Monday, September 30, 2019

Adara Willoughby's adventures continue in Darkshield 4: The Red Djinn

    Talk about a bad case of Writer's Block! I finished the first Darkshield novel, Demon Bringer, from initial conception to finished first draft, in 11 days. The next two took somewhat longer, but all of these relatively short, sex-and-action-packed novels took less than a month to complete. Then I fell in love, divorced my husband, moved to a new town, and found myself too busy - actually, or mentally - to continue work on the half-finished fourth book in the series.
    It took a real effort of will, overcoming my doubts about the ending I had planned all along; but I finally knuckled down and, after yet another re-reading of the novel so far, penned the final few chapters four years to the day after I had written the first one.     After finding no cover art that was appropriate on selfpubbookcovers.com, which has long been my go-to site for inexpensive ready-made book covers, I spent some time on Shutterstock and came up with the images I needed to design a cover that really captures the essence of this volume's plotline.
    Adara's sexual journey over the series to date continues to advance in The Red Djinn. She began as a 17-year-old virgin in Demon Bringer, and quickly found sex to be something she liked... a lot. In Tomb of the Kobold King she left her first lover, unhappy with his lack of enthusiasm for adventure. It didn't take her long to find another, a mysterious young man whose appetites thrill her even as she wonders about his dark past.
    The third volume, The Sword of Myralis, found Adara succumbing to the temptation of a doomed inter-species romance with a studly and well-hung young Elf. Lemas was simultaneously ten times her age, and younger than her in sexual experience - but he was a quick learner! Once again she finds herself falling in love; and once again, she knows she must move on.
    In The Red Djinn Adara, who has begun to take an interest in magic, travels across the eastern mountains to the exotic Sultanate of Kouresh - there to study Eastern magic with an old schoolmate of her friend and mentor Cruztan Milegos. Expecting a long dry spell in her sex life, she engages in a hot one-night stand along the way. But the octogenarian magus Afzal Szehar is not what she expects. Our heroine is introduced to bondage, and experiences supernatural rape and unwanted motherhood - as well as unfolding magical possibilities beyond her wildest dreams - in this fourth volume of the entertaining series.
    I am very interested in getting feedback from readers, and other writers of erotic fiction. If you would like to review this or any of my other books, or swap reviews with me on one of your own books, message me on Facebook or LinkedIn and I will arrange to email you a PDF of the title of your choice. See all 13 of my novels, and links to them on Amazon.com, at kathetodd.com.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Immortal Heroine

I had a lot of fun with my first six novels. The Dragonborn trilogy originally started out as a single, x-rated satire on the main quest line from the Skyrim game, asking the question "What if the Dragonborn was an insatiable slut?" But as Katja's feelings for her two studly lovers deepened in book two, it was inevitable that she would settle down. By book three she'd become a wife and mother, and though she still had a strong sex drive it was completely satisfied by the two men she'd been lucky enough to marry.
The DragonSon series, written with a YA audience in mind, was a logical extension of the lives of the characters in the earlier series. Bethesda's lawyers eventually objected to my selling these books online, so in early 2015 I re-vamped them to remove all game references. Some elements of the game universe still persist, such as the existence of cure-all potions that ensure nobody will spend months recovering from an injury.
The Dragonborn series was reborn as the Fireblood Chronicles, with all-new characters and plotlines - but the sex scenes in Destiny of the Fireblood and its successor volumes are as sizzling as ever. As a writer, I find I come to fall in love with my characters. I don't want to usher them into old age and infirmity, but keep them young and vibrant forever. After all, this is fantasy - not real life, where even the most beautiful and heroic eventually fall to ruin.
The DragonSon series became the Fire Scion series, which was easier to rework since all of the plot lines and most of the characters were already my own creations. And I couldn't resist carrying Bernadette and her two husbands into immortality by the end of book three. But their story was done. Their battles had been fought and won, and they and their many children stood on the threshhold of a bright future: a happy ending. Could Bernadette, Andrion, and Erik face peril together again? Of course. But I felt it was time to leave their game-borne universe behind.
In the Shadow God series I created a picaresque heroine, a girl with the deck stacked against her. Yet by her wit and spirit Leila managed to triumph again and again, beating the odds with the help of a divine alliance she had never sought. Yet she, too, eventually settled down - marrying her true love and becoming a mother. I completed Mother of Shadows at the beginning of 2015 and then embarked on the project of reworking the Dragon books into the Fireblood and Fire Scion series'. And then, I decided to start a new series with a heroine who could truly become immortal.

Demon Bringer, first in the Darkshield series, went from initial inspiration to completed first draft in only eleven days. Its heroine, Adara Willoughby, is a smart and fiercely determined young woman who starts out as an innocent. As her saga progresses (book four is currently being written) she will learn much; but she has no desire to settle down. She has loved and lost, and will do so again and again as the lure of adventure calls her onward. Each new lover is adored in his way, but none has the power to hold her back in her quest for new knowledge and the richness of experience.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Welcome to my Hot Dreams

This blog is intended to be a venue for all things fantasy - particularly, fantasy fiction with an adult edge. If you are offended by explicit language, I suggest you do NOT read on. Check here for excerpts from forthcoming fantasy novels, reviews of new fantasy novels, and short fiction in an adult fantasy vein. Enjoy!