Midwinter Holiday Romance Reads!

 This week at the SFF Seven we're talking books! Well, we always talk books, but this time we're jingling our wares for your delectation. You can find all of my books on my website, of course, but today I'll focus on a few that are perfect for your midwinter holiday reading pleasure. 

First off is FIVE GOLDEN RINGS, which is a bit of a throwback to my early days writing contemporary erotic romance, and is a re-release. It's a kinky, Christmas, Caribbean holiday romp. I'll be re-releasing this entire four-book series, the Facets of Passion. 

      

Read Excerpt

 

The Twelve Days of Christmas were never quite this naughty…

All Matilda Campbell wanted was to spend a romantic and relaxing Christmas in the Mexican Caribbean. When her lover dumps her—at the airport, no less—she decides to go solo. But fate and a well-timed margarita intervene, introducing her to the charming and seductive Miguel D’Oro on the plane.

Miguel offers Tilda an outrageous bargain, involving escalating naughty gifts for each of the twelve days of Christmas. The only rule is that she must accept what he gives her and what he tells her to do, or face a sensual punishment. Giving up control is just what Tilda is looking for, so she impulsively agrees.

As Tilda embraces a newfound freedom in abandoning herself to pleasure and Miguel’s demands, she only wonders what will happen when the holiday is over…

 

If you prefer my fantasy romances, THE LONG NIGHT OF THE RADIANT STAR is my newest release. It rounds out the Heirs of Magic series and is a midwinter holiday (the Feast of Moranu, for those who know the Twelve Kingdoms world) wedding extravaganza! 

      

At long last, Jakral Konyngrr—lowly sailor, gambler, and sometime rogue—has won the heart and hand of Princess Stella of Avonlidgh. Never mind that Stella’s mother is determined to make their wedding the event of the century, he’s happy to endure any trial to marry the love of his life and his guiding star. Very soon they can sail away together into the rest of their lives. Unfortunately the wedding becomes delayed for several months, until midwinter.

Stella—sorceress, empath, and bearer of the mark of the Tala—has been through great trials. But nothing has tested her as sorely as her passionate and flamboyant mother planning their wedding. Even Jak’s steady love and companionship isn’t enough as Stella finds herself crumbling under the pressure of being snowbound in a castle with the press of so many minds and emotions. When she lashes out, she hits the worst possible target, jeopardizing her chances for happiness.

With several kingdoms and a former enemy empire bearing down on them, Jak and Stella’s wedding on the longest night of year might not happen at all… Unless they can create their own happy ever after.

 

Finally, there's FAMILIAR WINTER MAGIC. This novella in the Bonds of Magic world first appeared in the Fire of the Frost anthology. For those who've read the Bonds of Magic and Renegades of Magic books, this story follows Han and Iliana. 

       

 

It’s holiday time at Convocation Academy, but best friends Han and Iliana are finding it hard to celebrate. As a familiar, Iliana is facing her assignment to a life of servitude to a wizard, very soon. And Han… despite being tested by the oracle daily, he is still uncategorized. As Iliana and Han face being separated forever, they at last find the courage—or desperation—to break the rules and acknowledge their deeper feelings for each other. But it will take more than true love to save them from the laws of the Convocation…

Happy Holidays, all, and happy reading!!

Five Golden Rings

In time for your holiday delectation... I have re-released FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!

     

Read Excerpt

This is the kinky Caribbean Christmas holiday contemporary romance I did with Carina Press. I'm re-releasing it - and the other three Facets of Passion books - over the next month or so. For now, if you like your holiday romance with sunshine, beaches, and a bit of BDSM (who doesn't???), then check out FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!

***

The Twelve Days of Christmas were never quite this naughty…

All Matilda Campbell wanted was to spend a romantic and relaxing Christmas in the Mexican Caribbean. When her lover dumps her—at the airport, no less—she decides to go solo. But fate and a well-timed margarita intervene, introducing her to the charming and seductive Miguel D’Oro on the plane.

Miguel offers Tilda an outrageous bargain, involving escalating naughty gifts for each of the twelve days of Christmas. The only rule is that she must accept what he gives her and what he tells her to do, or face a sensual punishment. Giving up control is just what Tilda is looking for, so she impulsively agrees.

As Tilda embraces a newfound freedom in abandoning herself to pleasure and Miguel’s demands, she only wonders what will happen when the holiday is over…

***

 

This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking social media. We're asking each other on which social media platform are you most active as an author? Why that one? What makes it work better for you than others? How often are you there?

 

These questions, more than most, are dynamically changing ones. This becomes even more apparent with the passage of time.

 

~ clears throat and grabs cane for shaking ~

 

So, I've been on social media for a long time now. I had a website (which I programmed myself) in the nascent days of the internet. I used A-1 mail in the late 80s and had a MySpace account. I joined Facebook in January 2009 and Twitter that September. I'm still on those two. Heck, even this blog, of which I am one of three remaining founding members, is over ten years old! That's like a century in internet time.

 

Right, actually answering the questions posed:

 

I'm most active (thinking in terms of daily and weekly activity) on a couple of Discords, then Instagram and Facebook, followed by Twitter, which are all at least daily, if not more often. After that is my podcast (4x/week), and this weekly blog. I am theoretically on Tik Tok - because I feel I should be - but I've yet to grok it. With the exception of the Discords and my podcast, which are pleasurable social interactions for me, the rest are pretty much driven by business considerations. I use the ones where my readers are. (With the salient except of Tik Tok, which I really need to learn. In my spare time.)

 

The stuff I do most often, as I mentioned, is the stuff I enjoy. I made that decision early on - that social media is social, and therefore if one hates the medium, that will come through.

 

My other point in going into this history is that social media is an ever-shifting sea. Lots of Twitter people are fleeing to Mastodon, which I haven't done yet, but likely will. Ask me these questions tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year and you might get a different answer!

 

And that's okay, too.

 

The Best Title That Never Was

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week concerns the reality of having to change names. We're asking the crew if they've ever had to change the name(s) of a character or place in a book after we'd drafted it? Who is the character who will forever go by their "unpublished" name in our minds?

For me, it wasn't a character. As far as I can recall, I've never had to change the name of a character or place in a book. If I did, it never mattered enough to me that it stuck in my head. I *have* had to change titles, however, and the one that has never left my head is for the book that became ROGUE'S PAWN, book one in my Covenant of Thorns trilogy.

This was my first published novel - released in 2012 - and was the story that invaded my dreams and wrenched me from a nonfiction career and into fiction. It was, in fact, fantasy romance, but I didn't know what to call it then. I started writing it in 2005, querying it in 2007 and it took me YEARS to sell. 

All that time, I called it by another title in my head: OBSIDIAN.

The title has a lot of shades of meaning and symbolic layers in the story. That book is forever OBSIDIAN in my head.

Unfortunately, by the time Carina Press bit on the book and published it in August of 2012, Jennifer L. Armentrout's book of the same title had come out in May. My editors at Carina said that wasn't the reason for the title change. Instead I sunk my own ship by first publishing the Facets of Passion books with them. Those were erotic BDSM contemporaries, also with one-word jewel titles: SAPPHIRE, PLATINUM, and RUBY. (Ironically, book 4, FIVE GOLDEN RINGS, was supposed to be called ORO, the Spanish word for gold, but Carina thought readers wouldn't get it. I'm still sorry about that retitling, too.)

It was a newbie author mistake. Had I realized that one-word jewel titles wouldn't work for two different series, in two different genres, from the same author at the same publisher, I would have cheerfully changed the Facets of Passion titles instead. Alas!

I'd love to get this trilogy back from Carina someday - largely because I've never liked these covers, either. Would I change the title back? I don't know... I wouldn't want readers to think I'm trying to trick them into reading something new that's actually old. 

What would you say?