What's in a Name?

Last week on my new website, I asked about euphemisms for semen. There are people who prefer "cum," and those who can't help but think "...feel the noiz, girlz rock your boyz" when they see it and prefer "jizz" or "seed" depending on the circumstances.

How about you, Loose Enders? Whether you're a reader or a writer, what do you prefer to call semen? Does a contemporary or historical setting make a difference?

A Question of Age

This is something I’ve been pondering while working on a new book, and I’m conducting an informal poll around the blogosphere. As long as a character is 18, are you okay with reading about him or her in sexual situations? Or is that still too young? What’s your threshold? 18? 19? 20? Older?

And does it change when the story is historical rather than contemporary? Is having a 17-year-old hero or heroine okay in a historical depending on the mores of the time period? Does the age of the other half of the pair come into play? Say, two 19-year-olds is okay, but a 19-year-old with a 30-year-old makes you uncomfortable? Does gender make a difference?

Does the plot matter? Would a BDSM story with an 18-year-old be off-putting while a sweet, traditional romance be fine?

Or does age not particularly matter at all as long as it’s a compelling, well-written romance?

Greetings from Keira Andrews

Hello! I've been publishing with Loose Id since 2006, but this is my first time contributing to this blog. Looking forward to getting to know everyone!

I've published both contemporary and historical fiction, and my latest release is The Station, which was my first full-length historical. It was part of Loose Id's Coming Out Day Celebration. Most coming out stories are modern, and I wanted to explore the challenges – and rewards – of coming out in a different era. Despite the serious consequences of coming out in the 1800s, my goal was to explore the freedom and opportunity being yourself could also bring.



Ever since Cambridge-bound Colin Lancaster secretly watched stable master Patrick Callahan mastering the groundskeeper, he’s longed for Patrick to do the same to him. When Patrick is caught with his pants down and threatened with death, Colin speaks up in his defense, announcing that he, too, is guilty of “the love that dare not speak its name.” Soon they’re both condemned as convicts and shipped off to the faraway prison colony of Australia.

Patrick learned long ago that love is a fairy tale and is determined that no one will scale the wall he’s built around his heart. Yet he’s inexorably drawn to the charismatic Colin despite his best efforts to keep him at bay. As their journey extends from the cramped and miserable depths of a prison ship to the vast, untamed Australian outback, Colin and Patrick must build new lives for themselves. They'll have to tame each other to find happiness in this wild new land.

So that's a little about my newest book. As for me, along with writing gay romance, my passions are travel, theatre (especially musicals), ballet, TV, movies and figure skating. Oh, and reading, of course! To sum me up in a nutshell, I don't believe in guilty pleasures. Life is too short for shame!

Favourite place to travel: I love Australia and Italy, but New York City and the Great White Way holds a special place in my heart.
Favourite musical: Spring Awakening, which I've seen 15 times
Favourite ballet: The National Ballet of Canada's Cinderella, not only for the gorgeous choreo, dancing, sets and costumes, but the HEA, which is a welcome respite from all the Russian tragedy in ballet!
Favourite TV show: So hard to choose, but right now my faves are probably Vampire Diaries, Dexter and historical Brit show Garrow's Law.
Favourite movie: Again, a tough choice, but if I can only pick one, it's Stand By Me, which resonated so much with me as a 13-year-old. And for a movie that never fails to make me happy -- Strictly Ballroom.
Favourite figure skater: Of all time: Kurt Browning. Currently I love Patrick Chan, Jeremy Abbott (who broke my heart last week at US Nationals!), and the ice dance team of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
Favourite book: Impossible! Right now I have to go with the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Very powerful story and characters that left a lasting impression after the last page was turned.

Enough about me. What are your favourite things?

Eldritch Legacy 2: Lessons Learned is out today!

Ever wonder what adventurous folks like Lord Byron and the Shelleys were doing behind the closed doors of the Regency drawing room? Me too! Hence my dark, twisted take on the classic "Regency romp" with Lessons Learned, book two of the Eldritch Legacy series. I quite like the brooding Regency rake, and had fun creating an Eldritch son who is just that. I derived equal enjoyment in creating leading lady Camille Rocheford to match Stefan Eldritch's intensity.

And I could not have asked for a better cover artist to capture the look and feel of the story. Anne Cain amazes as always.

Curious? Here's the blurb!

http://www.loose-id.com/prod-Eldritch_Legacy_2__Lessons_Learned-1007.aspx

Want more? Sample an excerpt, wherein Stefan Eldritch takes a love of reading to new heights:

http://www.loose-id.com/excerpt.aspx?ID=1007

And that's before they drink the absinthe! I hope my romp through the manor house with Lessons Learned gives readers a taste of decadence and some much-needed escape.

Historical Romances ~ with a Twist

I love history. I love romances. I cut my teeth on historical romances and I'm thrilled to hear that readers want more of them. In "The Collector 5: The Crystal Flacon", history played an integral part of the story/romance. But of course, I had to add a paranormal twist. ;~p
Although "The Collector 5: The Crystal Flacon" takes place in the present day, it's grounded in the past with visions, dreams and journal entries from the Renaissance during the time of Lucrezia Borgia.

I researched the heck for this story. I recently counted the number of individual websites I'd placed in my folder for the Borgia Book as I called it ;~D. the number was an amazing one hundred and fifty plus! They included everything from dress, food, perfume (vital to the story), music, politics, geography, stolen Nazi art, dance, the papacy, orgies, plane travel, security systems, floor plans for the castles, topography of the area around Ferrara, Italy and - the find of the century - I tracked down a multi-page geneology chart of the d'Este family including, of course, the most famous person to marry into the family: Lucrezia Borgia. All this to make the history and setting come alive.

I think this research paid off. Here's a recent note from a reader that I cherish:
You do a wonderful job with the settings in your books. It is one of the reasons I enjoy reading them so much.
Thank you, Cherie. Hearing this from a reader makes all the research worthwhile.

So, tell me, if you could visit any period of history, when and where would you go?
"The Collector 5: The Crystal Flacon" is available at http://www.loose-id.com/detail.aspx?ID=410
Watch for more paranormal erotic historical romance coming from me this year.

Samurai Captive

...many women went into the trade as indentured-sold by family, agents, kidnappers...

~Donald Richie from his foreword to The Nightless City-History of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku by J.E. deBecker, IGC Muse, Inc. 2000

In its time the Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarter was a fortified city-within-a-city in what is present day Tokyo. Though built and regulated by the shogunate it was the only place in Japanese society where all social classes could freely intermingle and enjoy what the district had to offer in adult entertainment.

While most of the women living and working there came to prostitution via force or coercion their lifestyle would become the inspiration for polite society's hot trends, much like today's celebrities and fashion icons. The woodblock artists of the time were like modern day paparazzi selling prints of the most popular prostitutes and actors of the day.

The first class houses employed the top tier Oiran who commanded high fees, wore the finest silks and paraded through the streets with grand entourages as seen in the film Sakuran, to the lower priced girls displayed in street level windows of their brothels as portrayed in one of my favorite films The Sea is Watching.

Hannah Connolly, the heroine of Samurai Captive, (my first solo work from Loose ID) finds herself not only an the unwilling resident of one such low end brothel but also the Yoshiwara's star attraction-the mysterious and exotic western woman who survived the fatal attack on British businessman C.L. Richardson and his traveling companions near Yokohama in the autumn of 1862.

Far from being a shrinking violet type Hannah has certainly become one of my favorite characters with her no-.nonsense way of looking that things. I'd probably have been scared spitless to find myself in her predicament, but Hannah's reaction to being gawked at from beyond the red slatted window was that if the men of Edo who came to peep wanted a "show" she'd give them one.

While the majority of Hannah's "audience" was too timid to do more than stare, samurai Sanada Katsuhiro was a man accustomed to taking what he wanted, when he wanted it.

What he wanted was the white woman with the spirit of a tigress.

And that didn't set too well with his lifelong friend and sometime lover Masato who wasn't about to let some foreigner-some woman, take his place in Katsu's life.

Please stop by my website to read an excerpt.

I'd love to hear what you think of Hannah's story.

~Barbara Sheridan

If you'd like to see some photos of the Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarters check out this page