Menu Close

Tag: erotica

Crossing the Street by Belinda McBride

Courtesy of www.homotography.com

Most readers who are familiar with me are aware that I like to cross genre. Gleefully, I hop from sci fi to fantasy to paranormal. I’ve done bisexual ménage, interracial, multi-cultural and BDSM as well. So it’s not surprising that I finally ended up writing (and loving) m/m romance…except that I never really wanted or intended to write m/m. I was pretty happy with my straight and bi romances. This genre is so jam packed with new and established talent, there just didn’t seem to be a point. But then, I also vowed never to write werewolves…

There’s always been m/m content in my romances. There’s something so wonderful and winsome about men in love. Many women love that fantasy, especially if they happen to be in the middle of the mix.  In my father’s side of the family, polyamory popped up more than once…(my female relations do love their men!) so I’m comfortable with that concept. I love my heroines and take pride in writing amazing, complex women. I was really quite content with the variety in my writing.

That first m/m story came about pretty much by accident. I was doing a little writing exercise on first person POV and the male character that I was writing really had nothing to say. So I switched to the heroine, who was a bit of a disreputable princess. She kept spouting this line over and over…. ”A whore is a whore…” Beyond that, she didn’t have much to say. So I’m left sitting there with a first person POV exercise where neither character was talking. When that happens, you either scrap the project or turn their world upside-down.

So I made the princess a man.

Suddenly, Hela, who was now Helios, had a lot to say. And my reluctant hero pricked up his ears, got a gleam in his eye and told me that his name was Griffin. The story picked up speed and was suddenly in the hands of my Loose Id editor with a release date. An Uncommon Whore was surprisingly successful.

So my thought was that it was a fluke…right? I really didn’t want to go down that road too far. But when the Coming Out series was proposed at Loose Id, another character that had been languishing in my files came forward with a purpose. His name was Oliver Bleu and he wanted a man of his own. I finally understand the reason some of my characters and stories didn’t fly…they didn’t have chemistry with their heroine!

Have I crossed the road completely? Well, no. I still love my heroines. I love my ménages. But writing m/m romance was such a delightful shake-up in my routine that I certainly won’t be leaving it behind. I like playing off alpha against alpha and pulling little surprises in the balance of dominance. I enjoy letting tough men show their vulnerability to another man. In a good romance, I expect some element of sacrifice, and having a character risk his self image and his machismo is such a sacrifice.

So how did you cross the street? Did you download a m/m romance to see what all the fuss was about? Did you stumble across a manga, only to discover that the pretty girl was really a boy? Tell me about how you came to read or write in the m/m side of the spectrum. I’ll randomly choose a comment and the winner can choose an e-book from my backlist.

Belinda McBride lives in far northern California with her family, which mostly consists of an unruly group of Siberian Huskies. She writes for Loose Id, Changeling Press, Dreamspinner Press and Passion in Print Publishing.

Please visit her website at http://www.belindamcbride.com

Or her blog at http://www.belindam.blogspot.com

More information on her latest release:

LAST CALL EUROPE: BLACK WOLF
M/M Paranormal/Shifter Romance

Blurb:
Siberians live for the thrill of the chase; wolves exist for the joy of the capture. On a foolish dare, Jasper O’Shea takes a gamble at the Last Call, letting fate chose his lover for the night.

Detective Brutus “Brutal” Ballantine came to the Last Call looking for something far different than a sly, clever Siberian Husky. Yet when the call comes over the sound system, he finds himself unable to resist the lure of laughing blue eyes and a happy tail.

The chase is on, but who is the hunter, and who is the prey?

(Author’s note: While this story stands alone, it features characters introduced in Last Call Europe: Devil’s Advocate.)

Read an excerpt at: Changeling Press

Why Do Women Love M/M Romance? by Amber Kell

Image from www.homotography.com

That’s the question I’m posing today. What makes us like the thought of hot manlove? Is it because one guy is hot and two guys only makes it hotter? Or is it because we’re a group of romance readers who like things that aren’t on the purely traditional pathway?

There are only so many woman-abducted-by-pirate stories a person can read in a lifetime before we think maybe John instead of Jane would make a better character for a sexy twist (hmmm, jotting down a note).

I started reading traditional romances when I was in my teens. You know the ones; sophisticated, rich man falls for naïve, clueless virgin and they live happily ever after. Over the years I’ve pretty much read every scenario known to author, starting at traditional m/f, progressing to ménage and now, having cut out the girly parts, read and write m/m romances.

Some people try to draw parallels to society and all kinds of psychological reasons behind the onslaught of male/male reading by a mostly female audience, but sometimes it’s just about a hot man and an interesting story. I’d love to read feedback as to why you read m/m romance or maybe why you don’t.

Contest: I will be giving away one audio copy of my book, Blood Signs, to one lucky commenter!

Amber Kell is a published author of M/M Erotic Romance. You can find more information about her at her website at: Amber Kell

Here is information on her latest release:

Series: Perfect Strangers , Book 2
Published By: OmniLit / All Romance eBooks, LLC
Published: Feb 02, 2011
ISBN # 9781936387205

Purchase at: All Romance eBooks

Blurb: Everyone needs a little romance…

When artist Stephen Carter catches a glimpse of Master Jones on the security monitors of his brother’s BDSM club he’s entranced. A hastily drawn sketch manages to capture the Dom’s high cheekbones, square jaw, and hot, hard body. A body the quiet, reclusive Stephen would love to explore.

The subs who fall for Victor Jones always get hurt. He has no desire to enter into a committed relationship and no room in his life for romantic entanglements. But then the seasoned Dom starts to receive intriguing gifts from a secret admirer. When Victor discovers his admirer is Stephen, he decides maybe it’s time to try out something new, someone less experienced.

Hot Anime Men in the Spotlight

Okay, so the question today is, who is your favorite hot anime guy and why?

Off the top of my head I’m thinking about all the Gundam series, starting with Wing and ending with 00, just because I have yet to find a place that is streaming Gundam Unicorn online (but if I find one, I’ll let y’all know.). In Wing, we have Duo, Heero, Trowa, Quatre and Wufei. I think I like Due and Heero most, of course the dude with the long hair and the silent strong type;) I believe they are my favorite yaoi pairing from this series, too. As far as the Gundam Seeds go, I love Kira and Athrun. Kira is just so… well angsty and Athrun is the sensitive type that I wish more dudes had in them. And then of Gundam 00, my favorites are Neil Dylandy (first only to his twin brother Lyle) and Allelujah Haptism. Setsuna, though very angsty, just seems too young to me and I’m sorry, Tieria is really a girl with a male voice, isn’t he? LOL

         

This... is Hugue. O.O

I could name so many, like Kira and L from Death Note, Ichigo and Renji from Bleach(I just recorded the Bleach movies they showed on Adult Swim last night), Cain, Able and Hugue from Trinity Blood(love, love, Hugue), Hagi from Blood +, Amon from Witch Hunter Robin, Cloud and Vincent from Final Fantasy and Edward Elric and Roy Mustang from FMA (you didn’t think I’d forget them, did you?)  and so on.

Let’s get on to why these characters appeal to us. First and foremost for me, artwork in the anime is of utmost importance. I’m thinking Death Note, Blood Trinity, Final Fantasy and Gundam 00 here. I think everything in these series is beautifully drawn, let alone the characters. And they always have cool hair. What’s up withe free flowing, long and gorgeous hair in anime guys? Why can’t real guys look like that? Oh wait, JRockers pretty much do;) I’ve always liked dudes with long hair and I don’t know why. Maybe someday I’ll have to examine this more with a therapist, LOL. But even when I was a teenager, I always went for the dude with the longest hair and bonus if he had dark hair (black preferable). Of course, I dated a lot of musicians (and still do). Hair is my favorite part to draw when I do my own artwork and notice, not many dudes with short hair.

Moving on, how about how these guy’s bodies are drawn? Even the supposed high schoolers have a body to die for. We’re talking muscled hairless chests, six pack abs and long and lean. This is just my type as well. Not only do I like my men to have long hair, but I prefer them to have more of a lean body – none of this muscle bound, I can’t put my arms all the way down, types. And no, I do not like facial hair or a whole lot of chest hair and too bad. I like what I like and it happens to be just what anime dudes look like. Maybe this is why manga and anime appeal much more to me than Marvel Comics and  American cartoons (that was a whole other blog – “What’s up with American Animation?”)

With all the short haired, muscled dudes you see on romance novels and such and the types of guys my friends date (uh, that type), it makes me think that my taste is a little, well, eccentric. Or maybe I’m just out of the closet and there are legions of women who don’t really like the culture-driven, spoon-fed types of guys that are on television and romance novel book covers. Maybe there are hordes of us who really, secretly long for dudes who look like Lockon Stratos and Hugue. I mean, Fabio was pretty popular at one point, right? What happened to all those women? Did they all just go back in their closets?

What do you like and why?