Tessie Bradford is a dear friend of mine.  She’s been a cheerleader since the day I signed my first contract.  Welcome Tessie!

Thanks so much for having me, Julia!

I’m so excited to announce that three of my books are together in the paperback print anthology titled Exploring Ecstasy! It is available now on amazon:

Exploring Ecstasy

These stories are very different from each other, while sharing extremely important aspects – love, respect, laughter, commitment, and of course, happily ever after! In Possessing Eleanor, I explore my visions of a modern Dom/sub relationship.Pampering Jessica was my 50^th birthday present to me and celebrates maturity. Sensations allowed me to take a walk on the wild side.

Possessing Eleanor

Eleanor Lewis is perfectly content with her comfortable, quiet, relationship free life until she finds herself on all fours at the feet of Jackson Royce. Eleanor is stunned by her instant and intense attraction to the power and confidence radiating from the devilishly handsome building contractor. He scrambles her brain and heats her body to the boiling point.

Jackson always trusts his gut instincts. The ultra sexy woman sprawled on the floor is a sexual submissive. How intriguing that the all business, sensible shoe wearing office manager has absolutely no idea? The moment he takes her into his embrace he vows to possess her mind, body and soul.

From their first sizzling encounter, through a whirlwind courtship, Eleanor discovers being possessed by a man who loves her absolutely is what she had been searching for all along.

Pampering Jessica

David has been planning Jessica’s birthday weekend for months. His wife of almost twenty five years is having issues with turning fifty and he vows to do everything in his power to remind her how incredible she is and how much he loves her.

Jessica’s birthday wish is to spend quality alone time with the man of her dreams, her husband. When David presents her with a gold gift bag full of sensual surprises, Jessica is more than eager to enjoy every one of them. What she doesn’t realize is that her husband has much more in store for her special celebration.

Sensations

Vivian Walcourt is completely out of her conservative, sheltered element when she finds herself at an ultra-exclusive adult club. Her free spirited best friend may think she’s in love with one of the owners, but Vivian doesn’t believe in whirlwind courtships.

Paul Landis never imagined the woman who has haunted his dreams for years would walk into his club with his partner’s fiancé. More beautiful than ever, unattached, and worked into a heightened state of horny by the evening’s entertainment, he sweeps her away to experience the very special pleasures found behind the closed doors of Sensations.

Tessie

http://www.tessiebradford.com/

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My work of romantic suspense, which I plan to re-release after July 5th, won an award.  The cute trophy was waiting for me when I got home from Boston.

My Everything won a Lorie for Best Romantic Suspense.  Click on the link to check out the other winners.

It was kind of exciting to receive the award when I’d never received notification that I’d won.  A fan happened to mention to me months ago that she’d seen my name, but I didn’t hear anything until now.

So, here’s the award.  I stuck it next to my Booksellers Best First Book Award for Captured.   They can be BFFs!

Here’s the new cover!  Thanks, Lories!

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my upcoming re-release?  It’ll be out in July.  Here it is.  For My Everything.  I’ll see you when I get back from Boston/Maine.  Hey, ladies, when I finish the bio of Marilyn Monroe, who wants it?  I’ll mail it to you.  Love, Julia

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With a side of grits?  Hashbrowns?  Bacon?  Ham?  On whole wheat toast?

The subject came up between hubby and myself when I read a post about why men should read romance and women, thrillers.  I read both, duh, in addition to books in most genres, provided they are well-written.  You can read the post for yourself at The Red Pen of Doom.

My husband reads the occasional romance.  Shocking, I know.  It all began back when I worked my way through Karen Marie Monings’ Highlander romances.  He and I were on vacation and I handed him each book as I finished.  Some he thought were just plain dumb, but the one book he truly enjoyed was The Immortal Highlander, Adam’s book.  He liked this book because not only is Adam a complex character, a perfect chimera of good and bad… kind of a trickster figure, Gabrielle is an intelligent heroine.  I’ve noticed that once a story is finished, KMM’s heroines (when they reappear in later installments) tend toward TSTL.  Gabrielle seemed to be the type to remain in character throughout.  In addition, my husband felt she had a damn good reason for remaining a virgin into her twenties.   She was a Sidhe Seer and she was attracted to the fae males, not human males.  There ya go.

He got the concept all right – women who were virgins for whatever reason/excuse/prevarication/rationalization…. mostly because at the heart of each of Monings’ stories lies this theme – the virgin heroines are waiting, like Sleeping Beauty, for true love’s kiss, whether they realize it or not.  Hubby just didn’t believe it.  It didn’t fit with his world view – which is this– women enjoy sex as much as men.

Maybe it takes the right man, a strong, secure man, to read romance.  Who knows?

I think I’m lucky.  This will make my husband blush, but every one of my heroes is he.  Or is it him?  Each hero possesses one or more of his attributes.  (Hey, get your nasty minds out of the gutter!)

I have my own personal hero to model my characters after.  And he likes to read a few romance books.  He reads all my books!  I’ll tell you the romance hero he personally identifies with the most – because my husband is very into seduction - and this is one of my favorite books - he loves Marc Chastain from Kill and Tell.  For that matter, he’s also a big fan of Gray Rouillard from After the Night.  So macho, so alpha, so protective and so big hearted.

Men really should read romance.  It would be good for them.  They might just get the emotional connection we women crave.  I know thrillers, provided they are not gratuitous gore-filled slash-fests, are good for me!  I mean, look at all the existential angsty pleasure I derive from The Walking Dead and the time paradox I get to think about while watching The Terminator…

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Some things are just sticky, you know?  Honey, syrup, melted chocolate, kids’ fingers.  Or, on the other hand, genre fiction like Lawrence Block’s dark and stark yet  luminous prose– which I rediscovered last year, or the disorientation of The Other Laura, by Cheryl Lynn.  Or Jamie’s role as ultimate archetypal romance hero in Outlander along with Claire’s annoying hemorrhoid obsession.  (Read enough of the series and you get there.  Wish I would have stopped at Outlander.)

The brawny, ancient Highlander Druids from KMM’s Highlander series.  The perfect seduction scene from Linda Howard’s Kill and Tell.  Gray Roulliard in After the Night.  Look him up.

The heroine’s palpable fear and arousal in Katalina Leon’s brilliant opening to the sensual Nobelsword.

The Walking Dead is as sticky as pine tar.  Scrub away, it ain’t comin’ off.  Good writing is like pine tar… It sticks.  Firefly stuck too.  Shiny!  So did some episodes of BSG… Sharon (Athena) having tea in her holding cell with Adama.  That episode was perfection.

I’ve read a lot of books, been reading since I was 18 months old– my dad didn’t play games or sports but he believed in reading from birth.  Many books stick, some rattle around, sort of blending together in my head.  Most books have made an impression on me, maybe not all, but most.

That is my goal, it’s so very simple.  To make an impression.  To make a reader think about a story after he or she has finished the last page, to make a reader wish there was more than, The End.

Captured is the book that makes me want to write more.  And I’d love an opportunity to add to Pushing Her Boundaries.  However, both will have to wait until I get the rights back.

What am I reading right now?  Because of two movies, I’m reading two books.  I was disappointed with the movie, The Help, but watching it I realized I wanted to know more about that era in the South.  Picked up a used copy of Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody.  It’s a great book.  Can’t put it down.  My Week With Marilyn intrigued me so much, and I’m such a fan of her movies, that I bought a used copy of her bio – Marilyn Monroe, Her Biography, by Donald Spoto.  I’ll start reading that on my trip.  :)

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