Are you confused?

Do you find yourself sitting on the sofa looking like an idiot because you can't figure out what you're reading? Or can't even remember where your book is? Or your laptop seems to have mysteriously disappeared into your pants?

The Crumpet Strumpets can help.

What, exactly are you reading or writing? Here's a simple quiz to determine if your book is (a) a traditional regency, (b) a regency-set historical, (c) an erotic historical, or (d) historical erotica.

The heroine meets a gentleman she is attracted to. She:
a. Asks to be introduced to him by the patronesses of Almacks
b. Invites him to her bedchamber
c. Invites him and his three friends to her bedchamber
d. Invites him and his regiment to her bedchamber

The hero is wearing:
a. Immaculately polished Hessians, and a finely tailored coat and breeches
b. Boots, breeches and a historically inaccurate shirt unbuttoned all the way down
c. Not much, a sneer, oil, and a whip
d. Tattoos, scars, piercings, a sneer, oil, and an even bigger whip

The heroine is wearing:
a. Bonnet, gown, shawl, reticule
b. Gown, barely, and lots of hair
c. A little wisp of something from Victoria's Secret and lots of hair
d. Tattoos, scars, piercings, a sneer, a really, really big whip, and a shaved head

The secondary characters include:
a. Comic servants and saintly family
b. Comic servants and tiresome family
c. Sex-obsessed companions who may or may not be human
d. Underlings you never meet but someone has to get in the lube and leather supplies

Your hero likes to spend long hours in the library:
a. Reading poetry
b. Decoding secret documents
c. Twisting himself into a pretzel for future activities, based on an ancient tome of erotic practices
d. Oiling the rack and himself

Your heroine likes to:
a. Embroider, play pianoforte, visit the poor
b. Tame stallions, write novels, etc.
c. Practice twisting herself into a pretzel etc.
d. What? Time to do anything else? I don't think so

What else can you think of to help us out?

Mega contest at the Riskies, celebrating the blog's second anniversary, with prizes and naked men. Sort of. But come and visit, http://riskyregencies.blogspot.com.

Seducing the Classics

That's me--the Classics Seductress.

My first book, of course, is Unmasqued, a blatantly erotic version of The Phantom of the Opera. Note that I say erotic, not erotic romance. There's a biiiig difference, as was clearly discussed earlier this week on Dear Author.

I happen to agree with much of the discussion there, in particular a comment made by romblogreader:

"...But in well written erotica and erotic romance...the sex scene can fulfill just about any function, storywise (just like any non-sex scene can), and in an erotic romance, that function is in the service of a story that ultimately, has a HEA. And if you come across that eight page love scene in erotica or erotic romance, and you either skim it or flip a switch that says, “okay, time for the loveless boinking” and only see it for its smut/arousal factor, there’s a possibility you’re skipping over the very thing that you later complain is missing from the book - character development and emotional connection."

Right on, romblogreader! The sex scenes are the major vehicle for character and plot development. That's why it's an erotica.

Anyway, as I was saying, my first book is an erotic version of a classic, and my second book, Master, will also be an erotic take--this time of The Count of Monte Cristo, a book that I dearly loved (all 1247 pages of it).

So now I'm thinking about what to do next...I've got a myriad of ideas, but I'm curious to hear from the peanut gallery. Are there any classics you think just beg (heh) to be seduced?

When is Bad Sex Good Sex?

Ah, the questions that come to one as one scrambles to put a post together for this blog. Sorry, I'm late guys, but I thought it was still Tuesday. And with that warning on the state of my mindset...

When is Bad Sex Good Sex?

Now I don't mean bad sex in the sense of hot, dirty, messy, oh-my-god-take-me-now sex.

I mean it in the sense of oh-my-god-just-finish-already sex.

You know, real life sex.

The sex that happens when the two halves of a couple have different agendas. He wants a quick shag and she wants it long, slow, and lingering. There is some play or musical somewhere (I am thinking "Chicago", but I could be wrong), where the female singer complains that foreplay consists of tweaking the boobs. (Maybe not "Chicago", I can't track down the song.)

So when is Bad Sex Good Sex?

Well, in real life, Bad Sex is bad sex. But in fiction? Honey, it reveals character.

Loads of it. And not all of it pretty. We see the flaws in our hero and heroine, how they are not ready for a deeper relationship (cf. quick shag), what they find important because they're not getting it, and more importantly, we eventually see that bad sex becoming good sex becoming hot DANG! sex.

And that is when Bad Sex is Good Sex. When it creates story and conflict and room for growth.

Right now, I'm reading a fantasy novel by Sarah Monette called "Melusine". I'm just starting to get into it. But there's some serious bad sex in just the first couple of chapters. Bad sex creating magic for nefarious purposes. I think this might be the first time I've seen a protagonist so thoroughly broken on stage. Usually they arrive broken.

When is Bad Sex good for you?

The Power of Sex Talk

First, I have some thrilling news to announce. Last week, I had two sales to publishers! I will be writing a sequel to Blood Rose, and wrapping up my erotic vampire series by asking the question: Can the most dangerous vampires be redeemed by love?
And I sold on auction to Bantam/Dell in a two book deal for regency historical romance. These will be mass market, which is also really exciting for me.

Last night I saw myself on Canadian National t.v.—back in March, I taped a game show called "Test the Nation—Watch Your Language". I had a brief sound bite interview. The host asked me, "What makes a romance erotic?" Well, we were talking about language, so I pointed out that the language is frank, we don’t use euphemisms, and the stories are hot. It’s a family network and the show had an airtime of 8:00 p.m. Also, I knew the network wanted schoolchildren to watch the show. So in my answer, I had to walk a fine line. Capturing the "erotic" in erotic romance is far more complicated than blunt language, and here’s why:

I’m a member of Romance Writers of America, and our local chapter met yesterday for a wonderful workshop given by USA Today Bestseller Nancy Warren (Kensington Brava and Harlequin). She gave two excellent talks on sexual tension and on using screenwriting tips for dialogue. Nancy also quoted the scriptwriter of the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice who, when reading the book, was amazed by the blazing sexuality on every page. I watched the series on DVD again this weekend, and was impressed with how the writer portrayed that—in the "unspoken dialogue", as my husband termed it. The facial expressions revealed what the characters did not even quite understand themselves—they "fancied the pants off each other" as Nancy Warren put it. So if a story without explicit sex can be blazingly sexual, there’s obviously a lot more to it!

If the unspoken dialogue is so powerful, what can lovers actually say to each other that is more powerful than that? In my current WIP, my heroine, after years of feeling like a coward in her marriage to an abusive older husband, is widowed and meets the hero, with whom she is angry enough to be blunt. And honest. As my hero puts it—he’s never met a woman who wielded honesty with such brutality. And that’s the power of sexual banter to me—it’s those moments when desire strips away sense, and vulnerability becomes less important than joining and pleasure, and honesty is what comes out of our mouths.

Just for fun, I’ve picked out some of my favorite bits of fun sexual banter from my stories:
From Blood Rose:
"So you wouldn’t spank me in punishment."
"You are a grown man, Mr. Swift."
"Would you spank me in fun?"
A blush. He’d expected her to blush, to be a little embarrassed. Instead, Serena walked calmly to the edge of the bed and picked up the whip. She curled her fingers around the grip, weighing it. "If I were to spank your bottom, Mr. Swift, I would be tempted to do it with the flat of my hand."

From Sin:
"You plan to walk in public completely bare beneath your cloak?"
"No one would know but you," she protested.
Agony flashed across his handsome features, twisting his sensual mouth. "God, and that’s the bloody magic of it, isn’t it?"

The opening line of Black Silk (Coming April 2008):
"You spend a night allowing a woman to drip molten wax on your chest, and afterward everyone casts you as the villain."

Would other Crumpets like to share some of their favorite banter? Or if you have a favorite snippet from a beloved book, please share!

Unisex, Kickass, Post-Apocalyptic Cyberpunk Hotness and other Passions of Mine

One of the things that makes life worth living is friends who press books and DVDs on you, insisting that you share the stuff they love. It's wonderful when it turns out that you love the stuff as much as they do -- as I did when I read Passion, by Jude Morgan (Jane Lockwood was reading it at RWA National and passed it along to me, and you can read her Regency-writer alter-ego's post about it here, at Risky Regencies).

But even when you don't quite love the book or movie so much, a friend's passion can lead you to a passionate discovery of your own. As when my pal (and fellow Joss Whedon-worshiper) Mark insisted I watch his whole 4-movie Alien DVD set so I could get the full effect of the fourth movie, Alien Resurrection. Resurrection's written by Joss Himself, you see, and it completes the arc that turns Ripley into the hybrid superwoman ("the monster's mother") with great deadpan Joss lines like:

Distephano: I thought you were dead!
Ripley: Yeah, I get that a lot of that lately.

It was to fun share all that (Mark and I will also be going to a midnight singalong showing of Buffy the Musical, at the Bridge Theater in San Francisco later this month). But for me the best part of the Quadrilogy (besides of course the first Alien movie, which is a tight, terrifying little masterpiece that everyone should see) was the third movie in the series, Alien 3. It's the one that's got the worst reputation (quite undeserved, imo). And it's the one, for my money, with one of the hottest, if briefest, erotic scenes I've seen in a movie in a long time.

It's short, so understated that most people don't seem to know it's there, and I can't find a still anywhere on the web. But if you liked Carrie's Story, or if you like cyberpunk sci fi, or a certain kind of unisex hetero hotness, or Wuthering Heights or even (to get back to Passion for a moment, and also to free-associate) if you're as fascinated by the love affair between Lord Byron and his half-sister Augusta Leigh as I am, rent Alien 3 and watch it with your remote in your hand so you can repeat the hot parts.

The director is David Fincher, who later went on to produce Fight Club and the terrific Zodiac. He didn't get much creative control over Alien 3, so it's a very mixed bag. But that's what they invented DVDs and remotes for, right? The premise of Alien 3 is Ripley on a prison planet -- with very bad men who've embraced an anti-sex, apocalyptic fundamentalist religion and haven't seen a woman in a very long time.

The alien monster shows up eventually too, but I didn't much care. What I loved were the big, ominous, rusty post-industrial interiors, all the anger and tension, and especially that all-too-brief erotic encounter, between a shave-headed Ripley and a shave-headed Charles Dance as Clemens, the planet's doctor, with a dicey past, and a nice angry, grim, very smart attitude, and excellent Brit diction. Nice delts, too -- he and Ripley in their matching olive drab prison-issue tank tops melted me into a helpless little puddle of couch potato juice.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a still of the Ripley and Clemens anywhere on the web. (Dance was the superscary Mr. Tulkinghorn from the PBS Bleak House if that helps).

I'm still not sure why I liked it so much. But I find myself fascinated by a kind of eroticism that short-circuits the usual male-female dance steps through the life cycle and comes up with something that combines the angry undifferentiated energy of childhood and the late, weary, cynicism of post-industrialism.

Makes me think of Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights, as children running out together on the moors under the dairywoman's cloak.

Makes me think of Molly, from William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, the girl who had mirrorsunglasses surgically implanted where her eyes should be (and yeah, the inspiration for my Molly Weatherfield pseud).

Kickass, I guess, is the marketing term they finally came up for it, for the very tough women and the men who I always fall in love with because they love the very tough women.

Like the the image of Drusilla holding Spike in her arms in some Buffy episode maybe at the end of Season 2 (which I also can't find a web image for. How come they don't have web images for all the stuff I love?). Or even a little of Wash and Zoe from Firefly (when I searched the web for graphics of them, I came up with a piece of fan fiction that I really liked, so here, enjoy it too).

Sorry I could only be imagistic and sort of free-associating here. Anybody else out there like that kind of stuff? Any recommendations?

And The Winner Is....

Seeley deBorn

Thank you all for the wonderful comments on my excerpt and my writing.
Huge hugs!

Seeley,
Email me at Lacy@Lacydanes.com and I will send out your books ASAP.

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.

Not a Regency Historical... Or Historical At All!

This past week my contemporary novella called KISS OF THE DRAGON released in the SEXY BEAST III anthology. The antho has been doing really quite well. The first few days of release the book ranked #1 on Barns and Nobles erotic fiction category.

The man on the cover is oh so sexy... He is the cover model on all of the Sexy Beast covers so far and I know he is on the next one as well.

Here is what RT has to say about the novellas.

Four Stars ~ "These wereanimal-themed stories are a sizzling set of tales with a nice range of settings. From an adventure in a werewolf family to sexy weredragons to a unique tale set in Japan involving a weretiger, each story is exciting and hot. Hawke's almost fairy tale, with its exotic Japanese setting and dreamlike atmosphere, is especially intriguing. Group, hetero- and homosexual acts are all represented."
- Romantic Times Magazine

My story is contemporary but my hero has been around for quite some time. Hundreds of years.

Here is a blurb from my story:
Meet Nora and Chester... Nora can read energies and is human, Chester is sexy weredragon. WARNING>>>> EXPLICIT SEX AHEAD<<<<<<<.


Chet strode forward to Nora. He stood before her and lightly trailed his finger tips up the soft flesh of her sides. She jumped, her skin and muscles twitching. A smile crossed her lips and her eyes held his. The black center of her eyes engulfed the brown in arousal and the smell of her spicy wet cunt made his mouth water.

Frey appeared behind her and grabbed her hair, pulling her head back and exposing her neck to Chester’s sight. He licked his lips, staring admiringly at the exposed column of her throat. He needed to mark her delicate skin in a pattern any Dragna would be proud of. He would do it with his teeth.

He leaned forward, his tongue licking her spiced skin from collarbone to ear. Her breath deepened and his cock twitched, aching to be touched by her hands, her mouth. He needed her hot skin, he needed her. In every Dragna’s life one mate made them a better partner. Nora was that mate for him. He bit the flesh of her earlobe, breathing out warmed air from his lungs as he did.

Nora squirmed. Dragging his teeth harshly down the warmed skin, she whimpered. The marks would stay… permanently etched on her skin in his blue gold shimmer. Warmed by the fire of his breath they would never leave her body.

A mark saying to all she was his.

His hands pulled her lower body to his, the warm juices of her cunt touched his cock as he rotated his hips against her and he wanted nothing more than to sink into her.

He held himself still. Frey would have that first privilege tonight.

She gasped in delight as Frey’s tongue traced the raised flesh his mark created on her neck, spreading her thighs further and rocking her clit against Chet. The hot folds of her labia coated his skin with her increasing lust. Chet groaned and speared his brother with his gaze. Get a move on, Frey. Frey’s eyes laughed back at him as he nodded his understanding.

Frey’s tongue flicked the pulse, hammering just below her skin, then in the reverse direction marked her with his teeth. Nora cried out in pleasure and pain. The spicy smell of her pussy dripping with arousal filled Chet’s nostrils and his mouth watered wanting to taste her tartness.

Frey released his hold on her hair, and dropped to the floor behind her, spreading her butt cheeks and spearing his tongue into her juicy lips.

Frey would get to do everything first tonight. Bugger it. Not if Chet could help it, he would make her come first. He dropped to his knees and drew a slick line down Nora’s labia, flicking her clit with feathery touches. Nora groaned, her legs shaking by his ears. My Desna, she was so responsive to every caress. He could caress her however he wished and she would be in rapture.

Yes, oh yes. He would make her come and hard. His tongue circled her bud and latched on to the hard flesh, sucking, then swirling her button again.

Frey’s fingers kneaded Nora’s smooth ivory buttocks and thighs, as his tongue danced and along her slit. The heat and moisture of his tongue mingled with Chet’s and Nora’s juices as they elicited cry after pleasurable cry from Nora’s lips.
Each subtle moan and full out delightful scream made Chet’s blood rush faster, blocking all but his oiled tongue lapping and swilling in Nora’s gushing wetness. Her legs shook and jerked. She arched her hips towards him, reaching for the climax that he intended on providing her. Yes, lovely, come for me now. Come for me.

He swooshed his tongue over her clit and rapidly flicked the swollen nub of flesh. Nora screamed, her body thrashing on the restraints. Chet washed her labia with his tongue. Each hard pulse of her cunt, spilling the thick oil of her come on his taste-buds. The tart, spiced taste of her spend, hardened him to standing straight. Perfect. She was perfect.
~~~~~~~

Hope you enjoyed!



Okay so in honor of this books release I am going to give away a copy of SEXY BEAST III and WHAT SHE CRAVES. Post a comment on this post by 9PM on 6th of September and I will pull one name from those who comment to win both.

Hugs and Kisses,
Lacy.