Samhain Publishing

One of my favorite things about writing M/M romance is the ability to write outside the box. The characters don’t have to be the typical alpha males found in romance novels from the past.

I’ve written about typical studs and slender waifs. I’ve composed stories about the boy next door and men who literally stand head and shoulders above the crowd. For my next series of books, I’m planning to explore the world of big, beefy men.

It’s no secret that I love hairy men. Now before anyone starts sneering at the thought of a little back hair, I’m not talking about gorilla-style hairy. However, there’s nothing sexier to me than a man covered in a thick pelt of dark, silky chest hair. Some of my first Hollywood crushes were on men like Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot. Throw in a big ole set of wide shoulders, a big barrel chest, and a butt sexy enough to stop traffic and you have my idea of the perfect male specimen.

In my opinion, the idea of physical beauty in this day and age is a little skewed. It seems to me as if beauty is what we make of it. How many times have you met someone who would be considered plain or unattractive by societies standards, maybe even by your own, but after you’ve gotten to know then you find them beautiful? Or, to play the devil’s advocate, how many times have you met someone stunning only to have their personality make them ugly?

How would you feel about an unattractive or overweight hero? What about a handicapped hero, or someone disfigured? Do you believe there’s a line that authors shouldn’t cross? If so, what is it?

—
Romance Without Inhibition
www.AmandaYoung.org

As a fulltime writer, I tend to live in a self-made plastic bubble most of time. I work from home, so I don’t get out and socialize a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not quite a hermit (I don’t have the ZZ Top beard or anything yet), but I am a rather solitary creature. Other than the many people I chat with online, and my husband, I don’t talk to a lot people on a daily basis.

Recently, I had a nice bout of cabin fever. I wanted to get out the house and do something, even if I wasn’t sure what. Unfortunately, this was also in the middle of the week. Most of my friends have day jobs or children who are out of school at the moment, making it impossible to break away for a girl’s day out.

Instead of waiting until the weekend, I got it stuck in my head that I needed to break out of my bubble and meet some new people. Well, let me tell you, that’s a lot easier said than done. I quickly figured out that it isn’t easy to make new friends, when all you want is to be friends. Worse, it seems like every time I mentioned what I do for a living, people ran away from me. Now it wasn’t quite as literal as people running down the street and screaming their heads off, but it felt that way. Rejection of any kind is never easy or fun.

As soon as the words writer and romance came out of my mouth, especially when I added the m/m bit, my phone quit ringing. It was like I had the plague. One person actually asked me if I only wanted to be their friend for “inspiration” for my work. As if I go out looking for hapless victims to base my stories on. I plainly said no, that my imagination supplied those details, but the end result was the same — no new friends for the dirty, dirty erotica writer.

Now a lot of people would say “just don’t tell them what you write”, but I’m proud of my career. It’s a large part of my life. I spend upwards of sixty hours a week writing romance or thinking about it in some form or another. I can’t sweep it under the rug like a dirty secret, nor would I want to.

So, who else has experienced some sort of hassle over the romance genre? Whether you’re a writer, or reader, share your romance woes. I know there must be someone else out there who has been looked down on for their love of the genre.

—
Amanda Young
Romance Without Inhibition
www.AmandaYoung.org

Pet names are something I tend to struggle with. Either an endearment sounds right spilling out of a characters lips or it doesn’t. Sometimes “baby” and “honey” just don’t cut it. Could you imagine calling someone who’s seven feet tall, “baby”?

Me neither. That just sounds goofy to me.

More than once I’ve read a great book that was ruined by a silly pet name that threw me right out of the story every time I read it.

So, here’s the deal for this rainy Friday morning: Leave me a comment with your favorite pet name, or the worst endearment you’ve ever heard, and I’ll enter you to win a free book. Whoever’s pet name I decide to use in my current work in progress will win a free autographed copy of my latest print release, Shameful. The winner of the worst endearment ever will win a digital copy of Shameful.

I’ll even get the ball rolling for you all. My favorite pet name is “darlin”. It’s actually what Shame calls Gail in Shameful. Darlin’ always makes me think of a slow southern drawl and hot summer nights. The worst is “dearling”. It reminds me of little old ladies, for some reason. Nothing like picturing your grandma to throw you right out of a intimate scene.

With conference season fast approaching, my brain is firmly locked in promotion mode. I’ve been scouring websites, trying to figure out what kind of promotional items I want to put my name on this year. Last year I did bookmarks — and I’ll probably do those again, because they’re so much fun to design — but I’d really like to do something different this year. Something eye catching that people will want to take home with them.

At the moment, I have bookmarks, magnets, and pens on my list of things to order. What do you think would make an interesting promotional gift?

At the beginning of the new fall season, I had grand plans for all the new shows I wanted to tune in for. After a crash course in reality, I’m just not patient enough to sit in front of the television for that many hours. What I’ve settled for is Grey’s Anatomy, Torchwood, and Private Practice. I’m sure I’ll make time for Project Runway when it debuts next month as well.

Which programs are you salivating over this fall?

“Sins of the Past” by Amanda Young
Genre: Gay-Lesbian Romance, Red Hots!

ISBN: 1-59998-599-3
Length: Novella
Price: 3.50
Publication Date: September 18th

Two men bonded by love. A long forgotten secret neither knew they shared in common.

Andrew Vought is a wealthy single parent who’s all but given up on love. Ryan Ward is an up-and-coming landscape architect, who’s never believed true love exists.

In each other’s arms, they find the love they’ve sought. But can a budding new love survive the secrets both men harbor?

Excerpt © Copyright 2007 Amanda Young

“Daddy!” Katie ran up and threw her arms around Andrew, practically knocking Ryan out of her way to get to her dad. “Shawn’s puppy is so pretty and cuddly. Can I have a puppy? Can I, please? I’ll take extra good care of him and I’ll—”
Andrew sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. Ryan watched the byplay between father and daughter with thinly disguised amusement. He could remember driving his dad crazy asking for a dog too. Though his reasons for not getting a pet had more to do with their family not being able to afford another mouth to feed, even a canine one, as opposed to whatever possible reason Andrew was reluctant to buy her a pet.
“We’ve already talked about this, Katie. We don’t need a dog right now. Maybe we can get one in a couple of years, when you’re older.”
“Daddy! You’ve been saying that forever. When will I be old enough?”
“Not for a couple of years yet, sweetpea.”
“But, Dad—”
“Not right now, sweetpea. We’ll talk about it later. Now, come on over here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Dragging her feet through the grass, Katie trudged over toward them.
“Katie, this is my friend Ryan.”
“Hi,” she said, holding out her little hand. “My name is Katie Rhiannon Vought. It’s nice to meet you.”
Impressed, Ryan bent down and gingerly shook her tiny hand. “It’s very nice to meet you too, Katie. Your dad talks about you all the time.”
“He does?”
Ryan nodded. “Yep.”
“What does he say ’bout me?”
“Oh, well, just how lucky he is to have such a special little girl and how pretty you are.”
Katie fluttered her lashes up at him and tucked in her narrow shoulders, as if she were embarrassed by the compliment. Ryan snickered at her coquettish act. From what he’d seen so far that afternoon, there wasn’t a bashful bone in the kid’s body.
“Katie, take Shawn into the house and wash your hands. After you eat, there are cupcakes waiting for you. And, Katie, I believe Ryan left a present for you inside on the counter.”
“A present?” she squealed, her eyes lighting up.
She ran over to Shawn where he was petting his dog, and latched onto his wrist. “Come on, Shawn. We gotta go clean up. Dad says we have dog cooties.”
Ryan rose to his feet, watching as the kids ran toward the house. He distinctly heard Shawn telling Katie that puppies didn’t have cooties. Only girls had those.
“Great kid,” Ryan said, looking at Andrew.
“I know, right?”
The two of them wandered over to the table and fixed plates for themselves. Ryan sat down and ate, keeping an eye on Andrew while he fixed a plate for Katie and made sure she was settled before joining him.
Everybody, including Ryan, made pigs out of themselves on the good food. When he went back for thirds, he didn’t feel even a twinge of hoggishness. It had been awhile since he’d had a good home-cooked meal. Most of the time he lived on takeout or microwavable stuff.
His plate clean, his belly ready to bust, Ryan stretched and yawned. He looked around for Andrew and spotted him standing next to a tree, watching Nick and Jake throw horseshoes. Katie and Shawn were a little ways behind them, content to play with the puppy. Ryan felt a zing of pride when he noticed Katie held onto the toy he’d bought her and was showing it off to the dog.
Ryan strolled up to Andrew and leaned against the tree beside him. “I think I need to use the little boy’s room myself.” Ryan waggled his eyebrows. “Want to show me where it is?”
Andrew laughed. “Yeah, just let me get Jake to keep an eye on the kids while we’re inside.”
In the blink of an eye they were in the house, in Andrew’s bedroom, and Ryan had Andrew shoved up against the wall, devouring his mouth with all the pent-up desire he’d stored up since they’d last seen each other.
He hoped now that he’d met Katie, Andrew would let him come around more often. Surprisingly, it would even be okay if they couldn’t do anything sexual. Over the past few months, he’d come to realize just being in Andrew’s presence, talking and hanging out, was more gratifying than fucking someone else. He truly enjoyed being around the man.
Andrew sucked on his bottom lip, nipped it with the sharp edge of his teeth, and Ryan groaned, no longer thinking about anything but the warm, hard body rubbing up against him and the intoxicating flavor of Andrew’s kiss. He reached around and grabbed two handfuls of prime cut, grade A ass, and squeezed. Andrew must have liked that because his hips rocked forward pressing his long, hard cock right into the cradle of Ryan’s pelvis, and ground against him. His cock was engorged and throbbing, begging for the touch of something other than his own hand. Something only Andrew could provide.
Without a care for the world around them, Ryan dropped to his knees and started working at the buttons on Andrews button-fly khakis. He absently wondered if the man ever wore anything other than slacks. And then he wasn’t thinking, because Andrew’s pretty pink cock was shooting up through the opening in his fly and Ryan was swallowing him down.
He dug his tongue into the tiny slit in the head and savored the bittersweet drop beading there. Andrew grabbed the back of his head, his fingers twining in his hair, as he thrust his cock deeper into Ryan’s mouth. Ryan groaned around the smooth, spongy flesh and sucked him in, taking him all the way to the back of his throat before moving up. Again and again, he shuttled Andrew’s prick in and out of his mouth. On the upstroke, he laved the tender depression beneath Andrew’s helmet with his tongue. On the downstroke he licked and swirled his tongue over the puffy blue vein running down the underside of his shaft.
Every groan that spilled from Andrew’s mouth was a sweet benediction. Ryan could do this forever. Spend the rest of his days on his knees, loving Andrew with his mouth.

I’m so excited to announce the release of my very first book in print.

“Missing in Action PRINT” by Amanda Young
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Red Hots!

ISBN: 1-59998-637-X
Length: 236 Pages
Price: 12.50
Publication Date: September 25th

Sara believed Tristan died while stationed overseas. The last thing she expected on the eve of her engagement to another man was to be attacked by a monster…and have Tristan come to her rescue.

First book in MIA series

Excerpt © Copyright 2007 Amanda Young

The body of a young woman between the age of twenty and twenty-five had been found in the alley behind Club Metropolis. As with all the other victims, she’d been raped and drained of all her blood, left out in the open for someone to find.
The perp seemed to get off on taunting them. Though he was careful not to leave behind evidence of what he was, the suspected vampire had a calling card that was unmistakable. The throat of each woman was ripped out, the jugular vein torn and ragged, unlike the straight edge a knife wound would leave behind. There was always the possibility that the perp was a Were, but it was slim. Wolves were known to devour their prey, or at the very least tear large chunks of flesh from the victim. These murders bore no such evidence.
The fact that he’d gotten away with it again was Tristan’s fault. If he had been doing his job, instead of playing hide-and-seek with Sara, the woman would still be alive. Instead she lay lifeless on a cold slab in the city morgue. That he could have—should have—been there to prevent her death and hadn’t, burned at his soul like toxic waste.
With few leads to go on, he and Shame decided to split up. Shame stayed behind, doing research, seeing what kind of new information he could gather from the crime scene evidence. Tristan went out and did what he did best—the footwork.
Their most promising lead at the moment was on a man named Lester Morgan, who owned a local gossip paper. It seemed that whenever a new body was found, his reporters were on the beat before any of the other journalists knew what was going on. In one instance, the first murder, one of Morgan’s staff had even discovered the body and called in the police themselves.
It seemed like a piss-poor lead to Tristan but he knew better than to not scour all paths provided. It was entirely possibly that a wild-goose chase would lead him right where he needed to be. So, he sat outside the office of The Daily Tribune in a late-model green sedan with tinted windows and cased the joint. The building itself wasn’t anything special, just brick and mortar. What he wanted to see, were the people who worked there. While Shame swore by lab work and forensics, Tristan was old-fashioned. He wanted to see the employees and the owner with his own two eyes, try to get a feel for them. His gut feelings were seldom wrong and he made it a point to listen to them. Doing so had saved his ass on more than one occasion.
At five o’clock on the dot, people started to file out the front exit. No one looked out of the ordinary. Tristan was planning his next step, possibly breaking into the office, when he saw Sara exit the building.
She wore an apricot skirt suit, her dark red hair pulled back at the nape of her neck in a messy bun. His breath caught as she looked right at him, like she knew he was there, watching her, before she turned and headed straight for a beat-up old Volvo.
Though he wanted to know why she’d been in the building, he had to put his curiosity on hold. He needed to stay and check out the inner office. Maybe even follow Morgan for a little while and see if he was up to anything fishy. Tristan didn’t have time to mess around with anything else.
Fuck it.
He put the car in first gear and pulled out into traffic.
Tristan followed at a measured distance, careful not to be seen, as Sara drove out of town limits and stopped in front of a rickety old white house. Though it had seen better days, the house looked warm and inviting. A red and white swing set sat off to one side of the fenced-in yard. The rest of the lawn was littered with various children’s toys.
He wondered if she lived there, if the contents of the yard belonged to her children. Circling around the block, Tristan chose a driveway a couple of houses down and parked, waiting to see what would happen next. Whether she would knock or go straight in.
Tristan breathed a sigh of relief when Sara knocked on the front door. It wasn’t her house. A rotund woman with steel-wool-colored hair came to the door, a welcoming smile on her round face, and let Sara in.
Who was the woman? Tristan knew she wasn’t a relative. Like him, Sara was an orphan. Her mother committed suicide when Sara was five, leaving her to be raised in foster care.
Sara had only been inside a few minutes when she came out. She calmly walked down the sidewalk, toward her car. She wasn’t who caught his attention though. A little boy clutched Sara’s hand. Tristan couldn’t tear his gaze away from the child. His entire world came to a crashing halt. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t fill his lungs.
He had a son.

I’m thrilled to announce the release of my Midsummer Night’s Steam story, Taboo Desires. I hope you all enjoy reading Cole’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Short Blurb:
When his girlfriend demands he settle down and start a family, Cole Winchester has some hard decisions to make. Marry his girlfriend, or finally own up to his taboo attraction to other men.

I am so thrilled to annouce the release of the second novel in the MIA series this morning. This book focuses on Shame, one of my absolute favorite characters to write about. In the first book, Missing in Action, he was Tristan’s sarcastic, oversexed partner. In his own book, Shame has demons of his own to battle.

“Shameful” by Amanda Young
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Red Hots!
ISBN: 1-59998-517-9

On a frigid winter night, vengeance is what he seeks. A love strong enough to melt the ice surrounding his battered heart is what he finds.

Second book in MIA series.

After six years of forced exile and servitude, Shamus Long is finally going home. A grisly discovery upon his arrival plummets Shame into a world of darkness and vengeance that threatens to consume him.

With single-minded purpose, Shame tracks down the Master Vampire responsible for ordering the hit on his family. Upon his arrival, a vicious snow squall postpones his attack on the murderous cartel, forcing him to seek refuge in a small motel on the edge of town to wait out the storm.

There he meets Gail, a shy loner working the night shift. Instant chemistry and a power outage throw them into one another’s arms for a night of scorching passion. When Ty, a man accompanying him, with his own retribution to deliver unto the supernaturals, disappears, Shame grows paranoid and seeks anonymity by following Gail home.

Hot nights of blistering lovemaking, while he continues the search for both the cartel and the man he has grown to consider a friend, put Shame on edge and leave him feeling emotions he refuses to accept.

All of Shame’s secrets come to light when he’s forced to involve Gail. What he doesn’t know is Gail has secrets of her own. Secrets strong enough to rock the very foundation of his beliefs and threaten not only his bruised heart, but his very life.

Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic language, and violence.

Do female authors write men as we want them to be, as we’d like to believe they are, or somehow try to pigeon hole them into the same over-analytical box we paint ourselves into?

There’s an old joke floating around the web about the difference between the sexes and what would satisfy them from a prospective mate. I can’t remember the minute details now, but the punch line was lines and lines of what it would take to satisfy a female and just a few select words for the male (naked, will bring food).

Are men really that simple?

My SO laughingly says yes, but I have to wonder. When you cut it down to the basics of what makes a man, what do you have to include for that character to come off as male? Try thinking about what defines masculinity to you, without the physical descriptions, and see what you come up with. It’s not as easy as it sounds.