I never used to write short stories. My favorite romance novels of my youth were brick-thick doorstoppers. Why write short?
But when agents rejected my first manuscript with helpful critiques of the dialogue, I decided to write a short story using only dialogue. To my surprise, the challenge worked. My dialogue did improve because of the focus on it. But I also realized that the confines of a a short story forced me to make my characters crisp, the world interesting, the conflict tight, and the love scenes HOT! In the boundaries of a short story, I could explore worlds, concepts, and couplings I wouldn't have the time or energy for in a 100k-word book.
Give it to Me: Sexy Tales About Women Getting the Good Loving They Deserve is the result of my love affair with the romance short story. Behind the fabulous cover by designer and illustrator John Sprengelmeyer are fourteen sexy short stories, the result of letting my storyteller imagination fly.
In it, you'll find hot stories of marriage and a sweet telling of an anonymous threesome. You'll find front-seat love with a supernatural hunter and paddle board kisses with a Hollywood movie star. You'll find an age-gap whodunnit and a magical gang bang of how-many-are-doing-it. I hope you gasp. I hope you laugh. I definitely think there will be a few tears.
The cover is the brainchild of a dear friend of hours, renown illustrator, designer, and syndicated comic strip artist John Sprengelmeyer. John now regularly works with director and comedian Kevin Smith. But my husband and I traveled with John before we had kids. He was one of four people who knew we were eloping. We almost killed John when he tried to sleep in our cat-hair-infested guest bedroom without his allergy medication. Kevin, he was our friend first.
I'd wanted to work with John forever and was thrilled that this self-published collection finally gave me the chance to do so. When I'd suggested the Rosie the Riveter theme, John said he'd thought of that, too. Instant kismet. But John came up with the unique, killer concept of one woman representing all the fierce women of the stories and as many men as space would allow worshipping her. When I posted it to my newsletter, the response was so strong that I’ve already added prints of the cover to my store!
You can preorder now! I will be adding more retailers as we get closer to release date. I hope you're as excited to read this book as I am excited for you to read it!