Realms of the Raven - Erotic Romance Author Maura Anderson

Coyote Run
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

Damn he hurt.

What the hell had happened? He remembered going for a night ride on his big palomino gelding, Nikki, feeling unusually restless and lonely. Just riding randomly around, he’d come across something he’d only heard legends of – a Coyote Run.

There must have been a dozen coyotes, weaving in and around the shrubs, playing and dancing in the moonlight. The full moon illuminated their antics and he just watched in awe from atop his horse, hoping they wouldn’t mind his presence.

Sudden, searing pain exploded across his back and darkness rushed through him.

Mitch slowly opened his eyes. Lethargic and cold, he saw the outlines of the familiar furniture of his own bedroom in the darkness. Was it a dream? He reached for the light beside the bed, then hissed at the sharp pain that jolted through his back at the slight movement. Nope – not a dream. But what the hell had happened?

He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, willing the pain to recede. He felt the bed next to him shifted a little and a soft whine made him open his eyes to see the long snout of a dog come to rest on the bed next to his face. Warm golden eyes looked steadily into his own with what seemed to be un-doglike intelligence.

He didn’t even own a dog.

The crunch of gravel, accompanied by the sound of a motor, told Mitch someone had pulled up outside the small cabin. He braced himself to try to sit up, only to have the dog snarl at his movement.

“Someone’s here. Back off, dog.”

When he lifted himself up on his elbow, Mitch realized two things. He wasn’t going to be able to stand up and that was no dog. With those ears, that had to be a coyote. His awe was quickly overwhelmed by fiery pain and he collapsed back onto the bed and into darkness.

* * * * *

Warm. He felt surprisingly warm and comfortable but there was something important he had to remember. Something just outside his awareness.

Mitch couldn’t remember being this tired in a long time, yet he’d obviously been asleep for a while if the dryness of his mouth was anything to judge by. It felt like a herd of army boots had marched through but he wasn’t sure it was worth the effort to get up for some water.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes to discover it had to be midday, judging by the amount of light coming in the cabin’s main windows and bleeding into the sleeping loft. Enough light to see the coyote curled up in the bed next to him, taking up over half the mattress. The light snuffling of the sleeping animal hadn’t even penetrated his consciousness until now but he’d obviously been curled up against the coyote’s warm fur.

Mitch realized he was naked and his soft swearing woke his bedmate who cocked his head, at least he assumed it was a him because it was a really big coyote, in return. “Umm. Hi, boy.”

Mitch turned onto his back and almost swore again at the pain radiating from his shoulder and upper back. He waited a second, then tentatively wiggled. He’d been hurt somehow but it felt as if there were bandages or something on his back. Maybe he’d been in an accident?

The coyote rose to his feet and hopped off the bed to stand beside it, looking at Mitch with a steady gaze.

“Did you get help for me? Who are you?” Mitch chuckled at himself. “I must be loopy, here I am talking to a coyote who can’t possibly answer me.”

The coyote snuffle, as if laughing as well, then Mitch’s attention was caught by the shimmer that surrounded the gorgeous animal. Almost instantly, the large coyote was replaced by the form of a man—a naked, slender man with hair the color of the coyote’s fur and golden brown eyes. And an impressive erection that no self-respecting man could fail to notice.

“My name is Jamie. And my family helped get you home after the hunters shot you.”

With an eerie grace, Jamie propped one knee on the edge of the bed and bent to capture Mitch’s lips in a kiss that made the rest of the universe disappear. As Jamie slipped back under the covers with Mitch, he released his lips just long enough to change Mitch’s life forever.

“I am your mate.”

Buy it now from Aspen Mountain Press!

Blurb:
Ambitious and driven patent law attorney, Gayle Osborne, has a secret. Her power suits and take-no-prisoners attitude hide a passionate nature whose only outlet is reading and reviewing erotic romance. If anyone finds out that she is “Miss Retort,” the snarky and opinionated blogger from the Hits & Misses review blog, she’ll lose everything—her reputation, her clients, her job and, worst of all, her gorgeous mentor and boss, Tyler Monroe.

Excerpt:
“You want to do what?”

Gayle Osborne’s voice rang out through the coffee shop, causing the scattering of other patrons to turn and look toward her. Cringing, she tried in vain to become invisible. More attention was not something she really wanted.

She loved the normal weekly gathering of their little group—a relaxing Saturday morning spent with designer coffee and the latest offerings in the world of print and e-book erotic romance. A far cry from her buttoned up and formal world of patent law, it fed a hidden side of her. The same side that wanted to do things like fuck Tyler Morgan—her gorgeous mentor and boss.

Only a moment of insanity could have caused her to agree to this hurried weekday lunch meeting instead of trying to get some work done and watching Tyler from afar. Insanity, or just too much nagging from her friends. Gayle took a sip of her water and glanced around. Thank heaven the other customers seemed to have lost interest already.

The past year had been a rollercoaster of emotions between her growing lust for Tyler , and her need to remain competent and professional. Lately she’d needed to remind herself daily that no amount of sexual satisfaction was worth losing her career over.

But a collaborative erotic romance review blog?

Sure, they all exchanged reviews on the group email list about their latest page-turners. They warned each other about new wallbangers. They commiserated over the lack of honest and forthright reviews from other people, and the resulting necessity of sorting the gems from the duds themselves. But that was just among a small group of friends who shared a common interest, and a far cry from standing up and virtually shouting from a public blog.

She tried to imagine just what the reaction of her family, her mentor, or her clients would be if they did a web search on her name and found that. She shuddered at the very thought.

“Gayle, what’s the big deal? It’s not like we’re not already doing most of this. Hell, the more structured aspect of it should appeal to you.” Kelly looked exhausted and chugged down more of her second triple mocha of the morning. The woman could use her own caffeine IV lately.

Gayle bristled at the amusement in her best friend’s tired voice. “I’m not afraid of more work or imposing some organization.”

Anne laughed and sat back down next to Kelly. “This coming from the woman who has her entire e-book collection organized by genre, author and title, and then cross-referenced in a spreadsheet by publisher and series. Of course she’s not afraid of organization.”

Gayle rolled her eyes at the familiar jab. “The amount of work involved has nothing to do with it. There’s just no way I’m going to do anything that might threaten my career. It’s taken me years to get here and I’m not going to screw that up.”

“I’m a patent attorney who works with software engineers. Can you imagine what would happen if they found out I read romances, let alone erotic romances? They already hit on me and that would just make things ten times worse. Just the hint of anything erotic connected to me would make my credibility plummet instantly to the level of a slutty brainless twit.”

Kelly chuckled. “And you wouldn’t want to let on that you have a side that’s not cast iron and welded into a power suit. No one can know that you might be as human and as vulnerable as everyone else.”

Gayle sighed in exasperation. Her friends seemed determined to talk her around. “Like I’m going to advertise to my boss that at lunch today I’ll be reading a book called ‘Anus of Eros’ or ‘WigglyJiggly’ and expect the man to still think I can do my job and more?”

The very thought of Tyler giving her his patented “bimbo kiss-off” look made her stomach churn. In the time she’d worked for him, he’d gone through numerous girlfriends and each brief relationship had ended with that look. The huge crush she had on her boss, and his frequent starring role in her fantasies, made her all the more determined that he never turn that look on her.

She was lucky to not have a morality clause in her contract, but what if she lost some of their clients by doing this?

She took a sip of her rich, sweet mocha brevé. “And some of the author names sound like really bad porn star names. I mean, really, why would anyone actually admit they write as ‘Savannah Stars,’ ‘Tawny Strokes’ or ‘Thorny Rose’? If some of them didn’t write decent stories, I’d swear they were really men, in addition to having bad taste in pen names.”

“See, that kind of comment is exactly why we should do this.” Obviously excited, Anne latched onto Gayle’s objections. “We all want to see the quality and reputation of the genre improve. How better than to have a voice and help the changes along?”

Gayle could see by the stubborn looks on the faces of her friends that she was the only one who was not sure about this grand new plan. “Maybe I can just help out with the website? I’m pretty decent with HTML.”

“Not a chance, Gayle. Not when you’re the one who does the best job on the really tough reviews. You’re great at figuring out why something does or doesn’t work.” Renee chimed in from across the table.

Gayle made a final, valiant escape attempt. “I can’t do anything to impact my career or my professional relationships. I deal with a lot of very opinionated and curious geeks, and they’re sure to Google my name.”

“We’ve thought of that.” Kelly smirked and seemed far too pleased with herself for Gayle’s peace of mind. “I don’t really want my name out there either. Somehow I think most parents wouldn’t react too well to discovering their child’s pediatrician is an erotic romance reviewer.”

Gayle waited, almost patiently, for Kelly to get around to dropping the other shoe.

“Just like some authors, we’ll all use pseudonyms. That way we’re basically anonymous unless we choose to tell someone who we are. It’s perfect.”

It took effort to stifle the urge to toss her now empty coffee cup at Kelly’s smirking face. Instead she sighed and rolled her eyes. “If we do this, we need to agree that we can only out ourselves, no one can reveal anyone else’s real name.”

Renee immediately leaned over the table and stuck her hand out, pinky extended. “Pinkie Swear.”

They each repeated the childhood ritual of the pinkie swear as their non-disclosure agreement. After a brief break to refresh their coffee and snack supply, they ironed out the details of just how to set up and manage the blog and who would be responsible for what tasks.

She was thankful that one of the decisions was to not have another weekday lunch meeting over all this—it really did play hell with her carefully orchestrated work schedule. Staring down at her half-eaten biscotti, she mentally reviewed her schedule for today. She checked her watch and panicked. If she didn’t leave now, she might be late for her meeting with the luscious Tyler .

I keep hearing a statement from mostly aspiring authors that absolutely makes me shudder. There seems to be a belief that spelling and grammar issues are solely the job of editors and don’t need to be worried about by the authors.

It’s true that, when the rubber hits the road, we editors are responsible for correcting spelling and grammar issues. But failure to make your work the cleanest and best it can be possible before you submit it may mean you never reach that point. The editor (or agent) may never even request a full because their appreciation of your story may not be enough to balance the costs and resources neede to get it through the publication process.

The first thing aspiring authors have to understand is that your submission – be it synopsis, partial or full – is your interview for a contract. It’s what you will be judged on. Why would you choose to make less than the best impression you possibly could? Would you show up to interview for a modeling shot with grimy hair and say that’s the hairdresser’s job? Shooting yourself in the foot is not a great start to any venture.

Now, keep in mind that almost every submission contains some errors, that’s normal and expected. But a plethora of easy to find and fix ones tells me (accurately or not) that the author doesn’t care enough to do the very best job possible. That it’s not important to the author. Are they lazy? Are they going to be difficult to work with?

Another thing it tells me is that if I contract this work, it will cost my house more money to get it in shape for publishing than it would an equivalent story that is cleaned up and corrected. The longer I have to spend on it, the longer my line editors or proofers have to spend on it, the more it costs. Publishing is still a business and it’s part of my job to make the best use of my house’s resources as I can.

It also directly affects my ability to appreciate and enjoy the story. Like it or not, each time I see an error, it drags me out of the story and breaks my immersion. Too many times and I can’t follow the story very well and end up not liking it as much as I possibly could have. You don’t want to let mechanical errors get in the way of the story.

I want to strongly encourage anyone who submits a work for publication to utilize the marvels of spellcheck and the eagle eyes of a test reader or critique partner. Make your submission as clean and correct as you possibly can before you submit it and you will increase your chances of acceptance.

Beltane Dance
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

After slipping her sandals on, Shannon threw a light coat over her thin, flowing dress and let herself out into her parent’s backyard. Nervous energy flowed through her, making her shiver a little in anticipation, despite the warmth of the May evening.

Shannon shut the door behind her, harder than she’d intended, and winced at the slam. It was a good thing she was alone tonight. Not that she wasn’t alone most nights, too. The reminder sparked a familiar sense of loneliness she forcibly pushed away.

It was Beltane. A night of new beginnings, sensuality and fertility. A night for wishes to come true. It wasn’t a time for regrets or self-doubt. It was a time to finally think of herself and her own happiness.

A beautiful moon hung huge in the sky overhead, almost full and so bright it made her path easy to follow. The light breeze was just enough to cause her skirt to caress her bare legs and remind her that she wasn’t wearing anything under the dress. The unaccustomed sexiness made her pussy clench. Soon she’d dance naked around her small fire—a dance in the moonlight to draw love her.

At least if I make a fool of myself, there’s only me to see it.

Stepping carefully, she made her way to the small ring of bushes her mother had planted around the hill. Well, more of a mound. She stopped for a moment at the edge of the hill, and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm her nerves.

She braced herself and took off her coat, neatly folding it and placing it on the thick grass. Her sandals joined it and she walked barefoot in the cool grass to the small fire she’d laid in the iron fire ring. Sacred woods, carefully selected and saved all year, were seasoned and waiting to be lit. She pulled a fireplace lighter from her skirt pocket and set the rolled paper tinder on fire.

For a few moments she just watched the paper burn and the wood begin to flicker with tiny tongues of yellow and red. After a few minutes, the fire was beginning to burn well.

It’s time. Now or never, Shannon.

She reached up and pulled the band off her hair, unbraiding the brown strands to flow loose down her back. Fingers slowly unbuttoned her dress, focusing her will on opening herself for love. Finally ready, she pulled the dress off her shoulders in a single motion and let it fall to the ground before kicking it off and away from the fire.

She shivered, nipples hardening from the air that was suddenly not nearly as warm as she’d thought when she still had clothes on. Time to move.

“Beltane Fires, light the way
Love to me, come to stay”

She chanted her wish, walking slowly around the fire. Shannon’s steps and her words found a common rhythm and she soon began to sway and turn as she chanted.

“Beltane Fires, light the way…”

The beat of a drum seemed to accompany her, then lead her. The heartbeat of her dance, the drum thumped almost in time to her heartbeat. Thumpa, thump, thump – the drum drove her on, sped her dance, and drew her into a trance of movement and sound.

“Love to me, come to stay”

Her trance deepened as she chanted faster and faster. Her walk turned to a spinning, graceful dance.

Thumpa, thumpa, thump, thump.

Moving so quickly around the fire, she could no longer spare the breath or attention to chant. Instead she held onto her focus and let her body move as the drum demanded. As the dance demanded.

Finally, she could no longer dance and collapsed to her knees in the grass, facing the now roaring fire. The sound of drumbeats faded away and she panted, struggling to catch her breath.

Suddenly Shannon saw movement from the edge of her vision and looked up to see a man setting a large drum aside. He was as naked as she, tall and pale with the whitest blonde hair she’d ever seen. And incredibly sexy. As she stared, he walked toward her and smiled.

“You summoned me and I played for you.” His face was a gorgeous as his body, brilliant blue eyes shining out from a face so pretty it seemed unnatural. He tucked his long hair behind one ear and Shannon realized his ear was not the shape of a human ear.

The last several manuscripts I’ve edited have suffered from what I call the “Laundry List Syndrome” so I thought I’d take a moment to mention it here.

A laundry list is when an author tries to mention a whole lot of things at once instead of dribbling them in a little at a time. In some cases it appears as part of an info-dump but sometimes it just appears out of the blue.

As an example, here’s a laundry list:

The stranger turned around and she couldn’t believe her eyes: black hair, blue eyes, a strong chin, a nose with a slight crook to the side and tanned cheeks dusted with a dark five o’clock shadow.

The author in this laundry list is merely dumping out facts. It’s dry and the reader tends to just skim over it.

It would be much more effective to give each of these facts individual emphasis. It makes it more enjoyable to read and more memorable as well.

Try this in contrast:

The dark haired stranger turned around and she couldn’t believe her eyes. His glossy black hair curled around his tanned face in waves that made her fingers itch to smooth it back. Piercing cobalt eyes were framed by lush black lashes, the darkness echoed in the hint of razor stubble dusting his strong chin. Only the slight bump and crooked slant of a long-ago broken nose saved his face from being too pretty.

I’d usually space it out more than that and I realize it’s not the best paragraph ever, but look how much more memorable it is than the laundry list?

One magic clue to an imminent laundry list is using a colon… If you find yourself using a colon, ask yourself why and if there is a better way to present the information you are about to list.

Once again I’d like to pimp the absolutely spot on advice and analysis of my personal SMUT goddess, Morgan Hawke. She put a new post up on her blog this week on Love scenes vs. Sex scenes and it absolutely bears reading.

You can read the post on her here.

If you haven’t bookmarked her blog, you should.

Come join the authors of the Ties that Bind anthology from Manlove Romance Press for a chat with Joyfully Reviewed! Please join us in the Joyfully Reviewed chat group.

The Fantasm Awards voting is now open!

Click on the button and go vote - I’d love votes if you read and enjoyed Texas Tea but there are also a lot of other great authors and books on that list!!

On My Grave
(c) 2008 by Maura Anderson, all rights reserved

Gary stood, still as a statue, in the cover of the overgrown blackberry brambles. The full moon dominated the sky and lit up the abandoned cemetery, so bright it could almost have been daytime. The once pristine and tidy graveyard was in ruins. The few headstones had been toppled or broken and the wooden markers had long since rotted away.

A small part of him mourned those now lost to history and memory, even their final resting places receding into the shadows. Another part of him envied them.

He noted idly that it was a cold night. The cycle of the seasons was continuing, as it had all his very long life. Unstoppable and relentless, the years crept by. Soon the snow would come and blanket the cemetery in the semblance of pristine purity, hiding the carnage that lay beneath.

Where was he? The young man was usually here by now. At first it had taken the man sitting on Gary’s unmarked grave to wake him. The man would sit, sheltered by the drooping limbs of the weeping elm Gary’s sister had planted, and daydream.

He couldn’t know Gary’s grave was there, let alone know what Gary was and that the ties of his kind to their mortal grave meant they could sense anyone and anything that touched it. For most of his kind it meant a tie to their relatives while they still lived and visited, along with the occasional caretaker tending the plot.

But no one had visited Gary’s grave even before the cemetery went to ruin. Only the occasional animal had sent the shiver of awareness down his spine and forced him to remember that he, too, was once human.

Then the stranger had begun to spend time here. At first annoyed by the strong reaction his body had to the intrusion, he’d tried to ignore it. Before long, the lure of the emotions that flowed off the young man in waves seduced Gary into acceptance, then longing.

Who was this visitor? Why did he go from sorrow to happiness to lust to despair?

The crack of twigs underfoot alerted Gary to his visitor’s approach. As the steps moved closer, Gary was careful to make sure he was tucked out of sight. He wanted to see the man, not be seen.

A figure, slender for all it was bundled up in a wool coat, pushed through the clinging brambles to the huge old tree. He slipped between the drooping limbs and almost tossed himself onto the ground near the trunk.

A shudder ran through Gary, so strong it raised goosebumps on his skin, something he’d not experienced in nearly a century. I wonder if that’s because I’m so close to my grave again?

Gary pushed aside the idle question in the face of the barrage of emotions that flowed off the young man. Loneliness, longing, a touch of sorrow—they were all entwined in a confusing morass. But so very human.

A quick tug and the man’s hat was off, revealing his dark blonde curls. Gary’s fingers twitched with the desire to run his fingers through that riot of hair. Instead he crept closer, eager to see the face of the man he’d come to anticipate and even long for.

The full moon’s light, combined with Gary’s inhuman eyesight, gave him a clear view of what turned out to be a face that was striking more than it was handsome. An aquiline nose and square jaw offset the softness of his plump, pink lips. Icy blue eyes, so pale they seemed unnatural, were framed by lush lashes—lashes that sparkled with tears.

The nearly forgotten heat of desire shot through Gary’s body. Desire he’d not felt in far too long. He wanted to dry the stranger’s tears, kiss those lips until they were red and swollen, ease his tongue between them into the warmth and wetness of the other man’s mouth. His mouth almost watered at the imagined taste of the other man.

He wanted to explore the other man’s body—with his hands, his lips, his tongue, his cock. What would he look like under that coat? What would his cock feel like?

Operating on pure instinct, Gary stepped forward, praying to a forgotten God that this fascinating man wouldn’t run.

I’ve been told Tort & Retort will release mid-February 2008! That’s only two and a half weeks away!

TORT & RETORT

Ambitious and driven patent law attorney, Gayle Osborne, has a secret. Her power suits and take-no-prisoners attitude hide a passionate nature whose only outlet is reading and reviewing erotic romance. If anyone finds out that she is “Miss Retort,” the snarky and opinionated blogger from the Hits & Misses review blog, she’ll lose everything — her reputation, her clients, her job and, worst of all, her gorgeous mentor and boss, Tyler Monroe.