New Releases On Sale Now at Lyrical Press!

Happy 4th of July!

Don't mis these new titles availavle at Lyrical Press!
http://www.lyricalpress.com/

July 6th releases on sale now! (Yep, we know they're early this month)
http://www.onceuponabookstore.com/



The Feline Fugitive by Esmerelda Bisho
http://www.lyricalpress.com/the_feline_fugitive
Genre: Romance/Shifter/Contemporary
Length: Novella
Price: $3.50

You'll never look at a cat the same way again...

Claudette Richards adores Fluffy, her cat. Little does she know how much he adores her in return, nor that he's secretly a man named Luca Doyle, who has chosen her for his life mate.

Framed for murder, Luca hides out in cat form while he hunts down the real killer, a battle that could reveal him to Claudette before he's ready. If it happens, will she match his passion or send him to the pound?



Waiting For Revenge by Autumn Piper
http://www.lyricalpress.com/waiting_for_revenge
Genre: Romance/Contemporary
Length: Novel
Price: $5.50

One good heartbreak deserves another

Mandy plans to leave her husband the minute their month of counseling is over. How can she forgive his outrageous affair? It would almost be funny if the consequences weren't so harsh. They've got kids, and families with strong -- and warped -- opinions on marriage.

Her aunt thinks she should take a page from the black widow spider. Her brother's begging to avenge her broken heart, and their marriage counselor offers to play the willing victim in some payback sex.

While her clueless husband launches a campaign to win her back, Mandy meets Adam, the perfect shoulder to cry on. Will perfect justice prove just how sweet revenge can be when you wait for it?

Content Warning: Real people aren't all good or all bad. Neither are the characters in this story. The shade of right or wrong you see may depend upon whose glasses you are looking through....



Kaydana and the Ruby of Beguilement by Nyki Blatchley
http://www.lyricalpress.com/kaydana_and_the_ruby_of_beguilement
Genre: Erotica/Fantasy/BDSM
Length: Novella
Price: $3.50

How do you choose between love and desire?

Young sorceress, Kaydana, is caught in a darkly dangerous romance with King Makreth...one she longs to free herself from even while she enjoys it, and Makreth won't let her go without a fight.

Attempting to escape, she's seduced by an enslaved winged woman, and loses her magical staff in the process.

Emmerin offers to recover the staff in return for Kaydana's help, but will that deal come with a price she's not willing or able to pay? And how will she escape the dark desire when forced to face down Makreth again?




Playing With Fyre by Mina Carter
http://www.lyricalpress.com/playing_with_fyre
Genre: Erotica/Romance/Contemporary
Length: Novel
Price: $5.50

When you play with Fyre, you just might get burned.

Raelyn Borne has a fiery passion to save her home. Unfortunately, lawyer Logan Fyre, is as ruthless an opponent as they come. With him, she can't bribe or threaten her way out of this one.

When backed into a corner, Raelyn has a tendency to get sassy. And now she's desperate enough to enter into a dangerous game with Logan.

Does she have the strength to play with Fyre -- without getting burned?

Content Warning: Hot, ruthless lawyer, scorching sex and a woman with a secret. Chocolate cake optional.

***

New eBooks release the first and third Mondays of the month. Watch for them on sale at Once Upon A Bookstore!
http://www.onceuponabookstore.com/
Keep up to date on Lyrical Press and Once Upon A Bookstore!
Talk to our authors:
http://www.lyricalpress.yuku.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lyricalpress/

It's That Time Again

Lyrical Press is now accepting employment queries for the following positions:

Copy Editor (hiring up to 3 at this time)

Copy editors work directly with authors to tighten and polish stories. Other duties include admin, some minor production work, and acquisitions.

Line Editor (1 position open)

Line editors handle 2-4 books per month. They are the neutral "second opinion", working independently of copy editors or authors. Line edits are their sole responsibilitiy at this time.

How To Apply:

Because applicant screening happens in stages, all applicants need do to begin is send an email to emmawayneporter@gmail.com, requesting information on either the line or copy editor positions. There is no need to send anything else; we will request what we require when the time comes.

Questions? Email me at: emmawayneporter@gmail.com

Inspiration of the Landscape Variety

Lord knows inspiration comes at us from all angles. Walking down the street, sitting in a cafe, perusing photos of fine men... well, let's just say we can easily be bombarded with it. And if you aren't friends with Diana Duncan on FaceBook, then you're missing out on her photo album of some very fine inspiration of the male flesh variety.

However, gorgeous men, or women, aside, I constantly get revved up by the scenery around me. In fact, today, I'm playing driver to my mom and some out of town guests and driving them to the city of Seward, a seaport on Resurrection Bay, off the Gulf of Alaska. I'm especially thrilled because not only do I get to visit with family friends who knew me when I was knee high to a grasshopper, but I'll also get to feast my eyes on some of the most beautiful sights to be seen on this earth.

I'll also get to research that scenery for my next WIP. Like, where does cell service drop out and is there a pull out wide enough for a broken down car? And where is a likely place for my heroine's parents to live? What's her favorite hangout when she leaves the big city to go home for a weekend?

I already have several photos, so now I can narrow in my locations, not only for this WIP, but another two I have in mind. Yeah, there's a lot of beauty to inspire anyone up here. Just ask the thousands of professional and amateur artists who flood the gift shops with the coolest tourist junk I've seen anywhere.

Since I'll be out of pocket for the day, I'll leave you with some photos taken on some gloriously sunny days, which we may or may not have. Enjoy!

Photos: Mt. Susitna, Sailboat on Resurrection Bay, Fishing Boats on Resurrection Bay, Fireweed along the Steese Highway. All taken by Morgan Q. O'Reilly.

Morgan Q. O'Reilly

Get Some Tonight

http://morganqoreilly.com

Lyrical Press

Cobblestone Press

Focus On: Allure Imprint

Ever read publisher guidelines and wish they were more specific? Then you've come to the right place.

Today, we're focusing on the Allure Imprint.

From the imprint submissions guidelines page:

• Acquiring editor: Emma Wayne Porter
  
• Genre: erotic contemporary romance
  
• Length: 60-80k
  
• Key Characteristic: willful hero, capable heroine
  
• Key Characteristic: sexual tension and romantic conflict
  
• Requirement: HEA
  
• Sensuality Level: extremely hot
  

Editor's notes: Know your tropes. This line is focused on the buildup and resolution of sexual tension and romantic conflict. The thrill of anticipation is as key as the erotic payoff.

We want willful heroes, and capable heroines. We do not want "perfect" or cardboard characters, nor do we want helpless, shrinking-violet heroines. We want compelling, fully developed contemporary characters with GMC and sizzling conflict brought to fulfilling resolution.

We'll go over the editor's notes to help authors shooting for this imprint. Let's start with tropes. By tropes I mean base structural ingredients like "marriage of convenience", "forbidden love", "taming of the shrew", "secret baby", "wrong bed", "married by mistake", and all those other thematic patterns romance readers have come to expect from romance.

Note what the guidelines don't say regarding tropes... the word "follow" is not used. "Know" is. Innovative treatment of the tropes is most welcome for this line.

A happily ever after ending is required for this line. "Happy for now" works for some erotic romances, but not these. We want full-on happily ever after. And we're quite serious about putting the sexual tension back into the mix. We want the sensuality level to be scorching hot, but this is not the line for "two sex scenes every chapter".  There can be as many sex scenes as drive the conflict when the time is right -- when the actual sex becomes a powerful reader (and character) payoff. 

Willful heros: I don't necessarily believe in the "alpha" or "beta" hero terminology, and don't believe it applies to this line. In this case, "willfull" means the hero wants or needs something and God help anything or anyone who gets in his way. Betas can be put in this position and perform just as well as any alpha, hence why I've stayed away from those terms.

Capable heroines: I grew up on Harlequin Presents and love them dearly...except for the powerless heroines. Now yes, there is much plot-fodder to be found in the Cinderella trope wherein the "good girl" gets her man despite some ugly obstacles, but there should be no hand-wringing going on with these heroines. In the case of a Cinderella trope setup, the arcs should  move them from deprivation to empowerment, but not solely because she hooked up with a rich, powerful prince.

Show me a marriage of convenience where it's the heroine who ropes the hero into it instead of the other way around, and you'd have my full attention. Show me a self-made gabillionaire heroine who's not skulking in a corner, but unapologetically enjoying her success. Show me heroines who put the fear of God into anyone who gets in their way.

"Perfect" characters need not apply. Let them be wrong, foolish, uncaring, selfish, single-minded... Of course, their perspective mate gets to show them how wrong, foolish, uncaring, selfish or single-minded they are, and most importantly, inflict change for the better.

Lastly, those of you who know me know I couldn't let a guideline go without tossing GMC into the mix. GMC stands for Goals, Motivation and Conflict. If you aren't familiar with this theory written by Debra Dixon, pick up a copy. The theory is brilliantly simple and is the very heart of what we're looking for with Allure. Conflict needs to be strong and well-developed so that when the hero and heroine do finally get together, the payoff is as fulfilling and satisfying as possible.

Renee and I will be back soon to look at Elements. Until then, if you have any questions, fire away here on the blog or send questions privately to: 

The Skeleton in My Closet

I have a shameful secret. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Eng… ineering. Biomedical Engineering, to be exact. In academic circles, people recognize the name of my graduating program, and react with awe and respect. It is, after all, one of the hardest programs in Canada, and many of its graduates have moved on to immeasurable success (translation: very measurable and large quantities of money). But since I started looking for work in the publishing world, it’s become my dirty little secret. How exactly am I supposed to tell my authors, a few of whom have been published for years, that not only am I new, but that I come from a group of people whose communication skills are viewed by most people as only slightly above a cockroach’s? So I haven’t. I have made no comments as to how long I’ve been editing for (a little over four months for Lyrical Press), how much time has passed since graduation (a year as of a few days ago), or what I studied (if you wish to get technical about it, I have a Bachelor of Applied Science in Engineering Science, majoring in Biomedical Engineering). I’ve been almost terrified that someone outside of Emma and Renee, who have seen my resume, will find out, and I’ll be lynched and called a fraud. But not anymore.

No. Today, I come out of my self-imposed secrecy and shout out to the ethers of the internet: I. AM. An ENGINEER. And you can suck it if you don’t like it. Why reveal this, you may ask? To be honest, I have no idea. I guess it’s for the same reasons I wanted to move on to publishing in the first place. I love to read, I always have, and one of my earliest memories is having my brother, who is only a year older than me, teaching me how to read. The memory is mostly false, though. Apparently, this picture-perfect scene that I have in my mind - my brother, holding his Disney storybook that was almost too large for a five-year old, sitting with the maid, and carefully teaching me to string letters together - is an entirely fictional construct. We always sat with my mother, not with the maid, and if anyone went through the trouble of teaching me how to read, it would have been her. Not him, who was also in the process of learning. But the principle stands. This is a part of me that I have loved for many, many years, and not one I should hide. When I applied to jobs in publishing, I wrote an extremely heartfelt and convincing letter outlining the many ways in which engineering prepared you for the editing world. And I meant it. Whether the “image” of engineering I portrayed was too idyllic or not, the facts remain the same. I love to read, but I went to school to figure out how to improve things. I am now, as a copy editor, doing that. And I love it. Yes, there are days when I long for mammalian cells on a slide and a microscope. There are others when I wish I didn’t know the difference between ‘then’ and ‘than’, so most of my hair could remain on my head. But the vast majority of the time, I’m so very glad to have found this place, where I can carve my niche, where I’ve been welcomed and aided, and given a chance. So yes, I am an engineer. But I’m also an editor. And that’s all that matters.

New gadget!

I've added a slideshow of our newest releases.

Check it out to see the covers of our June 15th releases!

Editor's Pick, June 2009

Starting this month, I get the rare pleasure of selecting a backlist title as an editor's pick. 

For anyone who'd ever question my decision to trade the feather pen for the dreaded red pencil, let these books stand in testimony. These picks make it a pleasure and an honor.

And this month, I'm here to show you why not all erotica is created equally. 

Exhibit A:

It didn’t take long for Lucious to sense that the night shift at Blaylock’s Bricks, with the exception of only a few people, was an incredibly close-knit group. To the point of exclusion. He could tell in the break room at night when they huddled close and talked in hushed tones, or told jokes that made no sense at all, that he was officially on the outside. He could tell it when he tried to get people to tell him about Tammy.

Exhibit B:

He had always been that way, at least until he arrived at the kiln. Something about this place, something about Tammy Blaylock and this group of people that truly, truly acted like a unit, was alluring to him. He wanted to be a part of their conversations. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Tammy and still be able to say she was a very friendly girl. He wanted to be trusted with their secrets, but he didn’t know how to gain their acceptance.

Exhibit C: 

“You can have her, too.” The voice beside him was deep, but achingly familiar. A gentle hand began massaging the back of his neck and his head. The touch was as intoxicating as the drinks he’d had earlier.He turned his head to the side and was confronted with one thick, strong brown thigh. It was shaved, oiled down, and immensely edible. Lucious’s thinking became clear as day then.

Exhibit D:

Sahara means moon, she would tell people. Nobody cared. She was just another black girl with a funny name. Sahara was a common word, or so she thought. It was guaranteed to be the most famous desert. Forget the Gobi. No one in the world apparently knew there was a Gobi somewhere out there in the Eastern Hemisphere. Still people consistently pronounced her name wrong. She hated it when people said her name wrong. “Sahara” was printed on her nametag at work and she absolutely hated that. Not because she didn’t like the name but because inevitably some student’s mother would spend thirty minutes saying Sahara’s name wrong, wasting her time and never even getting around to what it was the customer wanted in the first place. One customer had said that she was just going to call her Sarah. Sahara went home sick after that particular episode.

I know. Characterization in erotica. Didn't think it was possible? Me either, until I met author Aubrey Leatherwood. 

I'll be honest and admit that at first , the title The People You Know, The Sex They Have bugged me, big time. It was too long and too obvious...and then I read the book. The title is not only perfect, it's what separates this book and this author from the pack. 

This is a writer who knows what she's about, and makes no bones about it. Thanks to her masterful characterization, these are the people you know, and this is the sex they have.

Thank you, Aubrey, for trusting this book to Lyrical.

Readers, enjoy.