_The blanket held my arms at my sides and my legs together. So I cracked my forehead into Vince's nose.

He grunted. Then dropped me. Watched me worm free of the blanket as he touched the blood that trickled from his nostril to his upper lip. He licked his fingers clean.

I lunged. An arm barred across my bare belly. A forearm across my throat cut off my screams.

Vince hissed in my ear. "You have my attention."

A romance novel must always have a happy ending or at least the promise of one. Always. No exceptions. No ways around it.

The very idea of never, can't be and shouldn't be done, rankles. My muse glowers at me every time I try to force him to conform, to deal with rules and limitations. I can almost hear him saying 'I could make you write a romance and kill everyone'.

Scary thing is, I bet he could.

Maybe my idea of romance is different. Plays like Romeo and Juliette, like Othello, which I always considered romantic, are called 'tragic comedies'. One of my favourite books by Barbara Michaels, Black Rainbow, is gothic suspense. Any other book I'd list is probably not a 'real' romance.

What about Phantom of the Opera? Or actually, any opera? Aren't they all tragic? And the stories romance, no? Then there's movies like Titanic, Ghost, Pearl Harbor...

I could probably go on and on and you could probably shut down my every argument by simply saying either, 'that's not really a romance' or 'But that had a HEA'.

Come again?

Can you have a HEA if one of both of the main characters die? Does the great love they experienced, and the closure of saying goodbye for now, knowing they will be together again, someday, meet happily ever after criteria?

I think it could. Then again, to me a romance isn't definied by how it ends, but by that moment when, as a reader, I truly feel that what's between the hero and the heroine is real. Nothing can take that away or make it something less—not death, not betrayal, not competition. What happens after is irrelevant. I would say a 'romance' that lacks that precious moment doesn't deserve the title. Let the hero and the heroine marry and grow old together, resolve their predictable misunderstandings, never ever stray. How sweet. Without either of them touching on that purest form of love, something we can all identify with in a raw, basic way, they're just a couple with a story.

To me anyway. But I intend to take writing 'dark erotica' (a label given to books that might have romantic scenes and love but don't meet HEA requirements) to a whole new level. Might take me awhile, but one day I'm going to write a gothic romance and trash convention. And no one will be able to debate that the story is a romance.

If I can pull that off, my next goal is learning to fly ;)

Note: I was really bad assuming everyone would get the acronyms, sorry about that.
HEA- Happily Ever After
HFN- Happy For Now
GMAFB- Gimme a Fucking Break

By Cari Silverwood
Is erotic romance any different?

In my first novel, the heroine is woken from a sexy dream by her cocker spaniel, Killer, slurping
her on the face. To me this was just an adorable thing to put into a story. It helped me make
my lady, Danii, real and three dimensional. If I want to engage the reader and get them to dive
into the story and wiggle their toes in the wet sand as the waves sweep toward them, smell the
lemongrass in the Thai meal, or maybe even, hell, get carpet burns off the rug, I have to put in
real stuff. Pets are part of that, and children too.

But one of my readers disagreed vehemently. Killer was the worst thing in my story and from the
sounds of her review, yanked her from the story. Being a little concerned with this, I did a poll of
readers of BDSM and erotic stories. To my relief most readers seem to love stories that have pets
and children in them.

A few didn’t want children in there due to getting worried about the virtual children, as they
called them, but almost everyone wanted pets. Some of their real life anecdotes about cats and
the male dangly bits being latched onto during sex may even make their way into a story. Ouch.
Sorry guys but they were funny in a tears-in-my-eyes way.

Some publishers do specifically demand no children in stories but they seem to be in the
minority. I’m not talking pedophilia here of course; the sex scenes get nowhere near the children,
just as in real life. But letting your heroine have a baby somewhere along the line, or maybe a
children’s party in between all the sexy shenanigans is perfectly okay with me. If it serves the
story, adds something, makes everything clearer and realer, I say go for it.

One proviso that a reader pointed out is that if the pet gets killed off they automatically throw
the book. I’m a bit that way myself. After reading several books where the dog or whatever died
at the hand of the villain, one day I consciously said to myself, no way am I doing that in one of
my books. I hate it when I read about a pet and find I’m making a mental note along the lines of:
Oh-ohh, this author’s put this in just so the death of the pet will make the villain come across as
meaner. Hate hate that with capital letters. HATE.

So if you kill a pet in your story at least give me another happy pet to pat while I sob. And be
prepared to run, real fast. I may be rummaging around in my closet for my antique sabre. I keep
it for burglars and authors that rile me.

Blurb:

Raised from childhood as an assassin, Claire finds her world knocked off kilter when Theo Kevonis, a rich, ex-Air Corp nobleman, rescues her from an airship crash. Being a soldier of a hostile nation she cannot reveal her identity, but Theo sinks his steely Dom fingers into her heart and soul, showing her the pleasures to be found in surrendering to his touch. Captivated, Claire cannot help but bind herself in lie after lie rather than risk losing the one man who’s ever loved her.  

When her loathsome commander returns from the dead, her deceit is uncovered. Somehow, Claire must find a way to win back Theo's trust and destroy the man who threatens them both.  And Buy Link:
http://www.loose-id.com/Iron-Dominance.aspx


Excerpt

“Stay there,” he said. 
 
She could smell him.  
 
She almost opened her eyes to say something, but instead balanced there. Why she obeyed him, she wasn't sure but it satisfied something primal, something deeply sexual. And letting go like this, made her feel safe.  
 
Anticipation strung her insides tight. She yearned for further caresses. Her cleft swelled.  
 
“Here. Raise your feet.” An article of clothing, both silken cloth and something harder, slid with muffled clicks up each leg. Theo arranged it about her torso, cool beads shifting across her breasts until the garment fitted snugly on her body. Something narrow settled between her legs. She gasped at a throb of pleasure as his fingers played in her moisture. A few more adjustments and he led her off to one side. A light flared on. “There. Open your eyes.”  
 
In a tall mirror, she saw herself, dressed in a black corset paneled with satin. Coming down from a halter, pearl ropes fanned out over each breast with her nipples peeking out between. A tiny skirt of chiffon, divided at the crotch, barely made it as far as her upper thighs. Lines of seed pearls undulated down the satin and a string of larger pearls dove deeply between her legs, emphasizing the split lips of her sex. She could feel it run up between the cheeks of her bottom at the back. Even as she looked, she felt a renewed throb, for every movement she made, from breath to heartbeat to shift of feet, moved the line of pearls and rubbed against her clit. 
 
In the reflection, she saw Theo beyond her shoulder, bare-chested, the ringlets of his black hair stark against his forehead. He raised a satin and pearl choker and positioned it about her neck, clicking it into place. “And these,” he said, holding first one wrist and then the other to snick matching black satin bracelets on her wrists. “They suit you.” From the hardness, metal lurked beneath the black cloth. 
 
Where the choker and bracelets rested on skin, her pulse rose, thumping, to the surface and reminded her of where she was, who she was with, and especially, how dangerous this could be. But…she trusted him.