(Author’s note: The Twelve Naughty Days anthology is no longer available, so I’ve made this short story available on Patreon. For just $3/month, you can read a steamy short story from me every month! You can learn more here.)
It may be long past Christmas, but I just discovered this phenomenal 45-minute podcast about my "Twelve Drummers" short story in the Twelve Naughty Days holiday anthology.
“Twelve Drummers” is about what happens when a Latinx jewel thief, a Latinx museum guard, and an ancient Mexica drum magically collide on the longest night of the year.
Here's what Morgan and Isabeau of the romance podcast Whoa!mance had to say about it:
Morgan: Very very steamy. I realize it’s been a long time since I read a Sierra Simone-level steam.
Morgan: I’ve become desensitized to pretty run-of-the-mill sex scenes.
Isabeau: I don’t know that I feel that I’m desensitized, but this is certainly something that blows me out of the water. Like I haven’t read this level in a really long time. And I think that’s probably not necessarily unique to this author.
Morgan: I actually read a lot of supremely boring sex scenes. You know, where it’s pulling all the levers and pushing all the buttons. It’s putting the cream in the Twinkie, but this is someone making an eclair and slowly warming the shoe pastry and baking it. This is a whole other level.
Isabeau: It’s a feast.
Morgan: The majority of this story is a sex scene so it is taking up more real estate, but I also feel like it doesn't detract from the character building in this short story. It's rich for twenty pages let alone twenty pages of an erotic romance. The world building was perfect, you had just enough things. Our characters dream or goals, their reason for being in this space, their reasons for doing what they do, are completely fleshed out.
Isabeau: This books gives you something evocative.
Morgan: And I think it’s so fucking keen that you take this pretty Christian-centric content of the twelve days of Christmas and being part of an anthology with that theme and being able to cleverly but not shoehorn in a different cultural tradition that’s kind of a subtle critique. Once again this story occupies just 20 pages of this anthology.
Isabeau: I was mostly surprised by every sex scene. I just walked in to each one like, “What’re we gonna do next?”
You can listen to the whole podcast here.
And you can still get your hands on Twelve Naughty Days, which will only be available for a limited time. Each story is a never-before-seen short from NYT and USA Today bestselling authors: K.A. Linde, Skye Warren, Fiona Cole, Nana Malone, Claire Contreras, Nikki Sloane, Giana Darling, Sierra Simone, CD Reiss, Laurelin Paige, M. Malone, and me!
All of the proceeds go to the Trevor Project, which is a national, 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide prevention service for LGBTQ youth. Twelve Naughty Days is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. Just like the ebook, all the narrators on the audiobook are donating their work and time to the project!