Samhain Publishing

Six years ago this week I released my first Samhain book. Say You're Mine practically wrote itself and became the first book in my Spellbound series. Since signing my first contract for Samhain I've been lucky enough to release 14 other stories that allowed my imagination to run wild. When I first started down this path with Samhain I had no idea I would enjoy my job so much.

Having the freedom to write any subgenre I wanted (paranormal, futuristic, romantic suspense, a little fantasy) allowed me to build worlds that are still a big part of my life–a family of witches that run a P.I firm, a group of elite demon slayers that love as intensely as they fight, shifters tied to Arthurian Legend and forced to spend their daylight hours trapped in stone. 

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For as long as I can remember I’ve been a huge fan of romance novels that feature the hero and heroine on the road, whether they’re on the run from someone or on some kind of hunt or journey. One of the first ones I read was Night Magic by Karen Robards about a spy and a romance writer, who’s believed to know said spy because of a book she wrote, and her cat Puff. I remember being swept right along for the ride, and it wasn’t just waiting for these two to fall in love that kept me turning the pages, but the constant action and suspense.

Walking After Midnight, also by Robards, is also a favorite and even though it’s been years since I last picked it up, I can clearly remember the heroine walking into the funeral home that she cleaned at night and having the dead guy (at least she thought he was) pretty much jump off the table.

My more recent find for authors that deliver a great road romance is Tara Janzen. Crazy Hot and On the Loose are two great road romances of hers, and most of her books fall into this category or come really close. Paranormal romance author Kresley Cole writes a lot of road romances, too, which I tend to devour within the first couple of days of the release.

As fun as it is to race along with a couple, breath held in anticipation of what will come next as I flip the pages, brainstorming and writing those scenes are even more addictive. Whatever It Takes, the third book on my Spellbound series, combines both magic and edgy on-the-run suspense, and my upcoming romantic suspense release, Trust Me, has an ex special ops hero trying to stay one step ahead of the bad guys with a heroine who’s wanted for murder.

So what about you? Are you a fan of road romances? Any particular book or author that made you fall in love with sub-genre?

One of the first shapeshifter books I can remember reading was Wild Rain by Christine Feehan. Since I’ve always loved paranormal romance, I was excited to discover a world of sleek, shapeshifting cats and I’ve been fascinated with them ever since.

Today marks the release of my third cat-shifter book. Primal Pleasure is the next book in my Pendragon Gargoyles series, a fast-paced series filled with dangerous and sexy immortals with ties to Avalon and Arthurian Legend. I’ve always been intrigued by the mythology surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, so when my gargoyles first came to life in my mind, I was eager to put a new spin on shapeshifters.

If you love hot, fast-paced paranormal romance with rugged alpha males hell-bent on claiming their mates, I hope you’ll check out my gargoyles and Primal Pleasure.

You can get a sneak peek of the first chapter HERE but for now here’s the blurb and an excerpt.

PRIMAL PLEASURE
Pendragon Gargoyles, Book 3

He will have his revenge—one wicked seduction at a time.

Emma is used to getting dragged into her twin sister’s magical messes, but this time her predicament is more than a minor annoyance. She’s chained to a cat shifter that her sister encased in a curse of stone. Worse, the unfortunate gargoyle’s waking up. And her sister’s not there to take the heat.

After a century suspended in stone, Cian would do anything to get his hands on the sorceress who put him there. Strangely, his dreams of revenge turn into an animal hunger to put his hands all over her—in every delightfully wicked way imaginable.
Never as talented as her sister, Emma doesn’t trust her own magic. But for now she must let Cian believe she’s the culprit in order to strike a bargain: to permanently lift the curse in exchange for his tracking skills to find her missing sister. The longer she is near him, though, the closer she comes to surrendering much more than her body to the brutal warrior.

As their attraction catches fire, Emma dreads what could happen when he learns the truth. If he will sacrifice her to break the spell…or fight for a love that goes beyond animal instinct.

EXCERPT

He shoved the laptop aside. “It’s not working.”

Glancing at the flashing cursor, she tugged the machine toward her, anticipating the memories that came with touching it. Most were tied to Briana, but the most recent were Cian’s, and with only a few keystrokes she understood his mounting frustration with technology.

“What’s the password? Come on,” she added when he wasn’t immediately forthcoming.

“I’m a sorceress not a hacker.”

His brows drew together. “Hacker?”

“Someone really good with computers.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I shop online, gargoyle. I don’t fleece people’s bank accounts. Though I once dated a dragon that built himself quite a little nest egg in the Cayman Islands that way.”

Cian growled and turned away.

Yeah, she hadn’t approved of her date’s questionable pastime either, but doubted the gargoyle cared about that. He’d already made up his mind about her.

“Pendragons,” he finally admitted in a skeptical tone.

She typed in the password, and noticed Cian’s I-told-you-so look when the box flashed and denied her access.

Ignoring him—until he stepped up behind her anyway—she frowned at the keys. “Caps lock is on.” She retyped the password and gave him a triumphant smile when it unlocked and loaded the operating system. “Don’t suppose we’re even now?”

He leaned in, peering over her shoulder at the screen. “Just be sure to put the key to your chain under the mat when you leave.”

Emma rolled her eyes. Wasn’t he just hilarious?

Cian pointed to the Internet browser icon. “That one.”

“Want to surf for a while, huh?”

“We’re not near the ocean.”

“What?” She glanced over her shoulder, saw the confusion on his face. “I meant surf the web. Sorry,” she added when he finally nodded. Turning back to the laptop, she mumbled, “Must be a lot to adjust to.”

She cringed as soon as the words left her mouth. She’d taken a page right out of Elena’s speak-before-you-think book with that one. Instantly she felt his gaze boring holes into the back of her head. At least his claws stayed sheathed.

For now.

Cursing her sister for the thousandth time, she opened the web browser. “There you go. Just try not to go blind looking at porn,” she added, hoping to break the tension a little.

“Porn?”

She took a step back, forgetting he was directly behind her, and froze. “As in pornography. Naked pictures of women. People having sex.”

“And you’ve seen this?”

“It’s hard to go many places on the net without coming across it at some point.” She was about to slide to the right when he planted his arm on the counter, hemming her in. “I’ve seen some,” she finally admitted, hoping the right answer would release the biceps barricade between her and the table.

“Show me.”

Not caring how close they stood, her gaze darted to meet his. “What?”

Show me,” he repeated, the seductive edge to his voice making her blood push faster through her veins. He jiggled the other end of the chain. “Unless you would prefer to return to your cell?”

Sexual Tension. Conflict. Bone-deep awareness.

These are just three things that I love about reunited lovers stories. And the best part? All three are usually present right from the start. It’s like getting to skip dinner and jumping right to dessert, and you don’t even need to feel guilty about it.

A few of my Samhain books feature reunited lovers, probably because I’m a complete sucker for that theme in both books and movies. Unbreakable, Call Me Cupid, Whatever it Takes, Primal Attraction and my upcoming release, Dark Obsession, all have heroes and heroines who thought they had moved on from their past relationships, right up until their lives take an unexpected turn and they find themselves face-to-face with the one person they never really got over. Not that they’re always ready (or even willing) to admit that in the beginning.

I love writing this theme for the same reasons I love reading it. I don’t have to spend chapters setting up the tension and conflict when the characters have this built-in friction ready for me to use against them. Rarely did things end well for the couple the first time around, so not only are they usually determined to steer clear of each other (at least one of them anyway) they’re often arguing as much as they’re trying to pretend they’re no longer attracted to each other. And when they hook up again, things are hotter than ever.

Since I can’t talk about reunited lovers without mentioning some memorable movies and books, here are a few of my favorites.

Movies:

Sweet Home Alabama – You can rarely go wrong with a romantic comedy, and this one is fun, sexy and romantic.

The Princess Bride – A Classic.

The Notebook – Loaded with tension and angst and longing. Great combination for any reunited lovers story.

Grease – Light on the angst, but heavy on musical fun.

Books:

Crazy Cool by Tara Janzen. Christian Hawkins. Is there anything else left to say?

Birthright by Nora Roberts – One of my favorites by Nora.

Paradise by Judith McNaught – Although it relies on “the big misunderstanding plot” it was one of the first romances I read.

Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon- It’s impossible not to mention Jamie and Claire from the hugely popular Outlander series.

What about you? Do you love reunited lovers stories as much as I do? What are your favorites?

As I writer I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with my job. Some of it (okay most of it) is hard. Damn hard. But thankfully the parts of writing I love more than makes up for all the days I want to light my laptop on fire and pitch it off a cliff.

So here’s a list of things I really love about about being a writer.

1. It gives me a reason to avoid hanging out in the man cave (a.k.a the garage) with my husband. I live in Eastern Canada. It gets damn cold up here in the winter. Cold enough to freeze my butt to the chair no matter how many blankets he shoves at me.

2. I get paid to make stuff up. Seriously.

3. I get to give two people a Happily Ever After, even when the hero or heroine didn’t see it coming.

4. It’s highly entertaining to watch peoples expressions change when they learn that by “writer” I didn’t mean an author of children’s books.

5. Not many other careers involve looking forward to embarrassing my sons when they’re older by whipping out my sexy book covers and reminding them their mother wrote this.

6. I get to play with witches, demons and shape-shifters whenever I want and never get hurt.

7. A deadline is damn good excuse when you want to avoid socializing with people that drive you crazy.

8. I have an excuse to by a new laptop every other year. Like it’s my fault a stupid plot hole or uncooperative character makes me slam the lid down a little too often.

9. I get to spend hours (and hours and hours) writing something that might make someone else temporarily forget about the bills that need to be paid, the crappy day they had at work, the mountain of laundry waiting to be washed, or the kids and pets overtaken by the effects of a full moon.

10. Because it’s romance and it’s all about the moment. The moment when the hero and heroine meet, whether it’s for the first time or the hundredth. The moment when a heated argument makes them realize something has irrevocably changed between them. When they’re a breath away from that shake-you-to-your-core first kiss. Or the moment when they’ve finally figured out that no matter how much of a pain in the ass the other is, they belong together, they’re meant to be.

Those are just some of the reasons I adore my job! How about you? What do you love most about your job? Post your comment and be entered to win a download of my lastest release, Primal Hunger. Contest open until midnight December 13th. Good luck!

UPDATE:

Congrats to Nicole on winning the the download of Primal Hunger!

Primal Hunger, the first book in my brand new Pendragon Gargoyles series is now available and I couldn’t be more excited. One of the best things about writing paranormal romance is getting to play outside of the box, and I definitely did that when I tossed together some sexy shifters, Fae and other power-hungry immortals with my twist on Arthurian Legend. I hope you find this new world as entertaining as I did while writing it. So how about an excerpt?

PRIMAL HUNGER
Pendragon Gargoyles Book 1

When the sun goes down, passion is unleashed.

Kennedy Beaumont loves her bartending job, even if her spirited nature sometimes gets her in trouble. Like threatening to hose down one of Pendragon’s co-owners. When it comes to Tristan, she could use a good hosing down, herself—maybe it’ll help her stop casting him as the star in her wickedest dreams. Since he goes out of his way to avoid her, it ought to be easy to put him out of her head—until he reluctantly offers her a ride home.

Gargoyle shape-shifter Tristan Callaghan hasn’t had time for anything other than recovering the mystical dagger that was used to permanently lock his brother in a prison of stone. The cat inside him should have stopped craving Kennedy’s touch long ago, but now that she’s sitting next to him in his car, his very human need for her is sharper than ever.

The distraction is costly. In a split second, Kennedy finds herself thrust into a dangerous, millennia-old hunt for Excalibur. A hunt that marks her for death—and leaves Tristan with a painful choice—sacrifice his family, his quest…or the one woman meant to be his.

EXCERPT

“Do you do everything the hard way?”

“This coming from the woman who relies on water hoses to settle disputes at a crowded bar.”

A reluctant smile drew his attention straight to her mouth. He spanned his fingers across her lower back, preventing her from edging away from him. He’d let her go in just a minute, first indulging the cat’s need to touch her. The man, however, wanted a whole lot more. Hours more. Days.

Kennedy shivered. “You’re not still mad about that, are you?”

He shook his head. “But I can’t promise I won’t retaliate the next time.” Because the need to lower his head and run his mouth along the slender curve of her neck threatened to overwhelm him, he nodded to the thick branch extending from the tree. “Ladies first.”

Easing out of reach, she stepped gingerly onto the branch, clinging to the overhead limbs for balance. When she reached the trunk, she moved to another branch and waited for him to climb down first.

The cat wanted to climb higher in the tree and wait for the wraith to make another appearance, but he needed to get her inside first. His feet hit the ground and he reached up to help her down.

“Crap,” she hissed, skidding down the tree.

He should have caught her easily and kept them both upright. Maybe it was the drugs slowing his reflexes, or maybe he wanted to feel her sprawled across his chest when the impact knocked them both to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Her eyes widened and she tried sliding off him.

He anchored one arm across her back, keeping her still. “Not really.” He probably wouldn’t be okay for a long time. The closer she got, the more he wanted her there, proving his attraction to Kennedy ran much deeper than he’d imagined.

“You’re bleeding.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, wincing in sympathy.

“Just a scratch.” He barely registered the scrape on his cheek from connecting with the tree bark during the fall. Barely registered anything but all the places she was nestled against him. The only thing better than having her draped across him, would be her draped across him naked.

She stared in the direction of the main house, exposing the tempting curve of her throat.

Tristan didn’t think about it, he lifted his head and closed his mouth over her skin.

You never realize how important routines are to getting stuff accomplished (like writing) until summer comes along and blows them all to hell. Okay, so I had a baby in the spring and routines were a bit sketchy before school let out for the summer, but now that my family comes and goes on weekends and my boys are up later at night…

Finding time to write is a priority for me, both because it’s my job and because it’s also “me” time. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a job they love, so I really try hard not to take that for granted. Even when I don’t feel like writing—because everyone has days when they’d rather be doing something else—I try to get something down. A few paragraphs, a few lines, a few words. Chances are they might even suck when I have to give the words a good hard nudge, but they’re on the page and I can work with them after that.

Aside from the interruptions to my daily routines, I’ve got this tiny obsession with finding ways to be more productive in the summer—okay all year long too. I’ve been known to spend obscene amounts of time reading other authors’ blogs and websites to see how they balance life and writing.

I’ve always been on the hunt for that trick or tip that will prove to be the holy grail of being more productive. And while I have learned that the real secret (the only secret) to getting more writing done is to just sit and write, old habits die hard.

So while the days are longer and warmer (when it’s not raining) part of me is already longing for September to roll around. At least then I won’t be heading off to the camp on weekends or waiting for my kids to finally fall sleep before I get any work done.

Anyone else have a reason to look forward to September?

Sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference between finishing your first book and setting it aside before you ever reach the end. For me that small thing was smiley face stickers. Like a lot of aspiring writers, I had the ideas (too many really) but not always the determination and motivation to see them through.

I’d never heard that writing the first few chapters of a book tends to be the easier part, and once all the newness wears off, the real hard work begins. Cue the procrastination. Most of the time I didn’t even realize I was avoiding writing, or when I did write, I fell into the revision pit and constantly reworked the first few chapters in search of perfection. Took me a while to realize that five shiny chapters did not a complete book make.

Knowing that and reaching the finish line were of course two very different things, especially since I continued to struggle with keeping my butt planted in front of my computer. I tried rewards to keep myself motivated – not a good idea when my drug of choice was books and it was much easier to turn the pages than to fill blank ones.

I tried encouraging my husband to ask me every day how the writing was going. But once it started sounding like the much-dreaded equivalent to “what did you do all day?” I nipped that in the bud. That brief experience did teach me that being accountable for my daily page count was improving my output, but that I was the only person who would truly care enough about hitting my goals.

Right around this time, I was going through some boxes and found sheets of smiley face stickers in my teaching supplies. Like everything else, the stickers sat on the corner of my desk for quite a while. We won’t talk about the family of dust bunnies I displaced in the process of my intended reorganization.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later when I grabbed one of those stickers—after a seriously kickass writing day—and put one of those smiley faces up on my calendar. When I sat down the next time to write, I couldn’t help but glance at the calendar (which hung right above my desk) and be reminded of the day before. So I wrote more and when I finished, I put another sticker up on my calendar. It wasn’t long before I became addicted to putting those stickers up to mark my progress. I wanted to see every box filled in with a bright yellow smile, and the days left empty began bothering more and more—so I wrote and wrote and wrote.

It took me two months of smiley faces to get a complete rough draft of my first book, and even if the rest wasn’t as shiny as those first few chapters, it was finished. I had done it. I had finally written a book.

Even with a couple dozen stories under my belt since then, there are still times when I find myself hunting for those stickers to get me over a rough patch with a work in progress.

For the aspiring and published authors out there, do you have any little tricks that help you reach The End? Or if your not a writer, have you found any tips or tricks that help you accomplish a goal when you find yourself procrastinating? Comment and be entered to win your choice of download from my backlist. Contest open until Friday.

Sydney
—
www.sydneysomers.com
Primal Hunger – Coming September 09
Whatever It Takes – Now Available

I think the “Shoop Shoop Song” really gets it right. Whether I’m holding a romance in my hands or watching it on the big screen, I’m always waiting for the moment when the couple comes together. When the chemistry is sizzling and I’m on the edge of my seat, anticipating that first kiss. Or maybe it’s their last or one in between. Sweet kisses, hungry ones, kissing in the rain, kisses loaded with conflict and tension or the soft, barely-there brush of lips. I love em’ all.

So today I thought I’d share some of my favorite Hollywood lip-locking moments.

10. Gone with the Wind – Rhett and Scarlet. What more is there to say?

9. Spiderman – Love the movie or not, that upside down kiss is certainly memorable.

8. Meet Joe Black – I love the way Joe (Brad Pitt) doesn’t know at all how to react to being kissed, and then watching it play over his face as he realizes how much he likes it…

7. Titanic – I don’t know if it’s the music, the sunset or the way they don’t rush it, but Jack and Rose’s kiss on the bow of the ship lingers long after disaster strikes.

6. Pretty Woman – Sweet and fun. What isn’t incredibly charming about a man who faces his fear of heights to “rescue” the woman he loves?

5. Shakespeare in Love – There are definitely a few favorite moments in this one.

4. The Princess Bride – “Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”

3. Bridget Jones’ Diary – A desperate woman in sneakers, a sweater and her knickers. Plus there’s that line about how nice boys kiss.

2. Beauty and the Beast – Just when all hope seems lost… Disney magic at its finest.

1. The Notebook – The rain. The tension. The kiss. Awesome.

So what are some of your favorite movie kisses?

Today marks the release of my tenth Samhain release. Woohoo! Whatever It Takes is also the third book in my Spellbound series. The Calder family first came to life in my imagination in December 05. I’d heard from my writing pal Jaycee Clark that Samhain was seeking submissions and decided to put together a proposal. I’d been wanting to write a story about a family run private investigation firm, but there was still something missing. Something…paranormal.

I had given vampires, shifters and demon slayers a whirl, but not witches and warlocks. And so Calder Investigations was born. Three books, three rival witch families and loads of action, suspense and super hot romance later and I’m just as spellbound with this series as I was in beginning. And yes, there are more Spellbound stories to come.

So how about an excerpt? Yeah, I thought so.

WHATEVER IT TAKES

Government Operative Gideon Bishop thrives on high-risk situations, but even his most volatile mission is nothing compared to coming face-to-face with his past. He’s spent the last four years trying to forget Tate Calder and their scorching affair, but the only way to get the information he needs is to keep her close—and keep his hands off her. Because the only thing riskier than protecting a woman who insists on hiding the truth, is giving in to the attraction that still crackles between them.

All Tate wants is a quiet holiday with zero interruptions from her family, and even fewer from the witch’s council bent on recruiting her. Instead, she finds herself on the run from lethal mercenaries and the police with the one man she never expected to see again. To protect her family’s secrets, she’ll do whatever it takes to keep Gideon from learning the truth.

Even if it means risking her heart to seduce him—over and over again.

EXCERPT

Cursing under her breath for having the least bit of sympathy for him, she jerked her head at his arm. “Let me see it.”

“It’s fine.”

“If it was fine, it wouldn’t be bleeding.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t disagree with that, but took a step away from her. She arched a brow, watching without comment as he pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt up to expose the gunshot wound on his left arm.

“Shit,” she whispered, moving closer. As frustrated as she was with him—for a lot of things—the sight of the injury greased her stomach with a fresh layer of panic.

Gideon backtracked so quickly he bumped against his car. “It looks worse than it is.”

“It didn’t just graze you, did it?”

He held up his good arm to keep her back. “No way.”

She frowned at the nervous tone that crept into his voice. “Problem?”

“There will be if you even think about trying to poke or prod at it.”

She waved his hand away. “I’ve had first-aid training.”

He snorted and moved to the trunk. “Would that be the same first-aid training you had four years ago?”

“Yeah.” Training that had come in pretty handy when he’d split the bottom of his foot open on a broken beer bottle left in the sand.

“Stay there,” he warned as he dug through his trunk, withdrawing a small tackle box.

“What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

“Subject my shoulder to the same torture you put my poor foot through.” He shuddered. “I’d rather take my chances with rubbing alcohol and duct tape.”

She scoffed. “Be serious.”

“Oh, I am. Deadly.”

“Is that some kind of tough-guy, hitman humor?”

He glared at her. “I’m not a hitman.”

“Well, finally we’re getting somewhere.” Assuming she believed him of course. He’d certainly killed McCall with the kind of ruthless precision she imagined hitmen were famous for.

He ripped open a sterilized bandage and pressed the gauze to his wound. He never took his eyes off her as she peered at the back of his arm in search of an exit wound. There wasn’t one.

Feeling a little squeamish at the sight of the blood that continued to seep from the wound, she glanced at the tackle box. “The bullet is going to have to come out.”

He snapped the lid closed and shoved it back into the trunk. “Back off, Florence Nightingale.”

Unable to help herself, she smiled. Every time she moved an inch in his direction, he gave her a wary look. He started to wrap the gauze around the wound, but she shoved his good hand out of the way to take over. The longer they remained out in the open, the easier targets they made if Chalmers somehow managed to track them through the woods.

Her hands were remarkably steady considering the last half-hour. “And I wasn’t that bad in Key West.”

“I still have a pronounced limp on cold, damp days.”

She rolled her eyes, and he grinned. Too easily reminded of what he’d done with that mouth earlier, she focused on tightening the bandage.

His hissed out a breath. “We need someplace to lay low for a few hours.”

“And then?” She moved to the driver’s seat.

“Then we’ll get the hell off the island and figure this out.” He frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Driving.”

“No.”

She held her hand out for the keys. “You’re hurt and you don’t know your way around the island like I do.”

“You’re not driving my car.”

“I drive or I don’t get in.”

“Passenger seat or the trunk. Pick one,” he growled.

Forced to tip her chin up, she matched his determined gaze with one of her own. “There’s no way you could have been such an asshole four years ago.”

“Well, you sure as hell were this stubborn.”