Book Review – Her Master’s Voice

Today’s is the first of three reviews I’m doing in the next two weeks.

Warning ahead of time, this is a romance in the Erotica subgenre of Romance. I’ve tried to keep it clean for my readers I know are more conservative, but no guarantees. With that proviso, let’s continue!

 

Book Blurb:

When young Kate receives an anonymous text message she doesn’t realize how much her world is about to change. Surrendering to her inner most desires Kate soon finds herself submitting to the erotic, sensual and sensitive demands of her mysterious Master.
Drawn into a world of erotic love Kate quickly realizes all that matters in her world is Her Master’s Voice.

JUST A TASTE…
Kate got to her knees on the living room floor and tied the red scarf around her head to blindfold herself.

In the sudden darkness Kate’s senses seemed heightened. Every small sound made her flinch, and her mind quickly became overwhelmed with erotic images. Her naked skin felt cool, and yet she felt as though she was on fire. She rested her hands on her thighs. Her palms were sweating.
The silence seemed to slow time. She became aware of every new sound, and each small noise took on greater importance. Her attention was tuned to the sound of the front door, and when she heard the scrape of distant shuffling her body suddenly tensed in anticipation. A shudder thrilled through her body and her breath caught in the back of her throat.

Then she heard the door swinging slowly open.

He was here!
Kate’s body tensed. She heard his soft footsteps as he crossed the room. She could feel him nearby, standing somewhere in front of her. She gulped and licked her lips nervously.

“You are perfectly safe,” her Master said, and Kate felt herself literally melting at the deep confident assurance in his voice.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

More footsteps. Kate sensed him walking around her, as if he was inspecting his new property. She straightened her back.
“You are beautiful,” he said. By the sound of his voice, Kate knew he was standing close behind her. She stayed silent, and now he was here, now it was all really happening… her mind was blank. Her whole focus was on the sound of his voice and the sense of him being near her.

My Review: 

I am still new to the Erotica/Erotic Romance genre. I’m still wrapping my mind around the dominate/submissive aspect of the story. After receiving an anonymous text, Kate starts living out her deepest secret desires with a mysterious man who doesn’t make his true self known to her until halfway through the story. When he does, they both start to feel a deeper connection than they’ve been experiencing up to that point. They learn not only about each others pleasures but also how to trust one another.

I won’t tell you who the man is because I think that would spoil it for you. Once he is revealed, Kate must decide if this is the lifestyle she wants to lead or if she’s willing to continue on as she as, unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

At it’s heart, this is a story of a woman finding herself and being comfortable with who she is. It’s about being strong enough to let someone else be in charge, knowing that to submit to passion doesn’t necessarily mean a person is weak. It’s ultimately about trusting another soul completely. There were a few things that I didn’t quite get into, but that’s just me and my lack of exposure to the lifestyle of dominant/submissive.

Intrigued? You can find copies of Vivien’s book at the following locations: Amazon     Goodreads

Want to spread the word on Twitter? Use the following tags in your tweets: @viviensparx  #HerMastersVoice

Vivien is giving away 5 e-book copies of “Her Master’s Voice” so make sure you enter the Rafflecopter for your chance to win. Rafflecopter doesn’t play nice with WordPress so here’s the link where you can Enter to Win.  And don’t forget to follow along on the rest of the tour to read more about “Her Master’s Voice” and of course for more chances to win.

 

Vivien Sparx

As a writer of erotic romance, the beauty of the genre is not in creating lavish settings for my stories.

Nor is my fascination for erotic romance drawn from the opportunity to create handsome heroes and beautiful heroines.

My real love for the genre stems from the opportunity to take my readers on a journey and engage as many of their emotions as possible.

I believe writing erotic romance gives authors the most influence over how a reader feels as we engage them in our stories.

Writers of action books, or horror books certainly can create compelling situations, but with erotic romance we writers can immerse our readers in a multitude of emotions unprecedented in any other form of creative fiction.

I can frustrate readers, make them laugh, make them cry, delight them, intrigue them, inform them – erotic fiction is a total emotional experience, and it is gratifying to hear readers respond to stories with passion.

I believe readers want to be engaged and drawn into the pages of a story, and as a writer of erotic romance, we have the greatest opportunity because our stories are always relatable. They may be fictional worlds and fictional characters, but the themes of love and romance and erotica are so universal, and so personal to each of us that we all respond to stories in different ways.

But we all respond.

And that’s the true joy of writing erotic romance. It matters not so much how you respond as you read… it matters only that you do respond. If a writer can engage you and make you feel, then the story’s journey is one well worth taking.

Website │ Facebook │ Twitter│ Goodreads

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The sales aspect of writing

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The temps are starting to rise here in south Texas. This looks like a nice cool place to sit and relax, maybe get some writing done. Or maybe just pick up some inspiration and recharge the old creative batteries.

Especially after these past few weeks.

I’ve talked about how much I dislike sales here. I’m slowly starting to find the balance. This weekend was my first book signing, promoting the When Love trilogy. It was held at a local used book store. The owner is also nice enough to let us have our writers group meetings there.

Wanna know what I learned? I sold books to people I just knew were going to shoot me down because I talked to them.  I had a fifteen minute discussion with one woman. It was pretty cool. I really think it was more of how I carried, or ‘sold’ myself, than the books themselves. And that just might be the key. I’ve been up on stage signing before, where you have to sell the performance to the audience with your voice and the song. Translate that to speaking and I just might be able to handle this whole sales thing.

Do I still hate sales? Yes. Is self-promotion annoying to do? Yep. BUT I think I’m slowly starting to find the balance. I think the one woman bought all my books because not only did I talk to her, I was able to answer all the questions she fired in my direction. Will that happen every time? I seriously doubt it. One person walked in and asked about an author I’d never heard before. I saw the esteem drop as I said it and she never revisited the table. That’s okay. Everyone has different reading tastes.

There was one question I was asked frequently. “Is this like that 50 Shades book?” sigh  “No ma’am. It’s a romance, but not like that one.” LOL It was kind of funny, but a little frustrating. I don’t know if it’s just because of the media saturation that series received or if it’s because there are so many sub-genres and levels of romance and steam that readers don’t know?

If it’s a confusion thing, then I have the perfect opportunity to promote romance and help it shed some of the stigma that still surrounds the genre. Having that passion toward what I do and help promote not only the genre but other writers within, will help me promote my books better than me beating people over the head with a stick saying “Buy My Book!” Or at least, that’s my wish.

Have a great week. Happy graduation to those graduating on Friday and have a safe Memorial Weekend. I’ve got three book reviews coming up so I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget about all that.

Melanie

Education – is it worth the time/cost?

Graduation season is once again upon us. And inevitably, the discussions start popping up on the major news sites about which degrees are worth the cost, which fields are hiring, etc., etc.

Sorry it’s blurry. Me walking at Regis University Commencement, May 2011.

I actually have a degree in Elementary Education and a Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Am I working in either one of those fields? No and kinda. To understand this whole process, we’ll have to go back a little ways.

I took a semester (2 whole classes) of college right after high school…and was bored out of my freaking mind. I didn’t know what to do, took easy classes, had no direction, just plain didn’t want to be there. How I passed the classes, I don’t know. I can’t remember really doing any assignments, though I showed up for the tests.

Then life intervened. I got married, moved to a different town and after three years, decided I wanted to go back and try again. After much discussion, I signed up for three classes at the local college. This is a true story – my mother passed away halfway through the first day of my first class. No kidding. So again, I found myself dropping out of college, this time to help my dad take care of things.

Life continues to intervene. Divorce, dad passes, a few moves and working two jobs for a while to make ends meet. Every now and then I would write a little on the story I started after my mom passed. Most of it was hand written in a spiral notebook, where I had the house plan taped inside the front cover.

Fast forward a few years and I’m remarried, working ONE job (phew!) and the hubby finds out about my story. He sets me up, teaches me how to use Word, gives me a disk of my own and I start transferring all the handwritten scenes into a file. Daunting prospect for someone whose barely touched a personal computer before this point.

Not only does he push me to get the manuscript finished, but he starts pestering me about going back to school. Yes, dear, you pestered. And I thank you for it.

Anyway, I slowly worked on the novel, but avoided the topic of school. After much discussion (again) and finally getting to a point where I was comfortable enough to go back to school, I enrolled in one online class during the summer session. It was a test to see if the format would work for me and how it all worked. I’ll tell you how it worked – fan-freaking-tastically.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being in a class where I can interact with others. For the most part, I learn concepts quickly. I learn, do the assignment, pass the test and am ready to move on. But I’m one of those learners that gets extremely frustrated by those who ask questions because they simply weren’t paying attention and are now freaking out close to test time because they failed to focus and are now holding the entire class hostage. Grr! Drives me insane!! So the online format was perfect for me. I could do the assignments when I wanted, get them turned in and move on without having to wait for someone else. That practice got me in trouble a few times in class because I sat working on the assignments instead of “listening” to the discussion in class (read: rehashing what I paid attention to the FIRST time you said it and am now doing the homework because I have a job to go to).

I lucked out in finding a school where I could work at my own pace. I finished 53 units in two semesters. No, that’s not a typo. Yes, that’s 29 units more than your average 24 units per year requirement. Online just clicked for me.

After graduating with the education degree, I was bored. I couldn’t get on with the local district. Luckily, my job held my position for me while I did the required 3 month student teaching portion of my degree, but I was bored. So I finished the novel that had been laying around gathering virtual dust. I “edited” it and started submitting it. *shudder* I apologize to those agents who saw that version. BUT the responses, or rather lack of, was what started pushing me toward really taking my writing seriously. I started looking at writing courses. I took a few online workshops but wasn’t sure how to apply the knowledge to my manuscript.

Finally, I found the degree plan at Regis University. There were a set of classes I had to take, but some of them were a ‘design your own syllabus’ type. The professors asked me what I wanted to get out of the classes. LOVED IT! They told me I had 7 years to finish my degree. I finished in 1.5 years. Why waste time?

So what does this meandering post have to do with anything? Here’s what. While I might not be teaching in a classroom, the work ethic and study habits I built as an adult college student translated into the discipline I needed to take my writing seriously. I learned how to research, how to decipher legitimate from bogus sources on the internet and I learned how to write. Even the hubby says my writing is drastically different now than when I first started-in a good way.

I work as an assistant to the accounting department head at my Evil Day Job **Thanks Raelyn for that description-I’ve completely stolen it!!** Accounting is the degree the hubby wanted me to get, which I fought tooth and nail against. The EDJ allows me to pay the bills while I pursue my writing. Everything finally came together at the beginning of this year. It may seem like everything is moving fast, but I’ve been at this for almost two decades now.

I’m still taking online workshops and I’ve looked at different college classes. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting to learn. Waiting until I was older helped me rediscover the love of learning I had as a child.

Basically, a degree is what you make of it. It may open new doors or even close a few, but it’s never a waste of time.

Have a great weekend everyone! Pics Tuesday of my very first book signing!

Melanie

 

Release week and helping others.

Wow. Has this last week been crazy! It took Amazon and Barnes and Noble a lot longer to upload this last book than it did the previous two. Lesson learned! From now on, I’m uploading them over the weekend for sale on Tuesdays, like the rest of the new releases! Craziness.

I just want to do this…

Anyway, the trilogy is now out there. I keep comparing the first book to a child out of house for the first time. After being with me for 18 years, it was finally time for the story to be out on its own and in the world making a way for itself.

Do I still have anything to learn about writing? Tons. Are the stories perfect? Probably not. But they’re perfect for the point in my life that I ended the stories.

I just hope that someone, somewhere, gets a few hours of enjoyment out of them and maybe even feels a little bit for the characters. There are more characters and stories clamoring to be told, so there will be more stories out there from this author trying to keep up with her passion.

Now that the last book is written, I can take some time to do a little reading. I have three book reviews coming up. I swear, my to be read pile is probably ten times larger than it was before I started writing seriously. It’s insane! There are so many talented writers out there. Luckily, I’ve found a community that is by and large supportive of its colleagues. I’ve never seen so many willing to help others.

Speaking of helping, Dave Farland, author of the Runelord series, aka Dave Wolverton is an author in need of a little help. his son Ben has been in the hospital for a little over a month after a longboarding accident. He’s finally moving to physical rehabilitation. His progress has been made in leaps in bounds. Dave could still use help. Here are the links, if you feel like donating or contacting the family. Here is a Galley Cat article describing the accident. You can go to the Fund Me project and donate.

Have a great week.

Melanie

Update – Special just for you!

5-13-13 Update – Nook version is available here.

5-13-13 Update – Kindle version is available here.

Still waiting for B&N to publish the Nook version.

5-12-13 – Apparently this is a busy weekend for both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Neither ebook is available for purchase yet. I’ve never had it take this long and want to apologize for the delay. Will post links here, on my Facebook author page and Twitter to make the find a little easier. Thanks for your patience.

When Love Prospers goes live tomorrow!!

I’ll put the buy links on the bookshelf tab. But that’s not the really cool part.

HERE’S the cool part.

Because my readers are awesome, and I’m hoping you’ll tell others about the books, the first two books, When Love Waits and When Love Lingers ebooks will be on sale for a week! It’s a win/win situation!

It’s not only the culmination of a dream, but also the release of a book I didn’t know was there until my friends started prodding me about a trilogy. And I’m glad they did. I hope you’ll like Travis and Helen’s story as much as you’ve enjoyed Emma and Jack’s and Cailyn and Kyle’s journeys.

These links should take you to the page that lists all my books. If not, the individual links will be on the Bookshelf tab starting Saturday the 11th.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Melanie-Macek/e/B00B44HEPA/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/melanie-macek?store=allproducts&keyword=melanie+macek

Grab the copies you’ve missed, tell your friends, leave reviews. And thanks for coming along with me on this journey.

Melanie

Special just for you!

When Love Prospers goes live tomorrow!!

I’ll put the buy links on the bookshelf tab. But that’s not the really cool part.

HERE’S the cool part.

Because my readers are awesome, and I’m hoping you’ll tell others about the books, the first two books, When Love Waits and When Love Lingers ebooks will be on sale for a week! It’s a win/win situation!

It’s not only the culmination of a dream, but also the release of a book I didn’t know was there until my friends started prodding me about a trilogy. And I’m glad they did. I hope you’ll like Travis and Helen’s story as much as you’ve enjoyed Emma and Jack’s and Cailyn and Kyle’s journeys.

These links should take you to the page that lists all my books. If not, the individual links will be on the Bookshelf tab starting Saturday the 11th.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Melanie-Macek/e/B00B44HEPA/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/melanie-macek?store=allproducts&keyword=melanie+macek

Grab the copies you’ve missed, tell your friends, leave reviews. And thanks for coming along with me on this journey.

Melanie

Bridal Gowns – What color do you prefer?

The hubby and I went to a wedding this past weekend. It was a lot of fun and we’re very happy for the newly married couple. The bride looked stunning as did the bridal party and the decorations.

Of course, my little writerly brain sat there in the background processing everything. A friend asked me if I came home with any ideas for a story. I’m sure something will pop up eventually.

Lately, it seems the focus on a lot of wedding days is the bride’s dress.  And it got me thinking about when the white wedding gown tradition started (as a trend, the mid 1800′s), when did virginity begin being associated with a white dress (in the mid 1900′s to my surprise) and what were the other trends popping up.

Celebrities tend to be seen as thinking outside the fashion box, so to speak, but they’re really just going back to the way dresses used to be – full of color! Here’s a few for your perusal.

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While searching for dresses, I found this interesting site about the history of dresses, these from Britain. http://www.dressfinder.com/history-wedding-dresses/

I also found this site about the history of white wedding dresses. http://www.fromtimespast.com/wedding.htm

I really liked this article because of the myriad of paintings done of Queen Victoria’s wedding dress. First of all, the amount of work that must have gone into this dress!! I can sew, but I’m not very patient and I know there are tons of things that I don’t know, but I muddle through and do what I can.

Now I know some of you are wondering (maybe, maybe not lol) what type of dress I wore. Well, It was a tannish shade with light mauve and green flowers with a pink knit cover that tied in the front. The only think white that days was my shoes. In January. I’ve never been one to follow fashion trends.

No, I’m not uploading a picture. I think I know what box it’s in, but I don’t feel like digging it out You’ll just have to use your imagination.

So I have questions for you. Did you go traditional? Was the gown white, ivory or champagne? Were you a rebel like me and totally eschewed convention? If you’re not married yet, what gown do you have in mind?

Melanie