Edge Review

EDGE has received a four-star review at Senual Erotic Romance!
Kimberley Spinney had this to say:

"Roxy Harte has written a novel that is definitely not for the faint of heart. The story is graphic and startling, yet it has a sensual draw that will definitely leave the reader sweating. Edge will bring you to the very limits of your comfort zone and press against all of your previous ideas of what is sensual. This is a dazzling story of suspense, intrigue, discovery and the sensual boundaries we face in the name of sexual discovery."

"Roxy Harte delves into tough topics and deep aspects of BDSM that will leave any reader breathless. While this is definitely not your typical romance, it definitely delivers a sensual feast of love and devotion that is hard to compare to. Edge is definitely four star material and I am looking forward to seeing if Ms. Harte has more in store for these three very unique characters."

Gray Outside, Sunny Inside

Ever wake up just feeling insanely optimistic? You know, a song in your heart, a smile on your face...even though its seven am, raining, and you only had four hours sleep? Yeah, I'm not usually that girl...but this morning...I don't know, I just feel invincible. And the rejection letter may have played a small part because all day yesterday I dwelled on what I want from my writing career...

Last night, I wrote out The Plan.
This morning, I am off and running...

Here's how the rest of 2009 should go if my writing stays on track:

DEAD GIRL:
The paranormal WIP, now has a working title: Dead Girl. The paranormal venture is going to have three books total and I plan to get out and hussle them the old fashioned way...find an agent, find a publisher...hopefully it won't take a decade, but ya know, I've got nothing but time. The other two stories in the series will be titled: BIG BAD and MOMMA GOOD. This series is going to be my driving focus for the rest of this year. (80K each)

PRODIGAL SLAVE:
In between paranormal drafts I've gotta get WIP Prodigal Slave finished and out the door...it's still at 42K, I'm shooting for 55k...Xandra, after last night's read advised 100k, calling it a Big Book. I'm still feeling 55K, maybe 60, 80 tops, but we'll see. I already sent out a query promising ASAP so I really gotta move on this one. (bdsm, erotica)

VOW OF SILENCE:
The secondary character from The Chronicles of Surrender, George aka Dr. Psycho, has his own story to tell and turns out it is a prequel to the series...so I hope to get it finished this year. Right now it is roughly at 20%. Still deciding where to send it though...I have my fingers crossed for a particular house and have already queried an editor who wants to see it. (80K, bdsm, erotica)

ECHO OF REDEMPTION:
Yes, the fourth book of the Chronicles of Surrender is back in my thoughts and I'll be taking notes the rest of the year with it being a main focus by December. (80-90K, bdsm, erotica)

So, fewer small books...ie REAPER, VOYEUR, EDGE...but still room for one or two if I am so inspired...

Still have the big book LOVERS on a back burner, but sadly that baby is going to have to wait until 2010. I mean, all totalled, I'm looking at writing 400K just on what's listed...I know, divided by 8 months, roughly 50K per month, lofty goal, but I needed to start somewhere.

I Never Thought I'd Say...

It's supposed to rain the next few days and I'm thrilled.
Bright sunny days are great for my soul but very very bad for my writing goals.
So, I've been very, very bad and haven't written in three days...

Cloudy, rainy...today will be much, much better.

I'm trudging through the paranormal...not because the ideas aren't working or because the plot is weak, but rather because I find myself questioning every single word in an attempt to build suspense.

It was making me a little crabby so I've pulled an erotica WIP off the backburner and am revising it with a strong-handed review from Xandra to take it to a different level. Women's Fiction...with bdsm elements. I think this one is probably the best thing I've ever written and am trying to figure out where it needs to go...

I may ask an agent to find me a home for it...
That's assuming I can get an agent. I've never tried very hard. I sent some stuff to a long time agent who was in the process of looking it over when her own life angst dropped her off the face of the map...and I haven't tried anyone else.

I got my first rejection letter for the year, which sucks btw, but I'm not taking it personally. One thing I've learned over the last few years is that every house has its own style. If you can figure out their formula and get it down cold, you become a goldmine to them. I made the mistake of sending something out of formula which means I only need to send it to a house that appreciates a little emotion and life angst from secondary characters along with their main character sex scenes. So, not to worry, I have a perfect erotic romance coming right up to send to that particular house...yay me, at least I'm a well-rounded writer.

I queried a different house and editor last night and she wants me to send a BDSM Menage WIP I've been working on to her...so this morning feels like a very yin-yang morning...

And I am up to my eyeballs with three different projects going at the same time this morning.

Welcome to a writers life...

Set Goals High

Yesterday, I spent a fair amount of time reworking all the plot points and world events for my paranormal and after brainstorming with Sir Hotness my brain felt like it was imploding...

In a panic I called Xandra and said, "Maybe I should just write another erotica, put this on the back burner." and she said, "Don't you dare."

I woke up feeling much more optimistic and then read my horoscope:

Friday, Apr 24th, 2009 -- Today's pragmatic New Moon in your 1st House of Personality enables you to accomplish so much that you might surprise yourself. It's not just that you are able to sustain a high level of production; it's that you won't be dissuaded by anyone's argument. Your well-known stubbornness is a positive attribute now that enables you to overcome significant obstacles. Set your goals high and follow through with unwavering determination.

So, I am going to let what is in my head percolate awhile longer...not because I want to but because today is going to be a jam packed day. Doctor appointment this a.m. and a track meet (invitational) later this afternoon.

I'm excited...so excited that this paranormal is already becoming a trilogy.
I just need to get started now.

Come To My Birthday Party

My birthday party (hosted by the lovely Xandra) is going on strong at Liquid Silver Books fabulous blog Sexpressions! So come and join me for a frollicking good time. An excerpt for Reaper is also posted:)

Trust...

My ex BF stopped in on Saturday to show me and Sir Hotness his newest Harley (Um, yeah, it's my favorite color...purple...he has good taste)

And the conversation revolved around the bike and the garden we were putting out at the time. We steered clear of asking him if he'd fixed things with the latest lovely who at last chat wasn't working out because she was jealous that he remained friends with all of his exes...

But then on Sunday he text the question, "Is it okay with **R** that we're friends?"
Obviously...
Then came the text, "Ask him why."

I could see where this was going and its a question that I'd love to know the answer to as well...After three psychotically jealous partners, I AM THRILLED to have found a guy that just isn't. And I know it is a huge problem in a lot of other friends relationships. So I asked him.

Here's what Sir Hotness said, "Jealousy is lack of trust. The better question is why would I be in a relationship with someone I didn't trust?"

I can't really add anything to that wspecially since the ex concerned was once upon a time hideously jealous of anyone who blinked my way. A little karma maybe;)

Seriously, jealousy isn't pretty and relationships are soooo much better when it isn't a factor.

Tomorrow is My Birthday

This is what I want...

Hopefully someone will gift wrap one for me...
If you want one for yourself, you can buy it here...

It will also be my daughter's 18th birthday
(So I already received the best present ever)
I think I'll order her a shirt too.

God, trying to remember my eighteenth birthday...

Rain...again

I'm not really not a big fan of rain...clouds...fog.
Yesterday was okay...a perfect drizzly English kind of day. A soft rain day that I could still garden in, take walks in, play with the dogs in. Today...pretty sucky. Especially since I had to drive home from the airport through interstate road construction in the poring rain and fog.

I ended up rereading the beginning of Bleak House (Dickenson) while I soaked in a really hot tub and pouted about it raining. I love Dickenson btw. But it didn't really trigger any great thoughts toward the paranormal or the erotic WIP's I have going...and I really didn't care because I remembered WHY I WRITE.

Words...
Strung together to create images, emotions...

OMG!
I just looked through the window and guess what I saw...

Beautiful Things...

What is it about an ass shot? White stockings? Bows? Polka-dots? Tattoos?

As long as I found all of my favs in one place, I just wanted to share...

So, more beautiful things...

I want to turn this beauty into my next mixed media...

Had to share a moment from my life...
Yesterday I was having a highly philosophical debate with Xandra about Jesus and Buddha and Isis...
And talking about end of times ... think Revelations...

And there is a knock at the door who turns out to be a preacher doing the door-to-door thing. Scary stuff.

Then I went to lunch with my middle daughter to celebrate the release of EDGE and ended up at the theater watching Knowing...she hated it, I LOVED IT!

Home again, working on the latest WIP...still title-less

Release Day for EDGE!

Dear Readers,

You can read the blurb, or read a really HOT, Dangerous excerpt, or you can just buy it...cause EDGE is Finally Here!

Yay!

And...if there are enough sales and reader responses... this menage is ready to take their dangerous play on the road for a little globe hopping...

So if you love Autumn, and Michael, and Jonas as much as I do...buy EDGE as soon as possible...cause I really want to write another story about their hot, sexy, dangerous escapades.

And don't forget to drop me a line and let me know what you thought about Edge!

Hugs and Kisses,

Roxy

Tomorrow Edge Will Be Available

Are you ready?

EDGE will be available at midnight and in celebration I am giving you a sneak peek today! In case you missed meeting Autumn, Jonas, and Michael in before, you can meet them in Voyeur now.

Excerpt:

She watched the shadow pass through his irises. It was always there, always lingering. He hid it behind his good-natured, almost-constant impish grin, but there it always was, ready to be called out, and she was calling him out to play. On her knees, tears she couldn’t explain to him streaking down her cheeks, she sobbed as a childhood song came to her mind. Patty-cake. Her father’s voice singing as she patted her small hands against his large, elegantly smooth ones, “Say, say, my playmate, come out and play with me, and bring your dollies three, climb up my apple tree.”

Jonas rushed to her side and knelt beside her, lifted her chin as she started humming the tune, the words haunting her mind. “Holler down my rain barrel, slide down my cellar door, and we’ll be jolly friends forever more…”

“What’s happened, Autumn? You were so certain you were winning” -- he pulled back to look into her face, afraid to ask but asking anyway -- “did you lose the case to Edward?”

“Don’t say his name!” she growled. She closed her eyes quickly, hiding from Jonas the pain of Edward’s offer. He would never know that Edward wanted her to come back, just as he didn’t know about her lapse with Edward in his office.

God, the shame of that.

She knew she was calling out danger to play, but she didn’t care. She wanted to hurt. She needed to hurt. The hurt on the outside must hurt more than the inside to make it go away. She’d learned that by accident, and she didn’t think that Jonas even realized that he’d taught her that lesson. “Hurt me!”

“Michael isn’t here. He’s in Vegas, remember?”

“We don’t need Michael.” Autumn pushed him, her palm a sharp punch against his shoulder. She shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the song. She needed Jonas to really come out and play. She leaned into him, kissing his cheek, biting his cheek; then when he turned to claim her lips, she kissed him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth. Sucking his lip. Biting his lip. A metallic taste filled her mouth. She’d bitten harder than she’d meant to. He pulled back away from her, jerked away, grabbed her chin, and made her meet his gaze.

She could see a drop of his blood on his bottom lip before willing herself to meet his gaze, finding control she didn’t want to see reflected back at her. “Why do you let Michael control you? Control us? You played with me before we became a ménage.

Play with me now. Just a little. Jonas. Hurt. Me. Just. A. Little.”

She could see his control slipping.

“Cut me, Jonas. You’ve wanted to. Michael always stops your plans. Michael isn’t here. It’s all right. I’m giving you permission. I trust you.”

Two Days until EDGE!

In the story Voyeur, my readers met Autumn and Jonas and Michael, learning that Jonas is a clinically diagnosed sadist who really likes to play on the edge, but tempers his need for "more" by taking photographs to keep things slow enough for him to remain rational...safe...if not completely sane.

In the follow-up story Edge, the level of play gets even more dangerous.

What is it about playing on the physical edge that lies between life and death? Suffocation, knife play, gun play?

You might not have even looked at it that way before, certainly you would never play with guns or knives, right? But have you ever drawn your lovers hands to circle your throat? Just a little pressure at the right moment? Just a little...

THat moment when you are walking the edge of orgasm and being suddenly unable to breath kicking you over the precipice of the best damn orgasm you've ever had...

I love playing on the edge.
I have really enjoyed writing this story...
In two more days you can let me know if you enjoy reading it;)

Three Days Until Edge

Edge Play: High risk BDSM play which may fall outside the lines of safe and sane but are still consensual, including physical threat (guns, knives or breath control), emotional threat (phobias, past traumas, or childhood memories), or activities which challenge social taboos.

What is emotional edge play and what makes it so damn fascinating?

I have been fascinated by edge play since before I had a name for what my first husband was “doing to me”…I thought he was nuts. Why would anyone want to “get in my head”, “mess with my mind”, “torture me” with words? And then I realized he was getting off on it. The interplay between us when I was devastated…a horrifyingly, ugly, emotional mess…think tears and snot and well, worse than that without the graphic detail…really did it for him. And in a way, I suppose it did it for me as well, because I still think about those times, more than anything else we did together.

At the time, I hated him.

There are nights…the intensity is all I can think about.

No one has ever made my heart pound so hard, no one has ever fucked my mind so totally. It was a rollercoaster ride that cannot be explained but only experienced.

So back to the question, what is emotional edge play?

There are hundreds of definitions if you use a search engine, but in my mind it is the creation of an emotional state using past or current emotional stressors that is then toyed with, manipulated, through the power exchange. It is the ability to take someone to the brink of fear or anger or jealousy and then tip them over the edge while still holding onto them. It is actions and words that provoke a huge emotional reaction.

Edge Play is not for novice players. Really. This is not the stuff you do on Saturday night for shits and giggles because the results can be far reaching.


Edge written by Roxy Harte

For the ménage of Autumn, Jonas, and Michael, their SM play is dark and dangerous, and for one sadism isn't a game at all…it's an illness.

BUY IT on Tuesday April 14th!

Edge Is Coming! Countdown Four Days!

You fell in love with Autumn, Jonas, and Michael in Voyeur...
And now their relationship gets really edgy.


Their play is dark and dangerous, and for one sadism isn't a game at all…it's an illness.

Atlanta attorney A.J. Blessings has it all going for her, a new law office with a solid client base, two men who love her and friends who envy her her men; however…

When her lover Michael starts to see another and she is left solely to the care of her sadist, play gets a little more dangerous, and when she starts topping her sadist from below, chaos ensues as the strength of the ménage is tested.

When it is announced that her father, a man she hasn’t seen since she was a child, is to be announced as the next Prime Minister, paparazzi descends on her life, making her every move front page news.

When a client is killed and the killer starts stalking her, Autumn turns to her men for protection, turning already tense relations into razor sharp emotional implements of torture.

Too stressed for words, Autumn flees to her childhood home.

Amidst the sunny, idyllic backdrop of the white sand and azure waters of the Bahamas, mystery hides within the shanty ruins and shackle remnants of a long-forgotten slave enclosure. The whispered secrets of half forgotten memories hold the secret of what really caused her parents to separate but self-discovery collides with danger when the killer shows up in paradise, but keeping her physically safe, sketchy at best, takes a back-seat to the emotional rollercoaster of having her father arrive on the island as well…

But the greater journey lies in the darkness calling to her soul as the ménage struggles to reunite…

EDGE will be available from Loose-Id at midnight April 14th.
If you haven't yet read Voyeur, you have four days before the naughtiness continues!

Insomniac, Movie Addict

Did anyone besides me know that Netflix has INSTANT UNLIMITED VIEWING?
Oh yay...

Things I learned today:

With three daughters it is a good day if two out of three are speaking to you, it is an awesome day if all three are actually speaking to you. I think its a jewish saying, or maybe its just a mother of daughters saying but I totally agree with, "A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child."

Amusementland was enjoyable...I had my doubts.

It can snow in Ohio and twelve hours later be sunny and tolerable.

I can go an entire day without writing and I will not die.

Writing Today....

Working on the voodoo laced paranormal today...

Sad because I just got word that Reaper may not see publication at Liquid Silver until mid to late summer...geesh.

So, it snowed today...grrrrrrr...thank god it isn't sticking.

Kutner Died?

Tell me last night was a bad dream.
For those of you who do not know who Lawrence Kutner was...think House.

Online Memorial.

Okay, I'm going back to "my world"...I have scary voodoo monsters to write about.

Welcome Spring Party

The photo is from the back porch...I could have titled this post, why I hate spring in Ohio...

We had a BEAUTIFUL weekend, warm (mid-sixties) sunny skies...

...and today sucks. I will say it again. TODAY SUCKS. The furnace is back on, it is raining, sleeting, and snow flurrying. I don't know what the official temperature is because I don't want to know. Too cold and gray and dreary...and...actually, it's so awful, I don't even want to talk about it.

The dogs are in their little indoor doggie dens (ie shrouded kennel cages) snoring in front of the fireplace...

The cats are hidden under various couches, also snoring...

And I am not writing...
I don't have a n excuse other than I am pissed off about the weather... writers are fickle what can I say.


So, Naughty Guy is officially the hero for the weekend...

He sent Brooklyn Brewery Black Ops.

The back of the bottle reads...

"Brooklyn Black Ops does not exist. However, if it did exist, it would be a robust stout concocted by the Brooklyn Brewery under cover of secrecy and hidden from everyone else in the brewery. Supposedly "Black Ops" was aged four months in bourbon barrels, bottled flat, and refermented with Champagne yeast, creating big chocolate and and coffee flavors with a rich unpinning of vanilla-like oak notes. They say there are only a thousand cases. We have no idea what they are talking about."

I love this stout--or would--if it existed.

Sir Hotness found an amazingly rare beer (at least in these parts) that everyone was ooing and ahing over...

The Stone Breweries occasionally release a Belgium Style Triple Ale in conjunction with Ale Smith Brewing and Mikkeller Brewing...
The logo has all three brewerie names and the logo reads:
Triple the Breweries,
Triple the Brewmasters,
Triple the beer...

I think my favorite was Rogue's Double Dead Guy Ale. It comes in a red bottle and its yummy, so all the others may have been rarer or hard to obtain, but I still love the dead guy...I wouldn't turn down a Black Ops though...just saying.

There were a plethora of IPA's, double hopped IPA's, a HIPA, a home brew chocolate stout and a cazillion others too numerous to list...it was a fun party...so fun we didn't even get to the mixed drinks...so we're saving up for a welcome summer party:)

Mainstream BDSM Erotica...

Whenever I find smart, fun BDSM erotica on a real bookstore shelf, I get a little excited...

The Darker Side of Pleasure by Eden Bradley

I haven't read it yet but it is teasing me from my bedside, fifth or sixth in line behind the likes of "Angels and Demons" and "Best Lesbian Romance 2009"... I may be awhile getting to it but the first chapter (I cheated) is very promising; so I didn't want to not tell you to go looking for this one.

Watch Your Back People!

It's April Fool's Day!
Watch out people! Onward practical jokesters...bring out your best!

A little April Fool's history and a little more history.

Since I am supposed to be picking up hubby at the airport tonight, I am really hoping that is not a joke because I do normally pick him up late on Thursdays or Fridays...

Since I have big plans for working on the WIP VooDoo, I really hope the universe does not conspire against me.

Good luck every one, surviving the day prank free!