3/28/2012

Welcome Guest Silvia Violet




Hello everyone! Lee invited me to talk about reality vs fantasy in romantic stories, and I will, but I'm also going to talk about one of my favorite topics – chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is, to me, one of the most perfect foods. I love cake and I love chocolate. When they are blended together and then topped with rich, buttery chocolate icing, an orgasmic eating experience ensues. Mmmm…..
Where was I….oh yes, reality vs. fantasy. Let's say for the purpose of this post that a peanut
butter sandwich represents everyday reality. It's tasty, serviceable food. But it's not typically the thing fantasies are made of (Of course I'm now pondering a way to work a peanut butter sandwich fantasy into my next book.) People don't normally eat a peanut butter sandwich as an escape or a treat. Chocolate cake on the other hand. Chocolate cake is pure fantasy - scrumptious dessert fantasies, foodie fantasies, and possibly on occasion….well, you can imagine those fantasies for yourself.
When I read romance, I want to read about chocolate cake experiences, not peanut butter experiences. But chocolate cake doesn't have to be perfect to be a treat.
Imagine, if you will, a cake that didn't want to co-operate coming out of the pan. The layers are lop-sided, making the cake slant off to one side. When you ice it, the broken pieces add crumbs to the icing. It's not a show piece, but it still tastes amazing. The inside is still moist, rich, and sinfully good and the icing patches it up nicely. I would be happy with just such a cake, and I'm happy to read about heroes who need a little patching up or who aren't perfectly put together.
A chocolate cake with no flaws might be too pretty too eat, but a chocolate cupcake that got knocked about coming out of the tin, one iced by a kid more eager to eat the cake than look at it, that's a treat I can relate to. If a hero has no flaws, he's so far from my reality that I can't relate to him. I can't put myself in his shoes or imagine myself in his bed. But if he's got flaws – he's arrogant, naïve, stubborn, afraid to take any risks, no longer as young or fit as he's "supposed" to be – then he's real to me. That amount of reality won't prevent him from being as delicious as chocolate cake.
I want my reading to take me to a world where two people fall in love despite their flaws and then get their happily ever after. Maybe in a peanut butter sandwich world, their relationship would never work, but in the world of fantasy, they are each other's chocolate cake.
Lark Zaccaro and Derek Carlson aren't perfect men. They've both made choices in the past that have left them scarred, hurt, and alone. In Abandoned, they get a second chance to see past each other's flaws.
Galactic Betrayal 1: Abandoned by Silvia Violet
Blurb:
Lark Zaccaro and Derek Carlson were partners and friends. Lark wanted more. Then someone at the Intergalactic Investigations Bureau sold them out to enemy aliens. Lark was forced to abandon Derek to the enemy, and Derek bought the IIB’s story that Lark betrayed them all.
When Lark’s deep cover mission and Derek’s new job in search-and-rescue collide, the desire simmering between them explodes. Lark needs Derek’s help to escape a new enemy, and Derek needs to
discover the truth about what really happened on that alien planet. Can they overcome lies and betrayal and find the love and comfort they seek, or will their past forever keep them apart?

Excerpt:

Lark Zaccaro smiled as he stepped out of the dripping jungle heat, and into the prison building. Even inside, the stale air was so splyvin' hot it belonged in an oven. He didn't know how anyone could breathe. Not that he was supposed to give a fuck if his prisoners got air or not. He took as deep a breath as he could and headed straight for the interrogation room.
A few hours earlier, his guards had discovered a man crouched in the underbrush, spying on their enclave. Lark's morning had been hell so far, and a vicious interrogation suited his mood perfectly. The two guards flanking the door stepped aside, so he could enter what was truly more of a torture chamber than an interrogation room. At least that's what it had been for his predecessor, and the longer Lark lived on Lancarina, the more he found himself becoming like the man he'd assassinated and replaced. He pushed that disturbing thought away. He wouldn't dwell on how low he'd sunk since he'd left his partner to die in a Lithusian prison cell.
The captive hung from the ceiling, suspended by a heavy chain circling his bound wrists. His toes barely scraped the floor, forcing his arms to support the weight of his large body. The dirty chain bit into his wrists, and blood dripped down his arms. In this squalid jungle, he'd have a deadly infection in no time. Lark would have to do something about that. The man had a ship with advanced defenses. Thus, he was Lark's ticket off this cesspool of a planet.
The man's clothes hung in shreds, and Lark couldn't help but admire his muscular body. His gaze slid over the captive's hard thighs, the impressive bulge in his pants, and the well-defined and disturbingly familiar planes of his chest. When he saw the man's face, he froze. No. It couldn't be. His former partner would have no reason to be here. But Derek Carlson, the man who had haunted Lark's nightmares and his fantasies every day for the six Old Earth months he been in this hellhole, was right in front of him. Chained. Suspended. His to do with as he pleased.
Lark's cock hardened, pressing against the confines of his pants. His body knew what it wanted from Derek, but his mind was less sure. Retribution? Forgiveness? A hot fuck before he threw him in prison to rot? Salvation? His gut knotted at that thought, and he fought to keep his guards from noticing how off kilter he was. He had to play his role, not rush this moment.
There would be time later, in his private quarters, to decide what he wanted to know and how he was going to get the information. If the vessel they had captured in the jungle was Derek's private issue ship, then he'd finally forsaken the lying scum at the Intergalactic Investigation Bureau. They might say their mission is to protect everyone in the five galaxies, but they only care about protecting their own asses. Lark intended to find out why Derek had left, but his guards would play no part in that interrogation. Derek was his.
Lark took a few steps toward the prisoner and studied him. He'd wanted him for years, from the moment they were assigned to work with each other at the IIB. Derek had turned down all his advances, saying they should keep their relationship professional. But now Derek was his prisoner, not his
partner. If he wanted to live, he'd do whatever Lark told him to.
From the way Derek limply hung in his bonds, he was either unconscious or doing an excellent job of faking it. His former partner had fought hard from the look of him. A livid bruise stood out on one cheek and purple splotches decorated his ribs. A deep gash on his arm had dripped blood trails that were now dry. He would have to tend to Derek’s wounds.
Lark needed the man's piloting skills. If he were going to kill Derek for believing those liars from the IIB when they told him Lark had turned traitor, he intended to do so with his own hands after they got off planet. Fortunately, he kept a fully stocked first aid cabinet in his quarters. He just needed to find a way to get Derek there without making his men suspicious .
Nothing but fear and the promise of a huge payoff on their next deal kept Lark's men from turning on him, in the same way he'd turned on the man he had been sent here to investigate. He pulled a long thin blade from his boot and pretended to examine the sharp edge as he circled Derek. He had to suppress a gasp when he saw the maze of scars criss-crossing Derek's back. If he let himself think about how Derek got those, he might be sick right here.
"Leave us," he said to the guards who were eyeing the prisoner in obvious hope of getting some play time.
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2 comments:

Be Yourself

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955
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