Guest - Emma Shortt

Firstly, congratulations to the winner of last weeks competition: Janie Stevenson. Yep, I'd love to have a hero with soft downy plumage in his nether regions and the strength of giant eagle wings in his arms. Nice. A copy of A Talon at Her Throat is winging it's way to you as we speak.

Today we have prolific writer Emma Shortt stopping by. And her book in a week release Paying her Debt (yep, book in a week!) is only $0.99 for a tiny short while. Grab yours to see what this clever lady can whip out of thin air!
x Michele

A Book in a Week

I wrote Paying her Debt, my erotic, contemporary romance, in a week. Yep, a week.

It came to me in a flash of inspiration and I knew I had to get the story down as soon as possible. So I sat at my computer and I just did not stop writing. Well, okay there were food and toilet breaks but other than that the family were ignored, the house fell apart around my ears and even whilst I slept the plot invaded my dreams.  

Now I’m quite a prolific writer, less than 25,000 words a week and I feel like I’ve slacked off, but this was something else altogether. If I could bottle the energy I felt in that week I’d be well...writing a book a week!

Paying her Debt has been described as an old fashioned romance with some pretty modern erotic elements and I hoped that it would be my first bestseller for Evernight (one of my two publishers). Up until then I’d had a few paranormal romances published but whilst they’d done okay they weren’t setting anything on fire. Paying her Debt did.

It sold more books than anything I’d published before combined and as I watched the sales figures tally up I couldn’t help but think that yes! I would write a book a week.  Goodbye evil day job, hello full time writing.

 Only it doesn’t work like that.

I’ve never again been able to create an entire, fully edited book in such a short time. I’ve come close. On one very memorable day I wrote 15,763 words. Those words were the ending for my post-apocalyptic romance, Waking up Dead (coming late 2013 from Entangled Publishing), and I was ill for days afterwards. But a book in a week – nope it has never happened. I’ve thought about this a lot and tried to work out why I can’t recreate the energy I had in that week and I’ve come to two conclusions. Firstly at that point in my career I was so desperate for something to sell well that I was spurred on to the point of madness, secondly I had a storyline come to me from nowhere - fully formed - and I sort of wanted to write it so I could read it...does that make sense? Of course these reasons don’t help me to do the whole thing over again, but it is fun to wonder! I’d love to hear from anyone else who has managed to write a book in such a short space of time. Where did you get your energy? Can you recreate the process?

And if you’d like to read the product of my week of madness it is on sale right now for just 99 cents at Amazon.com. I’d be thrilled if you’d check it out. Just imagine if I made the Amazon best seller lists with it! It might even spur me on to try for a five day book...you never know!

Happy reading,

Emma x

Birds of a feather - Give away!

I've always thought it would be kinda cool to fly. I mean, super hero power? Surely flight has got to be well and truly up there don't you think? And sex on the wing? Count me in. So when I jumped into paranormal world, I figured my heroes really needed to fly. Today I thought I'd give away a copy of my latest title A Talon at Her Throat, featuring bird of prey a plenty.

Writing this book I 'dived' (sorry) into research about birds of prey as I wanted my Talon shapeshifters to be able to chose at will which features they'd take from the world's catalog of aeral hunters.
The Brahminy Kite for example calls with a mewing "keeyew"and sometimes take on much bigger birds, even eagles, if they're in a mob. One brave bird. Whereas Kestral, birds of true beauty in their ability to hover and beautiful striped plumage, wouldn't go for anything much bigger than a large lizard. But man are they pretty.

I loved letting the Talon shift between Eagle, Kestral, Kite and even Osprey in A Talon at her Throat. And there's even a gentle-ish owl in the mix. Amazing how those creatures can look wise or brutal with just a slight change of their heads.

There's plenty of bird of prey to choose from. I'd love to know what characteristics you'd pick to adorn your Talon hero. Steel sharp sight? Expansive wing breadth? Or soft downy feathers at his groin? Leave a comment here, through my website, on facebook or twitter to win! 

Thanks for stopping by!

xMichele

Excerpt - A Talon at Her Throat

Her body throbbed, the heat of liquid arousal rushing between her legs. It was wrong, so wrong. And yet, how could it be when every part of her body yearned to fit into his like a neat eternal jigsaw piece. Without meaning to Yasmin felt a gentle rocking start up as she rubbed up against him, her legs spread wide as he held them around his waist.

Her shirt already open, Gray tore through the thin lace of her bra, and the wind against her bared breasts felt incredible, icy on her nipples. As he nuzzled there, Yasmin felt a hand move from her butt to the front of her pants.

Damn! If his hand was there, what the hell was holding her up and safe?

 Before she could protest that he might drop her or that she wasn’t about to get naked mid-air, her pants were spiraling down towards the earth.

With only a small scrap of white lace now separating her from his need, Yasmin felt the slick of her sex urging him on. Never had a man aroused her like this, made her body respond despite her mind’s protests.

His biceps bulged as he shifted her just a little closer and held her against his hard length to stop her wriggling. Her stomach clenched as the power of those muscles promised the strength he would bring should he drive himself into her. It would feel soooo good. “Oh, yes.” She threw back her head.

You can read more or grab your own copy on the Wild Rose Press site or on iTunes.