Samhain Publishing

There comes a time I think, in every erotic romance author’s life, when, asked by someone what they write, their face engulfs in heat, their cheeks turn red and they stutter and stammer out an answer something along the lines of “I write…err, I-I write…ro…I write erot…I write romance. Erotic…romance.” This kind of answer usually is directed at a conservative family member (mother-in-law in my case), bank manager, child-care director or inquisitive stranger sitting on the next seat on the bus.

Writing erotic romance is a funny thing. You spend a lot of your time thinking about sex. Hollywood sex. The kind of sex portrayed in movies staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The kind of blow-your-mind-oh-my-god-I’m-seeing-stars sex. The kind we all want. (Yeah, I went there). So there you are thinking about amazing, mind-blowing, incredible sex for a living. For work. That’s pretty cool. And then, added to all that amazing, orgasmic sex you’re thinking about, you’re also thinking about love. True love. The kind of love the rock stars sing about. The kind of love, if you’re lucky, you have. All in all, I think that’s a damn wonderful way to spend your work hours. (Of course, at this point, I’m glossing over the days when the characters won’t behave, your muse has gone AWOL, you’ve missed that deadline you just can’t afford to miss and the cat has thrown up in the middle of the living room fifteen minutes before your conservative mother-in-law who still refuses to accept you write that kind of story is due to arrive for afternoon tea.)

But writing erotic romance can also be an unsettling thing. Because not everyone in the world views what you write about – love, Happy-Ever-After love, with graphically described sex scenes—as right. Proper. Acceptable.

Unfortunately, when I came out and told my fellow teachers, close friends and family members, some of them were disgusted. I’ve come to realize a lot of people who have never read an erotic romance basically believe it’s porn. It isn’t. Porn is sex for sex sake. It’s only purpose to arouse. Erotic romance tells a story, a love story. It should make the reader feel more than just the physical. They should travel the characters paths to that Happy-Ever-After with them, feeling their conflict, their hopes and dreams and fears, their joy and happiness.

I have one very good friend I’ve known for years who, when I first told her I had an erotic romance published, ask me if I was going to write scripts for porn films next. She still, to this day, introduces me to her acquaintances with the qualifier, “she’s the one I was telling you about. The one who writes porn.” That kind of reaction, I grew to discover, can be common. For a while I was, I’m upset to admit, embarrassed. Then I met other erotic romance authors and realized I had nothing to be embarrassed about. Why should I? Let’s be serious here, a lot of people on this planet do spend quite a bit of their time doing what I write about.

It was at this point, when I fully and completely accepted what I was writing and how much I enjoyed writing it, that my writing career truly flourished. My plots took on greater depths, my characters faced greater challenges, my sex scenes became moments of deep passion and fierce physical activity. To this day, I am convinced my husband’s mates think he is the luckiest man in the world to be married to an erotic romance author. Sometimes, they are correct. Other times…well, there are those days when my characters won’t behave, my muse goes AWOL, I’ve missed that deadline I just couldn’t afford to miss and the cat throws up in the middle of our bed. Those days I know for a fact my husband isn’t going to be lucky at all that night. But here’s the thing. I learnt to take even those days and use them, incorporate them into my work. As I said earlier, erotic romance isn’t just about sex, it’s about relationships, about people experiencing real emotions, not just the ones that come with drawn out, moaning “ooooh” sounds. It’s about two people (sometimes three, sometimes more) falling in love.

I love being an erotic romance author. I truly do. I'm not ashamed of it. And you know what, those in my life that think it's a disgraceful way to make a living really need to read a good book. Think I might give them one

Lexxie Couper writes wild stories with sexy heroes and kick-arse heroines. Someone's usually sarcastic. Someone definitely gets laid.

You can find out more about Lexxie here at her website. Love's Rhythm, her April 17 release is very very erotic

Being a child of the seventies (I was born in 1971) I spent those impressionably formulative years (ie, my teens) in the Eighties. You know what they means, right? I grew up reading Mills and Boons written in the late Seventies/early Eighties and watched programes like Magnum P.I. These vital sources of sexual education taught me one very very important thing: real men, the kind of men who will sweep you off your feet and arrogant you into a sexual frenzy of panting submissiveness, the kind of men who aren't ashamed to wear tight short shorts and hibiscus shirts while beating the crap outta some rat-bastard scum have hairy chests.

But of late, I've noticed a distinct lack of hair adorning the pectoral and abdominal region of romance heroes. When did this happen? And why? Now, I'm a little guilty of this myself, I have to say. Torrin Kerridon, my tormented warrior hero of The Sun Sword has a chest devoid of hair, but Nick Blackthorne, my sultry haunted rock star from Tropical Sin DOES indeed have a fine chest dusted with hair, as does Alec Harris, my sexy, cheeky landscaper from Suck and Blow. I have my heroines run their fingers through it often, and I have to say, they're damn hot scenes. And yet, not one we get to read a lot of nowadays.

Who decided hairy chests weren't sexy anymore? Who decided the heroes had to be waxed within an inch of marble perfection? Who took away the manly virility of the hair chest and condemned it to the porn stars mocked so disrespectfully by parody shows? Who? Who?

I mean, take a look at this…

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No, this is not a blog post about Dirty Harry (in case you didn't catch the reference through my mangled movie quote). There will be no mentions of .44 Magnums nor images of squinty-eyed homocide detectives. What this blog post about is Friday 13th. Not the horror film (Ooooh, Jason Voorhees. Scary), but the day. Today. Today is Friday 13th. Black Friday. The unluckiest day of the year.

A little bit of history on Black Friday.

No one is really sure where the concept of Friday 13th being unlucky started. There are a few theories, but the first I'm going to mention today has links to Norse mythology. According to wikipedia (the font of all knowledge and truth) a theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of "Origins" maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."

Now the reason I mention this is so I can post an image of this…

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A while back (on the old Samhain weblog) I posted a Sexy Or Not list which was basically a list of characters that were possibly not meant to be considered sexy when they were created, but for me, are very much so (for a refresher or to check it out, you can find Part I here at The Down Under Divas. Top of the list is Megamind, followed by the likes of Niles Crane and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast). Someone (and damn, I wish I could remember who) requested a follow-up to the list. Well, I took that request and ran with it.

So, here today, is Sexy or Not Part II. Feel free to comment on any of my choices and/or suggest your own

Ready?

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Triple Dare

Or, How A Sci-fi Author Dared To Move Beyond The Safe

I started my professional writing life with erotic sci-fi. I grew up watching Dr Who and Star Trek (and my first crush was on Han Solo) so naturally when I decided to write an erotic romance what better sub-genre to explore than sci-fi. Actually, it was’t even as planned as that. I opened a new Word doc and began writing with no real idea of what was going to come out of my brain. Pretty much all my books are written this way, which can be surprisingly fun or frustratingly annoying. My first ever erotic tale was definitely sci-fi. After that came more sci-fi with elements of paranormal. Then came paranormal all by itself (Savage Retribution,Death, The Vamp and His Brother to name a few). Then I went back to visit sci-fi again, this time with fantasy elements (the infamous The Sun Sword is that book, now available in both print and ebook) followed by some more sci-f. Never in amongst all that did I dream I would ever write a contemporary erotic rom-com. But I did.

Mid 2009, Mari Carr asked me to be a part of a cougar series, a strictly non-paranormal, non-sci-fi series. I was as nervous as all hell, but love Mari sooo damn much I couldn’t say no.

Of course, me being me, I was submerged again in the paranormal worlds where wild horny sex happens between non-humans and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Savage Transformation was released last September, but somewhere in amongst all that timeline, my Samhain Editor, (the most wonderful Heidi Moore) threw down a challenge. Write her a menage contemporary erotic romance. And do it in 10 days.

So, I did. I opened a new Word doc, put my fingers on the keys and waited. And a few minutes later I wrote this line…

Joseph Hudson tossed his snowboard aside, threw his goggles over his shoulder and swung a fist at his best mate.

Nine days later, I subbed Triple Dare, a 25,000 word m/f/m erotic rom-com to Heidi.

She loved it. More than loved it. She demanded a sequel.

Triple Dare has become for me the most important release (and the most important dare) of my life. If I hadn’t the courage to say, yeah, I can be funny, I can be normal, I can do contemporary, I never would have written it and, in turn, never discovered a side of my writer’s brain that I really like visiting. A lot.

Which makes me think, how many of us out there are just waiting for someone to say to them…c’mon, I dare you to do it?

Triple Dare

Two men, one woman, one momentous dare.

A Red Hot Winter story.

Serious and determined, Joseph Hudson isn’t Australia’s businessman of the year for nothing. So now he’s asking himself, how did he get lost on the side of a mountain in the Colorado Rockies—in the middle of winter—with night fast approaching? Three simple words. I dare you.

Fear isn’t in Rob Thorton’s vocabulary. Life is for the taking, and Rob uses both hands. Challenging his best mate to take an impromptu snowboarding trip to the U.S. is just the latest in a lifetime of dares. Besides, he has an ulterior motive for the trip. And a plan…

Park Ranger Anna McCarthy knows what trouble looks like, and it’s written all over the two Aussies she first encounters in the ski lodge. Instinct has her following them onto the mountain, and sure enough, they end up needing her winter survival expertise. But not even her skills can stop her body from responding to the sexy muscles she finds beneath their ski suits.

Stuck in a remote cabin until the storm passes, the temperatures rise until all bets are off. And a double dare turns into a triple threat—to their hearts.

Warning: Contains lots of scorching boy on girl on boy action, a heroine who knows what she wants and two sexy-arsed Australian heroes to really work up a sweat over. Oh, and a soul-deep love story with a revelation that may make you cry.

Excerpt

Anna McCarthy lowered her binoculars and shook her head. Australians. What were they thinking?

She returned the glasses to her backpack, adjusted the straps on her stocks and pushed herself forward. The sun would be completely behind the horizon in less than fifteen minutes, which gave her less than ten to get to the two men wandering aimlessly at the base of Knife Ridge Chutes and get them into Wolf Creek rescue cabin number four.

After that, she’d spend a good fifteen minutes giving them a damn good lecture on mountain safety before charging them with reckless endangerment and presenting them with a hefty fine. Tourists, she’d learnt from experience, only learnt their lesson when their hip pockets were injured. And by the look of the equipment these two men were decked out in, the latest and greatest and very most expensive, their hip pockets could afford the pain.

Gliding through the terrain, she kept her stare locked on their dark shapes, each one a tall black streak of stupidity against the stark white snow.

The wind bit at her face, even through her protective gear, and she growled low in her throat. Australians. Thought they knew everything.

She’d noticed them at the bar last night, their accents drawing more than just her attention. By the time the tallest one with the sandy-blond hair and hawkish nose had finished his off-key rendition of that song from Kangaroo Jack and left, just about every woman in the bar had been gathered around their table.

Dodging a low-hanging branch, she stabbed her stocks into the snow, hurrying her speed. As far as she could tell, none of the fawning women had gotten lucky, much to their chagrin. The tall one, Joseph, she thought she’d heard his friend call him, hadn’t come back to the bar, and his friend had followed only a few hours—and beers and dances with said fawning women—later. Alone.

So is that why you’ve followed them for most of the day? They didn’t pick up anyone last night?

She grunted at the ridiculous notion, swerving a cluster of jagged boulders as she forced herself faster over the snow. No, she’d followed them most of the day because she’d heard the friend—Rob? Bob?—mention to one of his many admirers they were going to heli-jump onto Knife Ridge Chutes and planned to stay overnight in the unused Wolf Creek rescue cabin.

The trouble was he hadn’t informed her. And as the local ranger in charge of controlling Wolf Creek’s slopes and ski runs, anyone planning on spending the night on the side of Knife Ridge, no matter how gorgeous and well-equipped and obviously daring-do, had to tell her of those plans.

And something about them had told her they were going to get themselves into trouble.

Maybe it was the devilish glint in Rob/Bob’s way-too-sexy blue eyes? Or the dimple in his cheek? Or the way Joseph moved his hips on the table dancing to that annoyingly catchy song? Or the way your pussy fluttered and squeezed and got all warm and prickly when Joseph looked at you this morning in the lodge. Or the way you woke up covered in sweat after dreaming about them both undressing you with their teeth while their hands—

She cut the embarrassing thought dead before her face could get any hotter. She hadn’t had a wet dream since she was a teenager, and she sure as hell didn’t have one last night. She didn’t. And no, none of those reasons were why she now followed the Australian men. She’d followed them because her gut had told her they’d need her, and she always listened to her gut. Not her pussy.

Yeah, right.

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered with a savage thrust of her stocks. The push flung her past the last of the blanketed trees and, with another quick dig, she propelled herself closer to the two men. Close enough to hear them singing—singing of all things—some weird version of AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top” with the word “top” replaced by “hut”.

She ground her teeth and slid to a halt behind them, showering them both in snow, not even remotely interested in hiding her anger. “What the hell do you two morons think you’re doing?”

They spun to stare at her, their faces—flushed by the icy chill on the air—registered their shock.

Before they could say anything, she poked a finger at them, her stock dangling from her wrist to bang against her right knee. “Do you have any idea how dangerous what you are doing is? How stupid?”

The tall one—Joseph—gaped at her, his eyes locked on her face. “Err…”

“What my mate means to say—” Rob/Bob began, that evil dimple she’d seen last night flashing into existence on his right cheek.

“Is he’s a moron?” Anna snapped, cutting him off. The dimple was doing all sorts of unnerving things to her anger. And all sorts of unnerving things to her sex, damn it.

Triple Dare is now available here

So, I saw Dreamwork’s Animation’s Megamind again this week. This was the fourth viewing, thanks to my three year old, the Demon Princess’ enamoured obsession with the blue evil genius and it occured to me while watching (and laughing and grinning) that I found Megamind…well….sexy. I’m not sure if the animators ever intended for their master criminal with the big head and blue skin to ever be viewed as a sex object and I’m kinda worried that I do, but it got me to thinking….there are quite a few characters I find sexy who I’m sure I’m not meant to. Let’s take a look at some of them (in no particular order) shall we.

1/ Megamind. (Megamind 2010) The guy who started this all. I think what I find sexy about Megamind is the combination of his super intelligence with his unabashed goofiness. Plus, when he is young and we see how desperate he is to be included in with his fellow classmates despite their obvious disdane for his misguided brilliance, I just want to hug him. He has a never-say-quit attitude and a sarcastic sense of humour (always a plus for me) as well as a sweet romantic side that makes it impossible not to fall for him. He will also face certain death for the girl of his dreams. A bad boy who has a good heart and a wicked forehead. As the poster says, “It’s big for a reason.”

2/ Jack Skellington. (Nightmare Before Christmas 1993) Diabolical and romantic with an awesome singing voice and a serious need to eat a meal or two, the Pumpkin King hijacks Christmas, not to cause mayhem and destruction, but to feel something wonderful in his heart and have the rest of the world feel it to. He also wears a dapper suit and when he finally realises Sally is the one for him, doesn’t waste any bones about letting her know. Bones. Get it? All Hail to the Pumpkin King, I say.

3/ Niles Crane. (Frasier 1993 – 2004) Another highly intelligent character. I’m not sure if it was Nile’s utter adoration for Daphne or his sheer strength of will not to act upon that adoration that makes me go all gooey for him. It may be that he was the funniest thing on Frasier. Sure he was effeminate and fussy and conceited, but his worship of the woman he loved was unconditional. When he and Daphne finally came together I was both happy and jealous. Yes, I am a bit odd.

4/ The Shadow Man. (The Princess and the Frog 2009) A voodoo witch-doctor who has the moves (and the voice) to make a woman melt. Sure, he’s a nasty bugger who wants to give the souls of an entire city over to his “friends on the other side” but when he starts to move those hips of his…and make his face go all neon glow-in-the-darkish I just get caught up in the magic of it all.

5/ The Dude. (The Big Lebowski 1998) Okay, I honestly don’t know if the Coen brothers ever intended the Dude to be considered sexy or not, but for me he has a certain…who-gives-a-rat’s-bum, just go with the flow charm. He’s not out to change the world, he’s not a neat-freak nor is he an arrogant bastard, but when he opens his mouth and those awaesome pearls of wisdom come forth… shiver

“Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not “Mr. Lebowski”. You’re Mr. Lebowski. I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.”

6/ Gaston. (Beauty and the Beast 1991) So he’s a bad boy. A real bad boy. He’s conceited, arrogant, self-absorbed and into blood sports. But when he’s got a thing for a woman ain’t nuthin’ going to stop him getting her. That’s a bit of a turn-on, don’t you think? He deserves the best cause he said so. And besides, every last inch of him’s covered in hair.

7/ Optimus Prime. (The Transformers 1984-1987) Three words: Noble. Hard steel. More than meets the eye. Okay, that’s eight words, isn’t it

So? What characters do you find sexy you’re pretty certain you’re not meant to? Go one, share them with us

Lexxie Couper is an award-winning, multi-published author of paranormal erotic and contemporary erotic rom-coms. She loves having children so she can watch kids movies without needing to make excuses. She also loves Coen brothers films, especially if they star George Clooney.

Her next Samhain release is Triple Dare, a contemporary erotic m/f/m rom-com that’s part of the Red Hot Winter antho. You can find out more here
You can also visit Lexxie here at her blog, here at the Down Under Divas where she hangs out with Jess Dee, Sami Lee and Rhian Cahill, or here at International Heat.

Quick note – please accept my apologies for the lateness of this post. I’ve only just returned from the very dead centre of Australia (Uluru and Alice Springs – the Outback’s Outback). Now, onto my post…

Yeppers, The Sun Sword, my erotic sci-fi/fantasy is now available in PRINT. This book seems to divide people. There are reviewers who love it (Holly from Whipped Cream Reviews gave it a BEST BOOK award and called it “ingenious”, “highly recommended” and “impossible to put down”) and those that don’t (Erin at Goodreads who gave it one star and said, and I quote “ooookkkkaay”)

The Sun Sword is my darkest book. The heroine’s backstory is horrific and the reader is exposed to a small part of that backstory laterin the book. It is violent, it is graphic. As one reveiwer put it, The Sun Sword “is gruesome and intense…For readers who are sensitive to that kind of violence, it’s very likely too much.”. She’s right. The Sun Sword is gruesome. It needed to be to tell the story. It’s not just Kala’s fate that hangs in the balance throughout the tale, its every living thing in every universe. What happens to Kala before and during the book, as well as what happens to other characters (some innocent, unfortunately) is so vitally important but not for the weak of heart or stomach.

Still, I love this book. I love it for its darkness. I love it for its dystopian setting. But most of all, I love it for the love-story it tells. A love story between a proud warrior and a broken woman. Both with more baggage than any living being deserves to carry, but both with more strength and honour than I could ever hope to possess.

The Sun Sword is now available in print from My Bookstore and More and all sorts of other awesome bookstores

She has the power to bring new life…or utterly destroy it.

Torin Kerridon, the last warrior from an ancient order, is drawn to an abandoned, dying Earth, where he finds a forgotten young woman. A woman forged by the Immortals to wield the ultimate weapon—the Sun Sword. A woman capable of commanding the power of the suns. A woman with no past and no memory, the body of an angel and the spirit of a demon. He will train her. Prepare her.

Hunted all her life, Kala Rei has endured more than one woman should. Sheer grit, and a dangerous skill with a lead pipe, are the key to her survival. But nothing threatens her sense of safety more than dominance-oozing Torin. He wants her, but not for what’s between her legs. For what he believes her to be—some ludicrous savior from some absurd prophecy. No matter…his offer to take her away from Earth is too good to refuse.

But when a savage desire begins to burn between them, both Torin and Kala are in danger—and so are the worlds of man.

Product Warnings

This book contains an ancient prophecy that can’t be denied, a brooding hero tormented by desire, a stubborn woman who hungers for his touch, a villain so vile you’ll want to kill him yourself and sex so hot it’ll melt the suns of the known universes…and then some.

Excerpt

Earth calendar 2445

Torin Kerridon walked down the rubbish-strewn street, studying the derelict buildings, stunted fauna and polluted sky. So, this is Earth.

He curled his nose, moving his right hand closer to his disruptor. He didn’t expect anyone to attack him—he doubted anyone still living on the once-prosperous planet was healthy enough to pose any threat—but that didn’t mean he relaxed his guard.

You relaxed your guard, you died. That was the way of the Sol.

Besides, somewhere on this forgotten hunk of dying rock was a warrior of supreme force and skill. A warrior more deadly than the entire Sol Order combined. Even if he didn’t know it yet.

Stepping over a fallen tree, the leaves long dead, the branches withered and twisted as though tortured, Torin scanned the immediate area. The Old Seer had sworn the One Who Burns could be found somewhere in this vicinity. He’d been quite adamant about it in fact, almost having an apoplexy when Torin had voiced his doubt.

The old man had refused to listen to reason and, invoking the Sol Edict, had commanded Torin leave P’helios immediately for the abandoned planet.

Casting a dubious look at the closest building, boarded-up windows doing little to hide its desolate decay, Torin shook his head. The Old Seer was never wrong. If he said the One Who Burns was here, he was here. Somewhere. The southern hemisphere of the planet had survived the Third Global with the least destruction, the planet’s ailing weather patterns saving it from the initial bio detonation. Torin looked up at the sky and scowled. Polluted storm clouds boiled and rolled above him. The Old Seer had drawn the constellation under which Torin would find the One Who Burns, sightless eyes staring at the parchment as he’d inked the angled five-starred cross. The map however was useless.

Returning his attention to the buildings around him, Torin continued forward. He didn’t need to see the stars to know he was in the correct location. The sensors on his ship, Helios Blade, indicated a significant number of life signs in this quadrant. The only sign of life on the eastern coastline of the large landmass to be exact—a paltry four hundred and forty-two souls. According to the Old Seer, the One Who Burns was among them.

Torin frowned, looking at the empty, desolate dwellings around him. How are you going to find him, Kerridon?

He let out a silent grunt, his skepticism pushed further by his bleak surrounds. The Old Seer had told him the One Who Burns would find him, but he couldn’t help wondering how.

“The One will come to you. Walk through the streets of dismay with want in your soul, belief in your heart and the One will come to you. This you must do. Or the hearts of man will be—”

His proclamation had ended there. The Old Seer’s sightless eyes had rolled back into his ancient head, he’d hitched in a sharp breath and died.

Torin clenched his fist, the memory of his Sol guide’s death still jarring. The Old Seer had charged him with a task and he must obey. He was the last of the Sol Order. The last warrior charged with the protection of the Sun Sword, the ultimate weapon in the known universes. A weapon forged by the Immortals and discovered by the Oracle. A weapon created to end all life and begin it. He needed to find the one who was born to wield the blade before the False Fire did. If he failed, the worlds of man would cease to—

A ball of solid steel smashed into his chest, hurling him backward. His heels tripped, his feet tangled and, before he knew it, he was on his back staring at the bruised, polluted sky. Pain radiated through him. Syunna, what was that?

He flipped his body from the filth-strewn ground, disruptor drawn.

And found a tiny slip of a girl no taller than his chest standing before him, green eyes burning with golden fire, short black hair a spiky crown of mess. She glared at him, a long, rusted steel pipe clenched in her small fists. “Whoever you are, you’re not welcome here,” she growled, her voice husky. And angry. Very angry.

Torin frowned, resisting the urge to lift his hand and rub his chest. By the gods, what had she hit him with?

What do you mean_, she? Surely you don’t think this whelp put you on your arse, do you?

He returned his disruptor to its holster. “I have no issue with you, girl.” He began walking forward. “Move aside before I put you across my knee and—”

She threw herself at him. Feet first.

Her bootless heels struck his gut like two small balls of steel. He stumbled again, dumbstruck.

She swung the pipe, smashing it against his jaw as he fell.

White agony detonated in his head. He let out a shout of rage and indignation. How could a scrap of a child move so quickly? And hit so hard?

Before he could contemplate the answer, she straddled his chest, the steel pipe rammed under his chin. Choking him.

She glared down at him, the fury in her eyes seismic. “I will not let your kind touch me again.”

Torin stared at her, teeth clenched. “I’m not going to touch you. Now get off me before I give you a damn good—”

She didn’t let him finish. Fear flooded her eyes, turning the rage there to icy terror. She smashed the pipe against his face, his jaw, his shoulders, her tiny body trembling, her face set.

Pain erupted in his head. He let out a shout, more of surprise than agony, and grabbed at her wrists.

She was quick.

He was quicker.

Before she could strike him again with that cursed steel pipe, he yanked her body forward, threw her to ground beside him and rolled on top of her, pinning her beneath his weight.

“Get off me!” she screamed, thrashing and bucking like a wild animal.

He dodged another attempted blow from her right hand, fighting to keep her wrists in his grip.

Syunna, she’s strong for a scrap.

“Get off, me get off me, get off me!”

Her scream grew louder with every word, her eyes wider and more terrified.

“Stop it!” he roared, smacking her wrists to the ground beside her head and staring down into her muck-smeared face. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Ha!” she barked. “I’ve heard that before. Right before one of your kind shoves his dick between my legs.”

Cold fury rolled through Torin. His gut clenched at the implication behind her words and he fixed her with a steady look. “I, Torin Kerridon, last command warrior of the Sol Order and keeper of the Sun Sword’s truth, swear I will never bring harm upon your body.” He relaxed his hold on her wrists. A little. “Nor shove my dick between your legs.”

She glared up at him, green eyes flashing golden chips of rage.

He loosened his hold a fraction more. “This is my word and I swear it to you on my honour.”

She stopped fighting against his weight, expression guarded. Wary. “I swear I will rip your dick off and shove it down your throat if you break your word.”

The words were full of promise and Torin didn’t doubt—if given the chance—she would be capable of doing just so. He frowned, his gut still tight. “What is your name, child?”

Her jaw bunched, defiant strength glinting in her unusual eyes, and she shifted beneath him. “I’m not a child. I’m almost twenty-one.”

Torin suppressed the urge to smile. Almost twenty-one made her a child by his reasoning, and by his own advanced age. “What is your name, child?” he repeated, the need to know growing heavy in his gut.

Green eyes glinted. “Kala Rei. Now get off me.”

But Torin couldn’t move. He stared down at the dirty, skinny girl, every muscle in his body locked frozen with disbelief, his heart a thumping beat, his blood roaring in his ears.

Kala Rei.

The name whispered by the Immortals. The name he’d known all his life.

Kala Rei.

The One Who Burns.

I probably should warn those of you who don’t know me, I am a little odd, more than a little unusual and a whole lot weird. To this end, this blog’s probably going to be….strange for you all. But fun too. I promise. Fun like sucking hot coffee through Tim Tams fun. Not fun like having your brother tickle you until you pee fun…. Err, see what I mean? Odd, unusual and weird. I betcha I’ve frightened most of you away already, haven’t I?

Well, for those of you still with me, let’s begin.

I think it’s a given that most of us erotic authors don’t write under our real names. There’s a reason for this. It could be our real name is too boring (can you imagine reading a so-hot-it-melts-anything-it-touches menage tale by someone called Mable White? Or Doreen Jones? Betrice Smith?), but the chances are the reason for the nom de plume has something to do with a need to keep our other self, shall I call it, hidden. That’s when we creative types come up with a pen name.

There are a million ways to create an awesome pen name: use the first letters of your children’s names; the name of your pet, favourite city/state/colour (Sandy Quebec-Green, anyone?); name your writing alter-ego after the name you always wished your parents had named you (Hunter Savage. How cool would that name be?! Hunter Savage); take a naughty word or two and spell them in such a way they look like names (Fanni Bottym, maybe?); go all out and just use naughty words without any subtefuge (Pussy Vagina. Okay, maybe not grin); pick a name similar to your own so you don’t look like a doofus when you fail to respond to it at conventions (Elizabeth/Beth, Alana/Lana, Christina/Tina…well, you get the idea); or be totally creative and come up with something utterly unique and (in your mind) totally clever.

I fall into the last category. And don’t I wish I’d been less clever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the name Lexxie Couper. I am Lexxie Couper and trust me, the name suits me. Lexxie Couper is a bit of a flirt (like me), a bit risque (like me) and very much a proud Aussie (like me). Lexxie however, is far more saracstic than I am, defintely more obsessed with Tim Tams and has no shame to speak of (and yes, I see how weird this reads, trust me, but hey, Lexxie Couper is far more weird than me, too grin). No, I love Lexxie and never regret her. What I regret, is the double X in Lexxie/my name.

Double Xs, I have found, are problematic. They draw conclusions in peoples’ mind. They are hard to sign with a flourish. They look like a typo. Double Xs also freak the hell out of Yahoo. I cannot create a yahoo group with my full name. I can’t create a link to my website from a yahoo group. Yahoo, apparently, has decided that double Xs are evil, satanic things only to be associated with depravity and socially-abhorrent miscreants. (There are some who would say Lexxie Couper is a depraved, socially-abhorrent miscreant. To those people I blow you a raspberry. Bthhhhrurt).

Double Xs also seem to be favoured by other sites less…how shall I say this? Less subtle than my own. Sites with wonderfully descriptive titles such as wannawatch.com and twilightsex.com (note: twilightsex has nothing to do with Edward and Bella and Jacob. Trust me. I’m sure there’s a site out there somewhere that does cater to those longing for a little Edward/Bella/Jacob action, or Jacob/Edward/Bella action, but twilightsex isn’t it). These sites not only like double Xs, they like triple Xs. And they also like to generate spam. Lots of spam. And this is where my pen name, a name I laboured with love for many many hours to create, has gone bad.

I get spam from myself all the time. Most of the time, I ignore it. Some of the time I laugh about it. Who wouldn’t laugh at an email titled Sexy Mature Ammature Housewife Teaches Plumber To Suck? Or German MILF Makes Weiner Humungous? Or Turn Your Pecker Into A Barge Pole? Or Too Lazy To Get It Up? Miracle Blue Pill Cheap!! (note the double exclamation point) Or my personal favourite which I’ve received from myself at least ten times in the last two weeks: Buy Harvard Degree. F*ck Sexy Harvard Professors. (Does that come with extra credit, do you think?)

Sometimes however, I can’t laugh anymore. These times I rant and rave – especially when a totally innocent email I’ve sent to someone (possibly about kittens and butterflies and the smell of fresh rain on rich soil) bounces back to me because some overly zealous filter somewhere decided my email was spam. These times, I curse my pen name. Curse it.

“Why, Lexxie?” I cry at the heavens (well, the ceiling. It’s not often I find myself crying with frustration at the spam dilemma outside). “Why couldn’t you have been LeXie? It still looks good. It still sounds the same. Why did you have to go and be LeXXie?”

I find myself worrying about the million of email users out there in cyber world. I picture them looking at their inboxes and thinking, oh for Pete’s sake. More spam from this lexxie @lexxiecouper. com? Damn, I wish she’d just bugger off. I see millions of people wishing they could track this lexxie down and beat her senseless with their spam-inundated computers and laptops and iPads, just to teach her a lesson. I imagine serious, important people I send serious, important emails to, looking at my email address and going, uh-uh, no way I’m opening that. Not from HER.

And then I see myself standing at a grave, looking down at a headstone with Lexxie Couper chiseled into the marble, along with the words, “She Spammed A Lot Of People.”

When this happens, I wonder what it would be like to have a pen name far less troublesome (I’ve even created one, just in case the day really does come when I can’t take it anymore), far less….Lexxie-ish. Far less…bad.

And then someone will send me an email, call me Lexxie without any malice or trepidation and I realise, you know what, I really really do love Lexxie Couper. It suits me. And when that happens, I grab a pen and start signing my name.

L…e…x…x…i…e…

Yes, I am a little weird, and my pen name is a lot troublesome, but it’s mine. And let’s face it, about a million email users the world over probably know it by now

So tell me, if you had to create a pen name, what would it be? Why?

And just for some fun, what’s the most hilarious subject for spam you’ve received?

(PS – because I would be remiss in letting you know, my next Samhain release, Savage Transformation, the long overdue sequel to Savage Retribution will be out 28th September. Yay!!)

Lexxie Couper is indeed, a little odd but entirely harmless…sorta. She has her own blog that she mostly neglects here. Feel free to pop by and leave her a comment or two that’s not spam

And no, that isn’t a typo. I’m not talking about the Tasmanian Devil so made famous by Looney Tunes I really am blogging about a creature called the Tasmanian Tiger. So what is a Tasmanian Tiger and why am I blogging about it? Well….

The Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, was a beautiful carnivorous marsupial similar in appearance to a large dog living in Australia over five millennia ago. It earned its name thanks to its sandy yellow-brown fur and distinct fifteen to twenty black stripes across its back from shoulder to tail.

While the Thylacine was almost non-existent on the mainland of the country by the time of European colonisation, it did live in large numbers on the small island state of Tasmania. However, the Tasmanian Tiger was deemed a threat to sheep and chicken farmers – an unlikely scenario – and a large bounty was placed on its head. As a sad consequence, the Thylacine was hunted to extinction – a beautiful creature lost to the world forever. The last of the Thylacine died in a Tasmanian zoo in September, 1936, alone and pacing its concrete and metal cage, no doubt longing for its freedom.

There have been numerous unconfirmed sightings of Tasmanian Tigers in Tasmania to this day, however most believe these sightings are fake or attempts to gain personal notoriety and the Thylacine is still considered extinct by all official agencies and government bodies.

The Tasmanian Tiger is also the star of my next release, Savage Transformation, the loooong overdue sequel to Savage Retribution. Savage Transformation (out sometime later this year) sees Sydney Detective, Jackie Huddart’s return home to visit her childhood friend in Tasmania, the smallest state in Australia. The trouble is, her childhood friend seems to be missing, and someone wants Jackie to find her. Someone who knows exactly what Jackie is – the last of the “extinct” Tasmanian Tigers. And a shape-shifter.

As Jackie begins the hunt to find her friend, she is joined by the very mysterious and way-too-sexy Marshall Rourke, a man who seems to have just as many secrets as she. Which may explain why Jackie feels like she is the one being hunted. But by who? And why?

I had lots of fun researching Savage Transformation. For starters, I convinced my husband we needed to visit Tasmania and discovered it to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life. Secondly, I got lost in the research of the Tassie Tiger. Just about every Aussie knows the basic story of the Tasmanian Tiger, but when you really begin to delve deeply into the animal’s sad tale, it makes you wish you could go back in time and change history (well, it made me wish that. I am after all, a major animal rights activist). Savage Transformation is, in part, my apology to the Tasmanian Tiger for what happened to it.

But writing the book got me thinking…what other extinct or unexpected creatures or animals would I like to see in a romantic novel? Believe it or not, I ponder (quite hard) the idea of writing a dinosaur shape-shifter tale (I think a T-Rex would make a pretty awesome hero, don’t you?) before wondering if a Great White Shark would make an interesting hero (this one has been itching my mind ever since.) The possibilities are only limited by the number of extinct and unusual animals in our world, quite a large number when you think about it.

So tell me, what completely unexpected or extinct animal would you like to see in a shape-shifter romance?

(Oh, you can check out Savage Retribution here if you want to see what happens to an Irish werewolf in Australia)

(Oh – again – did you hear my other paranormal romance set in Australia, Death, The Vamp and his Brother WON THE CAPA FOR BEST PARANORMAL EROTIC ROMANCE!!??? WOW!!!)

I’m addicted to the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog (honestly, I think there needs to be a support group). I religiously devour every post every day and – on the odd occasion – actually muster up the courage to pull myself out of lurkdom and comment (I am, by nature, quite a shy person. S’true.) Anyways, one of their more recent posts investigated and responded to the ludicrous statement made by one disgruntled male that science fiction has been ruined by female intrusion of the worst kind – romance.

Romance in sci-fi?? Golly, gee! No! What an atrocity! What will happen next? Boys and girls going to the same school?

I won’t go into the ludicrous article the Smart Bitches responded to, cause honestly, it is just so infuriatingly sad and lame, but the Bitches’ article got me thinking about some of my favourite sci-fi heroines and how they totally got their man in an out-of-this-world romance while being completely kick-arse at the same time (and really, why the hell shouldn’t there be romance in sci-fi? Who decided that science fiction was a romance-free zone? Point me in his direction – because I’m sure it must be a man – and I will thump him for all us sci-fi geeks who love to see the girl get the boy)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS AHEAD

My Top Five sci-fi heroines who found lurve in space (or the future, in some cases) are:

Princess Leia (Star Wars Episodes 4, 5 and 6) – She kicked Jabba the Hutt’s flabby butt, swings through the air with two danishes strapped to the side of her head, looked totally hot in a slave girl’s outfit, repeatedly rejects the ultimate space pirate, Han Solo, rescues – yes, rescues! – said space pirate from an eternity of carbonite and gets to do the HEA with Solo after saving all things good from the vile Emperor.

Leeloo (The Fifth Element) – She is the perfect specimen of the sci-fi heroine. She’s not human, but human love undoes her – and gives her the strength to defeat the ultimate evil and save all of mankind. And then she gets to snog Bruce Willis in a sun-bed on steroids.

Lady Jessica (Dune) – She fell in love with a man she wasn’t meant to, defied every one and stayed with him, and gave birth to a son who changed everything. All the while, still refusing to bow to anyone’s demands or expectations. What’s not to admire?

Trinity (The Matrix) – She wears latex like other women wear denim, she kills evil machines and cyber agents without breaking a sweat, she doesn’t take sh*t from anyone, she fights her own heart for the good of the human race and her love for Neo is so strong, it brings him back to life so he can go on and save mankind (and do his Superman in black impersonation)

Susannah Dean (The Dark Tower series) – this heroine is so complex I don’t even know where to begin with her. She suffers from duel personalities, fights both of them to become just one person, spends the entire series in a wheel chair, can shoot rings around her boyfriend, allows an incubus to rape her to save the men in her life, falls pregnant, kills a lot of bad guys (and a notable bad girl) and finally earns her HEA with the man she’s loved for the entire series.

Without any of these heroines and their romances, the driving force of all the above plots would not exist. As the science fiction world is learning, love DOES make the WORLDS go round.

Anyone else have any particular favourite sci-fi heroines?

Lexxie Couper is a proud sci-fi geek who has attended more than one Star Trek convention. She stopped sleeping for a week to read The Wheel of Time series and once wanted to grow up to be a hobbit. Her sci-fi/fantasy erotic romance, The Sun Sword is available on the 17th November.