Category: Books & Authors

Why Greek Mythology?

By Elisabeth Naughton

Thanks so much to Cindy for having me here today!

My second Eternal Guardian book – ENTWINED– recently hit store shelves. For those of you new to the series, the Eternal Guardians are seven warriors descended from the seven greatest heroes in all of Ancient Greece. Zander, the hero in ENTWINED, is a descendant of Achilles. He’s the oldest guardian, the one rumored to be immortal, the fiercest warrior and the only one with nothing to lose. I fell in love with Zander when I was writing MARKED – book one in the series – so I’m excited for readers to finally get their hands on his story.

People ask me all the time, why Greek mythology? I don’t have an easy answer except to say that I love the tales from Ancient Greece. Always have. Epic wars, tragic love stories, conniving gods and danger lurking around every corner. When I was researching STOLEN FURY (my 2010 double RITA nominee book), I found myself deeply immersed in the characters and narratives centered around the great culture, and I thought, “It would be really fun to develop an entire series based off these myths.” MARKED was the result, and the series grew from there. I love taking traditional myths and characters and shaping them into my world. I love the variety of people, beings and magic that can be found in the legends. I love being able to put my own spin on these classic tales and seeing where they take me.

In my series, the Eternal Guardians are battling an evil goddess who was once a hero like them but sold her soul to Hades for immortality. She’s cunning, dark and willing to do whatever she can to reach her goal. But she’s not the only villain in this series. There are many devious gods and goddesses in addition to mythological beings skulking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to shine.

And of course, there are plenty of hot guys. At least seven, to be exact. A few more who hang on the periphery and are as intriguing as the warriors themselves. So far I can guarantee at least five books in the series – hopefully more. Because I’ve switched publishers there’s a slight delay in the release of the next book. TEMPTED (book 3) will be an October 2011 release, followed closely by ENRAPTURED (early 2012). I realize this is a bit of a wait for fans, but it couldn’t be avoided. After that I’m back on a six months or less release schedule so I hope readers will understand. To tide fans over, I’ll be posting a few free reads on my website over the next few months, so if you haven’t already signed up for my newsletter do so soon so you don’t miss out!

Today I’m giving away either a copy of MARKED (book 1) or ENTWINED (book 2) to one lucky commenter (winner’s choice!). Simply tell me, what’s your favorite myth from Ancient Greece?

 Happy Reading!

 Elisabeth

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Please leave a comment to enter to win a copy of ENTWINED or MARKED. If you’re reading this blog through a feed at Facebook, Goodreads or another social network, please note you need to leave your comment at www.museinterrupted.com to enter.

The back cover blurb for MARKED and ENTWINED, links to excerpts, and Elisabeth’s bio, can be found in yesterday’s promo post. Visit Elisabeth’s website to learn more about her and her books.

Elisabeth Naughton Guest Blogs Tomorrow

Tomorrow I’ll welcome paranormal romance author Elisabeth Naughton to the blog. Elisabeth is blogging on Why Greek Mythology? and will give away the winner’s choice of either MARKED (May 2010, Book 1 in the Eternal Guardians series) or ENTWINED (August 2010, Book 2).

About ENTWINED:

ZANDER — The most feared of all the Eternal Guardians. It’s rumored he can’t be killed, and he always fights like he has nothing to lose. But as a descendant of the famed hero Achilles, he’s got to have a vulnerability… somewhere.

Forces of daemons are gathering and have broken through the barriers of the Underworld. Now more than ever the Eternal Guardians are needed to protect both their own realm and the humans’. Zander can’t afford to think about what might have been with the bewitching physician he once regarded as his soul mate. But with eternity stretching before him, he also can’t fathom spending his life without the one woman who makes him feel most alive. Perhaps he’s found his weakness, after all…

Read an excerpt

About MARKED:

THERON — “Dark haired, duty bound and deceptively deadly. He’s the leader of the Argonauts, an elite group of guardians that defends the immortal realm from threats of the Underworld. 

From the moment he walked into the club, Casey knew this guy was different. Men like that just didn’t exist in real life—silky shoulder-length hair, chest impossibly broad, and a predatory manner that just screamed dark and dangerous. He was looking for something. Her. 

She was the one. She had the mark. Casey had to die so his kind could live, and it was Theron’s duty to bring her in. But even as a 200-year-old descendant of Hercules, he wasn’t strong enough to resist the pull in her fathomless eyes, to tear himself away from the heat of her body. As war with the Underworld nears, someone will have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Read an excerpt

About Elisabeth:

A previous junior-high science teacher, Elisabeth Naughton now writes sexy romantic adventure and paranormal novels full time from her home in western Oregon where she lives with her husband and three children. Her debut release, STOLEN FURY, heralded by Publisher’s Weekly as “A rock-solid debut,” was recently nominated for two prestigious RITA® awards by Romance Writers of America in the Best First Book category and the Best Romantic Suspense category. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ball park or dreaming up new and exciting adventures.

Learn more about Elisabeth and her books at www.elisabethnaughton.com.

All About Kate–And Allie’s Birthday

My buddy, my pal, my life-long friend, Kate St. James, has an interview up at the Red Sage Authors blog today. Feel free to go read it. You never know what info you might glean! If you’re so inclined, you can even ask her a question. She promises she might answer. But only if you’re nice.

In other news, my puppy, my girl, my doggie, Allie McBeagle, turns 9 today! She wants a small Dairy Queen ice cream cone. She really wants a “baby burger,” but she needs to wait until she’s ten.

Happy birthday, Allie!

Allie McBeagle with E.S., about to fall asleep. She's really still 8 here, but that's okay.

Baby Allie, December 2001. About 8 weeks. Beagles change coloring as they age. Six months later, her face and ears where you see black were brown. Her muzzle started to turn white at 4. Isn't she cuuuuuuuuuuuttttte?

Novella Writing Tips and More

It’s Thanksgiving up here in the Great White North. I had turkey dinner at my mom’s last night. Aren’t you jealous?

As some of you know, I’m erotic romance author Kate St. James’s slave. So, although I really wanted to update this website last week, Kate insisted that I do hers first. After all, she doesn’t have a blog and relies on me to trumpet her accomplishments to the world…because she’s just so darn shy. Why, she’s so shy she can’t even show her face in public.

What are her accomplishments, you ask? Several great reviews for Secrets Volume 28: SENSUAL CRAVINGS, which includes Kate’s erotic romantic comedy, Kiss Me at Midnight. What, you think it’s not possible that a novella is both funny and erotic? Buy Kate’s book and put it to the test!

Here are some reviews for Secrets 28 and a new one for Secrets 26: BOUND BY PASSION, which includes Kate’s story, Exes & Ahhs, set in Victoria, B.C. (where I went to university. Kate does this type of thing to honor me). Because I’m lazy, I cut and pasted these reviews from the new Welcome message on Kate’s home page, but there’s more to see on her Bookshelf.

New reviews are in for Kiss Me at Midnight. Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews has awarded Secrets 28: SENSUAL CRAVINGS 4.5 cherries and says of Kiss Me at Midnight, “The sex scenes in this story were absolutely sexy and hot, but you could tell that love was in the air and not just lust. Marc…is a truly exceptional man and one any woman would be proud to call her own.”

Bitten by Books says, “I loved this story. It was fun, realistic and super hot. The erotic scenes are steamy and will get the attention of all the right places…. A definite great read for me.”

Also, a new review for Exes & Ahhs in Secrets Volume 26: BOUND BY PASSION. Joyfully Reviewed says, “Risa and Eric are perfect together, and I have to say that Eric is one hunky hero. He made my toes curl from the beginning of this story and they stayed that way until the end. There is a great deal of love between these two, and watching them discover it provided pure satisfaction.”

And, lest you think Kate’s only out to get me to talk about (and therefore help) her, she sacrificed several hours when she could have been relaxing in a hot tub to write this article now up on her Extras page, Turn Up the Heat: Tips for Writing Erotic Romance Novellas.

While I’m at it, Kate has a new interview coming at the Red Sage blog  next Monday, October 18th. She’ll be around (there) to answer questions, if you’re so inclined. So mark your calendars.

Tattoos and Mistletoe

By Susan Lyons/Fox

Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas? Not for me, because I have a brand-new release—THE NAUGHTY LIST, Brava’s 2010 holiday anthology. This is my first multi-author anthology for Brava—and I’m thrilled to be there alongside stars Donna Kauffman and Cynthia Eden.

When Kensington asked me to be a part of this holiday anthology, I immediately started playing with ideas.

The last Christmas story I wrote, “Unwrap Me” in UNWRAP ME, was set in Vancouver, BC. I live in Vancouver and love it, but we’re not exactly known for snowy Christmases. This time, I wanted a holiday story set in snow country.

And the setting was obvious, because I was brainstorming this novella in the build-up to the 2010 Olympics in Whistler. Whistler, when the Olympics aren’t happening there, is perhaps an even more intriguing community. It’s a small town—yet it’s an international resort.

As I started thinking about characters, I realized it was the small town aspect I wanted to focus on. I love “going home” stories, such as “you can never go home again” or “you have to go home again.” In “Tattoos and Mistletoe,” I chose “you have to go home again.” In other words, if you’ve had a really rotten past, you have to come to terms with it before you can be a truly whole person and move on to build a happy future.

So I found (because characters and I find each other, it’s not like I actually “create” them) Charlie Coltrane. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks who…well, I’ll let her say it in her own words, if you’ll pardon the language.

People had assumed the kid of two loser drunks had to be a loser, too. That gave Charlie two choices: let them know she gave a fuck, or tell them to fuck off. She’d had enough pride that the first choice wasn’t an option.

A graffiti artist, arrested, suspended from school, almost raped by her date at the Christmas dance, orphaned at Christmas, then shunned by her remaining relative, no wonder she dropped out of school, left town, and vowed never to return.

Of course, I had to force her back there—courtesy of the aunt who’d shunned her, who at the end of her life was suffering from guilt and, just maybe, the urge to matchmake. How the aunt and I finessed this… Well, let’s just say there’s one very hot tool-belt guy involved! A guy who just happened to play a role in Charlie’s past.

Don’t you think high school geeks deserve happy endings? Those genius science nerds whose brains were overdeveloped but who kind of lagged behind in other areas? The ones who had crushes on the very baddest girls—like Charlie Coltrane? Yeah, that’s LJ Jacoby, and man, did he grow up fine!

As I had fun getting to know Charlie and LJ and the two of them got to know each other, we all found out that sometimes, if you work through the baggage you’ve dragged around from your teens, you can envision a brighter future than you’d ever dared dream. Especially if there’s a sprinkle of Christmas magic, and a big bunch of mistletoe!

What’s your view on baggage from the past? Should a person just toss it off the bridge and forget all about it? Could you do that? Or do you figure that, at some point in a person’s life, they’re going to have to come to terms with it? And, as a second question, if that one’s too heavy for you, when do you think publishers should release their holiday books? Is late September too early?

Someone who comments will receive a copy of  THE NAUGHTY LIST—autographed by all three authors!

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Please leave a comment to enter to win THE NAUGHTY LIST. If you’re reading this blog through a feed at Facebook, Goodreads or another social network, please note you need to leave your comment at www.museinterrupted.com to enter.

To read the back cover blurb for THE NAUGHTY LIST or to read Susan bio, see yesterday’s post. Visit Susan’s website to learn more about her and her books.

Susan Lyons/Fox Guest Blogs Tomorrow

Romance author Susan Lyons/Fox visits the blog tomorrow. Susan’s blogging about Christmas-themed stories and will give away a copy of THE NAUGHTY LIST, her September 2010 Kensington Brava anthology featuring “Tattoos and Mistletoe” by Susan Lyons writing as Susan Fox, as well as novellas by Donna Kauffman and Cynthia Eden.

About “Tattoos and Mistletoe”:

Why would you ever want to go home again, when the town treated you like trash? Yet, in Susan’s “Tattoos and Mistletoe,” Charlie Coltrane has to return to Whistler this Christmas and supervise renovations on her aunt’s B&B if she’s to inherit the money to open her own tattoo parlor in Toronto. What a surprise that the contractor in charge of the renos is LJ Jacoby, high school geek transformed into the town’s hottest bachelor. LJ’s about to teach Charlie that sometimes you have to confront your past to find your future—and that Christmas really can be the most romantic time of the year.

About Susan:

Susan Lyons/Susan Fox is the award-winning author of sexy contemporary romance that’s passionate, heartwarming, and fun. She is published by Kensington Brava, Kensington Aphrodisia, Berkley Heat, Harlequin Spice Briefs, and The Wild Rose Press. A resident of both Vancouver and Victoria, B.C., Susan has degrees in law and psychology but would far rather be writing fiction than living in the real world.

Visit Susan’s website to learn more about her and her books.