A letter I never sent.

 

 

 Pamela Des Barres runs writing workshops for women. Once a year, she holds Doll Con, where her Dolls from all over the world join together and write. 

Last year, she asked us to write a letter to our father. Now that my father has passed, I will finally share the letter I wrote to him. 

 

Dear Dad,

This is a letter I will never send, so I will finally be honest with you. We've spent our time together dancing on the edges of truth neither of us want to admit. 

Truth: I am living a life you would not approve of. In fact, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't approve of me being at DollCon this weekend. 

Truth: You treated your children badly. In fact, you still treat my brother - who had a PhD and three post docs and is over 60 - like everything he does is a mistake. What made you do these things. Why were you so hypercritical? Remember when you told me I was breathing wrong? 

Who hurt you, Dad? Who taught you that this is how you treat people you love? Who were your role models?

Truth: You were horrible to my mother. I don't think you remember, but I do. I remember how you yelled at her and threw a butter knife at her. Remember how it hit her?  

Truth: When you were in a good mood, you could be so much fun. I still love museums and zoos and amusement parks. You would ask where would we get the most acceleration on a rollercoaster? Where would you get the most lift against the safety bar? We had fun talking about the physics of thrills. I think you bored easy, so you happiest surrounded by stimulation. 

Question: What was up with you listening to a football game on the radio while you had the same game on the TV while you were grading papers? It was a terrible cacophony. To this day, I don't like watching sports due to all that noise. 

I will never send this. Mom used to say to let sleeping dogs lie. So I will. 

 

Living it Up is out!

I just released a brand new book in the Auntie Vamp series! Please welcome Living It Up to the world. 

If you read romance, you know there is a sub-genre of billionaire men falling in love with women. There are often BDSM clubs attached to these stories. 

 

 I am thoroughly sick of these stories.

 

 Imaging wealth is awesome, but these heroes were awful people. I wondered what it would be like if there were stories of wealthy women. In the real world, wealthy women like Mackenzie Scott lead the world in philanthropy and stimulating change. 

 

I wanted to show what could happen if women got financial clout, and what their fantasies could be. So, I created the Fortuna Group and the Emerald Club for women to see what we could do. Like smashing the patriarchy. 🙂

 Here's the teaser!

 

Get What You Desire.

Ten years after Holly Barros' triumphant taking over the North American Paranormal Council, she is exhausted, burned out, and worst of all, too tired for sex. This is a sad, sad place for a sexually-fuelled vampire.

Celeste Barros, Holly's great-aunt has spent the last ten years after stepping down from the Paranormal Council enjoying her retirement. She is content with her found family of lovers and friends. But she years for something more than contentment. She wants to make a difference again.

Change the World.

Holly's burnout and Celeste's restlessness come together with the idea of the Fortuna Group, an independent non-profit that will create solutions for women's issues, such as finances, environmentalism, and, of course, getting the pleasure that is a woman's birthright.

When people push back against such a wild idea, Celeste takes a risk and bets all on the chance to live it up.

Perfect for readers who need a feel-good (very good) story with lots of delight and permission for pleasure.  

 

 

Talk about your books: Dracula's Secret.

 

Yesterday, I was meditating about my books - what I'm going to do this year, what my goals are, what I want for my writing.

 

I heard a very clear message that said, "Talk about your books." I thought I'd start at the very beginning with Dracula's Secret. 

 

The idea of Vlad Tepes being born female came from a nightmare. In it, I dreamed that Dracula in a dress was talking to Napoleon's generals for the Peninsular campaign. They didn't listen to her, so she went outside, changed into men's clothes, and they proclaimed her genius. 

 

Other than this being a weird insight to my brain (I don't normally dream about Napoleon, I promise), this image stuck with me. The folk tales of Dracula's violent behavior made sense if someone had been born a woman and was trying to keep her people safe. 

 

  

From there, I wondered what kind of person could love someone like that. That brought me Lance Soliel, a man with his own darkness.  I based him on Daniel Craig. 

 

And two dark characters needed someone to bring them hope, and thus John Jante, one of my favorite characters, came to my vision. 

 

He's based on my Charming Man, who is very pretty and smart. But he doesn't like having his picture posted, so you will just have to take my word on it. :) 

 

If I were to jot down what tropes this story uses, I'd say:

 

Morally gray characters searching for redemption, age-gap relationship, international intrigue, fast burn, and fallen angels.