Yo ho yo ho: Calling all bloggers.

What a blast to meet those of you that I saw at the Romantic Times convention last week. (I'm still recovering. You?)

In the midst of all the craziness, it's completely sneaked up on me that I have a new book coming out a week from Tuesday!

My latest "seduced classic" is an erotic twist on Dumas' brilliant revenge story The Count of Monte Cristo. My count is tortured, sexy, and hell-bent on revenge....whew! Makes for some hawt scenes.

I loved the original book--all 1247 pages of it--and other than giving the story a happy ending and lots of sex, I pretty much followed the original storyline (unlike the deviations in my Phantom of the Opera book, Unmasqued).

I'm looking for a few bloggers who'd like to receive a free copy. All I ask in return is for you to read and blog about the book before May 15. If you're interested, email me at colette at colettegale dot com and I'll get one shipped off to you posthaste.

For those curious-minded folk, you can find out more info (and read an excerpt) on my site at colettegale.com. Here's the back cover blurb:

Edmond Dantés spent years imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. Now free, he has returned to Paris in the guise of the powerful Count of Monte Cristo seeking vengeance on those who sent him to jail. But his plan also includes a different kind of revenge on the woman he has never forgotten, the lover he has made it his mission to possess.

Mércèdes Herrera was devastated when the man she loved disappeared. Trapped in a loveless marriage, her passions are reignited by Edmond's return. She alone sees through his disguise...but this harsh, angry man sends chills down her spine even as his very touch reminds her of the passion they once shared. She realizes soon enough that his plan to avenge himself on the men who incarcerated him also includes another sort of revenge...on her.

From the seaside town of Marseille, to the exotic caves of Monte Cristo Isle, unfolds an erotic battle of wills in the most electrifying game of love ever played between man and woman, between master and slave.

Happy St. George's Day

Yes, it's April 23, St. George's Day, and also by an amazing coincidence, Shakespeare's birthday, calculated by counting backward from the first known date in his life, his christening.

So who was St. George, anyway? He was the patron saint of England, demoted in modern times by the papacy when they were having a house clean, getting rid of dubious saints. No one celebrates his day much, although according to this article in the Daily Telegraph this year the English revived it as a celebration, but without any politically incorrect overtone of gung-ho patriotism--a bit of flag display, and a rather sweet Ode to St. George: The True Dragon by poet Brian Patten.
George's claim to fame is that he slew a dragon who was about to devour a maiden, as you can see in this rendering by Ucello, where everyone looks supremely well behaved. Yes, there's a bit of blood, but it should mop up quite well. At any moment the maiden is going to offer St. George something to read ...

So it got me thinking about dragons and who does dragons in erotic romance. I can't think of any, but then I'm an ignoramus. In another genre, there's Naomi Novik's brilliant Temeraire series (excuse me while I squee like a pre-teenager), which portrays the most wonderful intense relationship between Captain Lawrence and his dragon.

Dragons, I think, must be difficult in the wonderful world of -weres. They breathe fire, possibly when they get excited, which could lead to some unfortunate pubic hair depilation by fire. They are big and scaly. They are very interested in gold.

And, they eat virgins.

On the other hand, they are mysterious and sexy in a reptilian sort of way and might be more fun than George himself who'd need a can opener to do anything interesting. Or do you like the thought of a man in armor clanking into your boudoir, mighty lance readied for action...

Any thoughts on St. George or dragons? Armor fetishism?

A New Book, a Contest, a Dumb Mistake and Two Funerals

It sounds like a movie with Hugh Grant in it, but it's actually a description of the month, more or less, that I've more-or-less just finished living through.

Because you may remember that at the end of February, I first posted the lovely cover of my November novel, The Edge of Impropriety, accompanied with some jittery prose to the effect that I was waiting nervously for my editor's instructions on how to revise the manuscript.

Now I'm not averse to criticism of my writing. I wouldn't say I actually enjoy it, but I do appreciate it.

I mean, computer programmers (which I was, for 25 years) don't whine and get all insulted when someone finds a bug in their code, do they? Au contraire, they're happy and grateful someone found the problem before the program went live and plunged the whole wide wired world into silent darkness.

So it's not the editorial tough love that bothers me. What makes me nuts is waiting to find out what bugs and glitches and just downright doesn't-work moments an editor has found in my manuscript. It's the waiting that gets me pacing the floor and biting my nails.

Cool it, I told myself. You have stuff to do.

Because I needed to post a new contest on my web page -- one of those read-an-excerpt-answer-a-question-enter-the-drawing-to-win-a-prize contests.

The prize would be an autographed copy of The Slightest Provocation, and I figured I'd make it a sexy contest, using the passage wherein my hero and heroine, Mary and Kit, play a sexy game wherein a pirate ravishes his captive lady.

Am I the only historical erotic author, btw, who portrays her characters sharing erotic fantasies?

I mean, don't the characters in erotic historicals already live in costume fantasyland?

Isn't it the reader who's supposed to be having the fantasies?

I'm probably not the only author who creates such scenes in her books. But I might be the only one who gets herself tied up into TheoryGirl knots by mulling over the meta of these meta-questions, instead of keeping her mind on the html as she constructs a web-based contest whose question asks, "In The Slightest Provocation, what does Mary wear for a hot, silly, rough-and-tumble game of pirate-and-lady?"

When I wasn't tying myself into knots worrying about what changes my editor would want me to apply to the manuscript of The Edge of Impropriety.

And I may be the only romance author (who are, by and large, a frighteningly competent, productive bunch) who got so distracted that she forgot to put the pirate excerpt up, leaving an entirely different excerpt, about a much younger Mary and Kit -- who were much too young to play pirate (at least the kind of pirate game I had in mind).

Or perhaps it was because I was interrupted by an aunt's sudden death and had to grab a red-eye flight to go East for the funeral.

I was glad I went, though. My family pulls together in hard times and I was glad to add my support.

When I got back home from the funeral, my editor's revision instructions had arrived. Smart ones. Thoughtful ones. Tough ones.

Oh, and could I turn it around in a little less than three weeks?

None of which left me much time to pay attention to the fact that no one who'd entered my contest seemed to know what Mary was wearing to play pirate.

I did make the changes to the manuscript, though the only time I got out of my pajamas during those weeks might have been the afternoon I delivered my talk to the Popular Culture Association -- with the help of two of the avatars who live in the mad attic of my brain, TheoryGirl and SuperegoGirl (that's TheoryGirl in the pic -- SuperegoGirl is camera-shy).

I wish, by the way, that I could have heard the other talks at the Popular Culture conference. If you're interested in romance scholarship, please check out Sarah Frantz's discussion here.

But I did made the changes to The Edge of Impropriety in the time assigned. And even had a little fun when I added a whole other sex scene (about which, more later).

And had a moment to enjoy the email from my editor saying she liked what I'd done...

...just in time to go East for yet another funeral.

But not in time to notice that there was still hardly any response to my contest question.

Until I got home from Funeral Two last week, to find a sweet, patient smart letter from a reader who was kind enough to clue me into the fact that there was nothing in the excerpt on my web page that would possibly tell anyone what my poor heroine was wearing to play sexy grownup pirate (because the excerpt that was still on my page had her as a twelve-year-old in pigtails and pinafore).

So apologies to all you contest freaks out there. Please come play -- it's fixed now -- while I take a long, red-faced nap.

As for the questions...

One of which you'll find on the contest page of my web site.

Except for those of you who like to mull, as I do, about the boxes-within-boxes paradoxes of characters in erotic romance novels who have their own erotic romance fantasies... Those of you who never met a metastructure they didn't like... I'd love to hear your thoughts too.

Am I allowed to say the P word?

Well, sure I am! Read on...

I had a post and then my computer crashed. So you’ll just have to wait until I’m next rostered on for what I was originally going to talk about.

I’m going to my first SF/F convention in May -- Wiscon -- and I got on a panel! You guys will just love the title:

Porn Crushes the Patriarchy!

Here’s the blurb:

"Erotica for women is coming into the mainstream--novels from the pioneering Black Lace line are now available in trade paperback editions, shelved among the romance novels, which have long been described as 'porn for women,' and several major publishers (Harlequin, Avon, Kensington, etc.) have begun lines of women's erotica in the last couple of years. Publishers go where the money is, but what made the market favorable for erotica right now? Who's buying the books? Was the renaissance encouraged by online publishers such as Ellora's Cave? And does reading (and writing) porn really crush the patriarchy? "

Ok, I’m throwing this out to you -- where did the market come from for erotica and erotic romance? (and I’m sure I’m going to have to define the difference, I don’t know who the other people are on the panel)

Does reading/writing porn really crush the patriarchy?

Did I mention this is a feminist SF/F convention?

I am going to have so much fun!

Simply Sinful

Now I 'know' it's not shouting Regency, but it is still beautiful, especially the guy:)

Simply Sinful comes out at the beginning of November this year. Here's the blurb:

A Wicked Proposition...

Forced to wed at a young age, Abigail Beecham is tired of living in a sexless marriage. She longs to succumb to the delicious pleasures of pure carnal lust that she has only read about. And if her husband James can't satisfy her erotic needs, he's ready to find a man who can.

A Wild Past

Peter Howard is accustomed to unusual sexual requests. His seven years as a slave in a Turkish brothel left his skilled in sensual delights. But there is little that actually arouses him-until he meets James and Abigail. Maybe now he'll finally experience that exquisite feeling of bliss he so desperately desires.

It was so much fun to write this book, mainly because I knew the characters so well. But it didn't turn out quite how I anticipated-you'll have to read it to find out why :) The best thing is, I get the opportunity to write two more in this series. So look out next year for "Simply Shameless" which is about Madame Helene, and another, as yet untitled, about Anthony Sokorvsky.

I'm off to the RT convention tonight, so if you're coming, please pop by the book signing and say hi!

Aphrodisiacs Galore

My husband and I were invited to an Aphrodisiac-Themed Dinner Saturday night.

Yes, you read that right. An Aphrodisiac-Themed Dinner.

Crab, avocado, oysters (oh, the OYSTERS!), shrimp, arugula, quail eggs(!), passionfruit, nutmeg, cinnamon, chocolate, bananas, chilis…the list goes on and on.

We started our first course at about 8 and didn't finish till after midnight.

A couple who are friends of ours had six couples (for a total of twelve) over for dinner on Saturday night. Each couple was responsible for bringing one course for the meal, and one alcoholic beverage/drink. All had to contain food aphrodisiacs.

We agreed at the beginning of the evening that no one was to ask, "Hey, where did Colette and Mr. Colette go?" if we noticed someone was missing. And our hosts said if we needed to, we could bring A sleeping bag in case we needed to stay over. Only one, though.

This group of people gets together every other month for an event like this (not an aphrodisiac dinner) and they call it Cooking With Friends. They all love to cook, and they all cook well, and each time they get together, there's a theme.

We're not a regular part of the group, but for some reason, we were invited to the Aphrodisiac themed dinner.

Huh. Wonder why that was.

Anyway, the dish I made was fabulous and super super easy. So I thought I'd share it for anyone who's interested.

CRAB AVOCADO COCKTAIL

Can of unsweetened coconut milk (use only one-third of the can for 8 oz of crab)

1 Tablespoon honey

Juice of one lime

1 serrano chili, chopped fine

2 Tablespoons red onion, sliced thin

salt and pepper

8 oz lump crab meat

Mix the coconut milk with the peppers, onion, honey, lime, salt and pepper and then fold in the crab. Let it marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

Then fold in 1 diced avocado (or less if you like) and let sit for ten minutes. When you're ready to serve, scoop out the crab/avocado mixture with a slotted spoon and put it in a martini glass. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro, serve with a small fork.

Yum.

If I remember later, I'll share the recipe for the drink we made. Passionfruit Punch it was called. Lovely. Very strong. But lovely.

What's your favorite aphrodisiac?

Breaking In (Futter In) Transportation

This week i bought a new car and of course that started me thinking of breaking in said car. LOL Isn't she pretty? British flags and all. wink.

I am currently writing two stories that involve scenes in carriages. One has not only sex in a carriage, the kind with two opposite seats, but a stole away. The other involves oral sex in a carriage.

Some of the carriages from the time could very easily accommodate moving futter and stole ways.


Others would be totally impractical. Though I have to admit a fondness for convertibles.


What I enjoy so much about writing transportation sex is the exhibitionism, the chance of being caught. Along with all the challenges of pulling off sex in a jostling, moving, coach. wink. One of my heroes becomes quite angry that he is denied his spend because a dog is in the road and the carriage comes to an abrupt halt. You certainly do need good balance and a lot of will to pull off moving futter.

Hope you are all doing well
I am working on two deadlines for novella's due May 1st. eek.
Hope you all enjoy the lovely spring weather.

Hugs,
Lacy.