Hot as Hades is a short, erotic, cute book. I fell in love with Hades early on. He is cranky and bad to the bone, but not as bad to the bone as everyone thinks. He does have a softer side but dares not let anyone see it. He is intrigued by Persephone – first by her good looks, but then by her eagerness to learn new things and the happiness she spreads around him. But he still keeps that somewhat cocky, bad dude edge with him throughout the book. Plus, they have such cute banter.

Check out the full review here. 

And of course, Hot as Hades is now available everywhere you buy your e-books.

Imagine a future where humans are an endangered species…and every night brings a battle for survival. Night Whispers, Book One in the Shadowland Series will be out from Samhain in October 2011.

As always, I’ll post more info about this particular book as soon as I can. I’m extremely excited about this world, and I hope you will be too .

What’s on my 2011 to-do list:

I’m almost finished with a cyberpunk novella. There’s been a horrible virus and people have turned into zombies and my heroine is an agent whose mission is to find and save remaining humans and the hero is her handler who’s stupid in love with her but they’ve never met but he talks to her and can see what she sees through a collar she wears around her neck! I love it. I love creating crazy worlds on the brink of disaster. At the moment, it’s probably one of the sweeter romances I’ve written. It will be finished and submitted by the end of this month.

I’ve been kind of simultaneously working on Eli’s story, tentatively titled Always and Forever. It’s clipping along nicely. If you haven’t read it yet, Eli is a big part of Never Have I Ever. He’s a super nice guy, alpha of the Reynolds Pack and ready for love. Thank god, his heroine is an…animal lover. *ba dum shaa* No, really, Izzy’s awesome. Alas, Lucy still needs to be neutralized, so you’ll get to see her and find out exactly what her damage is. There may or may not be a kidnapping involved. A sexy, classy kidnapping, because it’s ELI. O.O

And then, my BIIIIG project for 2011…Rana’s story. Yes. Rejoice!

I’ve started and deleted Serving Pleasure three times since Glutton for Pleasure was accepted for publication in December of 2008. I’ve written a collective 145,000 words. I changed the arc and plot of it each time, keeping the same hero for my poor unlucky heroine. I finally tabled it in the fall, feeling pressured, discouraged and sad that I couldn’t write a book so many fans were dying to read.

Then I realized, when I saw a documentary about artists last month, what I was doing wrong: I’d given Rana the wrong damn hero! Suddenly the whole story was in my head, from start to finish, in easy-breezy technicolor.

So RIP my sweet, nerdy accountant. Have no fear, I’ll find a woman for you someday, cause GAWD I love my nerdy heroes. Enter my deep, dark, stoic sculptor/artist who’s stuck in a slump…until Rana stumbles across his studio.

This puppy should be my longest book to date, since both of these characters have ISSUES man. Oh, Rana, I love you so. I’m aiming to have SP done by the summer.

Those are my big must-dos. And then…as my usual writing style goes, I’ll work on what excites me the most at the moment. Most likely, it’ll either end up being Kieran’s book (which I’ve tentatively determined will be a novel instead of a novella), or Reynolds Pack III. I’ll let you all know. =)

If you’ve read this far…thanks for reading this far. More importantly, thanks for caring, buying, and reading my stories. It means more to me than I can ever express. Here’s to a great and productive 2011, and many happy hours spent with a book.

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Remember when I said I would be posting a few deleted scenes from previous books right around now?

Remember when I forgot to comb through my archives for deleted scenes that weren’t awfully mishmoshed because I was embroiled in my new work(s) in progress?

Eeeep. Sorry about that.

In light of that, and because I figure you’d rather have me writing new stuff anyway instead of scrounging through my hard drive ::puppy dog eyes::, I’m going to put the deleted scene fun on a brief hiatus. But you won’t go home empty handed! Here’s a short erotic freebie I did last year for New Year’s, Light My Fire. If you missed it then, it’s new to you, right? You can get it from smashwords in a free anthology that includes a bunch of other great authors in the format of your choice, or by downloading the pdf here(though that’s just my lil story).

I realize this isn’t the BEST gift in the world, if you’ve already read this freebie. So I’m including a picture of a Naveen Andrews. Who I recently remembered that I love. Hooray!

And just to cover my bases, here’s an LOLCat.

Phew.

To be chosen, email the following information to me at alishawrites@gmail.com by Tuesday 11/30:

Your name (or blogging name/persona)
Your preferred e-book format
Where you will be posting your review
Any other social outlet you utilize (Twitter, facebook, myspace, goodreads, etc.)

If I pick your name, I’ll email you the book in your preferred format. If you do not hear from me, don’t despair! I’ll automatically enter you into my release day contest(s). Giveaway good times!

Quick note:
This is a paranormal that focuses on the erotic part of erotic romance. Please do not enter if you dislike either of those things. Give someone else a chance.

You can check out the excerpt here.

Blurb:
The higher the stakes, the hotter the game.

Reynolds Pack, Book 1

Ana Hudson enjoys her picture-perfect marriage to the love of her life. Everything is pleasant, easy—and satisfying. Then an anonymous e-mail arrives filled with lurid pictures of Taylor’s youthful exploits, leaving her wondering if she really knows him at all. More importantly…does she know herself?

Driven to uncover the truth and push the limits of their sexual boundaries, she convinces Taylor to arrange a weekend getaway to a friend’s luxury cottage in the mountains. It’s the perfect place to get her husband to spill his secrets—and show him there’s a wealth of kinky fantasies hiding inside his good girl.

Taylor’s spent years suppressing his animalistic side, hiding the not-completely-human DNA that once drove him wild. Except now his once quiet, reserved Ana has launched a campaign to destroy every inch of his hard-won control.

With the snowy wilderness containing his darkest memories surrounding them, and his old pack-mate dropping in to give them a few pointers, the sexual battle of wills gets fierce.

Let the games begin.

Warning: Contains a brooding, dirty-minded, not-quite-human hero, a sweet not-quite-good-girl heroine, a howling-hawt car ride up a mountain, a chase through the snow followed by an erotic adventure with sports equipment, oral sex, anal sex, and a M/F/M ménage scene that will leave you panting.

Some stories just pour write out of your fingertips like liquid words (Hi Veiled Desire!) and some stories make you work your tail off.

Veiled Seduction and I had a love/hate relationship there for a while, mostly because I felt like I was spending more time deleting scenes than I was writing them. I’m satisfied with how Sasha and Maira’s story ended up, but that certainly doesn’t mean it was easy to get there.

Veiled Seduction 1.0 contained an opening prologue of Sasha’s shootout at the school. I cut it because I thought it was too dark for the book and I preferred to leave it murky as to the exact details. In the final version of Veiled Seduction, in my head, the shootout no longer goes down this way, even if it takes place off-stage. Make sense? Only to me? Perhaps, haha. If you think it will influence how you read the book or if you haven’t read the book yet, I’d recommend that you skip the following (unedited) scene or read it just for entertainment purposes. If you are particularly disturbed by school shootings, children in danger, etc., you will want to skip.

Caveats and warnings over. Enjoy.

When Sasha Karimi had been a little boy, he’d watched television and mouthed those four words along with the toughest, scariest badasses to ever wear a badge. When he’d joined the police department at twenty-one he’d looked forward to racing through the streets and delivering the line like a hero out of a book. By the time he’d made lieutenant, he’d said the words often enough, even in their relatively safe town, that they were just another automatic gesture.

Never, though, had so much rested on that deceptively simple phrase.

“Police! Drop your weapon.”

A heavy sheen of sweat covered the man’s face, plastering his hair to his scalp. Bright blue eyes glared at him. The white blond of his hair contrasted sharply with the rage-red of his complexion.

It was always the normal looking ones, Sasha thought. This guy looked like he should be coaching a Little League team. Not holding a gun while standing outside of an elementary school playground, orchestrating a bloodbath.

The .38 the shooter was holding did not waver from where it was leveled at Sasha’s midsection, where it had been aimed since he’d rounded the corner.

The playground was situated just to the left of the big brick school. A mostly useless fence encircled it, about chest high. The chain link might keep out a child intent on wandering off…it did nothing to keep out a big guy who could merely rest his arms on top and pick off any person he wanted.

That was what Sasha had seen when he’d squealed up to the building. As he drew his weapon as he raced up the lawn, he could practically imagine that he could smell the copper in the air as a patch of red bloomed on a forty-something woman’s belly as she tried to tend to a small crumpled figure on the ground.

Sasha could practically feel that familiar childhood twisting of his tongue as he opened his mouth to speak. Not now, not now. Don’t think about them. Don’t look at them yet. Focus. “Drop it, sir.” The words were steady and filled with resolve. They didn’t betray a hint of the panic roiling inside of him. Please, he added silently. Please, God, drop the weapon.

“That bitch got the judge to give her full custody today. I told her I’d get even.”

“Is that right?” Oh, perfect, the sonofabitch wanted to talk? They’d talk. Talking trumped shooting any day. As he spoke, he slowly eased around the perimeter of the playground, forcing the guy to turn away from it as well. He was already going to catch hell for not waiting for SWAT. He wasn’t about to make this worse than it already was. If, hell, when the two of them exchanged fire, he wanted the risk to the kids still on the playground or in the school to be as minimal as possible.

“I want my son. I know he has playground time right now, but no one is telling me where he is.” The shooter’s voice rose with the last two words.

The breeze cut through the humidity of the late August day, gently touching off an empty swing. The squeak of the chains sounded unnaturally loud.

Sasha tightened his grip on his own weapon. There was a slight tremor in his fingers that he needed to get a grip on if he wanted to be any kind of effective here. He had a cast iron stomach but he wanted to vomit. In his fast assessment of the situation he’d counted six or seven little bodies lying on the sand. Plus the teacher. Around eight or so other children had taken cover behind the jungle gym.

All of this over a custody dispute? He searched the man’s eyes, almost hoping to find some inkling of insanity. Because what human could do this to another person unless they were completely fucking insane?

But no, those ice blue depths held nothing but cold resolve.
A high cry of terror cut through the tense standoff. The bastard’s eyes cut to the sound. Out of his peripheral vision, Sasha noticed a very small girl he’d initially overlooked. She was alone, huddled within one of those plastic tunnel tubes, unfortunately the one closest to them. First grade, maybe second. Dark eyes peered out of a face still round and chubby with baby fat. White-blonde hair had fallen out of its ponytail. Though he was still watching the other man, he could even see the slight tracery of blue veins at her temple.

Sasha noted the slight motion of the man’s hand, the gun wavering slightly. No, no, attention back on me. “Sir, why don’t you just put the gun down and we can talk some more.”

Sure enough, he looked back at him and sneered. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? Why don’t you fuck off?”

Sasha felt like he was standing outside of himself for the next few seconds. They both fired twice. Both of them were propelled backward.

The scent of sulfur and the tang of blood lingered in the air. Sasha’s leg buckled and he fell to the ground. He pressed one hand hard to the bleeding wound in his thigh but kept his weapon trained on the now motionless body laying in the grass. As approaching sirens and the crying of children grew louder, Sasha focused on the gun lying several feet away from the dying man’s hand. Where he’d dropped it.

But oooooh so pretty.

And since the baby boy then felt left out…

My sister’s hands:

My hands:

The worst part of putting on henna is that you can’t touch anything for a long while, because the longer you let it dry the darker the stain gets.

It’s a pain when you’re awake. Especially when you want to read.

Isn’t she lucky to have a fellow bookworm who gets her?

This is why we usually put it on at night and sleep with it on. The stuff flakes off though, so we tie plastic bags around our hands while we sleep. Yes folks, I am RIPPING OFF THE GLAMOUR. Your hands get sweaty and disgusting and fall asleep. Around six I stumbled to the bathroom cause I dying of numb hands.

Here is what we had today. If we’d had better henna, it probably would have gotten a darker red.

Purty.