Julie Shelton
Erotic Romance
Can you tell
us a little about your books in the Sarah series?
Keeping Sarah is my third
contemporary BDSM ménage romance for Siren Publishers. It is the third and final installment in the
series which began with Loving Sarah, published in 2012, and
its sequel, Owning Sarah, published last September. By the time I finished writing Loving
Sarah, it was clear to me that I had enough material for more than one
book, hence the sequel, Owning Sarah. Both are MFM ménages. But even though Owning Sarah ended with
Sarah, Jesse and Adam’s wedding and their happy ending, I couldn’t stop thinking
about the three characters. I couldn’t
help but feel that Jesse and Adam needed to explore the feelings they were
developing for each other as well as for their beloved wife, Sarah. So, Keeping Sarah was born. But this is Jesse Colter and Adam Sinclair
and nothing comes easy for them. So, in
addition to telling Jesse and Adam’s evolving love story, Keeping Sarah is also a
harrowing thrill ride of deadly car chases, Albanian blood feuds, a sex slave
auction, murder, betrayal, and gut-wrenching intrigue.
Please tell us
how the idea came to you for Jesse Colter, your main hero. Be sure to include all the fun details.
It started
with his name. Jesse Colter. It was the perfect name for a Dominant, alpha
hero. I spent months thinking about him
and coming up with a compelling back-story for him.
Abandoned
by his Native American mother, neglected and abused by his alcoholic bully of a
father, Jesse is embittered, angry and going nowhere fast. At age nineteen, he takes a summer job as
part-time gardener at the Marshall estate and meets thirteen-year-old Sarah
Marshall. To a hardened biker and sexual
Dominant, Sarah Marshall is like some fey, magical creature from another world,
and he is enchanted by her. For the
first time in his life, Jesse has someone who thinks he’s wonderful. Someone who listens to him and values his
opinion. Someone who makes him laugh and
who cares for him. Sarah Marshall quickly becomes someone precious to him. Someone to treasure and protect. Someone to love. At first he loves her as an adult loves a
child.
But as
Sarah grows into a beautiful, voluptuous young woman who makes no effort to
hide her growing love for him, Jesse is terrified that his carnal feelings for
her and his Dominant nature will end up destroying the one thing he treasures
most—Sarah Marshall. So he leaves their
small town of Marshall’s Creek and joins the Navy, becoming a SEAL. Eight years of grueling training and
dangerous missions give him a sense of identity and self-worth. He realizes that he is a man of honor and
integrity and is finally able to admit to himself that he needs Sarah in order
to make him complete. Determined to do
whatever it takes to win her trust and her love, he returns to Marshall’s
Creek. That’s where their love story begins
in Loving
Sarah. It continues in Owning
Sarah, and finishes with a bang in Keeping Sarah.
What
influenced you to send your first book to a publisher? How long did it take?
I spent
four years writing, editing, polishing, re-writing Loving Sarah. It was a never-ending cycle. Then I lost it. Completely wiped it out of my computer. I was devastated. The thought of having to recreate an entire
400-page novel from scratch was so daunting, I fell into a deep
depression. Then around four months after
I lost it, I had to print something and that’s when I discovered that the
entire novel, minus the last 15 pages, was still in the print queue. I was elated!
And I knew that I had to send it off to a publisher immediately, before
my ignorance of computers caused something else to happen to it. Siren was the first publisher I submitted it
to, mainly because they published a lot of my favorite authors. Around three weeks after I sent it to them,
they emailed me and asked me to make a few changes. I figured this was a pretty good sign,
thinking if they weren’t interested in it at all, they wouldn’t have bothered
to ask for the changes. They offered to
publish it less than two weeks after I submitted the revised manuscript.
Is music a
factor for you while you are writing? Do certain songs put you in the right
frame of mind to write certain stories?
When I put
music on, it’s to listen to it, so I usually find it distracting when I’m
writing because I want to sing or hum along with it. It’s hard to write when you’re bopping around
in your chair, singing at the top of your lungs, LOL
If you could
collaborate with one author who would it be?
Good
grief, there’s no way I could pick just one!
Go to the list above, close your eyes and point. I’ll go with her.
What is the
strangest source of writing inspiration you’ve ever had?
Years ago
I was watching the movie, Becket (with Richard Burton and Peter o’Toole). In one scene there was a minor female character
dressed in a blue gown. I was finishing
my BA in French at the time and doing extensive research on life in a
thirteenth-century French castle.
Well, the
minute I saw that gown, an entire romance novel sprang into my mind. I couldn’t write it down fast enough. And since I was taking all my research notes
on 3 x 5 index cards, that’s what I wrote the novel on. I wound up with two shoeboxes full of index
cards, one with all my research notes, the second with my novel. Last year I transcribed the entire book onto
my computer and that became Dark Warrior, my third book for Siren, published in
January of this year.
What are you
working on now?
Oh, I am
so glad you asked that! I just finished Passion’s
Dream, the first book in my new Passion Lake series. It’s a series of books about a bunch of Jesse
and Adam’s former SEAL buddies, all characters in the three Sarah books, who
buy a bankrupt town around thirty miles down the road from Marshall’s Creek and
turn it into a profitable tourist attraction.
Passion’s Dream is about Clay “Raven” Nighthorse, who is hired
to protect Leah Stanhope, a woman with whom he had a brief encounter three
years ago on a California beach. When
their location is compromised, he brings her to his ranch in Passion Lake,
where he has plenty of friends who are willing to help keep her safe while he
devotes himself to proving that he wants and needs her in his life. Permanently.
I am now nearly halfway through with Passion’s Fury, the second book in
the series. It is about Caleb, Simon,
and Ash Rafferty, who own the airfield in Passion Lake and the girl of their
dreams who is on the run from mob hit men.
It is going to be exciting!
Look for Passion’s Dream, Passion’s
Fury, and Passion’s Hope, the first three exciting books in the Passion
Lake series, at the beginning of 2015.
INTRODUCING THE DOMS OF PASSION
LAKE
Virginia is for lovers. Passion Lake is for…kinky lovers. Welcome to Passion Lake, a town owned and
operated by a group of ex-Navy SEALs. A
town where they are free to live their kinky lifestyles without fear of
interference or censure.
A group of former SEAL teammates
get together and buy the derelict, bankrupt town of Porterfield, Virginia,
along with thirteen square miles of surrounding land, and turn it into the thriving
tourist destination of Passion Lake, Virginia.
Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town boasts
not only the large, deep-water lake from which it derives its name, but also
farmland, grazing land, a couple of creeks, scenic trails, and a World War I
era airfield. The amenities offered
include a lodge with cabins, camping, boating, fishing, horseback riding,
hiking, both quirky and elegant little shops, and excellent restaurants. Passion Lake is the town around 30 miles down
the road from Marshall’s Creek. The WWI
airfield is where the skinhead camp was located in my book Owning Sarah.
Many of the men were minor
characters in my three books about Jesse Colter, Adam Sinclair, and Sarah
Marshall. So, if you’re curious about
what happened to Clay “Raven” Nighthorse, Nik “Iceman” Rostov, Jay “Dizzy”
Gillespie, Ted “Solo” Solomon and all the others, you’ll find out in this new
series, The Doms of Passion Lake. The
first book in the series is Passion’s Dream.
PASSION’S DREAM
When Clay “Raven” Nighthorse is
offered a job as bodyguard to a woman being stalked by her vengeful ex, he’s
ready to turn it down. Until he
discovers that she is the woman he met on a beach three years ago. The woman with whom he felt an instant
connection. The woman who has been haunting
his dreams ever since.
Leah Stanhope has never forgotten
the day she surprised her husband in bed with another woman. Nor has she forgotten the kindness and
compassion of the complete stranger who’d simply held her in his arms and let
her cry herself out on a public beach. She despairs of ever seeing him again until fate brings them together in
a conflagration of desire and smoking hot passion. Can Clay convince Leah to risk her
heart? And when her stalker finds her,
will Clay be able to stop him in time?
PASSION’S DREAM - ADULT EXCERPT:
Lifting his hand, he placed his
fingertips against her cheek.
She jerked her head away, but
otherwise couldn’t move. It was as if
she’d been turned to stone. “Don’t touch
me!” She’d meant it to be an icy
command, but instead it came out a choked, frightened whisper.
Ignoring her, he sent his fingers
on a journey along the line of her jaw, down the slender column of her
neck. He paused at the base of her neck,
holding the tip of his index finger over the pulse hammering there, betraying
her agitation. The journey continued
down over her collar bones, across the creamy, sloping mound of her breast to
the edge of her modest bathing suit top.
When she made no move to stop him, he hooked his forefinger into the
stretchy material. When she still didn’t
move, he allowed his fingernail to scrape against her tender flesh as he traced
the outline of the fabric down to its lowest point—the point where it stretched
across the shadowed valley between her breasts.
“Don’t—”It was a choked
whisper. She closed her eyes, but she
made no attempt to remove his hand. She
was trembling, every clamoring nerve aware of his nearness, the potent sexuality
of his hard, male body so close to hers.
‘I-I’m engaged to be married.”
“Ah, yes.” His lips twisted. “The ever-devoted fiance. Tell me, Leah,” he tugged her toward him, the
weight of his hand pulling the stretchy, jersey top outward, threatening to
release the rounded fullness of her breasts.
“Tell me about him. What’s it
like making love to an old man?”
She should have pushed him
away. She should have stepped
back—anything to put distance between them.
Except she wasn’t standing. She
was floating in the water, anchored by her elbow on the pool deck and his
finger hooked in her bikini top. Unable
to get away, she stared up at him helplessly, trapped as much by the confusion
leaping within her as she was by the sensual spell he seemed to be weaving
around her like a web.
Resting his left elbow on the
underwater shelf, he released her top and lifted his hand to shape the back of
her head, those long, lean fingers threading through the damp silk of her
hair. “Does his touch arouse you?” Slowly, sensuously, he pulled her toward him,
closing the distance between them, until his firm, mobile mouth was less than
an inch from her own, his breath warm against her lips. “Does he set you on fire?”
The hard contours of his body
brushed tantalizingly against the softly rounded curves of her own as the cool
water undulated against them.
“Does he kiss you like this?” Clay
persisted, dropping a warm, feather-light kiss near one corner of her trembling
mouth, “like a father? Or perhaps like
an uncle or older brother, like this,” he pressed his lips first to her cheek,
then, tilting her head down, her forehead.
“Or does he kiss you like a lover?
Like this—”and his mouth closed over hers in a dark, golden storm, his
lips expertly parting hers to admit the probing sweetness of his tongue.
Leah stiffened and tried to pull
away, but it was too late. The flame
ignited by his touch was all-consuming.
Without volition, her arms went around his neck, her legs circled his
waist, ankles locking behind him. The
sheer size of the erection pressing against her sex made her gasp. Her belly plummeted, sending moisture gushing
out of her pussy onto the strip of fabric that was the bottom of her
two-piece. She’d never been so aroused
in her life. Her traitorous body arched
toward his, her hips grinding her sex against his cock. She moaned into his mouth as his arms went
tightly around her back, crushing her soft breasts to his hard chest. Locked together, they sank beneath the
surface of the water. Instead of
panicking and struggling to break free, Leah wound her arms tightly around his
neck and held on, trusting in his care of her.
Without breaking the kiss, Clay
pushed off the deep end of the pool with a powerful thrust of his muscular
legs, gliding swiftly through the water to the center of the pool, where he
could stand up. They broke the surface
still locked together, their mouths tearing apart only long enough to drag air
into their oxygen-starved lungs before crushing back together, tongues dueling
passionately.
Leah loosened her hold on his neck,
running her hands wonderingly over his shoulders and back, savoring the power
of the muscles flexing beneath his satin-smooth skin, delighting in the heat of
his body beneath the cool slickness of the pool water. In spite of the pervading smell of chlorine,
she could still smell his clean, masculine scent. Losing all reason, she broke off the kiss to
bury her face in the side of his neck, where it curved into his shoulder,
inhaling that scent deep into her lungs.
Daringly, she put out her tongue and took a tiny lick of his warm, moist
skin. God, he tasted so good! He felt so good! She couldn’t stifle the groan that ripped
from her throat. Her hands curved around
to the back of his head, her fingers gripping the thick, wet mass of his hair,
holding his head still. She drew a
shuddering breath, trying desperately to get herself under control. This is a mistake! This is a colossal mistake!
The second book is about Caleb
“Hollywood” Rafferty and his brothers, Simon and Ash. They are triplets, all pilots, and they own
the WWI era airfield for their popular charter business and helicopter
sight-seeing business. The first thing
they did upon purchasing the airfield was to raze all the existing buildings because
of the location’s bad memories associated with Sarah Marshall’s kidnapping and
the raid on the skinhead camp. They are
looking for that special “One”, a woman who will take on the challenge of three
men and who will thrive under their loving dominance. They find her in Passion’s Fury, Book Two of
The Doms of Passion Lake.
Book Three will be about Nik Rostov
and Jay Gillespie and their search for their one. I’m hoping to publish all three books by
January or February and plan to release them one right after the other, within
a week or two of each other. So be on
the lookout for The Doms of Passion Lake.
And get ready to fall in love with these sexy, charismatic men.
Bio:
Julie Shelton has always loved stories,
both reading and writing them, ever since she was old enough to hold a
book in her hands. One of her favorite childhood activities was
smuggling books under the covers to read by flashlight after she was
supposed to be asleep.
Another
was writing little plays that she and her sister performed for their
very indulgent parents. Her first novel was about an amateur teenage
girl detective and her two sidekicks--hmm. Perhaps it was more than just a coincidence that she happened to be devouring all the Nancy Drew books at the time?
A
career as a children's librarian eventually led to her dream career as a
freelance story-teller and puppeteer, a business she operated
successfully for twenty-five years. During that time she wrote a
monthly newsletter and a book of language arts resource material for
early childhood educators. The newsletter won the prestigious EDPRESS
Award for the best educational newsletter.
Now
retired, she has plenty of time to devote to reading and writing her
new love, erotic romance, thus following the traditional career path
blazed by so many before her...from kiddie lit to erotica.
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