A Girl’s Guide to Dating a Werewolf

Hi, everyone! (And thanks so much to Monica for inviting me to post! Yay, Monica!)

For fun, I thought I’d write up a guide to dating werewolves (cause, you know, that guide could come in handy one dark night). The heroine of my upcoming release, NEVER CRY WOLF, has particular expertise in this department. Since she got her happily-ever-after with a wolf shifter, I thought I’d share some tips that Sarah King compiled during her…ah…courtship with wolf alpha, Lucas Simone.

Tip #1: Werewolves growl. Get used to it. Sure, it may be annoying at first, but under the right circumstances, it can be sexy. Go with it.

Tip #2: Beware of a jealous wolf. Those guys can get all freakishly territorial over a little thing like an ex-lover appearing. Be patient. EXTREMELY patient. And expect growls.

Tip #3: Other women will want your man. It’s that whole animal attraction bit. It’ll be your turn to be jealous. Feel free to growl yourself.

Tip #4: Don’t expect a lot of candlelit dinners. Werewolves are more the long walk/runs-through-the-night type guys.

Tip #5: Even an alpha wolf has a weak spot—you just have to find it. But finding that spot is half the fun.

Tip #6: It really helps to love animals. If you hate dogs, stay away from wolves. Just sayin’.

Tip #7: Werewolves have an extremely strong sense of smell. Use that to your advantage. The right lotion or perfume can drive him insane. Insane.

Tip #8: Keep a pair of back-up jeans handy for your guy. He’s gonna get naked sooner or later. Either because he’s shifting…or because he’s with you.

Now it’s your turn! Got any tips for dating a werewolf that you’d like to share? One commenter will be picked at random to win a copy of NEVER CRY WOLF.

Thanks!

Cynthia Eden

www.cynthiaeden.com

NEVER CRY WOLF—Available 6/28/11 from Kensington Brava

Be afraid of the big, bad wolf…

Guest Blogger: Anya Winter

Thanks Monica for letting me guest post on your blog. There’s one thing about Twitter that I love - it’s meeting and developing friendships with people just like you :) You are an absolute doll. Chocolate worthy for sure ;)

There’s something exciting about a blank page. It’s filled with endless possibilities. Those first few words that you type - they ground you in the direction you want your book to go.

For me, I love the adventure. The journey is more important to me than the map. I like to know important parts of the map - the starting destination and the ending. But how I get there - I’m okay with detours. Growing up we used to go on weekend trips as a family. From the moment we left our driveway we never knew where we would end up. We would take turns deciding on the direction. At every stop sign someone would get to decide if we go straight, left or right. Sometimes we would have designated stops in mind, but whether it was at the beginning, middle or end didn’t matter. As long as we got there. That’s what counted.

Every trip was an adventure.

That’s my strategy with my stories. I know where I’m starting, and I know how I want it to end, but how I get there - that’s the fun part.

Especially when it comes to those steamy scenes. Guaranteed, I will have every single steamy, erotic or sensual scene written by the time my second chapter is completed. We all know that what happens between the heroine and hero sexually is what drives the rest of the story. I find that by writing these scenes before I actually get to them in the story, it shows me my heroines vulnerability and my hero’s weak points. I get a taste of what they’ve had to overcome to get to this point. I begin to see the steps I need to take to get them there.

Someone once told me I write my scenes backwards. Usually people will save these scenes to the ends and just place markers in their story labelled *steamy scene here*. Not me. I’m all about the passion. They are my favorite scenes to write. That and my beginnings :)

Anya Winter is the pen name for Steena Holmes. You can find The Master at Liquid Silver Books. A week long celebration for the release is going on over atwww.steenaholmes.com - prizes to be won every day and many of them have to do with chocolate!

Love what you read? Read more from Anya Winter:

The Master available from Liquid Silver Books

The Blindfold available from Smashwords and Amazon

Man Meet Monday with JK LeBanc! (Part One)

Hello all in the land of Harmless Smut! Thank you gracious hostess Monica Kaye for inviting me, and my muse, to visit today!

I am so excited about a few things. So let me get to it. I wrote a book. YAY! I know, oo ahh wow. The book is a romance. (it’s getting better right?) I’m a photographer as well. (are you getting excited yet?) Let’s see what we’ve got.

Romance novel + photographer = illustrated romance.

No manga (STOP! I’m not hating, just saying) No cartoons, no doodles or stick figures. Photographs, images, a man and a woman, and all the sexy times we can squeeze under the cover. See what I did there? Because it’s a book, with a cover— okay I’m also a geek. There you go, out for all to see in my geekdom, because seriously who else could have possibly done this.

I wrote a time-traveling historical romance novel. Then I spent a year with smarter people making it better, then I went all anal and took over the cover shoot, and while there decided to go ALL. THE. WAY. I know you love it. Enough about me.

Let’s talk about His Grace, Gideon Alrick Trumbull, 10th Duke of Roxleigh, Earls of Kelso and Sussex, Viscounts Devon and Pembroke. Oh yeah, Rox is a country unto himself, a powerful Duke, and all about the business. Grrr…

Now those of us who love historicals know that every peer of the realm has a terribly important job, the begetting of heirs —and spares— to toe the line. This is no different for our Victorian duke as he sets out to find a suitable woman to take to wife. Problem is he’s a bit of a recluse. He hates the party crowd; doesn’t care for the ton and its accompanying gossip; can’t stand the mama’s tossing their daughters in his path, he generally doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of it even though they all want a piece of him. He would rather spend time on his beloved horses than deal with these issues.

Second problem. His brother Perry is a rake. Oh we all love the rogues don’t we? Perry (The Lord Peregrine Trumbull, Viscount of Roxleigh) loves to harass his elder brother, the one he hopes lives forever —or at least until he begets that heir— so he can continue to rummage through the innocent’s of London on the wings of his courtesy title. God forbid something happen to Rox, then Perry would have to step up and take the reign of that powerful dukedom.

So how does Rox find a woman, keep his brother at bay, and control his interests without succumbing to the pressures of the society he hates? How does Perry manage to, well…we’ll just watch Perry do what he does best—

—until his brother needs him the most. Then the truth of his dedication will out. I can tell you this. Rox does some of it with his clothes on…

More With Jk LeBlanc (Part Two)

More with DEREK!!!

And some of it with his clothes off…

And some of it he does somewhere in between…

But he does ALL of it in my new illustrated romance The Rake and the Recluse, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, and direct.

Website, Twitter, Goodreads

About me:

I have several constants in life that define me:

Colorado, Canon, CJ, kids and curls.

Born and raised in a household of other people’s children in this beautiful state —very nearly with a camera in hand— I never left. I started my own family, got used to the curls, went to college, built a CJ, and started a business, all with a camera in hand.

I always had another passion; storytelling born from daydreams and nightmares. My fingers were never as quick as my mind, and no amount of practice got them there, so it was difficult and frustrating to have this inside me. When my second daughter was born her inherent traits kept me pinned— my only escape the keyboard. Spending my days in parenting chat rooms I got highly adept with one-handed typing and I can still type just about as fast with one hand as I can with two. It’s a great talent to have when engrossed in a scene and in need of a hit of caffeine. I recently finished my first novel but I quickly realized: I was born a photographer.

From the realization that someone ELSE would be shooting the cover of MY book my control-freak took over. What started as an easy cover shoot ballooned into this completely new kind of media, designed specifically for digital book readers.

I live and thrive off chaos and the constant flow of the creative process. I wear shorts and flip-flops year-round —much to the chagrin of my friends and family— and I am currently working on the illustrations for my second novel.

Follow my blog or come chat with me on twitter for up to date information!

Thanks so much for visiting Harmless Smut, Jen! Those pictures are HAWT!!!

And because Jen loves us, she will be giving away two copies of The Rake and The Recluse at random. Comment for a chance to win.

Guest Blogger: Jessa Slade!!!

If you read this blog, you know Monica Kaye appreciates a fine hero. So I thought I’d share some of my inspiration for my dark heroes, written and unwritten.

I love tortured heroes. Dark pasts. Broken hearts. Wounded souls. With honed and burnished bodies, of course, although a few scars are unavoidable, what with the torturing and all.

This picture works for almost all my heroes. And not just because of the chest. I’ve always liked black and white photography. I took a b&w photography class (back in the days of dark room development) and the instructor told us a good print had at least one point of true black and a point of purest white. Sounds like a perfect dark hero, doesn’t it? Black and whites can be so stark, yet so revealing. Just like the best dark heroes. Despite the shadows in a dark hero, you always know exactly what you’re getting: a man...

Oh, sorry, lost my train of thought for a moment. You get a man who doesn’t give up, doesn’t give in, doesn’t give a damn...until he meets you—I mean, the heroine. In the heroine, he meets his match. And by match, I mean the woman who challenges him and who is his other half and who sets him on fire.

Well, those sexy scars had to come from somewhere.

Looking through my stash of eye candy, I found a lot of pix with deep shadows. Not surprising, I guess, since my books are all about shadows. The heroes of my Marked Souls books, SEDUCED BY SHADOWS (Book 1) and FORGED OF SHADOWS (Book 2, out this month) are alpha male warriors possessed by repentant demons. So yeah, they’re shadowed, inside and out.

They walk a sharp line between damnation and redemption and carry sharp blades to ensure they always end up on the right side of that line. If occasionally the line gets a little blurry, that’s just because of all the malignant demon guts on the edge of the blade.

Not that all my pictures are dark. See? This one has all sorts of sunlight behind him.But he still has those wonderful dark locks and dark, dark eyes and OMG actual dark chest hair (but not too much)! Swoon!

But he’s not facing the light. Nope, my dark heroes are resistant to the light. They’re like SPF 101. But love has a way of sneaking through the cracks in their armor. Or maybe just the cracks in their shirts. Dark heroes frequently have unbuttoned shirts.It’s a syndrome or something.

Lighting a dark hero—like properly lighting a photographic subject—can be tricky. A little firelight, or should I say firefight, shows them in action. A little candlelight shows them in a moment of romantic passion. The misty light of the moon gives them mystery while the cold, hard light of day reveals them. Or maybe they show best by flashlight, reading a book under the covers late at night.

All my dark heroes get their day in the sun, of course. That’s what happy endings are for. And speaking of happy endings, doesn’t Liam have a cute butt?

Who is your favorite dark hero and why? Leave a comment and you’ll be entered for a chance to win a copy of Book 1 or Book 2 of the Marked Souls. Not sure which one you want? You can read the opening chapters of both books at http://jessaslade.com

Guest Blooger: Viola Estrella

So you may have notice that I have been a bit derelict in my blogging duties but I have an excuse. We've just crawled out from under a blizzard here in Colorado. Unfortunately, I don't have Internet at my house (other than my iPhone but that is a whole other post!) so I haven't been able to blog. Today is the first time I've even left my house (or my jammies) since Tuesday. Yeah.

Anyway, I am back with a bang! And a guest blogger. My lovely CP and friend VIOLA ESTRELLA! Her new book, Bewitching You, is out today from the Wild Rose Press.

Isn't that a beautiful cover?!?!

Take it away, Vi!

Thanks so much for letting me have a day on your blog, Monica! Bewitching You is out today – officially – in eBook and paperback and I’m pretty excited. This book was most definitely a book of my heart. What does that mean to me? It just means I poured my heart and soul into writing it and creating characters that made me laugh and cry right along with them. It was a journey to write this story and I hope readers will like it as much as I loved creating it.

Blurb:

An interfering ghost, a nosy mind-reading grandmother, a psychic man-hating mother, and a spell gone wrong are only a few dilemmas Sofia Good has to deal with in order to find love. It’s not easy having control of your own destiny when you can’t even remember what you put on that morning, even worse when you’re given a “gift” of precognition to save people’s lives, and you have no clue how to use it.

Grayson Phillips lost his brother in a senseless accident, and now he’s trying to gain back control by maintaining a safe and uneventful ‘life plan.’ But after sexy, quirky Sofia crash lands into his world he’s forced to rethink his strategy.

When Sofia’s grandmother casts a love spell, it successfully maneuvers Sofia and Grayson into her home in secluded Amish country. Time will tell if the love spell helps or destroys Sofia’s only chance at love.

Excerpt from Bewitching You:

Sofia finished showering, shaving, and changing into her favorite light green nightgown. It had spaghetti straps and was silky and sleek against her skin. She ran her hands over her hips and felt truly sexy for the first time in her life. It probably had to do with there being a hot guy downstairs who made her feel like she was something more than a short, chubby, wannabe cheerleader. So much more. He was sweet for sticking up for her against her worst high school memory. It made her wish she’d met him back then.

Sighing, she pulled her sketchbook from her duffle bag and sifted through the pages. Her own personal homage to Gray. How humiliating would it be if he found it? Even worse, if he were to see the numerous paintings that filled her bedroom at home. Sofia Good: Dream stalker extraordinaire. Why, yes, Gray, I did spend hours upon hours sketching and painting you, even before I laid eyes on you.

Not good. She stuffed it back in the bottom of the bag and scrounged for a new pair of panties. All that was left were her high-cut cotton briefs. Comfortable, but not sexy at all. She really needed to do laundry, but how embarrassing would it be to hang out your underwear for the world and Gray to see on a clothesline?

No way.

She opted to wear none for tonight. Nothing was going to happen, but it was fun to feel a little naughty. To know that with one slip of his hand, he would realize she was completely bare underneath this lightweight nightgown.

He’d only have to hike it up and straddle her on his lap… Stop it, Sofe. Stop. It.

Twenty-four years without knowing the touch of a man was starting to warp her mind. Sure, she could’ve given into a man’s advances on one of the several dates she’d been on, but when she had visions of the men falling love with someone else, the idea always lost its flavor. Of course, she didn’t have that problem with Gray. In her dreams of him, he loved her, and no one else.

She let out a breath and put a brush through her damp hair.

“Hey, Sofia.” Gray’s deep voice jolted her.

She swerved around to see him standing at the door with his hands braced against the doorframe. She really needed to remember to start closing and locking the door. Or not. His shirt was off again and the top button of his jeans was undone. She managed to squeak out a, “Hi.”

“Am I interrupting?”

“No.” She set the brush on the dresser and watched as he sat down on the bed.

He grabbed her wrist and gently tugged her over until she stood in between his thighs. “I wanted to say goodnight.” He set his hands on her hips and pulled her forward.

“Okay.” Oh, boy.

“And because sometimes words escape me, I wanted to make a point to tell you how beautiful I think you are. Inside and out.”

Sofia gulped. “I, um, thanks.”

His large hands slid down her butt and back up again. He must have noticed her lack of underwear, because he bit into his bottom lip and repeated the action.

Sofia was pretty sure her heart stopped beating. Not since Leo Wendle pinched her ass in the hallway in the seventh grade had someone acted like they appreciated God’s big, old, huge gift to her backside. And Leo Wendle had been an acne-faced pervert with premature facial hair.

This was so much better.

----

Bewitching You is available now as eBook and in paperback from www.thewildrosepress.com. You can also find it online at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.booksamillion.com.

To find out more about me and my writing, visit my website www.violaestrella.com.

WOW!!! That sounds awesome, Vi! Can't wait to read it! Now you out there in Bloglandia, GO BUY IT!!!!

Guest Bloggers!

So I am working on resurrecting my First Sale Friday series. I think I have some great talent lined up. I'll let you know as soon as I have the fall schedule mapped out. I think we'll start in a couple weeks.

I'M SO EXCITED!