Independence equals having money of your own that you can spend without having to ask permission from someone else. It sounds like a simple concept, but when you consider that up to the 1970s in many countries women couldn’t open a bank account or hold a credit card in their own name without a male signature on the application form. All women, any man – a husband, a brother, a father, it didn’t matter as long as it was a bloke giving permission. To write an independent heroine in historical Continue Reading
Guest Post: Dragons, vampires and witches, oh my! by A.C Athur
One of my all-time favorite movies is The Wizard of Oz. There’s just something about that whimsical world, more like alternate reality, that always spoke to me. Maybe it was because regardless of what the character’s outward appearance was—a scarecrow, tinman, lion or fake wizard—inside they were the same as when they looked just like Dorothy. Let’s not forget the songs were catchy and addictive and that Oz was beautiful to look at. Of course, our reality looks nothing like that, but isn’t it Continue Reading
Excerpt: The Hideaway Inn by Philip William Stover
Author Introduction I’m going to lean into the Smexy brand here and share my skinny dipping scene. What is smarter or sexier than skinny dipping? When you don’t wear a swimsuit you don’t have to worry about drying it so that has the added bonus of not needing to do laundry which is probably good for the environment. So all that is firmly in the smart column. Now for an M/M romance with a skinny dipping scene in a crystal clear spring-fed stream we are going to have to deal with a word I like Continue Reading
Guest Post: Small Town Romance Recommendations by Chelsea M. Cameron
Chelsea's new book, The Girl Next Door, will be released on May 26. She stopped by to give us some recs for some other small town romances. Thanks Chelsea! I’m from a small town. When I say that, I don’t think a lot of people have a concept of HOW small I mean. I’m talking less than 3,000 people. I went to the same school for kindergarten through eighth grade. Many of the teachers I had are still teaching there, some of them with friends of mine who are now teachers themselves. Our town Continue Reading
Guest Post: How I Incorporated Supernatural into my Magic in Manhattan series by Allie Therin
Allie Therin's new book, Starcrossed, it out today. She stopped by to talk about the book. Thanks Allie! When Smexy Books invited me to blog on incorporating the supernatural into my Magic in Manhattan series, the first thing I thought of was my recent privilege of speaking to author Dana Staves’s class about my (still very new!) experiences with publishing. They asked great questions, including whether I thought world-building/fantasy elements have their own development arc the way the Continue Reading
Excerpt: VARIABLE ONSET by Layla Reyne
Intro In Variable Onset, (available now) a standalone m/m romantic mystery, a prickly FBI instructor meets his match—and undercover husband—in the brash, flirtatious former student who made his early professor days hell… and who always had the hots for teacher. With their cold case suddenly heating up, will things get too hot to handle, in their fake relationship and in their investigation? Read on for a sexy excerpt! Sexy Excerpt “I’m sorry,” Lincoln said, slumping back in Continue Reading
Excerpt: Flying Gold by Vanessa North
Flying Gold, American Heavy Metal, #2, is out today and Vanessa provided an excerpt for us to share with you. I’ve spent the last five years looking through cameras at some of the most famously beautiful faces on the planet, but none of them hold a candle to the first girl I ever loved, and nothing could have prepared me for the heart-wrenching realization that the angry woman in the driver’s seat isn’t the girl I remember. And that’s my fault. I’m the stupidest motherf*cker to ever Continue Reading
Guest Post: What I love about Brother’s Best Friend Books by Annabeth Albert
Hi! I am so excited today to be on one of my all-time favorite blogs as we count down to BURN ZONE (pubs 4/27), which is the first in my sexy new smoke jumper series set in Central Oregon amid the wildfire season. It centers around the forbidden attraction between a sunny newbie smoke jumper and an older, more jaded veteran. It’s also Older Brother’s Best Friend Trope, and oh how I love this trope. It’s all time favorite for me. I did it in AT ATTENTION as well, but here I wanted to take a Continue Reading
Excerpt: Temper by Chantal Fernando
Blurb from Temper by Chantal Fernando, available now. Every year, the hot, tatted biker comes into Abbie’s bar, orders whiskey, and asks her out. Every year, Abbie turns him down. After all, dating a man that goes by Temper seems like a really bad idea, no matter how attracted she is to him. But this year is different. Abbie’s different. Older, wiser, and tired of being stuck behind the bar in a sleepy town. This year, she’s ready for whatever adventure the sexy but sweet biker has in Continue Reading
Guest Post: Blending Hard Topics with Romance by Jennie Davids
Thank you so much for having me here today. I was invited to talk about how I blend hard topics and romance in my Thorn & Thistle series which follows the queer women that work in a tattoo shop. Two books into the series and I’ve already tackled cancer, alcoholism, and the death of a parent. Those topics might not scream romance to some, but they do for me. In fact, as I’ve learned when I try to write lighter things and failed, they are a necessity. For me, the presence of heavy subjects is Continue Reading