Author Archive

(Posted on Melissa’s behalf - Maura)

This month the newest installment in my Dog Wild series, Forget Me Knot, was released. Naturally, I am thrilled. So picture how confused I was, when I received an email from a reader asking all sorts of questions, the first of which was “why dogs?”

Now, I do know that a lot of people are either dog or cat people, but I have both, and the inspiration for the series came from a combination of old stories my Italian grandmother told me and from my own goofy canines.

Not long after bringing home BooRegard, the world’s most cowardly bully of a Basset, I started jotting notes on things he did that made me laugh so hard it hurt. Trust me, the list is long and I have plenty of material to work with yet. He was the original “peek-a-boo” puppy, hiding under the sofa and howling in terror at each new visitor.

At that time I was really into exercising to get rid of the weight I put on after quitting smoking, so Boo, Maximus (the Chihuahua inspiration for Mars) and I would go for our daily walk. I guess it was just a sign as to how well acclimated I had become to their odd walking patterns that I never thought twice about the complex dance steps of jog-jog-stop-hula hoop-spin-change hands-walk-repeat. It took having a friend who also wanted to lose weight join me on my daily four mile walk.

He didn’t stand a chance against the Boo. With a gay trumpet, the hound was on his way jogging (as per our normal jaunt) then slid to a sudden stop as “Jim” slid on gravel and tripped pell-mell for the next ten feet. Jim changed hands, Boo saw it as the signal for spin around time and started racing in circles. In all, the walk took almost two hours and I know I got more exercise from laughing than walking because my stomach ached and my legs were fine, but Jim gave me the best line - “Walking that dog is like having a seizure on roller skates.”

Thus, Dog Wild was born.

Dogs share a lot with their wild cousins the wolf; loyalty, dominance, affection, love, and the willingness to die for one another, to protect the “family”. Not long after the auto accident which left me with permanent central brain damage, I was talking with someone about an unwanted puppy. He had to be the ugliest baby I’d ever seen. Fully half the size of his female sibs, this naked little pup had funny scar-like marks on his left side but his skinny, wrinkly body scooted about with great joy, almond-shaped eyes sparkling. He was a completely naked Chinese Crested that no one wanted. Before leaving on the second visit, I overheard a comment on how the pup might have to be drowned and that was that, he came home and was dubbed Fidget. (Named for the peg-legged bat with the broken wing from the Great Mouse Detective.)

My menagerie was complete. At the time I had three cats, three dogs and three horses – life couldn’t get better. But families grow and shrink, in this case we’re now up to countless cats (with two barns, I dare you to count and get the same number twice) six horses and sadly, back to two dogs. My little Fidget seemed to feel a little under the weather yesterday afternoon, by the time we returned from the barn he was cold to touch and suffering full-blown seizures. I tried everything I could think of from my own seizure management sheets – a warm shower to ease the muscles, something between the teeth to keep him from choking – but it didn’t matter, by 8:30 last night he passed away.

Despite all the tears I’ve shed (and am shedding now typing this) I have to agree with my husband: through me Fidget got a second chance at life and it was great. He was happy and loved.

How does this particular personal incident bear on the Dog Wild series? There is a running theme in every story – second chances. Lupercus has a second chance at discovering a mate in the original tale and in book two four people get second chances. Whether on accident or purpose, I’ve built them into nearly each story I’ve worked on since my “second birthday” AKA the auto accident.

This sequel is for all of the folks who wanted a story for Lupercus sad-eyed brother, Frank Horne. While the main love story is wolf in nature, featuring the growly, taciturn clan-alpha Madden “Red” Silvestri and his mysterious helpmate there is another love story, just as powerful, for Frank and the prickly Flora Daniels. (Side note, if you read Forget Me Knot: Dog Wild 2 and look up the definition of helpmate on Wikipedia, you’ll get a well earned chuckle. Some days the synapses work better than others.)

As for the next story…I am trying very hard to bring out book three and four at the same time (or close to it), just as was done with books 1&2. The third is called Trickster’s Folly and has a May-December romance and book four is Fang Tower which, if things go as hoped, will slide off into a side series with vampires and fearsome things that go bump in the night. After that is (tentatively titled) book five, Blind Justice, for Quint Campanella.

But it all depends on what you, the readers want, and of course, the dogs.

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Title: A Cruise to Remember
Author: Michelle Hasker
Artist: Jinger Heaston
ISBN: 978-1-60168-106-5
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/23/2008
Sexual Content: Erotic

Irene’s last boyfriend broke up with her after she’d invested a lot of money into a vacaion cruise. Now she’s determined to convince her gay roommate, Gabe, that he should go on the trip so her money isn’t wasted. What starts out as harmless teasing changes into something she doesn’t expect.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Goin’ Down 1
Authors: Mallory Hall, Renee Michaels, Shannon Robinson, Collette Thomas
Artist: Blaise Kilgallen
ISBN: 978-1-60168-102-7
Genre: Contemporary Erotica
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/23/2008
Sexual Content: Erotic

A widow lives out an erotic dream inside a stalled elevator with a silk clad cowboy in Aft Shaft by Mallory Hall.

All work and no play makes Jenna a dull girl until she meets Dante, the hot Italian stud who has nothing but the business of teaching her pleasure on his mind in Renee Michaels’ Descent into Pleasure.

Shannon Robinson relays the story of a fired secretary who releases her frustration on an ex-boss then discovers a mutual attraction that explodes into heated passion in Fired or Fired Up.

And Collette Thomas spins a story of two outrageous older women living out separate fantasies with a younger man inside a stuck elevator in The Elevator Man.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Dead Faint
Author: Lizzie T. Leaf
Artist: Jinger Heaston
ISBN: 978-1-60168-105-8
Genre: Paranormal Vampire
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/23/2008
Sexual Content: Sensual

Billie Joyce’s life-time dream of visiting New York City comes true, but the life changing experience is totally different than what she anticipated.

The blonde angel who saved her from death is one of the living dead and now, so is Billie Joyce. Problem is, she faints at the sight of blood. To make things more frustrating, she has to contend with a man who can find nothing right with her. Of course, he would have to be the one who creates more sensations in her body than she ever had when she was alive.

Marcus fights his attraction to the lavender eyed beauty who talks like she stepped out of My Fair Lady. After all, he’s no Henry Higgins, plus he got over the sex thing centuries ago. Besides, as the new King of the Vampires, who has time for women?

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Some Gave All
Authors: Jefferson Dane, Aline de Chevigny, Wayne Greenough, J.M. Snyder
Artist: Celia Kyle
ISBN: 978-1-60168-104-1
Genre: Historical
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/16/2008
Sexual Content: Varies

Four stories in honor of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

When Genie’s grandfather garners her promise to deliver a letter addressed to his lost love Eugenie, she agrees and makes her way to the veterans’ reunion. Eugenie though, has passed away, and has sent her grandson to deliver a last letter to her Wiliam. Two strangers meet in Las Vegas to learn the truth about their grandparents and discover what it means to fall in love at first sight in Memorial Meeting by Aline de Chevigny.

In Flyover by Jefferson Dane, Sgt. Kyle Kleinmann hospitalized from his wounds in the Afghanistan mountains tells a story of the eerie events surrounding his mission on the front. Insurgents, strange lights in the sky and supernatural beings weave in and out of his frightening tale like nightmarish cobwebs. Nothing is quite what it seems.

Wayne Greenough’s Thanet Blake’s Memorial Day has Thanet reminiscing about those who’ve served in several conflicts and gone on. At one of the cemetaries he visits Thanet is hired by a ghost to prevent another war tragedy.

For the Boys by J.M. Snyder takes us to the Korean Conflict. Falling in love was the last thing Army pilot Carl Prosser expected to do while stationed in Korea. But he meets Tommy who’s touring with the USO and does just that. An exchange of letters and a crushed hope of a return visit by the USO troupe motivates Prosser to devise an elaborate plan to see his lover one last time before the war separates them permanently.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: When Darkness Falls
Author: Chris Morrow
Artist: Nikita Gordyn
ISBN: 978-1-60168-102-7
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/9/2008
Sexual Content: N/A

The camping trip of a lifetime! When Marty and his friends meet Allison and her friends, it doesn’t seem their recreation can get much better. But the woods hold a dark secret and it will take every bit of knowledge and trust they have to survive. If you loved Salem’s Lot you’re sure to like When Darkness Falls!

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Mail Order Bride
Author: Alex de Kok
Artist: Jinger Heaston
ISBN: 978-1-60168-101-0
Genre: Western Romance
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 5/2/2008
Sexual Content: Moderate

The lives of two young strangers are changed forever on an emigrant train, when Jim saves Libby from being molested by an unsavory character, a man who they learn is a vicious criminal with a price on his head, wanted for rape and murder. Unknown to Jim and Libby, the psychopath vows revenge for his humiliation.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Paradise Island
Author: Beverly Rae
Artist: Jinger Heaston
ISBN: 978-1-60168-100-3
Genre: Paranormal Contemporary
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 4/25/2008
Sexual Content: Sensual Erotic

Macy Maitland loses her fiancé and her job all in the same day. But things start looking up when she receives an invitation from a mysterious benefactor for an all-expense-paid vacation to an exclusive island resort.

Upon her arrival, Macy is greeted by the odd caretaker and the island’s only other guest…her ex-lover. Macy tries to stay away from his irresistible draw, but magic and and the lure of treasure throw them together. Can they survive Paradise Island?

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Tango Spank
Author: Elizabeth Ansett
Artist: Nikita Gordyn
ISBN:
Genre: Contemporary Erotica/Spanking
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 4/4/2008
Sexual Content: BDSM/Spanking

Rohan Black, eligible and sought after owner of Unicorn Airways, didn’t really expect to find his perfect match online. He certainly didn’t expect to find so much enjoyment in the sparring and challenge provided by the feisty and entirely too opinionated “Difficult to Define”. As the pin-up boy of Australia , he had his pick of hundreds of doting, compliant women. So why did a woman he’d never met and who described her appearance as, “… not sending stray dogs howling,” infuriate and fascinate him so much?

Madison Taylor needed someone, but not just anyone. Dragon Slayer had piqued her interest and his dare to go rafting, parachuting, and then end their weekend with a tango lesson had her wondering if he were the one to meet her needs, needs she wasn’t all that sure of herself. She’d meet him, but on her terms not his. No one dominated Madison, no one. She was totally in control of her life and that’s how things would stay.

Until she meets Rohan Black and nothing is what it seems.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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Title: Night Moves 2
Author: Adrianna Dane, M.A. Naess, Nigel Puerasch and Anel Viz
Artist: Deana Jamroz
ISBN: 978-1-60168-094-5
Genre: M/M Vampire Erotica
Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Publication Date: 3/28/2008
Sexual Content: M/M Erotic/BDSM Elements/Dubious Consent

Four tales of gay vampires and their lovers. In Val, journey through one man’s obsessive mind as he tries to recreate his lost lover. Follow Claud as he tries to find partners for his master in Talent Scout. Discover how one man comes to accept not only his bi nature but the fact that the supernatural world does exist in Redhead and, finally, discover how vampires deal with their own rogues in The Enforcer.

Click here to read an excerpt.

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