Disbelief Willingly Suspended

Stormhaven at Smashwords

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:53:09 GMT

Several authors I know of have been offering stories for sale via Lulu or Smashwords, as well as publishing other stories with e-publishers. I've been wanting to try that myself for MONTHS, but this is the first time I've had the time to sit down and upload something.

So: Stormhaven is available at Smashwords. If you buy it between now and September 18th, you can use coupon code WB48F to get it for just 0.99USD.

This is explicit erotic romance; seriously, this is not to everyone's taste, so please don't click the link if explicit erotic romance offends you.

Excerpt: ( Warning: explicit het sex. Also contains pirates, bondage, spanking, and various other kinks. NSFW, not intended for minors. Proceed at your own risk. )

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Review for Wolf's Layer!

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:43:58 GMT

From The Romantic Studio: ...This novelette will whet your appetite for more stories from a Layer series. I enjoyed the wonderful sexual vibe of this story which pulls you in with soft BDSM between Nisha and her long time boyfriend and ends with a newly discovered exciting lover Alaster. I expect both to stay in Nisha's life....

I love hearing that someone else is enjoying Nisha's adventures; it makes it that much more enjoyable to write.

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Wolf's Layer

Fri, 21 May 2010 01:59:22 GMT

Available now!

Blurb:

Nisha Jenkins is a Layer, gifted with special powers by the Orisha of love and intimacy, Oshun. Now she has her second assignment: help a hapless werewolf leave his pack so he can marry the woman he loves. Trouble is, Kevin hasn't been entirely upfront about what she'll have to do to help him win his freedom. Now she's face to face with the Alpha of the pack who's demanding his traditional right to bed Kevin's Moot date -- and that's Nisha.

Alastar Canagan is a powerful man (well, some of the time!), and not used to being turned down. What's a Layer to do?

Buy Link: http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1390

( Reminder: The excerpt below contains adult situations and language. )

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Promotional activity

Sat, 08 May 2010 03:09:37 GMT

...less terrifying than Paranormal Activity.

Having had an excellent day yesterday, in which my first ever m/m story was accepted for publication, I woke up in a wildly creative mood. I wanted to do a short ad for the next Changeling Insider, so first I had to set up an email account for a fictional character--complete with away message--and then I created a short newsletter (which you can sign up for by emailing beo.anderson@yahoo.com, and leaving him a message saying you want the nano-particle survival newsletter). And THEN I could write the little blurb for the Changeling Insider.

I think at this point I may as well be honest, and confess that, basically, I've spent the whole morning playing. :D

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Coming Soon: Wolf's Layer

Fri, 07 May 2010 03:16:28 GMT

It's going to be released on the 21 of May. It's already showing up under Changeling's coming soon titles!
Here's the link for it, although that's not the cover art, that's a placeholder. Cute, though, isn't he? ;)

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Unco-operative characters

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:52:59 GMT

I've unexpectedly found myself working on a short m/m story.

I read a fair amount of m/m (I have a friend, J. S. Cook, who writes it, and I'm a bit of a fan of Jordan Castillo Price and Josh Lanyon as well), but I've never written it. Or particularly wanted to write it, even.

But the characters who showed up in my head for this particular story are both male. The funny thing is, because I was thinking "I don't write m/m," I tried revamping things so that one character was female. But nuh-uh: no way. It just wouldn't work.

No wonder writers talk about "muses." It really does feel as if I have two imaginary people insisting that they're male and have to be written that way. I'm amused--and a bit boggled--by my inability to write them any other way.

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The second Layer story is almost finished!

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 09:15:20 GMT

By which I mean, it's in edits. I'm very pleased--this is the home stretch, and I'm quite happy with it. A little werewolf sex, a little Layer banter...

What's a Layer, you ask? I invented Nisha Jenkins for the Changeling disaster-relief anthology Aftershock. She's kind of a metaphor for what the Changeling authors were doing with that anthology: using the power of female sexuality to change the world for the better. After all, when you think about it, that anthology was created because a bunch of authors donated their time to write some hot romance for charity--and the finds were raised because readers were willing to take their reading pleasure by buying the book.

Okay, Nisha's sex/love magic is a bit more impressive. She has actual powers, granted by an Orisha. But still, I tried to keep her powers ambiguous--she doesn't kick down doors or cast spells, she just uses her particular sexual pull to influence people and events. You know, like women do every day. Only more so.

And now she's about to co-star in a second story, Wolf's Layer, with a gorgeous Alpha werewolf. I'm very happy for her.

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Aftershock

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:32:46 GMT

Changeling Press has a new anthology out: Aftershock.

It's to raise money for disaster relief, so none of us are making a profit from this one. And yet, paradoxically, this is the one I hope you'll buy, because I kind of love everyone at Changeling for wanting to do this. ♥

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Groundhog Day celebration!

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:29:38 GMT

Tuesday, February 2 from Midnight to Midnight Eastern time, join the authors of Dawg Town for a day of hot excerpts and hot conversation.

Who cares whether the groundhog sees its shadow, when you've got shapeshifting Prairie Dawgs promising an early heatwave!

So, don't be afraid of your own shadow. Join the authors for Groundhog Day! You never know what can happen if you come out of your burrows.

Prizes will be given for reader participation! Location: The Changeling Bar & Grill - http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Changeling Press/

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To celebrate 'Like a Corset Undone': One-Shot Seasonal Steampunk

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:40:17 GMT

As I've mentioned before, Like a Corset Undone is now available for sale, and I have a story in it. This thrills me to bits (you may have noticed).

Can you blame me? Read this description: All the trappings of steampunk society--corsets, airships, and 'leaping technologie'--meet the simmering undertone of sexuality so well-hidden by Victorian morality in LIKE A CORSET UNDONE, Circlet Press's third volume of erotic steampunk stories. By turns kinky and romantic, the stories in Like a Corset Undone explores all the reasons to unlace, whether to rebel, or for more intimate purposes.

Anyway. To celebrate that, I have a just-in-time-for-Christmas short story, set in the same world as my Like a Corset Undone story. And yes, before you ask: I do watch The Nutcracker every single year.

Contains: hints of D/s; a clockwork doll; a thief.
( The Watchmaker's Gift )

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Eight weeks until Christmas. Know what that means?

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:16:23 GMT

It means I'm posting my wishlist.

My wish list: lots of babies, and a few animals. No, I don't want you to mail those to me: I want you to help them, and then tell me about it.

Some of these send cards once you've made a donation. If you have my address, go ahead and do that--or else have the card sent to yourself, and just tell me about it, or scan it. Either way I'll be just as happy.

Or, for things that have an ecard option, my email is: miss_c_bligh@yahoo.ca

(The descriptions are directly from the websites.)

( The list )

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Five Angels at Fallen Angels Reviews

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:58:40 GMT

Whew! Summer is sizzling in Barkus, Kansas. Todd Hunter is by far my favorite male hero in this series. A muscular, aggressive, undercover cop who can shelve books and make me sweat? Sign me up! I have to admit that Dawg Town has become a guilty pleasure of mine and I am enjoying every word! Ms. Bligh pens a throb-worthy installment to the Dawg Town series!

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On the bright side, I now feel way better about that werewolf threesome story I'm working on

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:35:05 GMT

(In the interest of disclosure, in case anyone is reading this who doesn't know me, my personal journal can be found at Clarity Bligh.)

So. Yeah. By now most of you will have heard about the two 'scientists' trying to use fandom to conduct 'research' (and I'm sticking those quotation marks in there because there is nothing scientific about looking for data to confirm your belief that complex, societally-influenced behaviours are entirely predetermined by biology. Wander into an elementary-school science fair and you'll meet children who can grasp what's wrong with that approach.

But on a purely personal level, this bothered me in all sorts of ways, because the tired old cliches they trot out--'women like romance, men just rut,' for instance, or the whole 'in sexual encounters, one partner is dominant and one is submissive' thing. And, you know: I write erotic romance. Let's face it: some of those cliches are so deeply embedded in our culture, that I, along with everyone else in the genre, have caught myself using them. Well, bits of them, anyway.

So I spent some time yesterday and today wondering just how complicit I am in maintaining that status quo. If I trot out D/s het erotica, and the hero gets to be the dominant partner, am I merely catering to what readers want, or am I actually reinforcing it?

I don't have an answer for that. In the end, all I can do (assuming, that is, that I want to publish and sell my stories to an erotic-romance readership) is struggle to find the right balance between using the desired bullet-hard kinks, and doing some tinkering-and-reworking of my own. And that, I suppose, is the saving grace of the romance genre: we do use those cliches, as opposed to merely repeating them. The genre's writers and readers are well aware of the problems, believe me. We shape the well-worn cultural tropes to our own ends, so that, for instance, imaginary societies based on D/s don't have to look like Gor: Dominance and submission don't have to be linked to sex or to gender. And Steamporn doesn't have to be all colonialization-and-conquering: it can be about maids and schoolgirls and revolutionaries, not just captains and ~~male~~ mad scientists.

Not that I have anything against mad scientists. Some of my best friends are mad scientists, after all. I love them for their wit, their insanity, and their ability to do actual science. Instead of, you know, rewriting romantic cliches and calling them science.

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Like a Corset Undone

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:24:24 GMT

I've just received the cover art for Like a Corset Undone (which, to recap, is the erotic steampunk anthology that I HAVE A STORY IN, and yes, that's my thrilled voice). It's gorgeous.

( Seriously. Gorgeous. )

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Reviews at Bitten by Books

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:20:06 GMT

I have to love a site which grades things in tombstones. ♥

Make it Real: This story is great and is filled with intense sexual scenes that will have you grabbing for a fan. The characters are easy to fall for and it has a great plot making this an excellent story. I give this 5 out of 5 tombstones.

Make it Rough: The dolls from the Living Doll Test Kitchens are fun to read about and, if you’re in the right frame of mind, to even dream about purchasing one. Although this is a series, you do not necessarily have to read the first book to enjoy this one, but I would say pick up the first book, too - its just as hot.

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Review for Prairie Rose!

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:33:07 GMT

(Am currently sleep-deprived and battle-scarred; you know, NOTHING else in life has adequately prepared me for life with a newborn. But my little werepup is precious and perfect, and worth it. And I'm just starting to feel enough like myself again to be beaming with delight over this review...)

Romance Junkies Reviews: PRAIRIE ROSE by Carlanime Bligh is a wonderful addition to the Changeling Press DAWG TOWN line. Todd’s status as an outsider makes him a sure target for the playful antics of the Dawgs but fortunately Rose saves him from that humiliation. I found it extremely humorous that Todd has no idea that he’s in a town of shifters yet knows that there’s something very different about everyone he’s met.

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They ain't furries, they just look that way.

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:25:35 GMT

So I've been thinking about the appeal of shapeshifter romance, which is the sort of thing I sit around pondering, if you've ever wondered.

Aside from the "wouldn't it be cool to be able to do that?" aspect of shapeshifting, I have a loose theory that shifters "stand in" for certain problems and issues in real life. Having a character with two selves makes it possible to explore the "pulled in two directions" problems we all face, especially when it comes to balancing sex-and-romance with the rest of our lives.

Take werewolves, for example: a lot of compelling werewolf fic deals with the conflict between loyalty and duty to family/clan, on the one hand, and wanting to be free to pursue one's own emotional/sexual needs, and outside interests, on the other. Or between animal instinct, including sexual desire, and rational decision-making.

And then there are the, um, cute shifters (everyone admire that oh-so-subtle segue, there!). Okay, forgive the shameless self promotion, or in this case group promotion, but take the whole Dawg Town thing. Aside from being both hot and hilarious (I hope), I think we've got something interesting going on there, with the contrast between stereotypes-about-bikers (tough, scary, dangerous) and things-you-want-to-cuddle.

Okay, yes, none of us will ever date a shapeshifter. Probably. But that tension between desire and nervousness, between the "threat" inherent in getting to know someone and the "lure" of how touchable, trustworthy, and attractive they might also be: that's a reality.

We've just taken the idea and made it literal, and in the process, entertaining (we hope).

The soon-to-be-released series:
Selena Illyria, Dawg Town : Homecoming

Tuesday Richards, Dawg Town : Mad Dawg

Lena Austin, Dawg Town : Bad Dawg

Anne Kane, Dawg Town : Hustle

Carlanime Bligh, Dawg Town : Prairie Rose

Marteeka Karland, Dawg Town: Hot Dawg

Dawn Montgomery, Dawg Town : Playing for Keeps

Mary Winter, Dawg Town : Chip & Dale

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Coming soon from Changeling Press

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:53:39 GMT

My own contribution, Prairie Rose, is one of several erotic shapeshifter stories in the Dawg Town series. Unusual shapeshifters, to put it mildly. Really cute ones.

( Cut for video )

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Coming Soon: Shapeshifter erotica

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:10:06 GMT

I have a shapeshifter story coming out soon from Changeling Press. It's one of a whole series of shapeshifter stories--all written by different people. Guess what they shift into. Go on, guess.

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Not-Gor

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:31:40 GMT

For personal reasons I'm about to be missing from the computer for an extended period (from the 16th of June until the end of August, it looks like, although I *might* manage to sneak a few moments online in the latter half of August). And I mean, really missing from the computer--not just no updates, but no email, which means no submissions anywhere.

And no writing, although I have surrounded myself with notebooks. So I will actually be writing, technically, just in the inconvenient way that will leave me with lots to type up afterwards.

Anyway, knowing I can't submit anything until the autumn has had a predictably depressing effect on my wordcounts. But it hasn't stopped me from doing a lot of note-jotting, outlining, and worldbuilding, so that's all to the good.

I've been playing around a lot with my D/s-based Steampunk-esque world, and have come to the conclusion that what I'm trying to create is basically a sort of not-Gor. That is, I want to keep all the dominance-and-submission social structure of Gor, but I don't want it to be mandatory male-Dom female-sub; I want a world with more permutations. And of course, the "feel" of the world is entirely different: it's pseudo-Victorian, so it's all very "manners and tea and spanking"....

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A few useful links: erotic, paranomal, and inspirational romance

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:10:05 GMT

"Oh, god, yes," she moaned, as he parted her legs.
( Erotic Romance )

"Oh, God."
"Yes," he said, rising from all fours as the last of the thick fur disappeared. "I'm a werewolf."
( Paranormal Romance )

"Oh yes: God," she said simply, when he asked if there was some reason she didn't believe in casual sex.
( Inspirational Romance )

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Publishers' and Authors' Pages: Inspirational Romance

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:16:21 GMT

Publishers

Steeple Hill Love Inspired

Samhain Publishing

Barbour Publishing

Rose and Crown

Bethany House

Tyndale House

Authors

Deeanne Gist

Tamara Leigh

Brenda Coulter

Staci Stallings

Charlotte Hubbard

Judith Bronte

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Romance Covers: Historical

Sat, 16 May 2009 13:00:00 GMT

A Georgian Romance:

Originally released as, "How Gold My Highlights." No, actually, I like this cover. There people have Really Good Hair--the colour, anyway; his cut's a little too 80s for my taste. But hey, what do I know about Georgian hair? Maybe it's supposed to look like that.
I'm struggling to remember how I came to acquire a Georgian Romance. Has anyone else even heard of a Georgian Romance? Where did I get this thing?

A Byronic Hero:

I almost like this cover, too, mostly for the Byronic brooding hero. See the brooding Byronicness, there? It's only slightly spoiled by the sallow skin tone, but at least he has a skin tone: the woman gazing longingly at his neck has been entirely drained of blood.

Thick:

Sticking with the Byronic theme for a moment, look: it's Claire Claremont! I love how the artist has chosen to take the title literally, and has given her a befuddled, none-too-bright pout.

A Taxonomic Error:

Speaking of dumb heroines, Miss Cayley seems a tad confused as to what a unicorn looks like. That, you poor dumb child, is clearly a Vampire. Stop smirking at it and run.
(That tagline kind of reminds you to be grateful Stonewall happened, doesn't it?)

Insert Kitten A:

Nothing says insipid quite like a gamboling kitten. Bonus points for matching the kitten to her hair--I bet she dyes them both.

Crumbs of Nothing:

Wait, I lied. Daintily pretending to feed swans says insipid in pretty much precisely the same way fawning over a kitten does. I'm not the only one who thinks she's just doing that for show, either--check out the "Are you fucking kidding me?" expression on the hero's face.

Detachable Peen: Non-Fandom Edition:

I bet on first glance you made the same mistake I did, and assumed that for some reason this heroine is gazing adoringly at a short male veterinarian with an incredibly unconvincing mustache. Thanks to fandom, I've learned to reassess: every unconvincing male could, in fact, be a woman.

You Could Maybe Shave That:

Is that a Sporran, or are you just happy to...oh, forget it. The guy with the revolting smirky leer isn't half so eye-catching as the heroine's 'Carmen Miranda: Now Playing the Regency!' dress.

Mister Fluffy: the Early Years:

Nice hair. Shame about his face.
...c'mon, I was not the only one who thought that.
He's obviously very proud of his hair, since he's cleverly drawing attention to it by displaying a huge cat to match it. Is this a known Regency trend? Did people used to be required by law to own a cat that matched their hair?

How Deep My Innuendo:

"All right, how much if you don't use the riding crop?" she asked, jingling her purse.

I was going to joke that this had originally been titled, "Jack on the Game" but the title was censored.
And then I realized that the actual title? Is approximately 1000x filthier. And now I can't stop smirking horribly, sort of like the 'Beastie' of a couple of covers back.

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