Liane Gentry Skye Serves Up Two Hot Stories

I'm thrilled that we have Liane Gentry Skye as a guest here today so we can learn more about her and her two sizzling, emotional stories released this month. One is in Secrets Volume 27 Untamed Pleasures (which also contains my story.)

Liane Gentry Skye was considered the girl most likely to become a nun in high school. Upon graduation, she wasted no time rewriting her miserable destiny. Two marriages, one real life alpha hero and four beautiful babies later, she decided it wise to exchange her rhinestone thong for soccer mom sweats.

Thank you for joining us today, Liane! Please tell us about Heart Storm from Secrets Volume 27.

Sirenia is the last fertile mermaid of her brood. With her final breeding moon upon her, she races a hurricane to find and mate with the only merman who can save their kind--the prophesied Lost Son of Triton. When she rescues an injured Navy SEAL, another storm breaks. A passion storm. But when the time comes to ask Byron for her freedom, her heart threatens to stand in the way of the last, best hope for her kind.

I loved this story! You have another release this month. Please tell us about Wicked Temptation.

Wicked Temptation is the first book in Red Sage Publishing's multi author series, Three Kinds of Wicked.

Here's the series blurb: Trey is a time strider, sworn to guard the fates of mortal couples destined to help humanity earn immortality. When a covetous goddess doses Trey with an aphrodisiac, he acts on his secret yearning for a mate to call his own. But the only thing worse than falling in love with a destined mortal is making love with one. When Trey loses his heart to Sage, a mortal woman destined to love another, the fate of all humanity hangs in the balance.

In penance, Trey must stride through a fractured timeline, doing whatever it takes to reunite the couples his actions have torn apart. Only then can he earn a final chance to help Sage save humanity from the evil that covets their very souls. But even if he is successful, can Sage forgive him the carnal journey it took for him to help save her world?

My individual story, Wicked Temptation takes place in 1969 during the Summer of Love, and chronicles Trey's affair with Sage and her tormented lover, Russ as they journey toward Woodstock.

That's a unique and interesting setting and time period! What did you find most challenging about writing each of these two stories?

Since Heart Storm was my first attempt at romance, plotting was a challenge, as was staying in control of the shifting POV in the story. Sometimes, my villain wanted to run away with the story. I never knew how much I liked writing bad guys until I met my evil merman, Ba'at Rath.

Even though I'm still happy with the story, since so much time passed between the time Heart Storm went to contract and the time I saw the final proofs, that changes in my writing were jarring to me. But I still love the story. How could I not? It's the first work of fiction I ever sold!

I began Wicked Temptation just before entering a very painful period in my life. I had to struggle with a lot of dark moments as I wrote the book, and when I finally slogged my way to the end, the last half of the story in no way resembled the lighter voice in the first half. So I had to go back and revise. The end result was an edgy, brooding story that I don't know I'd have been capable of before.

That's fascinating. What inspires you?

Anything and everything. Seriously, I get inspired by the strangest things. The turn of leaves before a storm. The delicate lace of a dragonfly's wing. A memory. A poem. A perfect bunch of grapes. A little old lady give the man she's loved all her life that shy, knowing smile. The sound of my children breathing during the wee hours, proof all is well in their world.

I can totally understand that. What was the most important thing you learned (the thing that made all the difference) just before you made your first sale in erotic romance?

True erotic heat isn't in the mechanics or the choreography. It's in the emotional connection between your hero and heroine Once the emotion is there, the mechanics follow.

Absolutely. Would you like to ask readers a question?

The economy has changed not only my buying habits, but my reading habits. How have your reading habits changed since the country's bottom line took a nosedive? Reading lighter fare? Re-reading old favorites? I really want to know!

Thanks for being here with us today, Liane! I've enjoyed it! Everyone please visit Liane's website at: http://www.lianegentryskye.com/

To learn more about Heart Storm click here.

To learn more about Wicked Temptation click here.

Liane Gentry Skye urges us to Believe in happily ever after

Liane Gentry Skye was considered the girl most likely to become a nun in high school. Upon graduation, she wasted no time rewriting her miserable destiny. Two marriages, one real life alpha hero and four beautiful babies later, she decided it wise to exchange her rhinestone thong for soccer mom sweats. These days, her walk on the wild side lives (mostly) in her imagination. The mother of two children with autism, what time she doesn't spend breathing life into her secret fantasies, she spends grant writing and advocating for a better world for persons with autism. In that vein, she has written for such venues as Autism/Asperger's Digest, Autism Today, Guideposts: Angels on Earth.

Liane also writes hot stories for Red Sage. I'm excited that Liane and I will both have novellas in the upcoming Secrets Volume 27, out next July! But today we're going to talk about another of her books.

Nicole: Liane, Welcome! Thanks for being here! Please tell us about Believe, your December release from Red Sage.

Liane: Believe is a light hearted holiday erotic fantasy loosely based on the Christmas classic, Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.

Nicole: Very cool! And I love the cover! Please tell us about your favorite character in the book.

Liane: The hero, Nikolai, captured my heart from page one. The story's opening finds him standing on the gallows, getting ready to meet his maker. Nikolai has been a naughty boy, and now he's paying the price for his Robin Hood meets Don Juan DeMarco lifestyle. By the time our lusty Nikolai meets Virginia, my slightly jaded, contemporary heroine, he's gone seven hundred and fifty years without getting it on and his wooing skills have grown a bit rusty. To say that he comes off as an overly ardent suitor is a bit of an understatement, and the initial sparks that fly between he and Virginia are both hilarious and volatile.

Nicole: Sounds fantastic! Which element of story creation is your favorite?

Liane: This story was literally a gift. The bones of it poured out of me in two weeks time. What was hard for me was revising, breathing life into the the erotic discovery between Virginia and Nikolai without coming off as too flowery. When I started editing the love scenes, I wanted my readers to experience them as vividly as the characters did. Because Nikolai and Viginia's relationship was so miraculous, I agonized over each and every word until the scenes stirred me in the way a fine piece of music might. I wanted the rhythm of the language to elevate the erotic elements into something that was as reverant as it was hot. I tried very hard to infuse those moments with as much beauty as I was capable. It was exhausting. It was also a wonderful feeling when it finally came out right. :)

Nicole: Sounds like the end result will be beautiful. Which element of this story was the hardest for you?

Liane: I partially answered this above. :) The parts of my stories I end up loving the most are inevitably the ones that give me the most grief--the love scenes. I truly agonize over them. I feel that making love is a form of worship between lovers, and I want my love scenes to transcend the physical act to become something larger than just mechanics. After all, isn't that what true love is all about?

Nicole: Absolutely. Do you have any advice for unpublished authors?

Liane: My best advice to new writers is also the hardest piece I ever had to swallow. Worse, I heard it from someone I thought had no right to say it to me--my husband. I was having a hissy fit about having no time to write between taking care of the kids and battling my sons schools for appropriate services (my boys have autism). One day, my husband settled his hands on my shoulders, forced me to look at him and said, "Liane, if you aren't writing, it's because you don't want to write. Quit blaming us."

Ouch. Those words settled over me like ice water. How dare him say that to me! But after I got over my hissy fit, I realized they were true. I was burying my dream beneath my responsibilities. I was at that horrific midpoint in a story that was struggling to come to life, but would't cooperate. My husband knew I wanted to quit. He also knew I was angling for an excuse to do just that. Because of what he said, I didn't. What I did do was get mad enough to grind my way to the end. Thank God, he called me on it, because that novella, Heart Storm, will be published in Red Sage, Publishing's Secrets, Volume 27.

So here's the advice. :) Writers write. There's no substitute, no short cut. We all waste time. If you don't believe me, then take a few days to list the amount of time you spent watching tv, reading a book, or waiting for your kids to finish soccer practice. Trust me, it adds up. If you are a writer who isn't writing, it's because either you're scared, you're stuck, or you haven't reached the stage in your dream where you're willing to lay all excuses aside and just grind your way to the finish line.

We only have this one life. This. One. Life. Do you really want to look back at the end of yours and say "I wish I'd finished that story?" I didn't think so. :)

Nicole: Wow! Wonderful advice! Would you like to ask blog readers a question?

Liane: I'm finding myself craving stories that aren't so brooding as what I've read previously. With all the bad news whirling around, I'm craving lighter fare. Are these hard economic times impacting the books you read? If so why and how?

Nicole: Great question! I love those uplifting happily-ever-afters. Everyone, please visit Liane's website at http://lianeskye.com/ Thank you, Liane, for being here with us today! It's been a pleasure!