Going Into Print

Sometime between now and the end of June, Ellora's Cave will be issuing FOUR of my titles as print editions. This strains my belief.

Better With Age is an anthology of six novellas centering on older women gettin' it on with younger men. My contribution's original cover (from EC's "Oh Yum!" themed series) is on the right. You can read a blurb and excerpt at the publisher's site. Other authors in the antho are Mardi Ballou, Lyn Cash, Karen Erickson, Calista Fox, and Eve Vaughn.

I have some rather unique sex scenes in Liberation, so if you're not averse to hetero romance and a heroine with a gay best friend, instead of the other way around, you might enjoy it. (Besides, bet you've never seen a cover model carved out of teak wood and saturated with lemon oil. If you get the ebook, you can seem him supersized!)

My three related debauchery-and-dragon fantasies -- Wing and Tongue, Cauldron of Keridwen, and Prince of Glacier Glas -- will be put together under one cover. I had all kinds of ideas for a title for this collection, from simple (Farfields) to suggestively smarmy (Galdesh Confidential) to suggestively passionate (Fire in the Soul) to suggestively traditional (The Chronicles of Galdesh) to ridiculous but catchy (Big Teeth and Boxer Briefs). Alas, all were shot down by TPTB. I'm not exactly thrilled with the final title (not telling you yet, 'cause it's stupid), so I'm hoping beyond hope the volume gets a cover as stunning as the one for Wing and Tongue. This might be asking too much, however.

Stay tuned. I'll post when this print plan becomes a reality.

Older Women Doing Younger Men

The newest series from Ellora's steamin' Cave is called "Oh, Yum!" (That's a cute way of telegraphing the phrase older woman/younger man or OWYM.) The series reflects a recent--and, far as I'm concerned, long overdue--trend in real-life intimate relationships. And for that reason, I applaud it. Resoundingly.

My contribution to this series, Liberation, is now available: http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419916090

For how many centuries have women had to endure rejection or the alienation of spousal affection because they haven't been considered desirable, for all kinds of reasons, as they advance toward middle age? (And it is indeed an advance, if maturity of vision counts for anything in this world.) How many Hugh Hefners and Donald Trumps have contributed to loss of female self-esteem? Well, EC authors have stepped up to tell these guys, "Perch and spin, you shallow, pretentious asshats!"

Liberation isn't the first book in which I explore the psycho-emotional landmines that pepper a woman's path out of her twenties. I actually took a much longer, deeper look at the issue in Two Out of Three Ain't Bad, a novel published through Cerridwen Press. It's an often emotional story, because aging can be an often emotional life-change in terms of how women evaluate their own worth. Sad to say, advertisers and the media, whose influence is pervasive in this culture, only exacerbate whatever perceptual problems already exist. (By the way, I don't use the word cougar in either book. I find it offensive, because it suggests that women who end up with younger male partners are cunning predators. I know from personal experience this is bullshit. Whatever sneering male dreamt up the term can go fuck himself with it.)

In both of my books--and, for that matter, all the Oh Yum! stories--what's ultimately celebrated are defiance and persistence: the defiance of stifling cultural norms and the persistence of joy in romance and in sex. The men in these tales are celebrated, as well, because they have the ability to see through surfaces to what lies beneath and to embrace those qualities.

So [raising my glass in a toast] here's hoping romance writers and publishers continue to slough off stereotypes and explore the many faces of love!