She knows it is the Earth’s atmosphere. But that’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter a jot. Not at this moment anyway.

Darkness is the important thing. No moon. New moon. Why do people refer to a new moon when there is no moon or when one cannot see the moon from our revolving, ever turning blue dot? The moon is still up there in the sky. It’s just that at some point during its orbit its farther side from us is facing the sun. So the side facing us is dark and we can’t see it. As simple as that.

Tonight is new moon. An ideal night. She opens the window quietly and glances at the houses to her right first, then to her left. Like hers they are all immersed in silent darkness. People sleep. She looks at the luminous hands of her alarm clock on the side table. The shorter hand points at the number three, or close to it, and the long hand at somewhere between ten and fifteen. Probably around 3:12 in the morning. Her house stands almost but not quite alone on top of the hill. To her right, looking from her bedroom window that faces the back garden, there are two houses. The one closest to hers is empty.

About the Author

M G da Mota is Margarida Mota-Bull’s pen name for fiction. She is a Portuguese-British novelist with a love for classical music, ballet and opera. Under her real name she also writes reviews of live concerts, CDs, DVDs and books for two classical music magazines on the web: MusicWeb International and Seen and Heard International. She is a member of the UK Society of Authors, speaks four languages and lives in Sussex with her husband. Her website, called flowingprose.com, contains photos and information.

Website: https://www.flowingprose.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/m.g.da.mota

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarida-mota-bull/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mgdamota/

One randomly chosen winner will win a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Enter via the Rafflecopter below.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join us for Charity Saturday, 27 July 2025 #CharitySundaySignup #Altruism #Marketing

Image by Valeria from Pixabay

Since 2017, I’ve been devoting the last Sunday in each month to a post which features some worthy cause. Often, other bloggers join me in this effort, turning the event into a blog hop. This month’s Charity Sunday blog hop will take place this coming Sunday, the 27^th of July.

Charity Sunday is a meme designed to give authors and bloggers a chance to give back to the world, as well as to attract new readers.

How does it work? Each participant selects a favorite charity. Before the date, you should prepare a blog post that: 1) talks about the charity and why you support it; 2) provides a link to the charity; 3) includes an excerpt from one of your books; 4) includes the code to show links to other participating blogs.

It’s fun if you can make the excerpt relate somehow to your chosen charity, but this isn’t required.

For every comment left on your post, you commit to giving some amount to the relevant charity. The specific charity and the amount to donate are up to you. You can set an upper limit to your donation if you want.

If you’d like to participate in the next Charity Sunday on July 27^th, sign up using the Linky List below. Please be sure that the link you enter will lead directly to your Charity Sunday post, not just to the home page of your blog.

Please download the new Charity Sunday banner for 2025!

https://www.lisabetsarai.com/2025CharitySundayBanner.jpg

For an example post, check out this link from my last Charity Sunday:

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2025/06/charity-sunday-pushing-back-lgbtq.html

---

Mastering Free Fall – #AmWriting #AuthorCraft #Characterization

Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay

My current work in progress is driving me crazy.

I am about halfway through a sci-fi lesbian romance novella, tentatively entitled Free Fall. I started it early in April, and I’m sorry to say that it’s not going smoothly. Do you know the phrase “blood from a stone”? That’s what this feels like.

In past blog posts, I’ve waxed eloquent about the joy of being in the creative flow, when the words and emotions pour onto the page without conscious effort. This is just the opposite. I have a general idea of the plot arc and I’m gradually refining my understanding of my characters. But getting the words—the right words—down on the figurative paper is turning out to be devilishly hard.

The genre is part of the problem. Science fiction poses unique challenges. People read scifi to discover new and original visions of the future. On the other hand, the future always emerges from the past. Thus, your fictional world must be simultaneously surprising and plausible. As in historical fiction, the author needs a clear grounding in her chosen period (about ten years from the present, in my current WIP), but no matter how much research you do, you can only guess how technology and society will change. Then, after you’ve decided the shape of the world you’re building, you must figure out how to describe it in order to make the unfamiliar comprehensible.

Another issue I’m facing, though, is common to all genres. I am struggling to give each of my protagonists a distinctive voice. In their comments on my early chapters, which alternate point of view between my heroines Mariel and Rain, my critique group told me they were having difficulty telling the women apart. The two have very different backgrounds and personalities; the perspectives of each chapter should have been obvious. Re-reading the early chapters, however, I realized that my crit partners were right.

I’ve gone back to the beginning and established what I hope are clearly recognizable patterns of speech and thought for each of them. Rain is a streetwise, urban creature. She’s a bit brash, uses slang and isn’t afraid of profanity. Mariel comes from the rural MidWest. She has led a more sheltered life and comes across as shy and more refined, maybe even prudish.

As I’ve been working on this problem, I have come to understand that I am its source. As is probably true of most authors, I put myself in the head of the POV character when I am writing her scenes. If I am not careful, both of them will end up sounding like me!

For instance, I’ve recently noticed that I have a tendency to use low frequency words that would not be natural to either Rain or Mariel, neither of whom have attended college. I am trying to stay alert for this sort of inappropriate vocabulary, swapping my first word choice for something more common.

If I want each of my characters to have her own authentic voice, I need to remain vigilant. My early books featured characters with whom I had a lot in common. There was a lot of overlap between their voices and mine. Now, though, I need to remain conscious of the differences between me and my fictional creatures.

It’s a bit exhausting. Indeed, most of the time writing is hard work—except for those rare moments of magic when inspiration takes over.

His presence is like a drug … #MFRWHooks #RivalsToLovers #BDSMRomance #MulticulturalRomance

For today’s MFRW Book Hooks, I have a bit from my BDSM erotic romance The Heart of the Deal. Like many of my novels, it doesn’t fit neatly into a specific sub-genre and it breaks some of the “rules” of romance. For one thing, though the primary pairing is MF, there’s a lesbian subplot involving some secondary characters. In addition, both the male and female protagonists have sexual interactions with other people as they try to work out the prickly aspects of their own relationship.

I didn’t know about tropes when I wrote this book. (The first edition was released in 2003!) Now I realize that it’s a classic rivals-to-lovers story. And the main characters do eventually find their way to a happy ending!

Blurb

All's fair in lust and business

Ruby Maxwell Chen, lovely and ruthless CEO of a huge British business empire, has no qualms about playing dirty – very dirty. She’s happy to use sex to help her close a deal, especially when she’s the one on top. Ruby loves the game, and she expects to win. When she encounters the oddly charismatic American entrepreneur Rick Martell, though, she wonders if she hasn't met her match.

The Hook

He saunters over to the bookcase, pulls out one of the sailing books, and leafs through it. His movements are fluid and full of energy. I burn, wanting to reach for him, to feel those wiry arms around me, to feel that energy surge through me.

“We’re at a critical phase in our design work,” he says finally. “I have little time for anything else. For instance, I never get a chance to sail anymore.”

“You sail?” I ask, and cringe inwardly at the inanity of this response. Of course I knew about that, and his other hobbies, from his dossier as well as his bookshelves. Then I forgive myself. At the moment, it takes all my will to remain coherent.

“Oh yes!” His face floods with joy. He looks younger. “I’ve got a thirty-six foot Eastern Star sailing yacht, sloop-rigged, down in Marina del Rey. She’s a sweet craft, let me tell you. But I haven’t had her out for more than six months.”

“That’s a pity,” I murmur, desperately trying to hold up my end of the conversation.

“Do you enjoy sailing?” Rick asks suddenly. “I’d expect that you’d love it. The speed bubbling through your blood like champagne. The wind tearing at your clothes. Maybe you’re just the excuse I need. If you’re interested, we could take her out on Saturday and make a run over to Catalina Island.”

“I don’t know if I’ll still be here on Saturday.”

“Oh?” He shoots a sharp look in my direction. “You expect to have Baktar in your pocket by then?”

“Perhaps. In any case, I have meetings in Geneva in the middle of next week that I have to prepare for. You’re not my only business, you know. In fact, you’re just a minor distraction.”

I sound testy and annoyed. Rick laughs. “Lighten up, Ruby. You’re much less attractive when you’re bitchy.” A blush races across my cheeks. There’s nothing I can say.

“Anyway, we can see about the sailing trip. The reason I’m came down was to ask if you wanted to come with me to Burbank, to my plant, this afternoon. I thought that you might find it interesting to see our operation.”

I’m both terrified and drawn to the notion: sitting beside him in the car, spending the afternoon together. “I had suggested to Margaret that she and I go walking on the beach this afternoon.” My voice has the tiniest quaver at the mention of my assistant.

Rick’s grin grows broader. “I’m sure that Margaret can amuse herself while we’re gone. Besides, we’ll probably be back well before sundown. You can take your walk then.”

I am tempted to take him up on his offer. I am curious about his company, naturally. After all, he might become a client if I succeed in buying the fab. And though it is agony to be in his presence, it’s a rather pleasant agony.

“If I go with you, do you promise not to try any of your tricks?”

He looks at me with well-feigned innocence. “Tricks? What do you mean?”

“You know very well what I mean. This is a business trip and you are a business associate. That’s all. That’s the way I want it.”

He searches my face, thoughtfully. “Is that really what you want, Ruby? Well, whatever you say. But if I make this promise, you have to promise something in return.”

My heart is pounding. What will he ask of me? “Yes, what is that?”

“Promise me you’ll stop being so suspicious. That you’ll trust me, or at least give me the benefit of the doubt.”

I laugh at his earnestness. “I’ll give it a try. But you’ll have to prove yourself worthy of my trust.”

“It’s a deal,” he says with a smile. “Let’s shake on it.” When his palm presses mine, the flames rise again. My vision blurs, my head swims. His presence is like a drug. I wonder, for the millionth time, what are the real terms of my bargain with Rick Martell.

Buy Links (Ebook)

Kinky Literature

https://www.kinkyliterature.com/book/6188-the-heart-of-the-deal-business-bondage-discipline-and-desire/

Amazon US

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SJY8PTC

Amazon UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SJY8PTC

Smashwords

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/942426

Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-heart-of-the-deal-lisabet-sarai/1131920310?ean=2940163239221

Kobo

https://www.kobo.com/th/en/ebook/the-heart-of-the-deal-business-bondage-discipline-and-desire

Apple Books

https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id1466637147

Add on Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46258845-the-heart-of-the-deal

Audio Book

https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Deal-Business-Bondage-Discipline/dp/B08RLY6YBN

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Heart-of-the-Deal-Audiobook/B08RLT7GQK

I hope you’ll visit all the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

---

Review Tuesday: After Midnight by Trevann Rogers -- #LGBTQ #ParanormalRomance #ReviewTuesday

After Midnight by Trevann Rogers

Lam Publishing, 2023

Everyone knows about vampires, right? They’re ancient, fabulously powerful, wealthy and sophisticated, dark and brooding, irresistibly seductive. Not to mention almost always straight.

Trevann Rogers crushes those tired clichés in her urban fantasy After Midnight. Though both Ria and Jewell are vampires, they’re just getting by, living in a cramped apartment furnished with cast-offs and thrift store finds. Jewell has just finished university; Ria’s working, but she’s not much older. Both have parent problems, seriously exacerbated by the fact that they’re lesbian partners. Their committed relationship is complicated by their mutual love for Cheyenne, a charismatic, free-spirited rock musician who happens to be an incubus.

Vampires and incubi are traditional rivals. They’re definitely not supposed to fraternize. But love—and desire—transcend the conventional boundaries. Jewell, Ria and Chey aren’t bothering anyone. They just want to be free to love on their own terms.

Other members of the supernatural community aren’t going to let that happen.

I loved the characters and the premise of After Midnight. Anyone who reads my own books will know that I’m a huge fan of polyamory. Trevann Rogers does a spectacular job portraying the intense yet playful erotic interactions among her protagonists. They’re very different from one another. Jewell is the hippie earth-mother type, casual and sensual. Ria’s a dominant, high-energy, high-fashion beauty with a streak of snark a mile wide. Cheyenne’s laid back, self-confident, more powerful than either of the women but delightfully unassuming. I’d love to know more about their back story, how they came together to form their deliciously transgressive triangle.

In addition to the main arc of the story (which I’ll not describe in order to avoid spoilers), the author provides lots of entertaining detail on what it means to be a vampire in her fictional world. Ria and Jewell need blood to survive, but they also eat normal human food. There’s one scene involving a BLT that made my mouth water! Like traditional undead, they are inert and unconscious during the day, alive and active at night. These gals, at least, love to party into the wee hours. There are no graveyards or coffins in evidence; they seem to experience their daytime stupor in their own beds. There’s also no suggestion that Ria or Jewell came into existence through being turned, as they both refer to their parents.

My main complaint about After Midnight was its length. The novella whet my appetite but didn’t completely satisfy it. I wanted more: more drama, more danger, more magic, and yes, more sex. I probably should get a copy of The House of the Rising Son, a novel-length story in the same universe that centers around Cheyenne. I’m a bit confused because it’s listed as Book 1 in the series, with After Midnight as Book 2 but billed as a prequel.

Oh well. Muses can be messy and things don’t always make sense.

Original and arousing, After Midnight breaks the tired rules of vampire romance with gleeful aplomb. Exactly the kind of book I love.

Sizzling Sunday: Pushing the limits of lust and love -- #Erotica #Romance #SizzlingSunday

Happy Sunday!

On Wednesdays when I participate in the Marketing for Romance Writers Book Hooks hop, I have to keep my excerpts rated PG. (Sometimes that’s a bit hard to do!) For my Sizzling Sunday feature, though, I can pull out all stops.

Still, my excerpt today, from More Brides in Vegas, is pretty romantic as well as red hot.

Enjoy!

Blurb

Tying the knot — with no strings attached!

Who can resist love at first sight? The minute Ted saw Annie shedding her clothes on stage at The Fox’s Den, he fell head over heels for the petite, busty redhead. She had to make the first move, though, dragging him into an impromptu orgy in the Den’s VIP suite, along with technically-virgin bride Francesca, secret slut Laura, and hot black mama Chantal.

Now Annie and Ted are getting married, and they’ve invited all their friends from that wild Amateur Night to the party. Taking over a vintage eighties motel with a courtyard and pool for their private function, the bride and groom expect a certain amount of carnal excess. Still, nobody’s prepared for the sexual free-for-all that breaks loose, involving not only the gals from the Den but also Annie’s rock star brother, Ted’s MILF mother, Chantal’s new slave girl, a lascivious hippie couple, a susceptible priest, the butch hotel manager, and an entire Scottish rugby team. As the wedding guests act out their secret fantasies, they push the limits of both lust and love. Finally arriving at the altar, after an exhausting, arousing twenty four hours, Annie and Ted realize that tying the knot doesn’t have to mean tying themselves down.

Excerpt – Rated X

Back in the kitchen/dining area of the ground floor “honeymoon” suite, she checked her phone. Almost five. She hoped Ted would be back soon. She’d told the other guests—a few very select friends—that the party would start at seven thirty. They still had to fire up the grill, set up the buffet and the bar, and install the rented speakers. Plus she wanted to shower and change into the special outfit she’d chosen for what was, quite frankly, their stag party.

She flipped to the note-taking app to check her list. Was there anything she’d forgotten? She’d already called the florist to confirm the next morning’s delivery. The caterer, too. Father Fred had said he’d drop by this afternoon for a last minute consultation about the ceremony. Hopefully he’d be here shortly. It wouldn’t do to have him arrive during the party, which she expected would not really be priest-appropriate!

Quite a few out-of-town guests were expected to arrive on flights tomorrow morning. The motel had made their van available for airport pickups as a complimentary service. Well, she was bringing them a nice piece of business. She didn’t imagine the rather age-worn Holiday House hosted all that many weddings these days.

Bent over her phone and concentrating on her list, she was startled when a pair of strong arms slid around her waist and a warm mouth nuzzled her ear.

“How’s my beautiful bride?” Ted licked his way down the side of her neck, making her shiver, then turned her head so he could plant a kiss on her mouth.

“Much better, now that the groom is back!” She melted into his arms, offering him a more convenient angle. Ted kissed like an angel. For long moments, Annie dwelt in heaven.

“Everything go all right?” she asked, when he finally released her.

“Like clockwork, except that I missed you.” Ted palmed her breasts through her thin top, his thumbs circling her nipples. Her nubs snapped to attention. Pushing the shirt up to her armpits, he bent to suckle the tender buds, making them harder still. He dragged her hand to his bulging crotch. “See? I need to be inside you, Annie-belle. Right now.”

“We don’t have time, baby,” she protested, even as he shimmied her shorts down her shapely legs. “The guests—”

“Are coming for our wedding, Annie.” He hoisted her up so she was sitting on the dining table and spread her thighs. “This weekend is about us. Our love. Everything else comes second.” Leaning in, he took a lungful of her musky scent. “You’re turned on, don’t pretend you’re not. You want me.”

“Of course I want you—oh!” Her fiancé’s tongue left a trail of fire as he swept it through her folds. “Oh, god, that feel’s so good! Oh, Ted…!” Her lover burrowed deeper into her snatch, licking and biting, driving her crazy. “Ted—the glass doors—anyone could be watching!”

“Let ‘em watch,” he replied, tearing open his fly to release his pulsing erection. Positioning himself in the V of her legs, he drove his cock into her juicy cunt in one smooth, glorious motion.

Annie sighed with bliss as he stretched her wide. He felt incredible. No slow starts for her Ted. Right away he was pounding her pussy like a jackhammer, with a force that made her toes curl. Resting on her elbows, she opened herself to his fierce thrusts.

God, she loved the way he fucked her! She remembered the first time, in the VIP quarters at The Fox’s Den. She’d wanted him the minute she stepped onto the stage and saw him seated at the edge, his eyes following her every move. Sure, she had entered the Amateur Night contest hoping to win one of the generous prizes, to help cover her university tuition, but once Ted appeared, he was all she thought about. She’d danced for him only, to seduce him, to win him. She could see he was shy and a bit nerdy, with his glasses, clean-shaven cheeks and neatly clipped hair. Well, Annie knew how to get a guy hot. In her debut performance as a stripper, she’d used every trick she could think of.

Not that Ted really needed encouragement, once they were alone. He’d plunged his fine cock deep into her hungry cunt and ravaged her just the way she liked. Even when it turned out they weren’t exactly alone—Franny and Jake, Laura and Steve, Chantal and Foxy, even fusty old Aunt Giulia had ended up in carnal clinches in the VIP suite that crazy night—Ted hadn’t stopped fucking her until she’d climaxed four times. Only then did he roar and fill her with his cum.

A true gentleman, her Ted. With a very talented cock.

Find all the buy links on my website: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/morebridesinvegasbook.html

Muse versus Market - #Inspiration #AmWriting

 Image by Julius H. from Pixabay

As sometimes happens, I woke from a vivid dream with an idea for a new story. Consumed with excitement, I grabbed the notebook I keep on the shelf in my headboard and scribbled down a synopsis, in the dark. When the next day dawned, I was delighted to find that (a) I could actually read my notes, and (b) the story premise still struck me as really promising.

I’ve been wondering what project I should tackle next. This new concept—a scifi tale that resonates with a lot of contemporary issues—really got my mental wheels turning. Though the dream was little more than a single scene, with hints of a back story, I could see how to expand it, and how to focus its harrowing emotional intensity. Tragically romantic—intellectually challenging—distinctly different—the idea really sank its claws into my psyche.

Then I realized that although what I’d envisioned was a love story, it definitely did not have a happy ending. So if I wrote and published it, I couldn’t sell it as romance. And at this point in my publishing career, romance is what I know how to promote. The readers on my 300-odd mailing list, the daily visitors to my blog, the people who enter my giveaways, are almost all readers of romance. They crave an ending where the characters ultimately get what they want, not a finale where the hero dies. Yet that’s the natural way my dream would play out, if I spun a story from it.

Could I make it into a romance with a HEA? Probably, though finding a believable solution to the hero’s impending demise would take significant creativity. As a romance, I suspect this would sell, at least among the readers who have come to appreciate my unconventional approach to romance tropes. Did I want to turn this notion into a happily ending tale, though? Wasn’t that a betrayal of my midnight vision?

I could always keep the original ending and market the book as erotica, of course. Although the thematic core of the tale is not primarily about sex, I expect it to contain a significant amount of carnal activity, since the hero is a prostitute. Even erotica readers tend to shy away from dark endings, though. They might not require the characters to make a commitment, but they like it when everyone ends up satisfied. Heartbreak, injustice, terror—these aren’t favorite topics in erotica.

In any case, I don’t know how to market erotica these days, at least not stuff that would probably be more literary than smutty. Who would even look at it?

What about turning the dream into mainstream fiction? Tragic endings are always welcome in literature. Or genre science fiction? But then what would I do about the sex? Play it down? Leave it out? I’d probably need to create a new pseudonym, too, to avoid being tarred with the opprobrium of also writing “porn”. I’d be starting from scratch, in an environment about which I know very little, at least as an author.

Let me be clear. I don’t make my living from my writing. Heaven forbid. I don’t write primarily for the money. On the other hand, I have very limited time to write, so I try to produce books that I think people will actually read. That’s the payoff, for me—emails like the one I received a few weeks ago, from a guy who absolutely loved Rajasthani Moon, or gushing reviews I’ve received for The Gazillionaire and the Virgin. I write to be read. So I don’t want to put effort into creating something that will go over like a lead balloon.

It’s a dilemma. Do I follow my muse down a barely-trodden path, or divert her onto a more well-traveled highway? I go back and forth about this. Is it principled or foolish to stick to my original notions? Or maybe a bit of both?

A lot of authors read this blog, so I’ll ask: what would you do? Which would you choose, the muse or the market?