Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Paranormal Bites | Break Away to the Extraordinary in July
ParaNormal Bites / July 12, 2011

Take a vacation from the everyday, with one of these new paranormal titles coming out this month. NIGHT VEIL, Yasmine Galenorn (Berkley, July 2011, $7.99, Indigo Court) Cicely Waters had always thought she was simply one of the magic-born- a witch who can control the wind. Recently she’s also discovered she’s also one of the shifting Fae. Now she must perfect her gift. Cicely and her friends may have escaped from Myst and her Shadow Hunters, but Myst has managed to capture the Fae Prince who holds Cicely’s heart. PRIDE MATES, Jennifer Ashley (Berkley, July 2011, $7.99) Like most Shifters, Liam Morrissey has learned that trusting humans leads to no good. But when beautiful attorney Kim Fraser enters Shiftertown alone in order to prove her client’s innocence, Liam’s alpha nature leaves him no choice but to offer his protection. BLOODLUST, Michelle Rowen (Berkley, $7.99, Nightshade) Jillian Conrad’s blood has killed the vampire king. Now an enemy to all vampires, she is targeted for elimination. So is the infant daughter of the dead king. If Jillian doesn’t stand in the way of her death, then everyone, living or dead, is in great peril. SKIN DIVE, Ava Gray (Berkley Sensation, July 2011,…

Kat Martin | An Old-fashioned Bodice Ripper
Author Guest / July 12, 2011

Twenty five years ago I started my first novel, MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE, a sexy western romance set in the eighteen-sixties.  Today the book would be considered an old-fashioned Bodice Ripper–a name derived from the sensuous covers revealing the heroine’s, half-exposed heaving bosoms. In the eighties and before, the romance genre was wide open.  There were no taboos, nothing was considered politically incorrect.  The hero was all-man and the heroine was pretty much at his mercy. Women got spanked, men pushed seduction to near-rape limits.  Back in those days, men were men, and women knew it.  Today’s equal-opportunity women often disapprove, but Lord those books were fun. I wouldn’t write this book today.  Male, female roles have changed drastically since MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE was published in 1988.  In the nineties I wrote mostly historical romances set in Regency England, far tamer faire. Currently, I’m writing Contemporary Romantic Suspense.  My Raines Brothers Trilogy, AGAINST THE WIND, AGAINST THE FIRE, and AGAINST THE LAW, came out January, February, March, and AGAINST THE STORM will be out the end of October. But western romances like MAGNIFICENT PASSAGE were all the rage back in the eighties.  Having come from a family that included a grandmother who was…