Novelspot Gazette

In This Issue

• Ten Questions With Bethany Michaels

• Bethany’s It’s-Too-Hot-To-Cook Summer Pasta Salad

• New Secrets Are Here! Want a Peek?

• Red Sage Presents: This Month’s Recommended E-Books

Ten Questions With Bethany Michaels

This month Red Sage Presents … Bethany Michaels!

Bethany’s first Red Sage release, the sweet and spicy holiday story A Christmas Cara, warmed the hearts (and other parts!) of many Red Sage fans. Now we’re celebrating her first Secrets release, “Educating Eva” in Secrets: Secret Desires (Volume 23).

Check out her website for lots of news and reviews, and be sure to sign up for her newsletter while you’re there. We’re all big fans of her “Fun” page, which is always good for a giggle!

1. Hi, Bethany! Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m a married, thirty-something mom of four small children. I work as a transportation planner at night, am home with the kids during the day, and squeeze in writing whenever I can. Reading and writing has always been a love, but I didn’t get ‘serious’ about writing until about four years ago. I’m a born and bred Midwesterner, but recently moved to the Nashville, Tennessee area. Although I’ll never be the Southern belle type, I do love it down here…except the crazy-hot summers. I like hot sweaty love scenes on the page, not getting hot and sweaty just stepping out to grab the newspaper off the front porch!

2. Do you remember the first romance you read?
I read ‘teen’ romances from the library quite a bit as an elementary aged kid, but the first adult romance I read was about an Egyptologist (also as an elementary-aged kid). I can’t remember the title, but I loved it. After that, I started reading all the romance I could um, borrow from my mom’s shelves. Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shinning Armor is the first romance I truly fell in love with and 20 years later, it is still one of my all-time favorites.

3. Who has influenced you most in your writing career?
I’d have to say my parents. My mom has always read romance. We have similar tastes and it’s been so much fun over the years talking about books we love. My dad has always been really encouraging, too, even if he’s not allowed to read what I’m writing right now! My extended family, in-laws and Indiana RWA chapter sisters have also been extremely supportive. A writer may sit at her keyboard alone hour after hour pounding out that latest book, but no successful writer ever really does it without a herd of people behind her.

4. What got you interested in Erotic Romance?
I started reading classic erotica in college and got really interested in the whole subject. Beyond the obvious reasons, I think sex is a really interesting topic. Something that seems like a simple biological function is actually very complicated socially, emotionally and intellectually. Then there was the fact that I just plain liked the ‘good parts’ in romance novels. In Erotic Romance, there are many more and varied ‘good parts’ but you still get the emotionally satisfying romance that makes all the good parts mean something.

5. What makes a man sexy? Lovable?
I really love a man who is strong enough to rely on (and who knows he can rely on you) but sensitive enough to know when you need a hug. Someone you can trust with any secret and who you can be yourself with, who loves the crazy bits you try so hard to hide from everyone else. Humor, intelligence and most of all, confidence are the sexiest attributes in a man (and a hero), I think.

6. What are the qualities that make for a great heroine?
My daughter is my ideal romance heroine. She’s also the wild thing who is giving me the gray hair. She’s smart, strong, confident and goes after what she wants relentlessly. But she’s also very loving and will help or care for anyone who needs it. She’s creative, stubborn, strong-willed and absolutely fearless. My little romance heroine is ‘precocious’ as a six-years old, but hopefully she’ll grow into her heroic qualities…before she redecorates her room with finger paints again, wrecks my car or burns down my kitchen.

7. What draws you to the historical time period you chose for this story?
“Educating Eva”, my novella in Secrets 23, was actually my first try at writing a historical. I think what I love about writing in the Regency period is that there is a lot I could do with the plot from arranged marriages, to the threat of social ruin that motivate a lot of the character’s actions. There were stricter social mores (at least on the surface) that made a lot of things “forbidden”. And as we all know, the things that are forbidden are simply irresistible. I thought a Regency house party would provide unlimited opportunity for a lot of naughty goings-on. And it did–my house party in “Educating Eva” turned into a sort of an erotic fun house…anything could be around the next corner!

8. Are there common themes that show up in your stories? If so, what are they?
All of my stories, so far, explore the theme of what seems to be and what actually is– who a person seems to be on the outside, versus who they are on the inside. I love a good twist ending to a story that takes a reader’s expectations and totally turns them upside down.

9. Any advice that you think would benefit new writers?
For a lot of us, simply finding the time to write is the biggest challenge. But nobody just HAS these imaginary piles of minutes lying around. If you want to write, or do anything else that’s close to your heart, you have to MAKE the time. Once I decided writing was something that I needed to do, I learned to write anywhere and everywhere, whenever I had a few minutes. Sometimes it’s at work between tasks. Sometimes it’s at the park on a laptop or in the waiting room of my kids’ dentist. And believe me, some of the hottest love scenes I’ve written have been typed out at the McDonalds Playland on my Alphasmart.☺

10. What are your plans for future books?
I just finished a Regency-set story for Red Sage, written in a serial format, about a ‘merry widow’ whose journal containing her erotic exploits has gone missing. She thinks one of her former lovers is the thief and must get the journal back before her secrets are splashed all over the scandal pages, ruining her and her family. Luckily her former husband’s sexy cousin is available to assist☺. I also write light paranormal erotic romance and am currently working on a story about a demon posing as a sexy and mysterious Las Vegas illusionist and a correspondence-course PI hired to discover all his wicked secrets.

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Bethany’s It’s-Too-Hot-to-Cook Summer Pasta Salad

This recipe sounds a little wacky, but the sweet and tart flavors really blend together for a fabulous light summer meal, when just the thought of turning on the oven makes you sweat! Serve with ice-cold lemonade, or here in the South, a tall glass of your favorite sweet tea.

• 5 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 3 cups cooked rotini
• 1 ½ cups chopped celery
• ½ cup chopped green onions
• 1 cup drained pineapple tidbits
• 1 (11oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
• 2 kiwi fruit peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice concentrate
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 cup slivered almonds, toasted

In a large bowl, combine chicken, pasta, celery, onions, pineapple, oranges and kiwi. In a small bowl, mix the next six ingredients. Pour over chicken mixture. Toss to coat. Cover and chill for several hours. Toss with almonds just before serving.

Enjoy!

Psst–! Want to know a Secret? We’re giving away a free e-book to one lucky winner! To enter the drawing for a free download of the Red Sage Presents story of your choice, send an email to eRedSage@gmail.com with “Secret Clue” in the subject line!

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Summer Heat Means Summer Secrets!

Available Now at all bookstores and www.eRedsage.com!

	Secrets Volume 23Secret Desires Now Available!	Secrets Volume 24 Surrender to Seduction Now Available!

New Secrets Are Here!

Want a Peek?

It’s July, and two new Secrets anthologies are hot off the presses! Very hot!

And now, just for readers of Red Sage Confidential, here’s a sneak peek of Bad to the Bone by Natasha Moore in Volume 24.

Recommended Read!

“BAD TO THE BONE really stood out for me. I could relate to Annie completely. She was the nerd in high school and suddenly she re-appears smoking hot. Luke was downright yummy and I agreed whole heartedly with her wanting to seduce him..”

~ Amanda Haffery, Dark Angel Reviews

She’s a good girl who wants to be bad, and he’s a bad boy who wants to be good. At her class reunion, Annie Shane sheds her good girl reputation through one wild weekend with Luke Kendall. But Luke is done playing the field and wants to settle down. What would a bad girl do?

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“I don’t own a car,” she said. She looked around at all the doorways lining the empty hallway. She could hardly believe she was walking down a dim hotel hallway with a man to his room. “Do you have a car here?”

“Yeah. It’s out in the parking lot.”

“Well, that wouldn’t work, would it? There’s all those big security lights. Maybe we could drive out to a dark road somewhere, huh? What do you think?”

“To have sex?” Luke stopped halfway down the hall and slid his key card in the lock. He turned back to look at her and the gleam in his eye heated her even more. “How about a bed?”

He opened the door and motioned her in. She stepped into his hotel room and tried to ignore the pounding of her heart. A king-sized bed dominated the small space. “Well, it’s a bit conventional, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

She heard him close the door. She felt him standing behind her. The heat from his body seared her skin and they weren’t even touching. She wished he’d take the first step. Say something, or reach out to her. But she knew this was her night, her idea, her step to take. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Was she ready to do this or not?

Red Sage Presents:

This Month’s Recommended E-Books

Frontal Assault by Chevon Gael

 

When Rick Steele’s tour of duty in Iraq ends, he returns home to the loving arms and welcoming body of his wife, Angela.

And then, almost immediately afterwards, he disappears.

Angela can’t take it any more. The worry, the stress, the loneliness. She’s always supported Rick’s goals, but now he won’t even tell her what’s he’s thinking or feeling. How can they be partners if he isolates himself? They can’t be. Is divorce the only option?

No. There is one other option. Rick knows that it’s time for something big, bold, and daring. He’s a soldier, a man on a mission. He will reclaim his wife, by force if necessary …

… by Frontal Assault.
 

 

by K.C. Sehlhorst

Maggie has seen some pretty strange things in her time, but she’s never seen a dead man rise up from a gurney and run out of the operating room. She’s never seen a dead man fling himself through a window and plummet to the earth, only to get up and keep running. She’s never seen a dead man … who was really an angel.
 

Gideon isn’t just any angel, though. He’s a fallen one, charged with the duty of closing demon portals to hell before innocent human souls can be compromised. And he has exposed Maggie to a dangerous truth, to killer demons, even to Lucifer himself.

There’s only one option for Gideon. He must protect Maggie at all costs. Too bad she doesn’t want his protection….

Maggie’s Angel

Until next month, happy reading!

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