I would like to welcome my friend and fellow author Stephanie Williams to my blog today. So, pull up a seat and check out her sexy blurbs and excerpts. Along with the little extras she sent along.
What I like to see (and am seeing) in the Interracial Romance/Erotica Genre
Stephanie Williams here. {{{waves}}}. As most of you already know, I am a writer of IR/erotica. I’ve been at it for a good while. I started getting interested in writing in my 20s, but as with all beginning authors, those stories remained in my drawer for a good while.
It wasn’t until I started reading more books that reflected me that I began to look at those stories again.
Sadly IR stories were far and few between. You couldn’t scare up an IR romance and we’re talking the 1990s. Late 90s!
Then one day I was cruising the romance bookshelf at my local bookstore and what did I see? A thin book with a picture of an IR couple on it. A Black woman and White man. They were a cute couple too. I immediately snatched the book and ran to the counter and paid for it.
I couldn’t wait to get home and start reading it. It was titled, Shades of Desire, by Monica White. I still have that book on my shelf.
Was this a masterpiece? Not by any stretch of the imagination. Was it at least okay?
It was passable, but I read it over and over. But in saying that, there was one thing that stood out which I wish didn’t.
The book made it about their differences in race. Ironically, his family (what little mention there was) was more accepting that hers. That kinda ticked me off because this was the 1990s, not the 1950s. Haven’t we gotten over that?
Yes, I know there are certain segments of the population that disagree with mixing the races. These people still have outhouses, lower education or just plain evil. I don’t care what race this is coming from.
Anyway, after that book I started looking for more IR books. Unfortunately, they weren’t sprouting up like weeds—until the Internet took off.
Now I belonged to reader groups that were reading, looking for and WRITING these types of books. My first readers group was IMRR. Interracial Multicultural Romance Readers.
I was so happy. I found a home. Like minded people looking for the same thing. We were finding and reading all kinds of IR books, and this was the great part. A lot of them did not make an issue of race.
Sure there were a few, and sometimes it was pertinent to the story, say, the story was set in the 1960s. But for the most part, it was about couples having the same issues that couples that were of the same race were having. YAY!
Then something else happened. Erotica. WHOO-HOO!
Now, not only can IR couples be in normal romantic relationships, they can get their freak on too. LOL!
This is where I came in. I always loved the erotica genre. When I’m not reading non-fiction like history, I’ll pick up a good erotica novel. It’s been mostly the same race stuff. OR stereotypes when it came to mixed race—I didn’t read those.
But with the evolution of ebooks, now I could read about couples that looked like me and my man, doing all sorts of crazy stuff in the bedroom!
Now I wanted to write about it.
My first book, Your Local Handyman from Red Rose Publishing, was a tongue and cheek take off from the old” “I need the plumber to come over and fix my pipes.”
My books progressed from there. I’ve written Ménage a trois stories, Paranormal, contemporary. None of my characters make race a big deal. In fact, the only way you know the characters are of a different races is either, it says in the description, you see the cover, and when the characters describe each other: “She was a beautiful golden honey color, that he wanted to melt in his mouth.” That’s it. After that, the only issues they have is what I give them. LOL!
I am also seeing IR romance/erotica books, mixing in with the regular books at the books stores. YIPPIE! They are no longer segregated to a certain area or heading. Even the AA/AA books are staring to mix and mingle a bit.
This is significant to me. Yes, I write IR books, because they reflected me, my dating habits and my now marriage and you as a reader want to see something that closely mimics your lifestyle. But at the same time, you don’t want to be separated from the mainstream. In fact you want to BE the mainstream.
That’s what I’m seeing now and hopefully will continue to see in this colorful genre.
****
BUY LINK Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Detention-ebook/dp/B005J5VA1O/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318984800&sr=1-7
BLURB
Hot for the High School principal?
You bet! What’s a woman to do when her former student comes back and reveals to her that he wants keep her for detention?
Mia Bradford is the principal of Fremont High. She’s uncompromising and believes in tough love for her students. In fact, she’s helped many of them reach their full potential. She’s always happy to reconnect with them years later and see what they have accomplished in life. But one student in particular is making her more than a little nervous.
Brett Wyndam has seen and done a lot in his life, a lot of it rewarding and some of it tragic. But the one dream he hasn’t realized in his life is the one thing he’s always wanted: Mia Bradford. When he attended Fremont, he’d served detention under her, time after time. Now that he’s back in town, eight years later, it’s time to turn the tables and fulfill a promise to himself.
Can Brett get Mia to be honest with herself and explore the desires she’s harboring? Or will the past get in the way and ruin what could be a loving, but admittedly unconventional, relationship?
EXCERPT
“Mia, I have a secret. Something I’ve been keeping to myself since my senior year in high school.” He rubbed his cheek against hers. She wanted to faint.
The smell of expensive cologne and pure man made Mia’s stomach tighten and her grip on reality weaken. She tried to refocus on making a quick exit, but then something clicked in her head. Brett Wyndam had a secret? That piqued her curiosity. Mr. Big-Man-on-Campus, the boy-now-man, who seemed to have the world on a string, was hiding something?
“Okay, what’s your big secret?” She paused, staring into his eyes. Then she let out a slight gasp.
“Wait. Are you gay?”
The response she got wasn’t what she expected. He threw back his head and burst out laughing.
“I am very, very straight, which I will be more than happy to confirm for your benefit, but more on that later.” He placed his hand on the small of her back, and led her into the living room. “The secret I have is that I’ve been a very bad boy.”
He wore the most perverted leer Mia had ever seen. “So what else is new?” she asked. She sat down on the couch and continued to drink her orange juice. And the sass on him, saying he’d confirm it for me. As if! She subtly closed her thighs even tighter, keeping an unexplained arousal in check. He’s still younger than I am. He’s still that boy I kept after school. That would be her mantra as he continued to speak.
“You don’t understand, Mia. In high school, I was a different kind of bad.” He joined her on the sofa, but this time, he kept a respectful distance from her.
“All I know is I had to keep you after school for detention for half your senior year because of your tomfoolery.”
“Ah, yes,” Brett said, nodding his head. “But there was a reason for my mischief.”
“Really? Getting in trouble and almost throwing away a perfectly good education?”
“But I didn’t throw it away. I was valedictorian, remember?”
How could she forget? He was just about perfect at everything, and his charm had kept others from labeling him as a nerd and picking on him. He’d kept a 4.0 average throughout his school years, yet he’d insisted on getting into trouble. She could never understand people like him. He had it all, but seemed to want to throw it all away as a teen. She was busting her butt teaching kids who didn’t have a tenth of the privileges Brett had, yet were better at staying out of trouble in spite of peer pressure and their environment.
“So what’s the reason?” she asked in her most self-righteous tone.
“To be near you.”
Mia nearly choked on her juice.
****
HOUSE ARREST
BUY LINK Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/House-Arrest-ebook/dp/B004U7LXXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318984331&sr=8-1
BLURB
Janet Harrison is the number one reporter at Channel Ten News. She is also the go to woman for every mobster in Chicago. She’s their mouthpiece. When they’re ready to snitch they come to her and she is more than willing to listen—anything to put the big fish behind bars.
And she got a big fish: Salvatore “The Lip” Valinci. She also got herself in a whole lot of trouble. She stands before Judge Fernando Gonzales for being in contempt of court for not revealing her sources. But that’s not the only trouble she’s in.
Judge Fernando Gonzales has his eyes on the beautiful defiant, reporter Janet Harrison. She’s facing contempt charges because she won’t reveal her sources. Judge Gonzales wants to punish her in more ways than one.
However, things aren’t going so smoothly. “The Lip” is released on a technicality, and wants to even the score. If they work together, Janet and Fernando may survive the threat of death, but can they survive their unconventional relationship?
EXCERPT
“Does your client refuse to talk?” he asked Mr. McCaffy.
Tom McCaffy, the latest big-shot attorney from Riechchile, Williams, Reese, Johnson and Smith, claimed the title of mob lawyer with pride. Gonzales could tell by the look on his face that Janet Harrison was making him work harder than any mobster could.
“Oh, come on, Your Honor. You know the drill. She can’t rev—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But you and I have an obligation to this court, as you well know. And I know, you know, she knows who squealed, so it’s up to me to find out.”
“You’re wasting your time,” she huffed, talking out of turn. She then made a show of staring at her watch. “Look, I have a hair appointment. Can I go?”
Oh no she didn’t! She’d just looked straight at him as if talking to one of her girlfriends.
“Uh…Your Honor, what my client is trying to say is that it’s late, and if we can continue this at a later date, maybe by then—”
“I know what I meant!” she snapped at McCaffy.
“Please!’ McCaffy said, hitting her side.
Janet Harrison: Hellcat. And Fernando loved it. But her mouth just got her into more trouble than any mob boss ever could.
He held his breath and counted to ten in Spanish. When he looked back over the courtroom, she stood there grinning at him. She knew what she was doing. Or did she?
