Are you longing for a new, hot tale from Cheri Crystal? 

Get ready for Conventional Wisdom - releasing on Friday the fifth of February from   www.loveyoudivine.com 

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60054-440-8

In Conventional Wisdom, a 25 year-old psychologist acts more like a kid with her first crush than a therapist attending a professional conference.  Dr. Janet Weiss, a psychologist at The Women’s Mood Disorder Clinic in Baltimore, Maryland, attends a professional convention in her hometown, New York City. Janet rooms with the noteworthy researcher, Dr. Olivia Chase (Chaz), and learns valuable lessons outside the program.

 

 

Janet Weiss, PhD., spends every waking moment between office hours and searching for the lifesaving tools that would become the gold standard in treating mood disorders in women. She’s too busy for a social life and takes great pleasure in writing erotica in her spare time. Up until recently, she’s avoided thoughts about her sexuality. Now she finds herself obsessing about women and concludes that her sexual identity needs defining. She’s headed to a professional convention in Manhattan and wonders if she should put her theory to the test. A nationally known researcher, Dr. Olivia Chase (Chaz), is a stunning woman, who happens to be smart, witty, and a lesbian. She’s also Janet’s roommate for the duration of the con. Janet develops a huge crush on Chaz and suspects the feeling may be mutual. Chaz may be too impossible to resist, but will Janet be able to go through with her personal quest?

 Excerpt:

Leaving a cluttered mess, I briefly checked the mirror, satisfied that I looked presentable enough. I tucked my sleeveless pastel print cotton shirt into my tan slacks and adjusted the belt. After rummaging in my bag and tossing out a few items, I located and switched my nylon knee-highs for cushiony socks and a pair of sneakers. I was anxious to see if the hotel amenities lived up to the ads.

With my nose a centimeter from the mirror, I removed my glasses and plucked a long errant eyelash. Next, I checked out my hair. Typically wispy and a flyaway mess, it had waves and bounce thanks to hair products. That done, I was ready to explore unchartered territory, going where no woman had gone before, conquering mental illness at a single bound. I was definitely overtired and giddy.

Just as I threw open the door to leave, I was face-to-breast with a solid, towering mass of sweat-soaked, human flesh wearing a sport bra and nylon shorts that sat just below her belly button. When I glanced up, her dimpled grin exposed even white teeth in a face that exuded the tomboyish charm of an athlete adorning a box of Wheaties cereal beneath the slogan, “The Breakfast of Champions.” I swallowed my gum.

What’s your favourite kind of m/m pairing? Do you like guys who are of an age, and physically similar, or are you more a fan of diversity? Do Dom/sub stories speak to you? Or would you rather a gentle helping of vanilla? I consulted the regulars at His and His to get a better sense of who writes what. If you don’t see a pairing that appeals to you, post a comment, you might inspire someone to write it!

 

Max Griffin: Most of the relationships I write are pretty vanilla. Often, the main character is a bit submissive, someone who gets pleasure from giving it to others. The conflict in the story often involves some kind of movement to a more balanced relationship in which the two guys give to each other, regardless of the sexual role they assume. I’ve been tempted to dabble in the S/M, D/s world in my fiction, but probably don’t know enough about it to be realistic.

 

Jane Bled: Well, I admit that I LOVE writing men in their twenties/thirties (maybe because I’m only 26 and don’t feel I have enough life experience to write about older men–and writing younger characters doesn’t really interest me).  Also, at least one of my characters usually has Alpha Male tendencies.  Other than that, I mix it up!

 

Jaime Samms: Old friends seems to be a big thing with me. People coming to the realization that they are more than just friends. Part of this is because I do think strong relationships grow from knowing a person well, not from infatuation and the heady rush of first meetings. That isn’t to say there’s no infatuation in my stories, just that it stems from a much deeper place than how a person looks. I do believe you can find yourself completely taken with a person you’ve known for a very long time, if you suddenly see them in the right light. I have a few stories with some very light D/s relationships, too, but nothing very explicit or heavy into that lifestyle.

 

Alex Morgan:  I enjoy writing D/s and BDSM very much. So I think I will always write about those aspects. I will write vanilla, of course, but will forever come back to D/s and BDSM.

 

Nix Winter: I like D/s, very loving relationships, true love, soul mates.

 

Bryn Colvin: I realise the majority of my m/m stories feature younger guys, more of an age than not. Tight Dark Places has an age gap, Denial has some bondage. I’ve not done much serious kink with my m/m fiction and I should perhaps remedy that! I love combat as foreplay, and having two male characters sparring is perfect, but I haven’t written it yet!

Fear, pain, danger, injury, agony… for most of us mere mortals, there’s only so far BDSM games can go before they get too dangerous. In real life, most of us have no desire to end up in hospital, missing limbs, bleeding to death or otherwise suffering in extremis. There are safewords for a reason.

 

Fiction however can be very much about escape and fantasy. While I can appreciate a true to life tale, it’s also wonderful to be totally beyond the realms of personal experience. I like play fighting. I find it a turn on. Mistress Nimue’s ‘Trial by Combat’ explores this very theme, with people hitting each other about as foreplay. But if the people can really beat each other to a pulp, that’s all the more exciting. Real people can’t go that far – not and still want to shag each other, but super-humans can. Vampires, werewolves and other unnatural beasties heal quickly, in more myths than not. It means they can play rough. Really rough. Then heal up, and carry on.

 

Mistress Nimue’s ‘Heaven and Hell’ includes a serious bitch fight between a psychic vampire and a werewolf, as well as some distinctly nasty lesbian werewolf BDSM. It’s fantasy. The usual rules of what it is ok for people to do to each other simply don’t apply any more. Isn’t that liberating? I love it.

 

Which is probably why I particularly love Jane Bled’s ‘Master – Crimson’ story. Here we have cute gay vampire lads, who can’t admit they fancy each other, so frequently resort to beating each other up. Broken fingers. Dislocated joints. Punches. Biting. All the sexual tension they find themselves unable to explore comes out instead in the violence. It is seriously hot stuff. And there’s no guilt. The boys are vampires. They can do each other an obscene amount of damage, and long term it means nothing. Both can and will heal.

 

There is darkness in my psyche, I freely admit it. I know I am not alone. Many of us have darker streaks and tastes, turned on by things it might not be easy to admit to in our regular lives. There’s a reason we have a pornography of violence in the modern film industry. Pain is sexy. Suffering, agony, torment can all be arousing and devastatingly seductive. In the realms of dark fantasy, I can play. I can pretend. It isn’t real. No one actually gets hurt, and we create the kinds of characters who can suffer beautifully for all time, and never get old, or die, or phone the police or otherwise break the spell.

I thought it would be fun to ask Sonya Grady a few questions about her new regency novel, and then post the results…

Is this your first foray into Regency?

 

“The Eyes of Sin” is my second novel-length Regency.  The first one, “An Accomplished Lady”, came about in an attempt to see if a historical romance was feasible on today’s market without the ripping bodices and graphic love scenes.  I think I did a great job…while I was re-learning all the proper grammar I forgot since middle school. 

A third historical fantasy romance, “The Forgotten Princess”, is based more in an Elizabethan typish period. 

 

You see, I eat historical romances for lunch.  There’s something about the Cinderella storyline, complete with gowns, heroes on horseback, and gossiping old ladies, I just adore.  However, I can get bored.  So, I try to do something a little different… “An Accomplished Lady” had only *counting fingers* four kisses.  “The Eyes of Sin” challenges some of the “must have” standards in modern romances.  Marion is still our heroine, but she is going to make some serious choices…ones that many modern women make, and have to live with.  All while wearing a corset, or in some scenes, without one.  And “The Forgotten Princess” explores the realities of royalty, without the expectation of love in the marriage bed. 

 

What inspired you to pick the title?

 

Good grief!  The title!  Most of my titles appear like a flash and they’re perfect!  First time!  Not this one. 

 

The inspiration for the book came from watching the Olympics, an event called the pentathlon.  A leftover from old military days, this event has the competitors shoot, fence, ride a horse, run and swim.  And then my mysterious mind went to work…

 

The book lived with Pentathlon for a title for quite a long time.  Then halfway through the book it turned into A Child of Uncertain Birth.  I didn’t like that, but it stayed there.  The final title, “The Eyes of Sin” didn’t come to me until I was in revisions and did the first read through…those grey eyes.  They spoke to me.

 

See?  The flash came…The Eyes of Sin…Perfect!

 

If you were casting the book as a film, who would you want in the main roles?

 

*groans*  It’s an impossible question.  *think, think, think* You know (I love old movies) actually…Gregory Peck would make an admirable Lord Croylton.  He plays the wounded, yet majestic, male quite well.

 

Now, Lady Marion Entwhistle…how about Joan Fontaine.  She played the girl next door with a backbone of steel really well in Rebecca.

 

Modern actors?  Sorry…if I thought Harrison Ford would’ve worked, I would’ve said so…but can you imagine him wearing a cravat, shoes with heels and breeches that button about the calves?  And Keira Knightly…somebody should stop putting her in corsets.  It’s getting boring.

 

The beauty of Hollywood, they will remain ever young in our hearts.

 

What’s your favourite scene from the book?

 

I think it’s at the Waverly Ball…when Brian follows Marion out into the garden.  It’s our first glimpse into their souls.  Their attraction for one another, their dissatisfaction with their lives, and a moment of whimsy for something different.

 

Which scene did you find the most difficult to write?

 

I got stuck halfway through the book.  Marion and Brian had their night of passion…and then what?  It took me months to get the pair to Green Park in London and discover what really had happened.  It wasn’t until Brian saw her in the park that I knew about Christian.  Funny how that works for us, isn’t it?

 

Would you fall for your hero, do you think?

 

Would it sound bad to say probably not?  lol  Lord Croylton presented a few difficulties to me.  Perhaps it says something about me, personally, that he probably wouldn’t have survived past first impressions.  A lady’s man?  Chasing me?  That’s when I used to tell the boys to go chase somebody else…

 

Which, if the circumstances were the same…maybe that spark would have turned into fire.  And that is why Lord Croylton is who he is in my book.

 

That sounds really confusing….guess you’ll have to read the book to find out why!

 

Teaser:

 

Lady Entwhistle, lately from Virginia, wanders into Manton’s Shooting Parlor on a grey London morning, seeking lessons in the proper use of firearms.  What she gets is a jaded ex-officer who is more than eager to teach her anything she desires…

 

Blurb:

 

Lady Entwhistle arrives at Entwhistle Farm armed with a new wardrobe, designed to entice her errant, irresponsible husband back to her bedchamber.  Instead of finding him hard at work as promised, she is left with the remnants of his illicit liaisons and her marriage.  Desperate, frustrated and angry, she turns to Brian Warrington, the earl of Croylton, one of the most notorious London rogues.  In his arms, she discovers friendship, loyalty and desire.  Before she can find true happiness, secrets long hidden by her husband’s family must be revealed.

 

 

Visit my website for details on “The Eyes of Sin” and all my other books!

http://sonyadgrady.com

 

Purchase link:  http://www.loveyoudivine.com/index.php?main_page=document_product_info&cPath=26&products_id=375&zenid=06a663b5f24b4a296c356f31469cb136