Archive for the ‘Samhain Publishing’ Category

Welcome to Naughty Boys in the Backseat!

Today we are welcoming Shelley Monro to the blog! She is touring her book, Lone Wolf, with Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will be giving away a $20.00 Amazon gift card to one commentor from the tour. This, of course, means click HERE to follow the tour and comment on the other blogs. The more you comment, the better your chance of winning.  Here’s what Shelley had to say about her book, Lone Wolf.

Thanks so much for inviting me to visit Naughty Boys in the Backseat. I’m very excited about Lone Wolf, my new release from Samhain Publishing. Although I’ve written lots of paranormal romance stories, to date I’ve focused on feline shapeshifters. I thought it was time to write a werewolf one. A fine idea in theory, but I needed some flesh to hang on the bones of my naked werewolf story. I thought for months, percolating various plots and ultimately discarding them.

Fast forward a little. My husband and I live in New Zealand, but we’re keen travelers. We made a trip to the US, stopping off at lots of National Parks. Yellowstone National Park was one of the places we visited. I wanted to see two things during our vacation—bears and wolves. We ended up seeing a grizzly bear that was feeding on its kill. Very exciting! The wolves, however, were elusive. I learned later that wolves are difficult to spot during the summer months. Visitors are more likely to see them during the winter since they stand out against the snow. We did hear them howl during the early morning hours. The wolf song was both hair-raising and magical—a sound I won’t forget in a hurry.

This “encounter” with the wolves made me even more determined to write a werewolf story. During the entire time at Yellowstone, I puzzled over my non-existent plot. A strange question popped into my mind—one that would only probably only enter a writers’ brain.

What would happen to a werewolf’s nail polish when they shifted?

While I pondered this question and the answer, a plot jumped to mind. All the separate elements I’d been mentally wrestling with—Yellowstone, wolves, werewolves, and the final addition of nail polish—jumbled together and formed into the plot for Lone Wolf. Yes! I knew exactly how to write my werewolf story.

Lone Wolf is a gay romance, set in an alternative world where humans are clueless and werewolves hold the balance of power. Much of the book takes place at Yellowstone National Park.

And the answer to the nail polish question—Corey Wilson, one of my characters, wears black makeup and nail polish. It turns out shifting isn’t so good for long lasting nail polish. A business opportunity for some enterprising werewolf, perhaps!

And because I like to know these things: Werewolf or Feline Shapeshifter? Are you in Camp Werewolf or Camp Feline and why?

Shelley Munro – Bio

Shelley Munro is tall and curvaceous with blue eyes and a smile that turns masculine heads everywhere she goes. She’s a university tutor and an explorer/treasure hunter during her vacations. Skilled with weapons and combat, she is currently in talks with a producer about a television series based on her world adventures.

Shelley is also a writer blessed with a vivid imagination and lives with her very own hero in New Zealand. She writes mainly erotic romance in the contemporary, paranormal and historical genres for publishers Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave, Liquid Silver Books and Samhain Publishing. You can learn more about Shelley and her books at her blog and you might even find her lurking at Facebook or Twitter

Saturday Soundtrack

with S. Reesa Herberth

Devil By My Side – David Usher
Believe in hope,
Believe in faith,
Believe in things I can’t fight

Riv is a quietly spiritual man.  He’s a pacifist, and after breaking his personal code of non-violence to save the life of a friend, he’s having an impossibly hard time reconciling his beliefs with his actions.  I’ve always loved this song, and I think it strikes a nice balance between optimism and the struggle between who you want to be, and who you find yourself becoming.

Living In Jungles – Bedouin Soundclash
Walk away leave him lost in the night
Walk away, walk towards your holy light
And then you walk like a champion, talk like a champion

Lots of people go looking for themselves, stepping out of their ordinary routines to get some perspective on their lives.  When Riv volunteers with ReliefCorp, it’s kind of a toss-up as to whether he’s searching for a way back to the life he used to have, or just looking to get lost.  When he meets and rescues Ducks, suddenly he’s more concerned with getting them both out of the jungle safely, a theme that carries on later in the book, when the sweltering humidity of Maltana’s rainforest is only a memory, but they’re both still trying to find their way.  I love the drums in this song.

Dragoste din tei (The NumaNuma Song) – OZONE
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
(Your face and the love from the linden trees,)
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.
(And I remember your eyes.)

There’s no deeper meaning to this song, nothing particularly relevant about it other than it being one I was mildly obsessed with at the time.  For whatever reason, I will always associate this song with the scene where Riv first walks into Hyduk’s, the bar where he meets Ducks.  (And yes, we absolutely used a word from the song, however misspelled, as the name of the bar.)

Silence – Delirium, feat. Sarah McLachlan
In this white wave I am sinking in this silence
In this white wave…in this silence…I believe

When he first appears, Ducks is not only mute, he is recently injured and pretty severely traumatized.  Dealing with more than simple interactions is too much for him, and he falls into a kind of fugue state.  The swelling, meandering tone of this song worked for me, and kind of helped me imagine what it felt like for him when he checked out for awhile.

Made To Heal – Our Lady Peace
We’re made to heal..

This song makes me think of Ducks working through his issues and trying to find his voice at the hospital on Karibee.  It also struck me as a song that related to Del, Riv’s friend and shipmate.  She tries her best for them, but some healing doesn’t come that easily, as Del herself would tell you.

I’ll Keep Your Memory Vague – Finger Eleven
This won’t break your heart
But I just think it could
Cause I haven’t tried as hard as I should
To separate you from everything I do
But I would never want to come between us two

If this isn’t all about loving someone you think will never be able to care for you in the same way, I don’t know what is.  Totally a Riv song, despite having initially picked it because of the title, and thinking it might work for Ducks and his amnesia.

Divided – Tara MacLean
but a heart cannot repent
when it doesn’t know it’s spent a lifetime
beating itself to death

I could almost have chosen “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” for this mix, but instead I went with this, a warped little track about getting on with your life, even if you’re not sure why.

To Be Alone With You – Sufjan Stevens
You gave your body to the lonely
They took your clothes
You gave up a wife and a family
You gave your ghost

Both Riv and Ducks have to decide what they’re willing to give up to be together, and what they can give each other once they are.  I like that this song is a little sweet, a little melancholy, and it could be about a beginning or and end- or both at once.

The Balance of Silence

by S. Reesa Herberth and Michelle Moore

Welcome to the jungle—where the found are lost and the lost are redeemed.

Riv is a man adrift, hoping that running supplies for ReliefCorp will restore his faith in mankind—and in himself. Deep in the war-torn Maltana rainforest, he stumbles upon a local bar that suits his mood: good food, bad attitude. The entertainment, though, is unexpected. A skilled piano player who avoids eye contact, flinches when anyone approaches…and warns Riv of an ambush by tapping out the planetary anthem for Riv’s homeworld of Karibee.

The least Riv can do for the mute piano man, “Ducks”, is take him to the nearest spaceport for help. On their harrowing journey to escape Maltana, Riv makes a horrifying discovery. Ducks endured torture that scarred his mind as well as his body. Still, before he leaves the man safely in a treatment facility, Riv manages to earn what little trust Ducks has to give.

Months later they reconnect, and while it’s clear their instant attraction was no fluke, there’s still a piece missing. Ducks’ voice. To help him find it again, Riv will have to expose the painful past that tore a hole in his own life. And hope that together, their ragged edges will fit together to form a whole.

Warning: This book contains fluffy blond hair, sugary soda that will rot your teeth out, one unfortunate first name, and one mute amnesiac with a sarcasm fetish, all wrapped up in two selfless but mildly unstable guys who accidentally find their happily ever after. In SPACE!

Read An Excerpt Online

Buy From Amazon

May I have the Pleasure?

One of the interesting phenomena of the last few years has been the renewed interest, worldwide and across all age-groups, in ballroom and Latin-American dancing. ‘Proper’ dancing as your grandmother might have called it, as opposed to doing the twist or jiggling your parts about to pop music. Dancing that took a particular form, which had pre-ordained steps, to which you could add your variations but to which you could always return. Dancing where everyone knew where they were and what they were doing, almost a microcosm of society. I digress…

 The revival of interest has been, I guess, prompted by films like Strictly Ballroom and then by extraordinarily popular shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing with the Stars and their many spin offs around the world. So what’s the appeal, apart from the ubiquitous vote-off formula? Is it the gorgeous costumes, the music and glamour, the handsome men and beautiful women gyrating around the floor…actually do we need any other appeal? Maybe the question is why did ballroom dancing ever lose popularity?

 Maybe some of the revolt can be linked to those tongue in cheek comments in the first paragraph. Perhaps young people – who always feel the need to rebel against what their elders like – wanted something freer, something less formulaic and restrained. With disco you can just get up and dance and no-one can say you’re doing it wrong. Certainly developments and changes in the nature of popular music changes mitigated against ballroom. Ever tried doing the cha-cha or foxtrot to Led Zeppelin? Likely to end up with a ripped Achilles’ tendon.

 And maybe it simply wasn’t really as glamorous in the past. I can remember watching Come Dancing on the BBC (in glorious black and white!) and the guys weren’t as good looking as the ones on these celeb dancing shows. In fact, look at this Pathe News clip http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=40285 and you’ll get the idea. Love the frocks and the tail coats, but the participants on Come Dancing always seemed to have stepped straight out of the local factory or office, bless them. Not the stuff stardust dreams are made on. Maybe nothing looked that glam in black and white or with old fashioned production values.

 Mind you, professional dancers have always looked good ‘in the flesh’ – I went to see the Oxford vs Cambridge ballroom dancing competition (sort of like the Boat Race but less wet) which was fun in itself. We had the better costumes; in fact our team had matching costumes and they didn’t at all. Har har. Sorry, digressing again, it’s the thought of hot men doing the tango, of which more anon. Anyway, there was a pair of professional dancers at the event, doing an exhibition of Latin-American dance, and they wouldn’t have looked out of place on Strictly.  This was back in the seventies, so the glam was always there – it was just waiting to be found.

 So, hot men and tangos. There are various videos on YouTube of men dancing together, and I’ve chosen just two to flag up here. You’ll have to wait awhile to get to the dancing on the first one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTvJdpkdLiw   and when it comes it’s brief, but it’s beautiful. And features one of the most romantic kisses I’ve seen in a long time. Almost as good as the two Captain Jacks on Torchwood.

 For  the real thing, two hot blokes doing the tango, I’ve chosen a clip from the biopic of Valentino, dating back to 1977, around the time I was watching that ballroom dancing competition. Pretty naff film, but pretty sizzling tango, Rudolph Nureyev and (I think) Anthony Dowell. Cor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRlWUaIbTco.

I feature the tango (an early one but justifiable as a continental import) in Lessons In Seduction, where Orlando Coppersmith has to swallow his pride, stiffen his shirt front and pose as a professional dancing partner at a posh hotel in order to solve the murder of an ex-mistress of the king. (And end up with a lot of heartbreak because he’s separated from his lover, Jonty Stewart, in the process.) It was fun researching this, although I wish I could have had some practical input, dancing with some handsome young chap who looked like he’d stepped out of that Valentino biog. Ah well, back to the daydreams…

Bio: As Charlie Cochrane couldn’t be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice – like managing a rugby team – she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she’s making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She’s even been known to write about gay werewolves – albeit highly respectable ones.

She was named Author of the Year 2009 by the review site Speak Its Name but her family still regard her writing with a fond indulgence, just as she prefers.

Charlie’s Cambridge Fellows Mysteries Series, set in Edwardian England, is available through Samhain, and she has stories in the anthologies ‘Encore Encore’, ‘Past Shadows’, ‘I Do’ and ‘I Do Two’ (MLR), ‘Queer Wolf’ (Queered Fiction) and ‘Speak Its Name’ (Cheyenne).

Learn More about Charlie Cochrane at http://www.charliecochrane.co.uk   http://charliecochrane.livejournal.com/    Or get your copy of Lessons in Seduction http://samhainpublishing.com/coming/lessons-in-seduction-print