Archive for the ‘books’ Category

Wicked Wraiths: Man About the House
by Mina Carter
cover art by Mina Carter
ISBN: 978-1-60521-400-9
Genre(s): Paranormal
Theme(s): Interracial, BBW, Elves, Dragons & Magical Creatures
Series: Wicked Wraiths
Length: Novella

When Janelle’s friend offers to help with the housework, she doesn’t think it will include any hocus pocus. Not convinced it will work Janelle recites the incantation and summons a domestic god. He cooks. He cleans. He even does the ironing. The trouble is Corvin isn’t your typical wraith. In fact, he’s not a wraith at all but a demi-god looking for love…

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Wicked Wraiths: Man About the House
Mina Carter
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2010 Mina Carter

This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Like most men, Corvin had always had an idea of what would happen the moment he met the woman of his dreams. The usual romantic moment where their eyes met across a crowded room and, Corvin being male, the normal “getting to know you” crap was minimal, replaced instead by a bout of hot, sweaty sex en route back to his apartment.

In all his thinking on the subject, which was rare since men as a whole and Corvin in particular didn’t tend to think in happily ever after — more happily for now, preferably ones involving blow jobs — he certainly hadn’t expected said moment to occur at the worst possible time for romance.

Namely, when he was in drag.

“Jesus Christ, these heels are fucking killing me.” Hex stumbled into Corvin’s back. “How do women wear these things?”

“Intelligence and a higher pain threshold than you pathetic men,” Storm, the only girl in their trio, threw back. The comment earned her a sneer from Hex as he tried to negotiate climbing onto a barstool in a miniskirt and the heels he was complaining about.

One eye on the woman and one on the farce unfolding to his left, Corvin had to smother a smile as Hex approached the puzzle in his usual manner, bull in a china shop.

“Would you two give it up and get a fucking room sometime this century?” Corvin’s voice was bored as he slid behind the opposite side of the table to Hex. Both of his friends turned toward him, horror and disgust on their faces.

“What, with him?”

“…her? You gotta be fucking kidding me. I’d rather screw a keres demon.”

“You look like a fricking keres demon!”

“Better than sounding like a harpy all the time!”

Corvin shook his head as the two started to squabble again. They were perfect for each other; they just couldn’t see it. One day he was going to lock them up together in a room for a weekend. They’d either kill each other or fuck each other’s brains out. Either way, he’d get some peace.

A waiter approached their table, and Corvin let Hex order as he looked for his dream woman again. The club was crowded but they’d had no trouble getting a table. They never did. Known as the god pack, all three had divine blood but they weren’t full demi-gods, just the offspring of a few.

Hex was the son of Hecate so he threw a mean spell when pushed or pissed off, which was often. Storm’s mother was Tempestas, Goddess of Storms — even deities struggled for originality when naming their offspring — and she’d inherited her mother’s temper. Last but not least, Corvin’s mother was Minerva, Goddess of Poetry, Medicine, Crafts, Magic… blah, blah, blah.

Corvin wrinkled his nose and glanced past his friends again. There she was, over on the other side of the bar, collecting empty glasses. Corvin took a moment to admire her. Small and curvy, her dark hair was pulled back from a heart-shaped face and clipped up to reveal the slender curve of her neck. His gaze devoured her as she turned, and the sensual curve of her breasts was outlined for a moment in the club lights as she tried to juggle glasses.

Lust hit him like one of Cupid’s arrows. Or rather would have if the God of Love hadn’t said “fuck it” and gone AWOL last year after breaking up with his latest squeeze.

“Need a piss, back in a minute,” Corvin announced as he slid off his stool. Still squabbling, Hex and Storm didn’t notice his departure. Corvin put them from his mind as he negotiated the crowded club, heading toward his target like a tiger on the prowl.

Woohoo, it’s here!! The second book in the Kyn series was released by Blade Publishing today!!

Feral doesn’t do babies. Or pixies. So when someone dumps a pixie baby of all things on his doorstep, he does the only thing he can think of. He tries to palm it off on someone else. Unfortunately his neighbour is out of town, leaving her sister, Tessa, to house-sit. Her single and disturbingly attractive sister. Which leaves Feral with a couple of problems, especially when a bunch of pixie ninja wannabe’s break into the place and try to steal the baby. Does he turn his back on the pixies, a race he’s always hated… or will Tessa cast her own spell on the strong, silent type Kyn Warrior?

Buy Link: http://www.bladepublishing.org/books/feral.html

I just got word that Feral is due to be released on 7th April, which I’m pleased about but now… PANIC!

There’s an awful lot about writing you don’t realise when you first start at this game. Like the promotion and the admin work and all that. At first you think once you’re past that one big hurdle of getting your story accepted, the rest is plain sailing.

It’s not.

You have edits, which can be the best thing in the world or the worst. The best because you get to go over the nuts and bolts of what you’ve written with your editor and see it polished up. With the right editor, that process is fantastic because you learn new ways of doing things (or you get smacked around the ear-hole for your bad habits – I still try and sneak ‘em in ). Or it can be the worst thing in the world when you’ve got three lots to do, your evil day job, the phone going, the baby screaming and the housework piling up.

Once the edits are done though, that’s where the crunch really comes for me. It’s the promotion. Something I loathe but know I have to do. You see, I am quite happy to remain in my little cave and write. I venture out to play with photoshop or blog. I seem to be totally lacking the ‘LOOK AT ME’ gene required for sucessful self promotion. I have NO clue half the time what to write in promo ads and my standard instinctive reaction is to write more stories and just go, ‘here, have something to read instead!’ :S

So, if anyone sees a spare ‘look at me’ gene wandering around, pin the little buggar down and mail him to me would ya?

I finally finished Sunlight & Slavery. Which I’m really pleased about. Like most stories I had a little bit of a block in the middle and I always hate a story when I’ve just finished writing it. But looking back when editing it I’m rather pleased with the story overall.

I was mooching around on the stock sites looking for a possible cover image. It’s only just been submitted but, hey, a girl can think ahead can’t she? … and I found this one…

I kinda like this one. It’s nothing like the initial image I had when writing the story which was this…

But obviously I can’t use this one so the search was on for a different one. And it’s giving me the right ‘feel’ to match the story although I’m not overly sure about the pink. I’m not a pink person, although Brat has decided without any prompting that pink is of course mummy’s favourite colour because she’s a girl. (It’s not, it’s purple but you try and explain that to a three year old!!)

I may have talked about this before. I can’t remember, it’s early here and I’m working on the necessary coffee intake to get through the rest of the day. But images and writing… I lurves a good image. One that has something about it which sparks off the creative process.

This image for example…

… there’s just something about the pose, the look in the guy’s eyes and the way he’s holding her which does it for me. The look screams ‘Mine’. This is the picture I’m using as a visual springboard for the story I’m writing at the moment, Sunlight & Slavery, about a Gargoyle and the woman he falls for. For me these two are just perfect for the lead characters Kunckles (from Moonlight & Magic) and Neri.

Or how about Knuckles ‘little brother’? This image is just perfect for a man about the town, smooth talking gargolye (yeah, I’m on a gargolye kick at the moment)…

Yum *looses it for a moment drooling* I think I’m going to have a LOT of fun writing that one

Sunlight should be finished sometime this week and I’ll be posting unedited excerpts soon!!

I have to apologise, I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been literally buried in a new story, but in a good way. I’m writing with a freind and we’re just having such fun writing it I’m going to be sad when we’ve actually written it! We’re writing a sci-fi romance (think battlestar galatica here) and we’re happy torturing our characters. Torturing big time I tell you!!

So, let me introduce you to the characters…

First up we have Davin McAvoy. Davin is the boss, the wing commander on the base. He’s literally Mr Nice Guy, Mr Squeaky clean. He runs by the book, dots the I’s and crosses the T’s and he absolutely does not want an ex-con or a woman on his wing. But the instant he see’s Radha sparks, oh they fly!!

Then we have Radha Kaden. Ex-con, ex pilot who got chucked out of the academy a week before graduation for fighting. Radha’s always had it tough and it’s made her a tough woman. But beneath the hard shell is a woman with a soft heart. Mr Squeaky Clean really isn’t her type… or he’s too much her type. His gentle touch, the tenderness he treats her with are something she has no experience with. Which she finds dangerous and oh so addictive.

Oh wow! This last couple of days has been great! I haven’t known whether I’m coming or going but it’s been fantastic anyway!! Last night I got the cover art for Dark Embrace, my upcoming Cobblestone release and it’s FANTASTIC!!  I really wasn’t sure what I wanted on the cover for this one. Some I have a very good idea and some, well, blank screen comes to mind. But the very talented Bree (one half of Moira Rogers) pulled a miracle out of the bag with this one! I keep having to go admire it some more, I think it’s great! (and will no doubt harp on LOTS about it! You have been warned!)

“The action of the story kept me enthralled as I wondered what would happen next and I enjoyed watching things play out in what felt like a battle of good versus evil. Moon Madness was a good read that I happily recommend.”

The next great surprise was a wonderful review for Moon Madness by Lilac over at ‘The Long and Short of It’. I wasn’t expecting any more reviews for this one and it was a really great review

Read the review

And last but not least, I FINALLY finished up a corset I’ve been making. It’s a pretty floral coutil, single layer victorian corset with black satin bias binding top and bottom. It’s for my sister in law to be and because she intends to dance in it, I’ve boned it with spiral steels and left two of the side bones out for ease of movement. We’re going at in a couple of weeks so I’ll get a shot of her wearing it (because I can’t be bothered to go root through the chaos that is the back room – aka the junk room – for my dressmakers dummy to display it one)

I’ve actually started to document each step in the corset making process, which I’ll stick together in a pdf at some point. So if you’re interested in how to make a corset from start to finish, watch this space!

Whoa, what a whirlwind things are turning into recently. I’m sorry I’ve not been posting as much as usual but, honestly, I think I need to give up sleep or something it’s that manic over here!

I finally finished Grace off and the first read from my beta’s is good They like Jaron and Grace. This is good because I really was at the ‘woods for the tree’s’ phase when everything seems wooden and those rocks are laughing at me. (As in ‘rocks write better than I do!’) But they like it Yay!!

Edits for Moonlight & Magic and Feral were sent back in short order. I’m one of those writers that actually likes editing. It’s always good to get some feedback on your writing and editors, whilst not evil as they’re often portrayed, can be ruthless. If you can accept the fact that they’re not being personal and trying to make your writing since, it’s a great learning experience! I luuuurves my editors!!

The Rockstar editing party is about wound up now, I just have one pass over the source file to go today and we’re all done I think. My bit is anyway. Then the wonderful people at Lyrical will go away and create ebooks from it I still think it’s amazing what the publishers do, there’s SO much more in the process than i thought!

So, where to go from here? I have a new contract!! Cobblestone Press offered a contract for Dark Embrace, which is one of my Kyn stories This one is Marak and Maria’s story and it gets a wee bit hot at the end. Might need to break out those fans!!

And, I started a new story!! This one is a scifi romance, about fighter pilots. Think the new Battlstar Galatica with sexy aliens! My hero is a wing commander, the heroine is a fighter pilot under his command. He’s got issues, she’s got issues and attitude. And they absolutely cannot live with or without the other! It’s already shaping up to be great fun as I write it!! I’ll post a snippet and some inspiration pics over the next few days!

Ok, need to stop waffling, feed brat something (or too something) and get some work done. Catch you on the flipside!!

Finally, finally my contracted story for Noble Romance Publishing, Grace, is finished!! Although I really liked this story I realise now that trying to write to a deadline over christmas was perhaps NOT the best idea. Sooo many distractions, then to add to it, my pc got wiped out with a virus at the same time I got hit with the flu!! (not a cold, serious ‘you are in bed for a week’ flu) So I ended up almost completely wiping my desktop, getting a new laptop when it didn’t work properly and writing when I felt like a wrung out dishcloth (still feel a little dishclothy still :S)

So Grace ended up being a long hard slog, like chipping each word from a block of granite. I’m pleased with the results though, with some editing and polishing I think it’ll be a cracking story!!

But for today I’m going to breathe a sigh of relief and relax. I have some fanfic writing with friends to catch up on (yes, I am a total geek.) I’m a total scifi addict and a new game just started up with a couple of freinds so I’m heavily into that at the moment. There’s a great subplot a freind and I are playing with that promises many hours of writing fun!

LOL, yes I said writing fun. I LOVE writing. Grace was hard but it was fun. But writing with someone else is an absolute treat. Some people prefer not to write with others but I actually really enjoy it. I find the key is to brainstorm extensively first, get a base plotline then go for it

However, simm and fanfic writing does serve another purpose for me. It taught me to write everyday. For new writers that’s a hard habit to get into. A five plus year veteran of star trek simms (yeah, admitting my geekdom outloud there) I’ve written probably about a thousand words across different games every day for years which has stood me in good stead for the writing. I just add another thousand on for the writing and in my mental schedule here, treat it like another game. If I struggle I’ve even been known to set up a mock forum and actually write the story IN the forum, as though it were a game. Anything to trick the brain into complying, I’m not proud, I’ll use anything that works.

I also find I can explore personality themes to a certain extent in games before I write them into a story. Not ever the same character as goes into the book, totally unrelated genre and storylines, but I can ‘play’ with certain ideas before I write them into proper fiction. (honestly this all does make sense in my mad little brain here)

Simming also helped with the confidence issue. Writing and more importantly, putting your work out there takes a lot of guts. Writing is very personal, it’s hard to expose yourself to all those people even if they are on the other end of an email. They’re still reading what you wrote. What if they hate it? What if they think you’re stupid? What if they think the rocks can write better than you can? (believe me, I have ALL these running around my brain when I show people writing!) and if you write erotica lets not forget ‘what if they think I’m perverted?’

But simming allowed me to write and loose a little of that fear. Of course I don’t put some of the stronger stuff in there but I can write and people read it. It’s not throwaway but it’s writing out there that people aren’t laughing at. And that helps.

Ugh, I’m not even sure I’m making sense anymore. I tend to start these posts and waffle a bit, usually forgetting the idea I started off with!!