12
Jan
Tales from the Crit VIII
If you’ve got nothing better to do, check out today’s post on Tales from the Crit. I’m talking about my own sadly obsessive tendencies when it comes to creating soundtracks for my writing projects.
Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
10
Mar
Coming Soon: NIGHTSHADE
A civilization thrown into hell by war and pestilence cries out for salvation. A band of Champions emerges from the shadows of chaos — reincarnations of the old daemons, demigods and deities from times forgotten.
A young soldier maimed in an accident and no longer fit for the battlefield answers the call to serve. Lieutenant Daniel Willoughby is ready — if not eager — to fulfill his duties as squire to Lord Thanatos, the Champion whose gift is swift, merciful death.
Daniel is prepared to sacrifice his mind and body in service to his new lord and master. He’s about to discover Thanatos wants that…and so much more.
* * *
Excerpt from Chapter 3:
Despite the pilots’ fears, the landing of Transport #34 on the estate of Lord Thanatos — located somewhere in the hills to the west of the city, or so Daniel guessed — was uneventful. They disembarked with no fanfare, and the shuttle did a vertical lift from the elevated pad that sat fifty yards from the gates of a large, formal garden.
Daniel squinted as the glare from the rising shuttle flashed over his face. When it was gone and the deepening shadows of evening settled around him, he removed his glasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his duty-rig.
From his position on the landing pad, he could see the garden below was dominated by what appeared to be a maze. Fashioned from massive evergreen hedges, it grew eight feet high, lush in the middle of one of the most desolate regions west of the Great Mountains. Its branches were illuminated by thousands of tiny, white lights, and at its center stood a large, bubbling fountain. Daniel didn’t bother to hide his awe.
“Welcome to Nightshade.”
Too dazed to speak, Daniel nodded. The breeze washed over him, sweet and potent, undercut with a sharp tang. He sniffed the air. “What is that?”
“Eucalyptus. Lavender. Night-blooming jasmine.”
Botanical species that hadn’t been seen outside a laboratory in at least fifty years. Yet they grew here? Daniel lifted his face to the breeze again. This time he caught a warmer fragrance — something spicy that made his nose tingle and his mouth water.
He turned to ask how Lord Thanatos managed the irrigation for such a large display of plant life and plowed directly into the Champion’s chest — which explained the new, arousing scent.
“I beg your pardon.” Daniel coughed and shifted away. “I was distracted. I’ve never known anything like this place.”
“It pleases you?” The bland tone of the Champion’s question didn’t match the sharp look he sent over his shoulder as he led Daniel down the steps of the landing pad and toward the garden gates.
Another test. “If it pleases you, of course.” Daniel struggled to keep up with the Champion’s long stride along the paved path. “Is there something the estate lacks? Repairs needed? You could make a list. I’ll start work tonight–”
Thanatos stopped short. Daniel pitched forward, nearly falling in an attempt to halt and turn at the same time.
“Do not babble. It irritates me.”
“I beg your pardon, my…” Daniel swallowed. Instinct told him that to bow his head would only compound his mistake, so he stood still and waited.
Ahead of them, the gates opened with neither a word nor a gesture from the Champion.
“Come.” Thanatos led Daniel into the garden and to a wrought iron bench that stood beneath a trio of spiky trees Daniel thought must be cypress. “We will talk.”
They sat. In the silence that followed, Daniel scanned the sky. No stars looked down. The rising half-moon was a smudge behind a thin screen of clouds. Daniel glanced at the ironwork of the seat beneath him and was startled to see the ornate design set with polished gemstones the size of human eyes.
Thanatos cleared his throat. “Do you know who I am, Daniel?”
Enough with the tests, already. “You are Thanatos, called a daemon spirit or a demigod by the ancient Greki.”
“That is what I am, not who I am.”
“I don’t–”
Thanatos held up a hand. “Ask the monks. Ask them what became of the man called Nikolos Petrakis.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not following you at all.”
Thanatos sighed, and the breeze seemed to sigh with him. “Thirteen years ago by the Brotherhood’s calendar, Nikolos Petrakis was a sheep farmer on an island called Chios, in the Aegean Sea. He had a wife, two sons and a daughter five months in the womb.”
What does that have to do with the price of unBlighted blood in St. Francis? Daniel gnawed on the inside of his cheek to stifle his impatience. “Yes? And?”
“And the Brotherhood of the Black Canna rattled their beads and swung their censers and chanted a spell as dark as any ever worked…and here I am. Thanatos, spirit of Death, in the body of Nikolos Petrakis.”
The clouds parted and the moon emerged, bone-white and cold. Daniel shivered.
Was there any correct way to respond to this information? The truth of how the Champions rose hadn’t been part of his education. So the monks had stolen the body of a living human — the bodies of five living humans — to work their magic? Daniel wished he could be surprised. Or disgusted. Anything but quietly resigned.
“It bewilders me, even now,” Thanatos murmured. “Until the day I was joined with Nikolos Petrakis, I had no needs. No wants. No…humanity. Now I have all of these and more.”
“You have a personality,” Daniel said. “The sheep farmer’s personality?”
“So it seems.” Thanatos frowned at him. “Why do you smile?”
Did he dare say something so outrageous? No Ritual of Fealty. No blind obeisance. Not yet, at least. Maybe my last chance to be myself, to speak my mind.
Daniel coughed into his fist to cover the laughter that threatened to choke him and said, “I wonder if the Brotherhood didn’t do Petrakis’ wife a favor.”
The Champion stared, his brows arched high above his black eyes. Daniel braced himself and waited for whatever came next. A bird called — some nocturnal creature with a sweet, shrill warble. A Nightingale? Not possible. They’ve been extinct for a century or more.
“I suspect,” Thanatos began, his words drenched in what Daniel now surmised to be a Greki accent, “his overbearing arrogance was redressed by the size of his cock.”
Now Daniel did choke. “You’re trying to shock me.”
“And if I am?”
“Keep trying.”
The living spirit of Death inside the body of the sheep farmer grinned at Daniel. The glow from the newly revealed moon glinted off his teeth. Somewhere overhead, the bird called again. Daniel thought back to his ornithology text — a book he hadn’t seen since his aptitude scores required him to report for military duty at the age of fifteen.
The unpaired male Nightingale sings to mark his territory, and to attract a mate.
Just as quickly, the Champion’s smile dissolved into something darker. “Ask them, Daniel. Ask the monks if the soul of the sheep farmer resides in what they call heaven or hell. Or does it wander somewhere between the two, like a poor man’s Orpheus?”
The Nightingale stilled its cry. Even the breeze fell silent. Daniel was suddenly aware of how much space Thanatos occupied, and how little lay between them on the small bench. He whispered, “Why don’t you ask them?”
“I have. Many times. They give no answers.”
Thanatos stared in the direction of the house, where someone had lit the lamps in one of the lower rooms. The sound of voices rose into the still air, followed by male laughter. “I had hoped to have this night to ourselves, but it appears we are blessed with company.”
“Company?” As Daniel listened, the laughter grew louder.
“My fellow Champions. You are familiar with them?
“Lords Kratos, Dolos, and Eros, and Lady Nemesis.”
Thanatos nodded. “They will, no doubt, be delighted to make your acquaintance.” He rose from the bench. “Come. There will be much merriment to welcome you, if I know my comrades.”
Side by side they walked the path toward the massive stone dwelling. Each time Daniel tried to drop back in deference to Thanatos, the Champion slowed his pace. Finally, he stopped and confronted Daniel. “Why do you dally?”
Daniel lowered his head. “Holy Protocol, my lord.”
Thanatos loomed over him, leaning in close till his breath rushed over Daniel’s neck. He bent and touched his lips to the stretch of skin just under Daniel’s ear. Then he bit, pinching a tiny bit of flesh between the sharp edges of his teeth.
A thrill of pain, hot and sweet, shot through Daniel and he swayed like a stripling in a stiff wind.
Thanatos released him. “In Commander Skott’s office, you begged me to test you. I warn you not to test me in return.”
“I understand,” Daniel whispered. His stubborn streak of rebelliousness — that part of him so reviled by Brother Janus — seemed to melt in the scorching heat of Thanatos’ presence.
“Call me Nikolos.”
“Nikolos.”
“Louder.”
“Nikolos.”
“Very good. I am partial to a man who is graceful in defeat.” The Champion ran his hand down Daniel’s spine, from the nape of his neck to the swell of his ass. Daniel could feel the press and drag of each finger through the fabric of his duty-rig. “I think we will make a tight fit, you and I. But do not keep me waiting, Daniel Willoughby.”
He turned away. Daniel stood on the path, fighting to regain his composure.
Overhead, the Nightingale trilled.
***
Available soon in eBook and print from Amber Allure/Amber Quill Press.
Today I’m posting over at Tales from the Crit on the topic of juggling relationship dynamics when writing a ménage. Please feel free to come tell me I’m full of… applesauce.
What? I’m trying to clean up my fucking language.
It’s a work in progress.
25
Oct
I have been remiss.
I offer the excuse that both my dogs have some foul virus that causes them to go ’splodey all over the kitchen floor if I don’t take them out every hour on the hour. The vet says all we can do is push fluids and wait. Yay. Three squirt bottles of disinfectant and eight rolls of paper towels later, my hands look like they belong to an eighty-year-old woman.
Wait till you read this book. You’ll laugh… you’ll cry… you’ll cry some more… you’ll run out and rent “Carmen”… you’ll cry SOME MORE…
I’m so proud I could pop. 
Let me ‘splain.
No, there is too much.
Let me sum up.
It’s not a large kitchen. Not for a family of five. Which makes sense, as it’s in the middle of a rather small house – too small to easily accommodate even relatively slight renovations like the refinishing of floors and the painting of rooms while said family is in residence.
And yet…
The piano? It doesn’t fit in any room that isn’t currently undergoing renovation. Except, of course, the kitchen. Which is also the only room where there is currently any seating. And the room where the dogs live. And the room where the kids do their homework, and my husband does charting late into the night.
*whimper*
It gives a whole new perspective on how the pioneers lived, which is to say ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.
Me? I like my solitude. Over the past ten days, when I’m not struggling to put a meal on the covered-with-sawdust table or fighting for three square feet around the sink to wash dishes, I’ve been locked in my bedroom – and sometimes my van – trying to write.
IT’S NOT GOING WELL.
Another week and it’s all over. No more floor-sanders or paint fumes or workmen in their BIG, LOUD BOOTS. The piano returns to its rightful place of honor in the space that once was a dining room and is now a family room-slash-office. No more hot dogs served in the master bedroom because the kitchen table is unusable. No more drinking straight from the two-liter bottle of Coke Zero so I have fewer dishes to wash.
So to everyone whose emails and phone messages I’ve read and heard but didn’t have time to answer, and all my crit partners whose work I’ve neglected in the midst of my season in Renovation Hell, I apologize, and plead extenuating circumstances (several of which I haven’t mentioned here). I’ll get with you shortly and spill all the horrific details.
That’s not a promise. More of a threat, in fact.
In the meantime, YEAR OF THE CAT made Amber Allure’s Top Ten Bestseller list for January, and garnered a couple of really nice reviews.
4 Stars from Rainbow Reviews: “Year of the Cat is the tale of Etienne and Jacques, their adventures, and is, in the end, a tale of love and redemption. Full of densely woven images, [Year of the Cat] does not disappoint.” ~Carole, Rainbow Reviews
4.5 Nymphs from Literary Nymphs: “Selah March writes of love, betrayal, forgiveness and personal-growth in Year of the Cat. Etienne has lived in his books and has no ‘street smarts’. Jacques has lived, done what he must to survive and has no qualms taking necessary risks. From the moment they met, Jacques felt something for the younger man that he wasn’t ready to identify. There were moments where I wanted to hit Jacques with a skillet, but I had to remember this was Etienne’s adventure; his time to learn and grow. There were hard lessons and sacrifices made by both men, but love is a powerful tool. This is definitely a story you don’t want to miss.” ~Scandalous Minx, Literary Nymphs Reviews
Also, WILD HORSES is now available at Fictionwise.
***
One week. I hear that’s a century in piano-in-the-kitchen years.
25
Jan
Release day!
Title: YEAR OF THE CAT
Genre: homoerotic romance/historical fantasy/shapeshifter/BDSM/fairy tale
Publisher: Amber Allure/Amber Quill Press
Purchase link: http://www.amberquill.com/AmberAllure/YearCat.html
Sweet-natured Etienne LeFevre must give up his birthright and flee into the snow-covered forest to save himself from the murderous greed of his brutish elder brothers. When Etienne ends up alone and hungry, with a ramshackle cottage his only shelter and a feral cat his only friend, he believes himself doomed to a sad, cold death.
But out of the shadows of the night arrives a visitor who brings comfort. He presents himself as a servant, but the man called “Jacques” spends the long hours instructing Etienne in the cruel delights of a disciplined passion.
Jacques is gone with the morning light, but Etienne thinks he knows the stranger’s secret. Will he tame the beast that lurks within his lover? Or will he find himself a victim of the bitter rage that rules Jacques’ heart?
Based on the classic French fairy tale, “Puss In Boots,” this story explores what happens when the servant becomes the master, and the master lives to serve.
* * *
EXCERPT:
Etienne struggled to find his voice. “I know nothing of passion. I am…untouched.”
Jacques’ lips quirked in a sinister smile. “So sweet, like spun sugar. I fear you’ll rot my very teeth.”
The kiss Jacques pressed upon Etienne’s mouth tasted of salt and iron, and awakened in Etienne a delirious kind of hunger. He found himself clutching at Jacques’ shoulders, tearing at the sleeves of his coat with his sore fingers. When Jacques pulled aside the collar of Etienne’s shirt and licked at the line of flesh he’d revealed, Etienne stifled a moan.
“No, mon petit, let me hear your cries,” Jacques murmured, his words setting a heated buzz against Etienne’s skin. “Let me lap them from the hollow of your throat.”
Etienne fought, at war with his traitorous body. “Monsieur, please, I do not—”
“Hush,” Jacques whispered and caught Etienne’s chin in his hand. The pupils of his eyes had taken on a strange, slitted appearance as he gazed into Etienne’s face. “You’ll only tire yourself, and gain nothing for the effort.”
“But you said you wished to be my servant in all things, monsieur. Yet you would take me without my consent?”
“I would coax your consent from its hiding-place and make it sing out like the bells of Notre Dame on Christmas morning.”
His words sounded like nothing less than the simple truth. Etienne stilled himself against the hard cottage floor, his body not entirely limp with submission.
Remember Running Press and their upcoming experiment with releasing m/m romance as actual romance? (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6622447.html)
Looky! Covers!
Ah, spring…when a young man’s mind turns to thoughts of BOOTAY in BREECHES…
Congratulations to Erastes and Alex. April can’t get here soon enough.
NON SEQUITUR ALERT: So am I the last one in the known world to discover Erotica Cover Watch? Why didn’t somebody TELL ME?? I mean, aside from the obvious attraction of Man Candy Monday, the posts themselves are a freakin’ HOOT. Plus, Mathilde and Kristina make several excellent points, which I shall not list here and now because I’m supposed to be writing, and I fear my brilliant and ever-stylish crit partner may break out the flogging implements if I don’t send her…let’s see…yes, the breath-play chapter is up next.
But first, an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Year of the Cat, my WIP based on Perrault’s Puss in Boots, because I can write historical-buttsexin’-boys, too…except mine’s more pseudo-historical, and includes shape-shifting and BDSM and a spot of forced seduction. Details, details…
***
All evidence to the contrary, Etienne was neither a halfwit nor a fool.
Impractical? Certainly.
Guileless? Without a doubt.
But in one particular subject, Etienne possessed no peer — the study of the supernatural. Indeed, his late and deeply lamented father had often expressed concern over the hours his youngest son spent poring over tales of the gruesome and fantastical. From children’s fairy stories to the journals of long-dead sorcerers to grim accounts of witch-hunts and burnings, Etienne’s appetite for the otherworldly was insatiable. Paradoxically, ’twas from this investigation of the inhuman that Etienne developed his most apt observations of humanity — for how better to learn the ways of good, decent men than to study the depravity of monsters?
Therefore, by the time he’d lingered three-quarters of an hour in the company of the man who called himself “Jacques,” Etienne knew his visitor to be a scoundrel, a villain…and quite possibly not a man at all.
None of this kept Etienne from accepting Jacques’ apparent generosity. For ’twould take a halfwitted fool, indeed, to reject warmth on a freezing night, meat for an empty belly or a healing touch on bloody wounds.
But the blaze in the fireplace no longer seemed to burn so brightly — not when compared to the glittering amber of Jacques’ eyes.
“Pray, tell me,” he purred, “what do you know of passion?”
Etienne could only stare. He went on staring even as Jacques loomed over him, caught his face between his large hands and growled, “Tell me, mon petit.”
Etienne struggled to find his voice. “I know nothing of passion. I am…untouched.”
Jacques’ lips quirked in a sinister smile. “So sweet, like spun sugar. I fear you’ll rot my very teeth.”
The kiss Jacques pressed upon Etienne’s mouth tasted of salt and iron, and awakened in Etienne a delirious kind of hunger. He found himself clutching at Jacques’ shoulders, tearing at the sleeves of his coat with his sore fingers. When Jacques pulled aside the collar of Etienne’s shirt and licked at the line of flesh he’d revealed, Etienne stifled a moan.
“No, mon petit, let me hear your cries,” Jacques murmured, his words setting a heated buzz against Etienne’s skin. “Let me lap them from the hollow of your throat.”
Etienne fought, at war with his traitorous body. “Monsieur, please, I do not—”
“Hush,” Jacques whispered and caught Etienne’s chin in his hand. The blacks of his eyes had taken on a strange, slitted appearance as he gazed into Etienne’s face. “You’ll only tire yourself, and gain nothing for the effort.”
“But you said you wished to be my servant in all things, Monsieur. Yet you would take me without my consent?”
“I would coax your consent from its hiding-place and make it sing out like the bells of Notre Dame on Christmas morning.”
His words sounded like nothing less than the simple truth. Etienne stilled himself against the hard cottage floor, his body not quite entirely limp with submission.
***
15
Dec
Kibbles and Bits III
“I’ll come ’round sometime and get that squeak outta yer door.” ~Roux, Chocolat
One of the most suggestive lines of dialogue ever uttered in a movie. Of course, Johnny Depp’s filthy smirk helps the innuendo along, as does the long, loving look he gives Juliette Binoche’s ass as he says it, but still it makes me positively puce with envy every single time. Why can’t I write a line as witty and sexy as that?
Chocolat is one of my favorite flicks, not only for the subtle use of imagery within its language, but also for its amazing visuals. Where else does the dipping of a ladle into a basin of liquid chocolate evoke a slow, sweet fuck between strangers?
I’m trying to capture that kind of imagery in my current WIP, Year of the Cat — a homoerotic, BDSM-infused retelling of Perrault’s Puss in Boots. (Wipe from your minds Antonio Banderas’ cutesy performance in Shrek 2. Adorable as he is, I’m going for something darker and more sexually menacing in a hero this time around. And as a matter of fact, Johnny Depp fills that bill nicely…though not the Chocolat version. I’ve dug out my DVD copy of The Libertine and I’m watching it compulsively…right up to the part where syphilis-stricken-Johnny’s nose starts to rot off his face. Then I hit rewind because we’re writing erotic romance here, and reality – no matter how historically accurate – need not apply.)
Anyway. The kind of visceral imagery found in Chocolat isn’t easy to translate to the page. I’ve tried before and failed. How does one capture the glint of moonlight off a devilish grin, or the exact shade of a pink in a young man’s (or woman’s, but this month we’re all about the boysexin’) cheeks as he offers up his virtue to a cruel, mysterious stranger?
Meh. I’ll keep trying.
In the meantime, this is verra verra interesting (thanks for the heads up from Karlene at RD): http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6622447.html
“Running Press is getting into the fiction market with what it sees as a unique twist in historical romance — gay fiction written by and for straight women. The idea for the line came from Running president Jon Anderson and is based on what he sees as the growing interest in M/M stories reflected in the success of such projects as Brokeback Mountain and the television series Brothers and Sisters. Anderson has acquired the first titles in the line, which will be edited by Lisa Clancy, associate editorial director. The series will launch in April with Transgressions and False Colors. Two more titles are set for fall 2009.
Running v-p and associate publisher Craig Herman said the series will be positioned as a subgenre within romance and while the books will be ‘erotic, they will not be hardcover explicit,’ Herman explained. Running will promote the line through traditional romance outlets including advertising in Romantic Times and outreach through regional RWA chapters. Noting that the books will be shelved in the romance section rather than the erotica section, Running said the book will be ‘created to mirror romance novels, not gay erotica.’”
I’m pleased by this news, especially in light of a recent, rather discouraging discussion at RTB in which certain folks insisted M/M romance would never be a player in “traditional” romance publishing. And while Running Press isn’t Random House or Harper Collins, it’s a foot in the door, no?
So, yes, I’ve decided to be heartened. Mock my optimism at your peril, for ’tis a hormonal sort of day here at Dubious Virtue.
In other news, I’ve finally crossed over to the Dark Side that is LiveJournal. (See?? The color-scheme sort-of-almost MATCHES. But I have yet to receive my promised cookie.) And I’m on Goodreads, too, which is (apparently) like Facebook/MySpace, except less with the random hookups and more with the reading.
Finally, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot continues to accrue strokes and nuzzles and hair-pats from the romance review community. Me LIKEY.
“Readers who love a good horror story are going to find Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by Selah March to be a custom fit. This is a spine-chilling novella that puts its characters through a wringer and doesn’t let up on them for the duration of the story. Tom Mulvaney is somewhat pompous and arrogant, but he has a hidden insecurity that the entity is able to ferret out and use against him. Leo, who Tom calls a “brooding psychic Wonder Boy”, is a very reserved man with a stutter. When the evil spirit takes over his body, he loses the stutter and becomes much more aggressive, and this transformation is fascinating to watch as is the effect that it has on Tom. As the story progresses, the tension mounts to almost the point of combustion. Ms. March has portrayed evil very well, and this reader stayed glued to the story in horrified fascination until the very end. Well done!” ~4 Angels from Whitney at Fallen Angel Reviews
“Selah March has a written story that is sensual, exciting and chilling all at the same time. There were times when I was truly scared while reading Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The haunted house takes on a life of its own. The sexual chemistry between Leo and Tom is exciting and very hot and I also enjoyed following the development of their relationship as they grow closer. This story had me on the edge of my seat until the end.” ~4 Blue Ribbons from Christina at Romance Junkies
Nothing to see here. Today is a writing day, and that’s stupendously boring for everybody except my two angsty cowboys who may or may not be getting busy down by the pond behind the bunkhouse.
But over HERE, you can read how my brilliant and ever-fashionable crit partner, Barb Caridad Ferrer, did a lovely thing for my upcoming b-day (which I was trying to ignore, but whatev).
And over HERE, you can read her Romancing the Blog column, which is a little sad, but not so depressing that you’ll want to crawl back into bed or add a shot of Jack to your morning decaf.
Other than that, it’s all angsty cowboys, all the time ’round these here parts, I reckon. You have yourself a nice day. *tips imaginary Stetson, looks longingly at bottle of Jack*
Can’t eat (unless you count the chocolate I’m not supposed to touch). Can’t sleep (unless you count three hours of dreams in which I’m chased through dark streets by evil monks). And the moon, she is on the wane, which means my body is deep in the Ninth Circle of Hormone Hell.
I’d go for a walk to clear my head, but it’s thundering. In the Northeast. In effing FEBRUARY. (But Global Warming is a mythical lefty construct, so I guess I’m just imagining that phenomenon, and so are my poor dogs, with the panting and the drooling and the trying to fit their big, furry butts under my chair.)
And the Book That Would Not Die? Is now, officially, UNdead. And haunting my ass (hence the dreams about evil monks). Even the kinky smut is hard going. Heh. I said “hard.”
My kingdom for a thousand decent, usable words a day. I’m lucky if I get five hundred.
My next book? Something MUCH lighter: More sexy cowboys doing each other in the hayloft. I can’t wait.
At least the cat is cute.
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