In my White Tigers series, the men of the White Tiger are skilled in the erotic arts. Really, in my intention, it means they are trained to pay careful attention – to a man’s unique scent and flavour, the sounds he make, the part of him that are particularly sensitive and bring him pleasure. The background research of the White Tigers’ methods really come from The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress by Hsi Lai, a Westerner who has spent years with the female sexual Taoists in China, learning their ways and understanding their history. I first heard about this book from Jade Lee, my favorite erotic romance author whose exotic historical Tigress series takes place in Shanghai and has been endlessly inspiring. She admires the Tigresses for their courage in finding sexual pleasure and enlightnement in a repressive culture. I agree and also found that this methodology adapted itself quite well to m/m. I don’t necessarily think that’s it’s necessary to make the body immortal, but it seems that learning healthy sexual attitudes and practices of the body and spirit certainly can enhance our lives, something that I try to convey through my stories. Hope it’s working! Hugs, Sedonia
I love watching BJ Penn fight. I don’t know how many of you are into MMA (mixed martial arts) but Penn is exciting to watch. He’s incredibly fast and flexible – must be the Jiu Jitsu – he can wangle a guy into submission with his legs at any angle. It’s quite something. And well, as a female writer of erotic romance, there are other effects of watching this kind of fighting.
Happy New Year everyone!
As a writer in the publishing world, I often worry that I’ve not done enough, but taking stock of 2007 showed that wasn’t true and I just wanted to share with you what a big year it was for me professionally.
In 2007:
I went into print this year. No fewer than 5 books! Quite a flood. They are: His Beautiful Samurai and Beautiful Samurai, White Tiger (Torquere Press), The Completeness of Celia Flynn and The Bite Before Christmas anthology (Loose Id) and Unmasked: Erotic Tales of Gay Superheroes anthology (STARbooks Press).
This was the year I got into Ellora’s Cave and Red Sage Secrets!
Also, I feel that my writing reached higher levels of quality and it showed:
A Man for Michael (Ellora’s Cave) – Recommended Read from Two Lips Reviews
Ace in the Hole (Loose Id) – Reviewer Top Pick from Night Owl Romance Reviews
Men of Phuket: Tongue-Thai’d (Total-E-Bound) – Blue Ribbon Favorite from Romance Junkies
Beautiful Samurai, White Tiger (Torquere Press) – Recommended Read from Joyfully Reviewed
2008 proves to be an exciting year coming up as well! HEre’s the lineup so far:
February – Men of Tokyo: Sudden Bliss (Total-E-Bound) and Heart of a Sorceress (Ellora’s Cave)
April – Gentle Warrior (Ellora’s Cave)
August – Yin Yang (Fabulous Brits Anthology – Total-E-Bound)
TBA – Three more STARbooks Press antholgies: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tie Me Up, Boys Will be Boys, and Ride ‘Em Cowboy: Erotic Tales of the West
December – Secrets Vol 25: Wicked Delights featuring: Enter the Hero.
A Werewolf for Christmas (Ellora’s Cave)
I’m so excited! I’m glad you’re all here to share it with me. Hopefully, there will be even more. I’ll keep you posted.
Hugs, Sedonia
You may know him from House, oh, I love that show and can’t think of his character’s name. But Jesse Spencer is adorable. Whenever I see him I can totally picture him as a character in a yaoi manga. 
Congratulations, Laura K. for winning a free download of one of Stephanie Vaughan’s books! Yay! Thanks also to everyone who read and or/commented on Stephanie’s interview. Hope you enjoyed it and please come back later this month for Jade Lee, USA Today best selling author of the deliciously erotic Tigress series from Dorchester. I can’t wait!
I’m so excited to have Stephanie Vaughan as a guest here today. Let’s get started right away! And readers, please feel free to schmooze, comment. Participants are eligible to win a free download from Stephanie Vaughan! And believe me, her stuff is very enjoyable!
Stephanie Vaughan:
Zodiac: Pisces
Chinese zodiac: Rooster (I had to go look this up and I have to admit that a lot of it does sound like me.)
Favorite food: Anything spicy: Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, sushi… yum.
Hunks who inspire my writing are: My one true love is Rufus Wainwright, but my flings vary. Duane “The Rock” Johson, Ronde & Tiki Barber, Polo underwear ads, Jason Preston… How much time do you have?
When I’m not writing naughty delicious tales I: like to hike in the canyons, go to movies, shop for brooches.
Sedonia: Hi Stephanie. Thanks so much for being on my blog. You’re another of my favorite m/m authors. My first question, the question that all we authors get asked: What inspires you to write erotic romance? And do you prefer m/m over other genres and why?
What inspires me to write erotic? Everything I’ve ever written was erotic, seems like. From the first story I ever sat down to write, I couldn’t keep the characters out of bed. But where does the urge come from? I’m not sure. I like seeing people and imagining them as characters in a story, getting up to goodness knows what.
For the past several years I’ve found myself gravitating to m/m more and more, to the point that it takes an exceptional writer or story to get me to even pick up an f/m romance. I like mysteries a lot, too, but any more I’m usually trying to work an m/m romantic subplot into them whenever I read them. But why? I’m not sure. I’m a sucker for an underdog and that seems to be part of it. I love the vulnerabilities they seem to expose and the risks people will take, the hardships they’ll endure, for love.
Sedonia: Home for the Holidays is m/f/m. Can you tell us a bit about this story?
It’s the story of Valerie, who’s unhappily employed in one of those phone service call-in centers. As a joke, she asks the Secret Santa at her work for “shibari for three.” Her best friend tries to save Valerie’s job by taking the note and everything seems okay. Until her friend’s brother gets hold of the note and arranges for her wish to come true.
Here’s a hot little teaser:
Damn.
When had little Valerie gotten so freaking hot?
When had he last seen her? He cast back in his memory, trying to pinpoint the time. If she was Suzi’s age and Suzi was three years younger than he, then she’d been a junior in high school. Sixteen. Seventeen years old, tops. She’d been a coltish beauty then—all long legs and big eyes. And she’d unknowingly starred in more than one of Dan’s guilty stroke sessions.
As he strode through the house looking for his sister, Dan shook his head at how fast the years had gone. One minute his sister’s little friend had been the leggy kid that blushed and stammered and never quite looked him in the eye. Not that that had stopped him from imagining how perfectly those cute little tits would fit in his hands. And now she was…Shit. He didn’t know the word. Goddamn beautiful.
Still had that rust-colored hair that caught his eye every time. Not quite brown. Not quite red. He smiled that he could still yank her chain with the nickname. He’d never known why it bugged her so much, but he hadn’t been able to resist tweaking her with it once he’d discovered how much it riled her.
Eyes that had seemed odd and a little tilted, a child’s face had become irresistibly exotic in the woman. Dan remembered how the kids in school had made her miserable, calling her all sorts of names having to do with those eyes. Asian eyes. Rice eater. Their color, a cool blue without a hint of green or gray, was always eclipsed by their unusual shape.
And those lips.
Not finding his sister on the first floor, Dan headed upstairs while he tried to shake the image of Valerie’s lips.
Lush and full, like ripe peaches. Completely fuckable.
Goddammit, Crocker, she’s your sister’s friend. A guest in the house. He had no business picturing her down on her knees, parting those sweet, generous lips while he fed her his cock.
“Holy shit! What are you looking at?” Rounding the corner from the top step into his sister’s old room, he couldn’t stop the words that leapt from his mouth. But there was his sister—his baby sister—her nose two inches from an image on her computer screen. A bound woman, restrained by an intricate network of ropes that completely immobilized her naked, vulnerable body looked out tranquilly from the monitor.
Sedonia: That’s yummy. Now, onto my favorite of your work! The Off World series (TorquerePress). I’m taken with your perfect combination of hunky guys and the tenderness they experience between them. Would you please talk a little about this series, what and who inspired the characters and tell us about the upcoming book in the series?
Thank you ! That’s so wonderful to hear. That series got its start when I confessed to another writer friend that I’d always had a thing for Worf in “Star Trek: TNG.” I always thought Worf deserved more booty than he seemed to get, and somehow that thread joined up with an idea I had about a cute gay boy who has to go off world to find true love and hot sex when being gay is a capital offense in his world.
Michael Dorn as Worf and Keith Hamilton Cobb as Tyr Anasazi in “Andromeda” were the inspiration for Sarhaan, the warrior hero of the first book. Cal owes a lot to Randy Harrison from “Queer as Folk.”
It was supposed to be a one-off. I had no intention of writing a series. I’m strictly a contemporary kinda writer, see? But there was a character who showed up late in the book — Alex. He had a horrible story up to that point and I knew immediately I wanted to give him a happier future. I had a couple of other characters who were both interested in Alex, but Sarhaan’s friend Sandy made the best case for why he should get to romance Alex. And now Sarhaan’s second in command, Kai Xuwicha, is whispering in my ear, so I’m planning an OW3 to get started on any day now.
Sedonia: I can’t wait for that! Stephanie, where can readers find you and your work on the web?
My website is www.stephanievaughan.com . My m/m romances are all at Torquere Books; my boy-girl books are with Phaze, and I have my one and only m/m/f story with Ellora’s cave. People can always write me at stephanie@stephanievaughan.com .
Sedonia: Thank you so much for sharing your hot stories with us today. Hugs!
Thank you so much for asking me! I’m a big fan of your writing, so this is a huge treat for me.
I was so excited to get into STARbooks Press print anthologies this year. One just came out the other day, the Superheroes antho and the other three come out during 2008. I just wanted to share the covers with you. Happy Holidays! Hugs, Sedonia
Was in the mood for a hunk today.
Barely Undercover released today at Ellora’s Cave. Release day is always like a birthday or Christmas – you look forward to it the night before and then wake up with this present under the tree…well, sort of. Anyway, the feeling is the same. I hope you’ll read the excerpt.
That said, a new release isn’t the ONLY thing about getting published that feels like Christmas. So is getting that perfect cover you feel embodies the book you’ve poured your heart and soul into. Thanks to Anne Cain, awesome cover artist! The hot romances of those hunky men from the White Tiger in Tokyo continues…
This book doesn’t release until February but I’m already looking so forward to it. Koji is adorable and Naoto, well, he’s the first character I’ve created that I actually found myself wishing I could meet in person. Maybe that sounds strange because I love all my characters. The human heart is a mysterious place…
I know I’m not alone in loving this yaoi series. I’d never read yaoi until a couple of months ago and started with Kizuna. Needless to say I’m hooked!
My favorite character is Enjiyoji although all the characters are certainly appealing! Masanori, wow!
I went so far as to get the first DVD. It was nice to see and hear the characters in action, but it’s only 30 minutes long! I was sooo disappointed. I thought it would be the whole first novel. Oh well. Love it anyway!