Yay! THe third book in the series finally released yesterday! I'm very excited! I just got the cover a couple of days ago and wow! I love it! It's available here through Ellora's Cave.

Ilyrian Destiny - Myrra's Choice By Eve Jameson
Part of the Ilyrian Destiny series.

After being attacked and left for dead on the side of a mountain, Myrra Lansyr isn't worried about waking up naked, being tied to a bed or stranded with a stranger seeking vengeance for his murdered brother. Far more frightening and unacceptable are the deep, unrestrained desires Brett Canon looses within her every time they touch.

Again and again he pushes her to her limits and past them — sexually and emotionally — and still demands more. Years before, she chose duty to country over personal feelings, but for the first time in her life, the obligation of her position as Captain of an Ilyrian royal guard is challenged by a longing for more. And Brett will do whatever it takes to keep her safe in his arms and present in his life.

Hope you enjoy!

Eve

Hello again!

Myrra's Choice is working though the process and I should have news soon about the release date. And it will be coming out with Ellora's Cave. Next in the series, we'll be catching up with Amdyn and Connyn.

Right now I'm going back and forth between three stories, trying to decide which one to pick up and finish. I'm torn between the stories I've nicknamed Santa Claus, The Swamp and Wolfie. All three draw me for different reasons. More on that later.

But now to answer a question from Mal - which though it has taken me too long to answer, I've thought of often.

First - here's Mal's theory from a comment in the last posting: The twins are still alive and that is who the predators are torturing to open the portals....

I love this idea! Makes me wish I'd been able to peek into your brain and pull out ideas when I was putting the series together. So, unfortunately, I have to deny the theory - but I had fun reading it and it sent new possibilities pinging around my thoughts. Much of the series is set on a general "path", but there are so many changing little trails within the bigger one that depends on where the characters take me as I write. Unless they're like Myrra and put up a fight about moving at all.  She's a VERY stubborn woman. Good thing her hero is just as stubborn.

Eve

I thought it would be fun to let you see the hero's initial reaction since you got a glimpse of Myrra's first impression of Brett at the end of Brooke's Sanctuary (and if you started at the beginning with Bethany's Rite, you've met Myrra and know quite a bit about her already).  

“Are you going to untie me?” she asked.

“Depends. Are you going to attack me again?” Brett asked.

“Do I get my clothes back?”

Considering he’d found her unconscious on the side of a mountain with her clothes torn and burned and just five minutes ago she’d woken to find herself naked and tied to a bed in a room with a stranger, the woman showed remarkable composure.

Shaking his head, he smiled and retrieved a pair of wire cutters before returning to the bed. “There you go again. Answering a question with a question. I answered one of yours.” He went down on a knee beside her and slid one pointed side of the tool’s jaws under the plastic tie binding her wrist. Pausing, he said, “Your turn.”

Myrra frowned, didn’t answer right away. “I won’t attack you unless I deem it necessary. You caught me off guard the first time.”

“Jesus, woman, if that was your off guard reaction, I hate to think what might have happened if you’d been ready for me.”

With an icy confidence, she stared up at him. “You would have died.”

God damn, the woman turned him on. Not that he didn’t take her words seriously. He did. He was too seasoned of a soldier not to know the difference between reality and a good bluff. The woman was sure of her ability to kill him. And this was after she had fought with him once and lost. That kind of confidence didn’t come from holding the top spot on a video game, taking a couple of karate classes or even months of training. It was the accepted certainty that only came from repeated successful experience.

With unhurried efficiency, he cut free her wrists but instead of severing the final tie around her ankle, Brett rested his forearm on his knee, letting the wire cutters dangle loosely in his hand. “A couple things before I completely cut you loose.”

She waited without commenting, a thin line forming between her eyes as the only signal of her impatience.

“First, no more attacking the guy who rescued you. I’m in the middle of something here, but as soon as I’m done and weather permitting, you’ll be free to go.

“Second, there’s nowhere for you to go on your own. We’re miles from any town and though I respect your obvious ability to kick ass, there’s a lot of hungry wolves between this cabin and the closest road—if you can find it. Any questions?” She shook her head. “Good.”

He cut the final tie from around her ankle and immediately she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. His temperature rose as the sheet slid down to pool around her waist and across her hips, leaving her breasts bared to his gaze. Modesty didn’t seem to be one of her priorities while she checked her body, running her hands over her sides and legs, flexing different muscle groups and taking stock of her scrapes and bruises. Her nipples started to tighten as her breasts swayed in the cool air.

Brett raised his eyes from her chest to her face. Expecting anger or embarrassment at his open gawking, he was surprised at her imperious, simply questioning expression. Like she wasn’t sitting poker straight with a pair of magnificent breasts thrust out in front of her.

“Rule three,” he said, his voice coming out in a husky grumble. “Unless you want me in your bed, keep those covered up.”

The damn woman crossed her arms under her breasts, propping them up higher in clear challenge of his statement. “You took my clothes.”

Desire surged through him, goading him to take up the gauntlet she threw down. But it wouldn’t be a fair fight. Whether she chose to admit it or not, she was hurt. He had seen the cuts and bruises when he had checked her for injuries and removed her weapons.

With a rough curse, Brett stalked across the small space and grabbed a long-sleeved thermal crew, socks and a pair of black cargo pants from his bag. He dumped the pile of clothes on the bed next to her.

“For the record,” he said, regaining his train of thought as she pulled the shirt on over her head. “Your clothes were trashed. I had to cut them off of you to check and clean your injuries.”

Myrra ignored him and stood up to step into the pants. Long, toned legs and proof that she was a natural blonde assaulted his determination to be distant and objective until he knew who she was and what she was involved in. She bent over to straighten the end of a pant leg, granting him a great view of her ass. The woman was trying to kill him with lust. And he was starting to lean toward letting her.

Just a teaser I know, but I hope you enjoy it!

Eve

Vivid colors, wild action and crazy plots – that’s been my dreams since I was a child dreaming about battling my way through a stormy chocolate sea with a blue teddy bear as we fought killer cupcakes with razor-sharp fangs the size of my arm. Remembering my dreams has rarely been a problem unless I’m jerked out of them so suddenly by an alarm clock that it shocks the dream right out of my memory. Most elements of my dreams I can connect to something going on in my life if I try but normally, I just don’t care to try. They’re too weird and I have too much fun simply remembering them to allot some profound mystical meaning to them.

What got me on this topic is the dream I just had this morning. It was a very long dream like most of them but in a nutshell - I was racing through crowded city streets in this enormous boat of an old car which didn’t slow me down at all as I zigzagged between cars and took corners going waaaaayyyy too fast. There were four passengers – my mother, Bruce Willis and a large black man from the 70’s (huge afro, those really big sunglasses and a light blue polyester three-piece suit) and Toto from The Wizard of Oz (who wasn’t talking, just barking at Bruce) and we were all involved in one of those stereotypical Greek-Italian conversations, one of those loud, friendly arguments that include a lot of emphatic gestures. I took a wrong turn and got lost (a normal IRL occurrence). Instead of winding up at my friend’s house, I ended up in front of a restored warehouse restaurant with bright yellow plaster hands reaching down from the overhang at you as you walked in the door. The lobby was filled with statues of people fleeing in terror, but inside the restaurant itself, the decor was a very calm, stream-lined Zen sort of sophisticated, upscale bistro. We had just sat down when my cell phone rang and I had to leave to pick Antigone up from the airport. And then the dream really started to get strange…. 

Now I’m just sure someone could come up with all sorts of interesting interpretations. I, however, choose to enjoy the wackiness of the dream, laugh at the picture of my mother yelling at Bruce Willis and think about how I might use that dream in a story sometime. A number of my stories have been influenced or started by dreams, but that’s for another post because now, I need some coffee!

Hope you've had a great summer and I'll be back this coming week with an excerpt from Myrra's story.

Eve

Hello everyone!

I don’t know about you, but my summer just exploded on the scene about two weeks ago. Now, I’m not complaining – far from it! I absolutely LOVE summer. Love the trips, the pool, the family visits, the sleeping in (oh yes!). So…I just looked at the date on my last blog and oh my god. Too long! But I was reading a book last night (surprise, surprise – but not if you read Romancing the Blog and my response to the “Nibblers and Chewers” post by Jennifer Estep). Anyway, my reading reminded me of something else I’ve learned about writing sex and that I try my best to avoid.

Now it’s common knowledge that nearly every man will fit nearly every woman. At least in theory. Though it might be uncomfortable or slightly inconvenient for the couple, especially if they like to kiss (on the mouth) throughout the act if one is much taller than the other. But have you ever read a passage where the man is described as incredibly, and I mean INCREDIBLY, and quite ummm….shockingly—if all the attached adjectives and metaphors are to be believed—endowed and the woman is described as petite, frail and delicate? Personally, I find the inevitable joining of these two a little disturbing. Possibly this is because I’m fairly petite myself and regardless of the skill and hunkiness of the man, the idea of being on the receiving end of something the size of a baseball bat is rather unnerving. To say the least. Which is why this third rule is always a consideration when I’m writing and why I try to keep “endowment” descriptions within at least my realm of comfort.

Eve’s Sex Writing Rule #3 – A love scene should draw the reader in, excite them, even let them live vicariously through the characters enjoying experiences that in real life, would not be possible or desirable for the reader. HOWEVER, the love scene should never make a reader cringe!

Eve

P.S. For those who've been wondering & asking about the next Ilyrian Destiny book in the series - good news! The third book, Myrra's Choice, is finished and working its way through the editorial process. More info to follow....

Writing sex. The first thing I learned was it was much more difficult to write good sex than have good sex. For me, this part of my writing is fun, challenging and damn hard. As a reader, just having one character put tab A into another character’s slot B over and over isn’t what holds my attention. As an author though, it sure would be a heck of a lot easier to write. Even though there are a couple of options here, this one action doesn’t make a scene memorable. Writing a good sex scene takes a lot more work than that. And as an erotic romance writer, what makes a good sex scene is of course, very important to me.

I have quite a few books on my shelves that I’ve kept for the love scenes. Yes, they’re hot (most of them), yes they’re well-written, but what keeps them on my shelf is the connection I’ve made with the characters. I can pick up one of those books, flip to the sexy scenes and immediately be immersed in the emotions, feelings and sensations of their lives again. It’s the way I’ve been drawn into them and their lives and struggles that makes the love scene memorable for me. And how the sex changes their relationship, their understanding of each other or themselves. The really good scenes manage to do all of those things and are written with enough sexy detail to make me go up in flames.

So, before I can even start on the tabs and slots, I have to figure out how to make a reader care about who those tabs and slots belong to. Because if there isn’t an emotional investment, sex simply becomes a mechanical exercise that is quite easily forgettable. And those aren’t the kind of books I want to write.

Eve's Sex Writing Rule #1: Make the reader care about your character

So far, sounds easy, right?

Eve

Can you be a woman without having cravings? I really don't think so. At least according to my experience. There are a lot of different types of cravings, but the one that I'm thinking about tonight is the craving for certain types of food. It seems that whenever I'm writing a book, I have one certain food that I crave as I'm actually, physically typing. For Bethany's Rite, it was hot chocolate. During Brooke's Sanctuary, I had to have - you guessed it - powdered donuts. (If you've read the book, you understand.) Lately I've been craving fast food hamburgers. I keep hoping that one book will turn me on to carrot sticks or celery, but so far, no luck. Of course there are other types of cravings my writing seems to inspire,  but we'll save that for another post. Because right now I've got to get back to writing. And my hamburger is getting cold.

 Eve

“You don’t owe me an explanation.” A gift from a friend whom I thought I should try to explain the complexities of a life lived which brought me to the decision I had stated. The gift of letting me be me, and still choosing to stand beside me—with or without the explanation of why I was standing where I was.

It was this gift that ultimately helped me decide whether or not to just “reappear” after so long an absence, or to share a part of my life with my readers who have been waiting and wondering….and emailing J Funny how the gift of friendship—the “no explanation needed” support—can give you the strength to explain.

So stop reading here if you’re not interested in an author’s individual struggles. I won’t be hurt even a tiny bit if you just skip the entire rest of this entry and come back another day when the topic is less personal.

Just to say so up front, this is the only time I’ll address my long absence from writing, blogging, responding to emails, etc. in such a public forum. So, as short as I can make it:

For over a year, I found it nearly impossible to write, to create, to finish any story I started because there were individuals who took all I had written and attempted to use it as the basis for taking my children away during my recent divorce. No other area of my life was torn apart or microscopically inspected in an attempt to prove me unfit and a danger to my children. To be fair, throughout the entire process the judges and psychiatrists (which apparently, can be court-ordered by the opposing individual’s lawyer’s request for objective evaluation) never ceded validity to the claims. Nevertheless, it was at times completely creatively paralyzing when trying to type in just one more word, trying to finish just one more sentence while fighting the nagging fear of “what if this is the word, the sentence that changes the judge’s mind?”

Honestly though, if it had come down to a choice, I would have chosen my children for the next eighteen years over my stories, writing career, creative outlet—call it whatever, it’s these and many more things to me. And choose without hesitation, doubt or regret. I cannot tell you how happy I am that in the end, though it was a long time in coming, I didn’t have to make that choice.    

Ok, that’s all I’m going to say about that. That’s where I’ve been. As for where I’m going…  hang on! The ride’s about to begin!

Roll the window down and turn the music up!

 Eve