Category Archives: Inspiration

Inspiration: Antiquities, Accents, and Together Alone

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This is my Discovering Her Delight inspiration post. Warning! There are spoilers ahead for the book. If you don’t mind spoilers, read on. If you don’t like your romance spoiled, read Discovering Her Delight first!

An Initial Inspiration

I started the notes for Discovering Her Delight way back in 2014 (then known as Discovering Her Desire). I knew it was going to be a story centered on an archaeological expedition, I just wasn’t clear on the specifics. An archaeologist friend of mine had a bizarre idea: what if the hero had to write on the heroine’s back?

So I held on to that thought, and it continued to inspire the story. Why would he need to do this? Under what circumstances? And how would he do it in 1881? Continue reading →

Inspiration: Romance in the Interstices

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Interstice (noun) in·​ter·​stice
plural — interstices
1a: a space that intervenes between things, especially one between closely spaced things
b: a gap or break in something generally continuous
2: a short space of time between events

Have you ever seen the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? The play (also a movie) is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the point of view of the courtiers Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, minor characters who inhabit the interstices of the action of Hamlet.

I like to think of A Delicate Seduction as the Rosencrantz and Gildenstern of The Harwell Heirs series, except without the existential absurdism. Continue reading →

Romancing the Throne, Part 2: The Eunuch’s Submission

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In the opulent palace of Ctesiphon, the capital of ancient Parthia, lives a princess who searches for the stolen throne of her kingdom, the sella regia. She engages the services of a palace eunuch in her quest, a handsome and astute advisor. Over the years, respect and esteem transform into love, love deepens into trust, trust sparks sexual exploration.

Thus is the set up for my two short stories “An Unexpected Discovery”, an erotic romance, and the follow up, “The Eunuch”, a BDSM flash fiction erotica short. In “An Unexpected Discovery” the Parthian princess Roedogune searches for the sella regia with the assistance of Arashis, the eunuch assigned to her by her husband. It’s an erotic romance, so it’s not really giving it away to say Roedogune and Arashis end up together — romance is about the emotional and physical journey since readers already know there will be a happily-ever-after.

Creating a romantic connection between characters is what a romance writer does. And sometimes that writer is given an opportunity to explore the relationship beyond the happily-ever-after, to take a peek into the life of a couple after that first flush of excitement.

Continuing a romance is especially wonderful if the characters are beloved characters, more so if these are characters who almost did not make the page. Continue reading →

Writing Inspiration: One Island, Two Stories

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Undamaged: A Dallas Fire & Rescue Kindle World Novella, released in October, and my upcoming novelette Disputed Boundaries, appearing in the Naughty Flames: Eleven Fiery Romances boxed set, form part of my Stories from The San Juan Islands collection.

Both are set on San Juan Island in Washington state, very close to the Canadian border. It’s a place near and dear to my heart. It’s pretty remote, accessible only by boat or plane. In the summer, the island is crawling with tourists. In the winter, only the locals remain. Continue reading →

I Met My Cover Model

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In July, I went to San Diego for the annual conference of the Romance Writers of America. I attended sessions on the craft of writing, the business of promotion, and opportunities in publishing. I hung out with friends at the pool bar, watched a 19th-century fashion show, and attended the Hamilton sing-a-long.

I also watched a faux romance cover shoot. With the guy who’s been on three of my covers:

Imperial Warriors Cover ReginaKammer_TheGeneralsWife200 The Pleasure Device 2013 cover

Continue reading →

The Death of a Fan

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January was a difficult month. A few people I know lost loved ones. The Naughty Literati lost one of our own authors. And I lost my biggest fan.

That may seem self-serving, perhaps a little trivial. Except my biggest fan was my mother-in-law. Continue reading →

The Card Never Arrived

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I got a card today. I had wondered about that card because I had sent it out myself. I had sent it the moment I heard a colleague was very sick and dying. I had sent it to the hospital.

Today I got the card back stamped “Return to sender. Patient discharged”. Continue reading →

Mature Romance

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It happens to the best of us. It happens to the worst of us. But we’re lucky if it happens to us at all.

Getting older.

As we tally off the years, we get a little soft around the middle, our knees creak when we climb stairs, our muscles complain if we try a new dance move, our fifty shades of youthful tresses dim to one shade of gray.

And yet, we still crave romance, we still yearn for love. Because, even though we’ve grown older, we’re still human. We may not have the raging hormones of youth, but the heart still desires emotional satisfaction.

So it is with romance novel characters. Continue reading →

A Naked Guy in Zurich

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Hi everyone! I’m over at the Naughty Literati blog today talking about the inspiration for my Naughty Escapes story. The post is copied below. Enjoy!

In my story “Window Display” in Naughty Escapes, the heroine, Laurie, an American Ph.D. student, trots off to Zurich to finish up her dissertation. Instead of the hoped-for peace and quiet, she finds distraction in a totally hot neighbor who doesn’t bother closing the curtains when he’s naked at home.

Many of my Naughty Literati co-authors chose rather exotic locations for their Naughty Vacation Getaway stories. Zurich is generally not considered an “exotic” or even “sexy” location in which to set a romance! Exotic or not, sexy or not, the story is based on a real-life event. Not my life, though. Inspiration came from an unlikely place. Continue reading →

Vikings in Byzantium

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Hi everyone! I’m over at the blog for Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance today talking about my story in that anthology. I’ve posted it below, as well.
[UPDATE: “Protecting Her” has been re-issued in Imperial Warriors: Two Scorching Tales of the Roman Empire and Ancient Shorts: An Ancient World Romance Collection.]

Let’s just get this out of the way, but the History Channel’s production of Vikings has given a sexy cachet to the fiercest warriors of the Middle Ages. When Delilah put out a call for stories in a Viking erotic romance anthology, my heart just went pitter-pat with excitement.

And then the excitement sort of dissipated.

My knowledge of Vikings is limited given their era is out of my purview. My field of study is Late Roman into the early Byzantine (roughly 200-600 CE), and the Viking Age starts around 790 CE. I worried I would not have sufficient knowledge to pull off a believable story.

Except that Delilah mentioned in her call for submissions the “Rus who served in the Byzantine Varangian Guard”.

I could totally do that. Continue reading →