Archive for August, 2010

Hello Readers,

I am so excited to welcome the authors of ManLoveRomance to the Backseat and today we are spending time with Rick R. Reed – Take it away Triple R!

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Silly Questions and More with MLR Press Author Rick R. Reed

In their October 2006 issue, Unzipped magazine said: “You could call him the Stephen King of gay horror.” And Dark Scribe magazine said: “Reed is an established brand – perhaps the most reliable contemporary author for thrillers that cross over between the gay fiction market and speculative fiction.” To date, Reed has twelve published novels to his credit, and his short fiction has appeared in more than 20 anthologies. His novel, ORIENTATION, won the EPPIE Award for best LGBT novel of 2008. He lives in Seattle, WA. Visit him on the web at http://www.rickrreed.com

So, I was trying to think of what I could say to the readers of Naughty in the Backseat and decided to fall back on an oddly masturbatory interview I did of myself on my own blog, which can be found here: http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/.
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My answers to these 10 silly questions were the capper of a series I did when I asked other authors the questions posed below. I thought it was only fair I sit in the hot seat myself.

-So now, I think you guys might find the questions—and their answers—interesting. Stick around to the end of the interview where you’ll get a taste of two of my latest MLR Press releases.
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Here we go…

1. If you could invite any famous person, dead or alive, for dinner, what would
you eat?
Since I would be aghast if a dead person showed up at my door for dinner, probably nothing. Since I would be aghast if a live celebrity showed up for dinner, probably nothing. Perhaps for the latter, I would run up the street and get some Thai take-out.

2. Who do you think you are?
Little Miss Mary Sunshine, spreading it around wherever I go.

3. What’s your problem?
Gas

- Thanks for sharing and thankfully not sharing it in the same room as me – TK

4. If you could have one wish, would you give it to me?
No. I’m selfish that way. Besides, do you really need a foot long, um, er, ruler?

5. Where you at?
In my sweet spot

6. If you had to choose only one vice, what would it be?
Thumb sucking

7. What’s your favorite brand of cereal?
Cap’n Crunch…morning, noon, or night

8. When you wake up in the morning, what celebrity do you most resemble?
Tori Spelling
- I posted this so we can all see the Rick/Tori resemblance.
9. Do you know your ass from a hole in the ground? And if so, how do you tell the difference?
I do. One is much, much cleaner, but I ain’t sayin’ which one.

10. Do you have anything you’d like to plug?
Gerard Butler? Never mind. Of course, Rick, two of my latest releases from MLR
Press. They are A Demon Inside and Tales from the Sexual Underground. Here are the blurbs for each:

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A Demon Inside

Hunter Beaumont doesn’t understand his grandmother’s deathbed wish: “Destroy
Beaumont House.” He’d never even heard of the place. But after his grandmother
passes and his first love betrays him, the family house in the Wisconsin woods looks
like a tempting refuge. Going against his grandmother’s wishes, Hunter flees to
Beaumont House.

But will the house be the sanctuary he had hoped for? Soon after moving in, Hunter
realizes he may not be alone. And who—or what—he shares the house may plunge
him into a nightmare from which he may never escape. Sparks fly when he meets
his handsome neighbor, a caretaker for the estate next door, but is the man his
salvation…or is he the source of Hunter’s terror?

You can read excerpts and reviews HERE

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Tales from the Sexual Underground

I wanted to write about people who were not just out, but out there, people who lived
their sexual lives in ways most of us could only imagine…and for whom the flavor
vanilla had absolutely no appeal. I interviewed porn stars, prostitutes, self-proclaimed
sex pigs, and delved into bizarre sexual practices. It was eye-opening, arousing, and
a lot of fun (but never, never good clean fun). I also include here my favorite dirty
stories. They all explore a side of life that exists not in the twilight zone, but in my
favorite destination…the sexual underground.

You can read excerpts and reviews HERE:

Lucky me, I had a fabulous publisher, Laura Baumbach step forward to give us a peek into ManLoveRomance (MLR) and its stable of authors. It is a fun term, stable – sounds kinda Naughty…

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Terry Kate: Welcome to Laura Baumbach, Owner/Publisher of MLR Press. You specialize in gay erotic romance and fiction, can you please share a little bit more about your Press and what readers can expect to find?

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Laura Baumbach: ManLoveRomance Press was created to bring m/m erotic romances to print for our readership. I write M/M erotic romance almost exclusively. I started out being published by a small print house in the LA area, and then began submitting and being accepted by multiple ebook publishers. My print house wasn’t paying royalties like they should have been and did nothing to promote the work. This made me frustrated and discontent. I began looking for other print publishers for my work. While one of my ebook publishers did take one of my stories to print in an anthology, they wouldn’t commit to doing more of my novels. Their focus was e-publishing and they had limited interest in doing print. I understood that but because I knew from my readership and fan letters that there was a growing interest in having these books in print, I continued to submit to houses like Alyson and Kensington. Unfortunately for me, they weren’t interested in gay erotic romance at that time. After a number of attempts and rejections of stories I knew where print worthy, I decided to gather together my closest and most talented friends within the industry and fill what I saw as a void in the publishing industry—a press for gay erotic romance and fiction by creating ManLoveRomance Press, LLC aka MLR Press. We publish the ‘feel good, falling in love again’ stories that readers were asking for.

I’ve kept the focus of MLR Press on gay erotic romance and fiction because that is the genre I know inside and out and can market and promote effectively. The readership for this genre is almost entirely straight women and gay men and I target different media and events for each, keeping in mind that there are a lot more cross over venues each year.

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TK: What makes a story stand out to you as something MLR Press should publish?

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LB: Writing in this genre is, to me, a calling. You have to understand the genre and its components. You can’t take a het romance and change one character’s name to make it two men. The way your characters act, talk and react are different and if you don’t have the understanding of that down pat it shows in the writing. It’s easy to spot someone who is writing M/M to cash in on the popularity of it and one who writes it because they have to because their characters won’t have it any other way.Characters have to be strong and plots intriguing and well-thought out. Sex should flesh out the characters or progress the story not just hang there in the air as filler. We like unique, edgy work.

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TK: What sub-genre is the most popular with readers?

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LB: Mystery. But any of the titles with good action and plot, breath-taking heroes and sizzling intimacy work.

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TK: And why not? We as readers want an experience other then our own, a little mystery or action would certainly spice my life up! On a more personal note, this is your company and being a publisher is a tough job. What is the hardest part of being a publisher?

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Laura Baumbach: Having to say no to an author. Whether is to a submission, a cover request, whatever. I like my people happy. But it isn’t always possible to do it 100% of the time.

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Terry Kate: Laura, thank you so much for your time and I am so excited to be hosting your authors all this week on Naughty Boys in the Backseat! To find out more about MLR join us this week and visit their website -

http://www.mlrpress.com

Spoils of War

by Aleksandr Voinov & Raev Gray

Published by eXcessica in an anthology called “Divine Matches.”

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When Achilleus, the greatest warrior who ever lived, falls before Troy (or Ilion, as it was known), Ares, God of War, stands ready to take his spirit with him to his palace. There, Ares demands that Achilleus yield to him. But can the embrace of a god and the offer of immortality make Achilleus forget his one true love, Patroklos?

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Spoils of War by Aleksandr Voinov & Raev Gray

Book Review by Jasmine

4/5 Story 5/5 Whips in the Backseat for Writing

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Spoils of War is an excellent erotic romp.  A worthy Naughty read and the writing duo Aleksandr Voinov & Raev Gray are undeniably talented writers!  I love their style, the precision and execution of Achilleus’ tale speaks of their talent with words and the amount of care they put into the mythology and research.  Part of the mythology is what stood in my way as a reader.

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The opening lines of the book:

When Achilleus, the greatest warrior who ever lived, falls before Troy (or Ilion, as it was known), Ares, God of War, stands ready to take his spirit with him to his palace. There, Ares demands that Achilleus yield to him. But can the embrace of a god and the offer of immortality make Achilleus forget his one true love, Patroklos?

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Thank you for your research and accuracy to the time and history, but if I had not seen the movie Troy I think I would have been very lost.  It is from that film that I recall that Achilles as I am more familiar with the name being spelled, is the son of a water goddess and makes a prophecy about the two paths in life that he can choose from, a long life, or glory.  Maybe calling Illion – Troy and Achilleus – Achilles the story would have played down the style that those added touches using more accurate names lends the story.

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The story is a fulfilling read and has a clear style that if you enjoy take the time to go out and look for more titles by these authors.  Spoils of War stands out from the pack.  It is a read that you will not forget.

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See more of Aleksandr Voinov’s work at his Official Author Web site

Aleksandr Voinov’s Blog

Visit Raev Gray at Excessica.com

Writing about Achilleus and Ares was a thing waiting to happen for a long time. When I approached my brilliant co-writer Raev Gray with the idea, the Iliad and Troy had been sitting in my brain for something like 25 years. I grew up on the stuff – a collection of the mythology was one of the best gifts I ever got as a kid. Sex, passions, violence. I inhaled it all.
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Achilleus was one of my favourites – the greatest warrior who ever lived. His rage at the death of his ‘friend’ Patroklos, his bottomless, sacrilegious revenge had to have roots in love, I never doubted that. When I studied Ancient History (yup, got a degree in that), I learnt about the various interpretations of that relationship. “Did they or didn’t they” wasn’t a question that would have interested the Ancient Greeks.
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I have to admit I was pretty excited when they put “Troy” onto the big screen in 2004.   I’ve seen the – admittedly pretty trashy – film a dozen times. I even own it. But it never satisfied me. A million versions of the Iliad, and a million versions that never got the whole point – the point I saw in it.
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The big question that Achilleus faces is this: live long and raise a family, become a well-respected elder and king, or live short and win lots and lots of glory. As we all know from Homer’s story, he chooses the short life, and glory. Then his friend/lover/comrade Patroklos dies.
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And the question is – have you made the right decision, Achilleus? I never doubted that he’d sacrifice his own life for greatness – but would he sacrifice Patroklos? If he could give it all back in return for Patroklos’ life, would he?
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And that’s the core of all romance fiction, isn’t it? How much are we willing to sacrifice? What are we really made of?

-  Aleksandr Voinov

http://www.aleksandrvoinov.com/

http://www.aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com/

FaceBook – Twitter:  vashtan

Review: Ellora’s Cavemen:

Jewels of the Nile Volume II Anthology

The Debutante by Samantha Kane

Happy Monday Readers!

I want to welcome author Julia Rachel Barret to the Backseat to talk about Mythology.  Books have been playing with this for some time and most of us heave flashbacks to names we remember learning about in school, but we are here to hear about how it ties in with some great naughty reads.

-TK

Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring and rebirth, was the daughter of Demeter, Mother Earth Goddess, and Zeus, king of the gods of Mount Olympus.  The story of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, the God of the Underworld, is traditionally referred to as the rape of Persephone, whose other name is Kore, which means maiden.  The young maiden, out innocently picking flowers, was dragged by Hades into the Underworld to be his wife and become Queen of the Dead.  Without the goddess of spring to bring about the change of seasons and rebirth, the earth was covered by snow and the people went hungry.

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So great was her mother’s grief at Persephone’s disappearance, and such was the suffering of mankind, that Zeus heard their cries.  He sent his messenger, Hermes, to deliver Persephone from the Underworld.  But the Fates had decreed that anyone who ate a single thing while in the Underworld could not be redeemed.  Hades tricked Persephone into eating six pomegranate seeds.  Six months out of the year, Persephone must live in the Underworld. We have winter. When she rises to our world, we have rebirth and new growth, we have spring.

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The myth of Persephone is the basis of my futuristic science fiction series, Daughters of Persephone. Many centuries from now, mankind has exhausted the earth.  Each generation fights over scarce resources.  A secret cadre of scientists from around the globe gathers together, hoping to save mankind through eugenics.  They develop a line of female warriors and leaders who come to be known as Empresses.  Even then, these Empresses fail to save us from ourselves, all but one, the Empress Ya.  She is the first Empress to see her way through time.

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The Empress Ya travels into the future, bringing back the technology needed to build vessels that will carry her followers far from earth, to a new home in another solar system.  The Empress Ya and her followers build a new colony and a new home for the human race on the planet they aptly name, Persephone, for they have come out of the darkness and into the light.  From Persephone, humans spread throughout their new corner of the galaxy, led by a line of Empresses and Women of the Blood, as they come to be known – women who are the remnants of the eugenics program.

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My futuristic science fiction romance, Daughters of Persephone, Book One Exile, Book Two Return, picks up the story three thousand years after the first colony, Persephone, has been established.  It follows the saga of the new Empress, Aja, and her sisters, Ennat and Tem.  Books three and four, Reborn and The Red Demon, chronicle the challenges that face another Empress, Issa, born three thousand years after Aja’s death, and her mentor, Aja’s sister Tem, also known as The Red Demon.

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If you love Greek mythology, romance and science fiction, I think you’ll appreciate these stories.

- Julia Rachel Barrett

http://juliarachelbarrett.net
Buy Julia Rachel Barrett’s Books Here:  http://www.bookstrand.com/node/805937
and: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8_view_item.html?m8:item=232-200-102-460-2
Bio:  Julia Rachel Barrett writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction.  She and her husband live in Northern California with their three children, new puppy, three cats and two noisy birds.
http://juliabarrett.blogspot.com/
http://sevensexyscribes.blogspot.com/