Posted in Lexxie Couper on August 31, 2011 by Lexxie Couper
You’ve been here with me before, haven’t you? To the dark, twisted, disturbing place in my mind where my horror tales live? The place where simple canvases can become instruments of sexual assault, where blood-red marble sculptures of naked women can propell a simple man into decadent, demonic hell with just a single touch…
It often surprises me that my mind is responsible for the “creepy as sh*t mind-f*ck” (Kelli Collins, my Ellora’s Cave editor) that is Endless Lust. I mean, I am quite a loopy, silly person by nature. I don’t walk around seeing the macabre in all things. I like to laugh and love the light (Go into the liiiight). I am responsible for the “hilarious” erotic comedy (also Kelli) Copping A Feel after all.
I do however, look at an old house and ponder how many ghosts walk its tired hallways. I do wonder about the way a cat’s eyes reflect green light (the liiiiiight, child. Go into the liiiiiiiight) and how it would be easy for a dispossessed soul to hide within the feline’s warm body…
Perhaps this is because I started reading Stephen King when I was eight. Perhaps this is because my brothers, God love them, held me down and made me watch Dr. Who when I was five (the Cybermen scared me so much I still have nightmares about expressionless metal men). But I think it’s because the adrenaline rush of being scared is on parr with the rush of being aroused. Yes, I know that sounds weird, but there it is. I’ve discussed this in great length in a post way back in May last year. To really get into my mind, check it out. For now, I’m leaving you with my Top Five Horror tales…just be sure you have a torch. It’s going to get dark.
1/ Stephen King’s IT
The ultimate scary-as-sh*t story. Seriously, King is a master. If only I could write one-tenth as amazingly as he does. Pennywise has forever made me petrified of clowns.
2/ Candyman
This movie scared me witless as a teenager. I think my best friend at the time almost broke my fingers squeezing my hand so tightly while we watched it during one particularly insane horror movie marathon-slash-sleepover. To this day I cannot stand in front of my mirror and say “Candyman” three times.
3/ Poltergeist
Do I need to say anything else?
4/ Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum
Seriously, I read this in my second year of English Lit. at university and it gave me chills. Chills.
5/ Stephen King’s Pet Sematary
The first horror book of my reading life and, quite possibly, the greatest influence on my writing style when writing horror romance.
Posted in Lexxie Couper on August 29, 2011 by Lexxie Couper
Paranormal. Say the word. Paranormal. It’s like you took something boring and made it interesting. I guess my introduction to the paranormal reading world came with Stephen King’s Pet Semetary. I read Pet Semetary when I was just a kid and it scared me witless…but Pet Semetary is really a horror book, right? So my reaction to that book and the impact it had on my writing career is for WIWWIW ~ The Horror Edition in a few days time.
So how did I come about writing paranormal romance? Blame Jess Dee. Okay, there’s a step in there I’ve missed. Between writing my sci-fi romances and Jess Dee’s massive impact on my writing, there was a 2005 request from Angela James at Samhain Publishing to submit a sci-fi romance. I didn’t accept that invitation? Why? Cause I was scared. Scared to write for someone other than Changeling Press who I knew would take anything I sent to them. So I didn’t write a sci-fi for Samhain. (It would take another four years and two paranormal releases at Samhain before I actually submitted a sci-fi manuscript to them. How bloody stupid am I??) I kept writing my sci-fi novellas…and then one day, while driving home from Kindy-gym with my baby girl gurgling away in the back of my car, a sentence popped into my head. Just one…
The stink of sex, sin and death seeped into Declan O’Connell’s nostrils, overripe and acrid all at once.
That one line itched in the back of my head for months until, no longer able to ignore it, I sat down at my computer and typed it. Then I typed some more. Then some more. And before I knew it, I’d written a 67,000 word paranormal romance about an Irish werewolf who wakes up to find himself in a cage in a science lab in Sydney, Australia. I have to honestly say, up until this point I’d never read a paranormal romance novel. I was still devouring King but for all his paranormal awesomeness, there wasn’t any real romance in them (excluding Bag of Bones…one of my favourites). But I wrote Savage Retribution and sent it to Samhain, pretty certin they’d completely forgotten the invitation to submit to them over a year ago… It wasn’t sci-fi. It wasn’t my normal genre at all.
And they accepted it. It sold so well all parties involved were stunned. I received emails from readers asking for more.
And then, because I am an idiot, I went back to the safety of my sci-fi novella world and didn’t send anything to Samhain again. Until 2009.
In March 2009 I met Jess Dee at the first Australian Romance Readers Convention in Melbourne. Speaking at the convention was MaryJanice Davidson and Sherrilyn Kenyon. Jess Dee devoures Kenyon’s paranormal romances with the ferocious appetite of a starving animal. She loves them and spoke at length to me about them. She stood up and asked Kenyon a question during Kenyon’s Key Note address. So infectious was her love of paranormal romances (and in particular, Sherrilyn Kenyon) I had to discover why. I was ashamed to admit to her I had never read any of the authors she listed (Kenyon was on the top of that list, of course) So when I arrived home from Melbourne, I bought myself Dream Lover, Sherrilyn Kenyon’s first book in the Dark Hunter series, the first book in Kerri Arthur’s Riley Jenson series and MaryJanice Davidson’s Undead and Unwed. I read all three and I was hooked. I mean, I was HOOKED! Obsessed. Addicted.
Undead and Unwed
Betsy Taylor turns 30, gets laid off, is killed by an SUV and wakes up dead all in the same week. The vampire community is convinced she’s their prophesied Queen. But she’s not having any of it—she’s got shoes to buy! And now the undead world is being turned upside-down by a Bela Lugosi throwback and her subjects expect her to take care of it! Why didn’t she read the handbook? But her would-be consort, Eric Sinclair, is (annoyingly) ever-present. If only he wasn’t so tall, dark, gorgeous…and undead.
***
Paranormal romance? Werewolves? Vampires? Demons? All existing in normal human settings I actually knew of? Had visited? Sure I’d written one, but for me it was an abnormality. I was the sci-fi girl, remember? I still don’t really know where Savage Retribution came from, but in my mind I was still the sci-fi geek who only wrote about aliens…and only read about aliens. And here was this whole new genre of romance I’d never really let myself explore. Here was….magic! Here was powerful heroes of unknown danger and origin. Here was mysterious “rules” existing within our own. Here was “interesting” in the “boring” of normal life.
And as a result of Jess Dee, I wrote Death, The Vamp and his Brother, and the paranormal flood gates where open. So many more would come…
Paranormal. Say it with me. Para-normal… Taking something boring and making it interesting. Or, as I like to say, take one common, everyday dog-walker, add one lone werewolf and shake…
Posted in Lexxie Couper on August 28, 2011 by Lexxie Couper
I write in multiple genres. It isn’t essentially by choice, it’s just that I can’t NOT write in multiple genres. A story pops into my head and I have to write it. That story may involve werewolves, aliens, bounty hunters, demon-possessed scultpures, corporate CEOs or world famous rock stars…I never really know until the story starts flowing. It’s been said to me a few times that maybe I should just pick one, focuss on one genre for a while but I love writing in multiple genres. I love the different freedom and scope each one provides.
As part of my week at International Heat I’m going to explore the different genres I write, share with you my favourite books by other awesome authors of the same genre and give you a little peek-see into what I’m writing or have written. Oh, and just because I’m so bloody wonderful (*grin*) I’m going to give away a GRAND PRIZE at the end of my week. What’s the prize? An ebook of the winners choice from EACH OF THE GENRES I write in. All you need do is comment. The more you comment, the more chances you get.
Ready? Let’s start with the first genre I was publishing in: sci-fi.
Thanks to my older brothers, I grew up watching Dr. Who, Star Trek and Star Wars. I saw the first Star Wars film (Episode IV) when I was six. My first crush I can remember was Spock, followed by Han Solo and then Tom Baker’s Timelord. Even as a kid I recognised the fact in space/sci-fi there was no limit to the imagination. When all my friends were playing with Barbies, I was pulling my Barbies’ heads off, painting the headless bodies green and turning them into alien women who set out to trick my sole Steve Austin doll who, depending on my mood, would be either Spock, Solo or one of the doctors. I turned all my paper cups into daleks. Sci-fi was scary and exciting and unpredictable. I loved it. It suited me. So it seemed only natural when I decided to seriously write a book and submit it to a publisher, I would write a sci-fi one.
I’ve been reading sci-fi for just about ever (Herbert, Asimov, Adams, Vonnegut to name a few), so imagine my delight when I discovered there was such a genre as sci-fi romance? And quadruple that delight when I discovered the sinfully wonderful world of erotic sci-fi romance! Hot damn, was I in reading heaven. My first erotic sci-fi tale was Elayne S. Venton’s Bonds of Justice. Suffice to say, as a reader I never looked back from that book. A month after reading it, my very first contracted book, Shifting Lust 1: The Chamelyon’s Curse was released.
To this day, I devour books by Susan Grant, re-read Angela Knights’ Jayne’s Warlord that many times the pages of the book have started to fall out, and thoroughly enjoy the “naughty” stuff written with such evocative skill by Bianca D’Arc, Evangeline Anderson and Morgan Hawke. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (while not strictly sci-fi) is on my Top Five All-Time Bestest Books list. My favourite sci-fi romance is Angela Knight’s Jayne’s Warlord followed closely by Bianca D’Arc’s Hara’s Legacy. My favourite favourite favourite sci-fi book of all time is Douglas Adam’s Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I seriously know where my towel is…and Ford Prefect is, in the most bizarre way, incredibly sexy.
Today, I self-published Agent ~ The Boundaries Book Two. As you can probably tell, it’s the second book in my erotic sci-fi/werewolf trilogy available from Kindle (other formats will be coming soon. Promise). It is, for me, the perfect example of my love of sci-fi. There’s blaster guns, translocators, aliens, hyper-flight and sexy-as-sin brooding heroes…all mixed together with some seriously scorching sex and smoldering romance.
Take a look at the prologue…
The Suck and Blow Inn fell silent seconds after Tornada stepped into its murky depths. More than fifty patrons—most with eyes tinged pink from a Bliss high—turned to watch his sauntered progress across the floor.
All took in the Jjor disrupter strapped to his thigh; a weapon banned in both the Inner and Outer Boundaries by the Unified Parliament. Tornada smiled to himself, enjoying the fear in the silence that followed him across the floor. Just the way it should be.
He stopped at the bar, resting his elbows on its grimy surface as he gave the Hetap behind it a level look. “I’m looking for a redheaded Raavelian female.”
The barkeeper poured a Jjor Slap and placed it on the counter between Tornada’s elbows. “Got a brunette Raavelian in Den Two and a redheaded Terran in Den Eight. Take your pick.”
Tornada raised the Slap to his mouth, letting the Hetap see the dagger sheathed under his armpit. “No. Raavelian. Red hair. Green eyes.” He took a drink. “Likely to rip your throat out if you look at her the wrong way.”
A shimmer of recognition flashed across the Hetap’s face and he licked his lips, suddenly on edge. “Psy Lyso’s slave.”
Tornada’s smile stretched wide. Excellent. “When was she here.”
The bartender glanced around the still silent inn, before returning his dull, mud-colored gaze once more to Tornada. “Almost a moon cycle ago.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
A slight hesitation followed, as if the Hetap weighed up something in his mind. “No.” He gave his head a sharp shake, multiple chins wobbling. “Lyso had a run-in with two mean looking bastards. Could’ve been Boundary Guardians.” He scrunched up his face. “One of them—a big fuckin’ Terran—had freaky yellow eyes.”
Tornada lowered his Slap and gave the bartender an impatient look. “The Raavelian?”
“Last I saw, she was walkin’ to an empty den with the same Yrathian that came in with the Terran. Those scarred-face bastards meant to be impressive shit in the sack, I’ve heard. Don’t know what Lyso was thinking, giving up something so fine to a Yrathian.” The bartender shook his head again. “’Specially not one with the scars of a Master Pleasurer.”
An unexpected but familiar surge of jealousy ripped through Tornada but he ignored it, giving the Hetap a flat look instead. “Do you know who she left with?”
The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “Did Lyso steal her from you or somethin’?”
“No.”
“Why you after her, then?”
An image of Jaienna flashed into Tornada’s mind; long copper-fire hair fanning her bare shoulders as she crawled up the length of his body on all fours, her exotic green eyes promising aallll sorts of pleasure. “No reason.”
The Hetap raised his eyebrows. “Well, I know Lyso was pissed to lose her. He came storming out of Den Five, pissing blood and cursing the Terran. Seemed more annoyed about the Raavelian than his Bliss deal gone wrong.” A shudder rippled through the Hetap’s flabby frame. “Stupid, if you ask me. I’d rather cut off me own dick than piss off Hrung Crortek.”
Tornada turned and stared out at the hovering patrons, playing over everything the Hetap had said in his mind. He now had four leads: a Yrathian with the scars of a Master Pleasurer; a Terran with unusual eyes; the Bliss dealer, Psy Lyso, and the infamous Ornithion crime lord, Hrung Crortek, a vile creature who virtually owned the Outer Boundaries. Jaienna could be with any of them, none of them… or all four of them, depending on what she was after. Another wave of stinging jealousy spiked into his gut and he cracked the knuckles of both hands. Fuck.
He closed his eyes, an image of Jaienna filling his head immediately. A naked Jaienna straddling an equally naked and faceless Yrathian, her hips rolling backward and forward over his as she rode his cock. She let her head drop back, allowing the naked blue-skinned Xolotlan kneeling to her right to press his mouth to her arched neck, just as an aroused Hrung Crortek appeared behind her, snaking his clawed hands over her shoulders to cup and squeeze her perfect, heavy breasts.
Three of them? Where’s the…
The image shimmered. Suddenly—still being fucked and fondled by the Yrathian, Xolotlan and Ornithion—Jaienna gazed up at a hulking Terran. A faceless Terran with eyes like burning yellow gold. Fuck me, her lips said as she rocked against the thrusting Yrathian. Fuck me now.
Searing heat shot straight to Tornada’s cock and he opened his eyes, cursing his over-active imagination. Four leads.
Turning back to the hovering Hetap, he leant across the bar. “You got a holo-generator here?”
“Den Eleven. End of the corridor. It’s ten thousand chits per session.”
Tornada straightened. “It’s mine for the next three hours.” Stepping away from the bar, he headed toward the sex dens. Four leads to follow with Jaienna at the end of one of them. Maybe. If he was lucky.
Stepping into Den Eleven, he removed a small transparent rod from a hidden compartment in his jacket and slid it into the holo-generator, standing still as the den pulsed with a vibrant purple light. A slight buzz filled the room—a sure sign the generator was black-market—and then a woman appeared before him, red hair a tumbled mass of copper-fire falling about her face and bare shoulders, green eyes flashing. “Hello, Tornada,” the holo-projection of Jaienna Ti said, voice tinny and hollow. “Shall we play?”
***
See? Holo-projections, seedy space sex dens, aliens, exotic drinks, ray guns… *sigh* I’m in heaven….
Why do I write sci-fi romance? Because I’m a horny geek and proud of it
“Doc” Gordie has tried to keep Steve McKenna at arm’s length, but the sexy coyote shifter is under her skin, in her blood and in her heart. No matter how much she fears what he makes her feel, she can’t bear to stay away. After he rescues her from a vicious attack, Gordie is helpless to deny the sizzling attraction burning between them.
There hasn’t been a day Steve has not wanted Doc in his bed, but bruised and bloody is not what he had in mind. The need for revenge is riding his coyote—almost as much as his aching desire to finally claim Doc as his own. But that will have to wait. He must first convince Doc the safest place for her is by his side. When a second attack draws them together, suppressed needs explode, leaving no doubt where they both belong.
But danger is never far behind and Gordie is forced to make a fatal decision that could destroy all they’ve worked so hard to discover.
Excerpt
They spent the drive out of town in silence. Gordie didn’t mind. It gave her a few minutes to compose herself as the knowledge of what they’d be before this day was over began to sink in. This time the shiver that rolled down her spine had nothing to do with fear. The thought of finally touching Steve like she’d wanted to for so long sent heat shooting through her veins to pool in delicate flesh. Her breasts felt heavy, her sex swollen. Moisture soaked her panties and she had to admit, if only to herself, he made her want things she’d never imagined.
Steve pulled into the attached garage and switched off the engine. The silence seemed to echo around them, the air vibrated with the stillness and Gordie quivered as the power of the moment flowed over her. Once they stepped from the car nothing would be the same. No, the change had happened back at the clinic. When she’d needed Steve with a bone-deep ache that she’d registered even while consumed with fear. It was that one instant in time where the world had clicked into place and she’d seen the future as it should be.
In a second she’d gone from terrified and panicked to calm and centered. She knew what she had to do. Survive at any cost. Steve turned toward her, his forearm resting on the top of the steering wheel. He didn’t speak, just watched her with that penetrating gaze. The one that read all her innermost thoughts and made her feel all squirmy inside. No man had ever affected her the way he did and until today Gordie hadn’t thought herself capable of handling him. Now she knew differently.
“There’s no turning back now, Doc.” His fingers toyed with the ends of her hair.
She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “I know.”
He smiled. “That easy?”
“It’s amazing what a little fright can do for the senses.” She tried to return his smile but it somehow slipped from her lips before it could form.
“Come here.” Steve released her seatbelt and pulled her into his lap, pinning her between his body and the wheel. “You’re safe here, Doc.”
Gordie figured he meant in his house, but for her, safety was his arms, the security of his embrace and the strength he offered her willingly. She moved closer, nuzzled her face against the warmth of his neck and drew in his scent. It amazed her how just that small action could soothe her nerves and rile them at the same time.
“Gordie.” Warm air ruffled her hair before she felt his lips press to her temple. “Come on, let’s get inside or everyone will arrive and find us fucking in my truck.”
She gasped. His use of strong language didn’t bother her, it was the images the words provoked that made her breathless.
“Yeah, I’m that close.” He chuckled as he opened the door and maneuvered them out of the cab.
“I can walk.”
“I know, but I want to carry you and you’re going to let me.” His arms tightened around her.
“Okay.”
Steve laughed. “All this easy agreement is starting to worry me, Doc.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back to my disagreeable self soon enough and then you’ll wish you hadn’t started this.”
“Never.”
“You say that now…”
He swung her legs down until her toes barely touched the ground and pressed her against the side of his truck. “I’ll say it forever.”
She stared into his dark eyes and felt the truth of his words to the depth of her soul. Gordie watched as Steve lowered his head, his lips drawing closer to hers. His breath brushed over her skin in a butter-soft caress, a whisper of contact, a prelude of what would follow. From one heartbeat to the next his mouth was on hers, his tongue thrusting between her lips to delve inside.
Steve stroked his tongue over hers, toyed with her, coaxed her into joining him in his demand for more. She wound her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, held on to him as hot lashes of lust struck her. Gordie pressed her body to his, crushed her breasts to his chest and ground her clit on the erection trapped between them. Pounding need thumped a beat as old as time as their mouths continued to devour.
On the verge of an orgasm, Gordie whimpered, the small sound swallowed as he drove the kiss deeper. His hands gripped her hips, pulling her tighter against his straining flesh and pressing into her clit with the perfect amount of pressure to send her into orbit. Convulsion after convulsion seized her. Moisture flooded her panties and the aroma of her arousal floated around them.
He eased back, lightened the strokes of his tongue, and slowed the thrust of his hips. As the final waves of her climax ebbed away he pulled his mouth from hers. Breathing hard, Steve tucked her head under his chin and held her. Gordie struggled to catch her breath and her heart beat hard enough to bruise her ribs.
Posted in Uncategorized on August 24, 2011 by Lexxie Couper
Get your attention?
Today launches the beginning of the Bandicoot Cove experience. I’m pretty sure most of you know what that is by now, so without further carry-on, let me say YAY!! Exotic Indulgence is now available. But here’s the thing, you don’t have to buy it cause it’s FREE!! FREE, I tells ya, FREE!!
Check it out here, but be warned…it’s a ménage à quatre (hee, told you we decided to write something naughty, didn’t I)
There’s something magical about Bandicoot Cove. It’s where Kylie Sullivan’s dream of managing a luxury, five-star resort is about to come true. And it’s where people tend to fall in love. Kylie should know. She’s fallen hard—for three very different men.
There’s Brad, who knows just how to relieve her stress and send her body on a crash course through pleasure. Hemi, her untamed Maori, who awakens her primitive side. And Finn, the sexy bartender whose specialty is Screaming Orgasms.
The three men fulfill all her sexual fantasies, but Kylie knows reality will eventually set in and she’ll have to choose. But how? For now she decides not to decide—at least until she makes sure the resort’s soft opening comes off without a hitch.
As far as Brad, Hemi and Finn are concerned, Kylie’s life is too much work and not enough play. The only choice they plan to give her is to say yes to their wildly passionate proposal…
Warning: Three sexy men pleasing one uninhibited woman—how much more warning do you need? This short story is long on heat, with a drool-worthy setting and sexual interludes in the office, at the beach and the bar. You want a day job like this.
Undead and Unwed
Today, I self-published 
Exotic Indulgence
