It's pure fantasy...well not so pure!

Here's the new cover for Awakenings, originally released nine years ago and replaced as part of Ellora's Cave Publishing's decade of misbehaving celebration. It replaces an attractive but dated electronically created cover, and I believe Syneca nailed the feel of the story perfectly!

But then she always does.

I hope I've done as well at nailing the stories themselves, particularly in books like this one where I strayed miles from my comfort zone which generally includes contemporary settings and events that are possible in the real world where my creative brain generally resides.

When I'd first started writing for EC nearly ten years ago, management conceived a themed series based on Grimm's Fairytales, and I thought writing one of these stories would be fun. I read a few fairytales, eliminating the ones other authors had already chosen--and I finally settled on a hybrid cross--Sleeping Beauty meets Jorinda and Joringel.

Yeah, I've always been a glutton for punishment! Not only was I planning to combine the major elements of two very different fairytales, but also I was planning a month-long trip to Hawaii with my DH during the month when the manuscript was due to be turned in. Add to that the fact that the daughter we were to visit had assured me I should leave my laptop home because her husband had a laptop PC I could use (they're a MAC family). Unfortunately said husband actually had taken the PC laptop on one of his extended job assignments somewhere in the South Pacific, so it wasn't there when I needed it.

So what am I telling you? I'm making excuses for a story I never liked very much because of the trauma of writing it on a MAC using software I'd never tried before, with frequent interruptions to sightsee in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It got mostly good reviews but I didn't believe them--until I decided when I received new files to put the story on my e-book reader and take another look.

Absence--in this case nine years' absence--does indeed make the heart grow fonder. AWAKENINGS is a hot fantasy with a hero who grabbed my heart a lot more than he did when I was struggling to create him, and I found myself getting immersed in a story I believed at the time I wrote it that absolutely no one could suspend belief  sufficiently to get into the talking birds, gnomes, evil witches and other out-of-this-world characters who drove the story.

It's not my usual type of book--but it's an enjoyable read, even to me now that I'm nine years away from the trauma of having written it, LOL.

If you've missed it (it's also available in the print collection, DARK FANTASIES), grab a copy and join the celebration--ten years of Ellora's Cave authors refusing to behave. I think you'll enjoy it, particularly if you outgrew Grimm but like your erotic romance on the fantastic side! Check out my July 29 blog at Sweet n Sexy Divas for more information on the book and a never-before-published excerpt.



Ann Jacobs

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Snippets and high concept taglines--do they work?

HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS MEET DALLAS...

High concept taglines are fun to create, and sometimes an author can hit on just the right one to sell a proposal or a book. I came up with this one for LOVERS' FEUD, the first book in my new Caden Kink series for Ellora's Cave. Now I've semi-committed to creating high-concept taglines for SHOTGUN RELATIONS and WILD ONE, and the stories of Bye's sister and half-brother may not be as easy to peg.

I've pulled a few memorable (to me at least) snippets to promote the book on Facebook and Twitter, one at the time. Obviously the ones for Twitter have to be very, very short so that limits the size of punchy dialogue that will grab potential readers' attention and convince them they want to read the book.

What do you think of these?

“I want you on your knees. Now.” A black spandex hood obscured his features, but she guessed from his deep, confident-sounding drawl that he was used to being in command. Though she sometimes liked playing the Domme in games like this one, the tall, muscular stranger made her want to submit.

---

He appreciated the fact that, like Vegas, the Neon Lasso had a strict rule—what went on at the remote sex club stayed here.

---

Also, she wasn’t anxious to have her just-fucked sense of sexual euphoria dashed by some smart-ass remark from her cousin Buck.

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Bye needed Karen.Not for her hot body or her tight little cunt. Hell, he wasn’t looking for sex right now. It was the last thing on his mind. He needed Karen’s understanding, her comfort and her friendship. He was through denying it.

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. “What say we leave off the games today? Just us. No voyeurs watching us in our heads, no threesomes, nothing but us—Karen and Bye—sharing each other the way vanilla lovers might.”

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They might as well be Romeo and Juliet or, more aptly, a Texas version of the Hatfields and McCoys.

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For now. She dared not wish for more. Pushing away the troubling thoughts, she concentrated on capturing sensations she might never experience again. Smells of old timbers and his woodsy aftershave, of mothballs lingering on the woolen blanket, and of the pungent aroma of mesquite smoke from the small, stone fireplace imprinted themselves in her memory.

---

She’d do best to cut her losses, go back to playing games of dominance and submission at the Neon Lasso. Nothing good could come of playing house with Bye for real when there was no way they could play for keeps.

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“What the fuck do you mean, you’re my father’s mistress?” Bye couldn’t hold back the words, but he wasn’t surprised. After all, he’d figured out a long time ago that Four wasn’t spending his time in Lubbock, sniffing the stench of the feed lots. He looked from the middle-aged brunette to Jack Duval, who sat beside her, and on to his shocked sister and Four, who for once was speechless.

It seems my old man isn’t God incarnate after all.

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Now he knew. And he seriously wanted to kill somebody. But whom?

His father, hypocritical son of a bitch that he was? As much as he hated Four for what he’d done, Bye could almost sympathize with the old man. He’d just been put on the proverbial hot seat in front of his children, legitimate and not.

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“I’ve already misplaced one child in the past twenty-four hours. I’m not about to risk you with that crazy drunk. Mae would climb out of her grave and give me what-for.” Four looked at Bye, a resigned look on his face. “If you’re determined to go see what’s going on, I’ll take you down there myself. If Oakley tries anything, I’ll fill him full of bullet holes.”

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What a fucking hell of a way to show up at his lover’s place for the first time!

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When she took Bye’s hand, he brought it to his lips. Then he met her gaze. “Karen, I’d like to introduce you to my dad. Dad, this is the woman I love.”

Four scowled. Then he managed a wry smile and held out his hand. “I can’t say it thrills me saying this, but I just lost my wife. My daughter’s run off. I don’t want to lose my son. You look like a nice enough girl, no matter what I think of your father. Hello, Karen Oakley.”

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Karen had never heard Bye talk this way. She wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, but she should have known. The man was a Caden, heir to the Bar C. Caden men hadn’t become and stayed so successful by being soft.

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“I know. I may not have ridden horses much, but I’ve gotten a lot of practice on you.” The hot look she gave him made his jeans feel uncomfortably tight.

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I'd like to know which if any of these short quotes from LOVERS' FEUD makes you want to read the book? Why? Post your comments here or on my Facebook page by July 31, and I'll pick two to receive downloads of winners' choice of all my ebooks, which you can see at annjacobs.net ,

Ann Jacobs

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My futuristics: 10 ebooks = 4 print volumes

 I don't often write futuristics, but since writing my first one back in 2003, I've managed to accumulate a total of ten stories set in an erotic yet sometimes frightening new world, on Earth as well as on the fictional planets Obsidion and Luna Ten. Alien Masters, the last of the print collections, comes out July 5 from Ellora's Cave.

In it are three novellas set on the pleasure planet Obsidion. The heroines are sisters whose father has hired a matchmaker to bring them mates with power (the crown prince of Obsidion), wealth (owner of Obsidion's famed pleasure palaces) and sexual prowess (the planet's famed cyborg-maker) respectively.

 Alien Pleasures continues in the world of Luna Ten that I created in Gates of Hell, my first futuristic released in 2003 by Ellora's Cave. The four stories bridge the time between the creation of a colony on the utopian planet, Luna Ten, and the incorporation of the pleasure planet Obsidion into the story lines.

The heroes or heroines of each of these stories suffered serious misfortunes that left them less than whole, but the magic of cyborg-maker Pak Song's healing gives them back lives they and their mates can enjoy on Luna Ten.

 A Shining Future is the print collection of Topaz Dream and Gates of Hell.  

Topaz Dream is a prequel that shows Earth becoming a place where no one has personal freedom, where its heroes and heroine seek a better place where they can escape from the absolute rule of Earth's rulers.

Gates of Hell is the journey of two Earthlings sentenced to fates worse than death, through the planet Obsidion and on to Luna Ten, where they find peace and joy in the ways of their ancestors before Earth's Federation came to power.

"Branded", my story in the Changeling anthology All Wrapped Up, pre-dates all the other stories in time, although I wrote it after having written all the other stories. Its hero and heroine are exiled from Earth to the planet Obsidion, where they set up the first of the pleasure palaces that figure prominently in many of my other futuristic stories.

All these books are available as individual novellas in electronic formats as well as in these print collections. If you enjoy erotic, futuristic tales with happily-ever-after endings, give them a read, in either the individual ebooks or the print collections.


Happy summer reading!

Ann Jacobs
http://annjacobs.net
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