A Nix Review - Hold Me Down Hard by Cathryn Fox (3 Stars)

When Eden Carver, Iowa farm girl turned NY actress, decides to seduce the sexy cop next door, she begins to wonder if she’s bitten off more than she can chew.　


The last thing Officer Jay Bennett wants is to cross a line with the sweet and innocent country girl—no matter how much he’d like to help himself to a nibble. Not only are they in the friendship zone, a naïve girl like Eden doesn’t belong in his dangerous world.　


But when she asks him to help her rehearse lines, and things go from simmer to boil, he finds himself doing the one thing he swore he’d never do.He knows he needs to walk away from temptation, but when sweet little Eden bites back, it tilts his world on its axis.Because biting back changes everything.   

So, this was a very short novella that took me just over half an hour to read. It isn’t something to read if you want a fully fleshed out story as it is literally a snippet, more a beginning of their tale. I wanted something more, something more substantial but what I got was a seriously hot little novella with a lot of sex and not much else.

I enjoyed the premise well enough. The plot that she wrote to get him in her bed was hilarious, pure cheese factor, and I did enjoy the fact that she knew what she wanted from a lover.  He was a dreamy, slightly dark hero, who was afraid that his edges were too rough for her. Together, did I believe in them as a couple? A little bit. I thought they could complement each other but to be honest the only thing that I can comment on is there compatibility in bed. That I liked.

This story is one giant sex scene with little bits of plot thrown in as filler. This isn’t a bad thing; it is just what it is. The sex itself is very well written and very dirty; it was certainly something that left you needing a cold shower.  The heroine like very hot, dirty sex and the hero was more than happy to oblige. The scenes were scorching hot....if you like it smutty, this may be one for you.

This was a very short and sexy novella that is pure heat. If you want something to get you in the mood or you just need a short fix of smut, this is truly one you should try.

Authors After Dark 2013 : BA Tortuga Talks Romance

Hi, I’m BA and my boys touch, or Don’t Fence Me In. ;-)

*grins*

One of the things about meeting people is that the first thing they ask me is what I do for a living (it’s not often that folks ask where I’m from, just what part of Texas), and I tell them, I write romance.

“Oh? What kind of romance?” they ask.

That’s where it gets tricky.

You see, I write people falling in love. Sometimes it’s a girl falling in love with a girl. Sometimes it’s a boy falling in love with a girl. Sometimes it’s a boy falling in love with a boy. Sometimes it’s a boy and a boy and a girl falling in love with each other.  Sometimes it’s even more complicated than that. Sometimes it’s cowboys, sometimes it’s shifters. 

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Wendy doesn’t need any help to get rid of her evil ex. As a cop, she can handle anything life throws at her. In fact, she’s sure of it, even when trying to capture the ex alone puts her friends in danger. Too bad local werewolf alpha Brett has different ideas. He doesn’t care if Wendy wants to be a lone wolf. He has to protect all the werewolves in his town. Including her. Especially her.

 Wendy finds Brett irritating, overbearing and sexy beyond belief. Brett thinks Wendy is trouble with a capital T, and hotter than the dog days of summer. Butting heads can be fun, but there are other ways to rub against each other. Intimate, lusty ways. These two sexy shapeshifters are playing to win.

Periodically I write rednecks. Ecoterrorists. Vampires. Pirates. Southerners. Italians. Hell, y’all. I write whoever is strong enough to beat the living shit out of the other characters trying to take over my brain.

Let me tell y’all, folks wander off with glazed eyes when I try to explain that.

So I tell them, I’m pretty easy (no comments from the Peanut Gallery on that fact, please), but if there are folks falling in love in my books, they touch.

Yep, my boys touch.

And if my boy is straight? He has friends that touch. My girls touch. Boys touch girls. People spent a shitload of time touching each other – mostly in the good way.

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Country hat act Markus Kane is pretty skeptical when one of his oldest industry friends calls and asks him to do a joint tour. He and Seb haven’t seen each other in years, not since Markus quit drinking. Maybe not since he and Sebastian Longchamps almost lost their careers to the fact that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

 Sebastian is a country-fried Cajun rocker, and he’s been missing Markus ever since they broke up all those years ago. His label thinks he and Markus are a match made in ticket-sales heaven, but Seb knows better. He knows that it won’t take even the tiniest effort for Markus to break his heart all over again, and this time around he has way more to lose.

 Time has changed both men, though, and while Markus and Seb try to fight their addictions, the big music industry machine has plans for them that don’t include the quiet life. Can Markus convince Sebastian that there are things more important in life than adrenaline and control? And can Sebastian make Markus understand that all he really wants is his music and his man?

I’m not going to look at you and say, I’m a m/m writer, or a m/m/f writer or a m/f writer. I’m not going to say I’m just a paranormal writer or a western writer or a contemporary writer. I’m going to tell you that right now I’m finishing up a m/m western in the Roughstock universe and I’m ¾ through a m/m/f featuring werekitties in Las Vegas and I’m working on an angsty m/m western and a post-apocalyptic western and a m/f contemporary and I have a m/m/m/m historical in edits…

I’m a romance writer. I want hot sex, some fighting, a little growling, and tight jeans. The rest is details.

Nummy details, but details just the same.

Please come visit me at http://www.batortuga.com to see alllllll my assorted details.

BA Tortuga

Because Sometimes Fistfights are Foreplay.

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Texan to the bone and an unrepentant Daddy's Girl, BA Tortuga spends her days with her basset hounds, getting tattooed, texting her sisters, and eating Mexican food. When she's not doing that, she's writing. She spends her days off watching rodeo, knitting and surfing porn sites in the name of research. BA's personal saviors include her partner, Julia Talbot, her best friend, Sean Michael, and coffee. Lots of coffee. Really good coffee.

Having written everything from fist-fighting rednecks to hard-core cowboys to werewolves, BA does her damnedest to tell the stories of her heart, which was raised in Northeast Texas, but is feeling the Colorado mountains calling. With books ranging from hard-hitting GLBT romance, to fiery menages, to the most traditional of love stories, BA refuses to be pigeon-holed by anyone but the voices in her head.

Authors After Dark 2013 : Sandy Sullivan -What do we like most about cowboy heroes?

To me, there is just something about the way they carry themselves, treat their women and fill out a pair of Wranglers.

They always seemed to be tough when needed, but soft with their chosen mate, mother, sister or child. They can rope and brand cattle without regard to the rough job. It’s just part of who they are and what they do.

I love writing cowboys on a ranch or off although most of mine live on a ranch, work with cattle or horses and live the cowboy way of life. They are strong physically and mentally, but they may have a weakness or two including the woman they want to be with. I do torture my heroes some in my stories. They aren’t perfect by any means. Most of the time they are stubborn, pigheaded, a drinker, a playboy or some other flaw in their personality. It’s never easy for them to fall in love.

My newest series is called Cowboy Dreamin’. I know I dream of cowboys all the time so I figured it fit. The first book in the series is called Make Mine a Cowboy and it’s about a romance writer (go figure LOL) who runs out of gas on the back roads of Bandera Texas in the middle of a thunderstorm. She’s rescued by none other than her fantasy cowboy who is a real cowboy. She writes them for a living (kind of like me) and loves putting them into her erotic romance stories, but she never thought she’d run into her own personal cowboy. Mesa takes some time to stay on the guest ranch to absorb her own inspiration from the real cowboys. Joel thinks she’s cute, but a little strange.

So there is my take on romancing the cowboy. What’s your favorite thing about cowboy romance?

Mesa Arraguso writes about hot cowboys for a living. Being a romance writer has it perks and its drawbacks. She spends a lot of time alone in front of her computer, but she gets to fantasize about incredibly hot men wearing cowboy boots and Stetsons. While visiting San Antonio, Texas for a writer’s conference, she finds herself stranded on the back roads of Bandera only to be rescued by one of the most gorgeous men she’s ever encountered, be it fantasy or for real.

Joel Young is a cowboy. From the top of his Stetson to the tip of his dirty cowboy boots, he’s cowboy through and through. Along with rescuing women when they do silly things like running out of gas miles from town on a dirt road, he spends his days herding cattle, fixing fences and breaking horses.

Can one handsome cowboy and a city-girl from LA find common ground is the Hill Country long enough to see beyond a quick fling?

************* 

Sandy Sullivan is a romance author, who, when not writing, spends her time with her husband Shaun on their farm in middle Tennessee. She loves to ride her horses, play with their dogs and relax on the porch, enjoying the rolling hills of her home south of Nashville. County music is a passion of hers and she loves to listen to it while she writes.

She is an avid reader of romance novels and enjoys reading Nora Roberts, Jude Deveraux and Susan Wiggs. Finding new authors and delving into something different helps feed the need for literature. A registered nurse by education, she loves to help people and spread the enjoyment of romance to those around her with her novels. She loves cowboys so you'll find many of her novels have sexy men in tight jeans and cowboy boots

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Sexy Cover's Up : Dead Sexy Dragon

The last thing dragon shifter Stig Wyvern needs is his dead friend’s kid sister showing up on his doorstep. He’s just minutes away from entering a mating phase. Sharing his isolated house with the young woman he’s desperately lusted after for quite some time is a recipe for disaster.

 But Cora Cardenas has nowhere else to go. She’s in deep trouble with some really nasty people and Stig is the only one who can protect her. That he’s deliciously sexy and makes her tingle with the simplest of smiles is just a bonus.

 Cora quickly realizes Stig is hiding something from her. To make matters worse, she’s plagued with breathtakingly naughty dreams starring a shadowed lover who bears a startling resemblance to her host. And just what the hell is going on down in the basement at night? 

Stig needs to get Cora out of his house but his inner beast has other ideas. He’s found his mate and she’s not going anywhere...

Dragon's!! I love Dragons :) This one looks amazing.... 

An Author's After Dark 2013 Spotlight - Claire Ashgrove "(Im) perfect Characters"

When I asked for some topic suggestions, our lovely hostess made an observation that I’ve known, but haven’t heard many people remark on.  And I was tickled pink that she commented on it.  My characters are imperfect.

You see, for me to write a story, I have to believe the story is possible.  And for that to happen, the characters who are going to find a never-ending love have to be plausible.  I don’t know many Barbie and Kens, frankly.  Sure, I have some drop-dead gorgeous friends, but beneath the muscles, or the silky hair, there are flaws.  Things they are self-conscious about.  Secrets they don’t want random strangers to discover. They are real human beings.  And those are the people I want to write about—the fictional people we can all relate to in some fashion.

It can be a tricky balance, to be certain.  The character still has to be likeable and fit an acceptable paradigm of actions.  But imperfect characters are so fun to create!  Take for instance Noelle in Immortal Surrender.  She’s not a knockout, but she’s pretty.  To compensate for that ‘advantage’ I gave her glasses and a naivety that stems from being teased most of her teenage years for being the nerdy girl.  She’s still a bit nerdy and she’s clumsy.  Which made for some very fun scenes when her feet got in the way!

Farran de Clare, loyal member of the cursed Knights Templar, wants nothing to do with predestined mates. Even the Almighty won’t turn him into a fool again—he’d rather sacrifice his soul. Yet in the scientist Noelle Keane, a devout atheist, Farran meets the seraph designed for him.

 Ordered by the archangel Gabriel to protect Noelle, the possessor of a sacred relic that could give Azazel incredible power, Farran swears to do his duty—but in name only. Fighting an attraction that grows with each day, he’s determined that he’ll never pledge himself to her.

 As they war over her future, their mutual passion ignites a conflict far more damning. But before Noelle will agree to eternity with him, she demands the ultimate sacrifice—his heart

Imperfectness adds another dimension to the characters.  Alexei in Lie to Me is one of my favorite male characters.  He’s tough, in control, strong, sexy and smart.  But he has a shameful secret that makes believing in the woman he loves very difficult. 

After helping to break up a Russian human trafficking ring as part of the CIA’s elite Black Opal team, Alexei Nikanova’s newest assignment is to rescue one of the stolen women and return her to her father. When he arrives in Dubai, he discovers his target is Sasha Zablosky—a woman he knows all too well, and who has haunted him ever since their one unforgettable night together. But he finds Sasha reluctant to leave her Sheik, the only true friend she’s ever known. Only Alexei can’t give her a choice.

 With their yearning roused by intrigue, Alexei and Sasha can no longer resist and spend night after night in forbidden pleasure. Soon Alexei finds himself falling for her even as he battles a shadowy menace to protect her. But Sasha is no innocent. She has a past darker than she could ever admit or that Alexei could ever forgive. And it is about to explode into her life once more. Now, as the lies they tell themselves—and each other—pull them deeper into a perilous desire, what began as simple passion becomes a love certain to destroy them and end the lives of countless innocents.

I like to think of my characters as just a little bit broken.  I believe the trick to doing this is to start with an acceptable mold, then dig a little deeper.  Find that birthmark, that hidden childhood event, that insecurity that the other character can both make fester as well as heal.  Once you’ve identified it, make it a poignant part of their lives, not just something stuffed beneath the bed.

After all, we know every romance has a happily ever after.  It’s fictional fantasy guaranteed to melt our hearts.  But isn’t it so much more real and ever-lasting if we are looking at characters we might possibly encounter in the world around us, as opposed to the princes and princesses we will likely never encounter?

Thanks for having me here today!  I look forward to seeing everyone at Authors After Dark this year.  Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts on flawed characters!

~Claire

www.claireashgrove.com

www.toristclaire.com