Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Guest Blog and Giveaway Raven Takes a Pearl by Sharon Lynn Fisher





TOP 5 REASONS STEAMPUNK SETTINGS MAKE FOR GREAT EROTICA

For several years I’ve wanted to write a steampunk story, and finally this spring I wrote a “choose your own adventure” style sweet romance — A HEART FOR COPPER — for www.SilkWords.com. After that I thought it would be fun to write a story with more heat, so next came RAVEN TAKES A PEARL, which is sort of a dark sister to COPPER. Both stories feature heroes who are inventors, and both heroines experience an awakening. In writing the second story I discovered steampunk is really an ideal setting for fantasy erotica. Here are the top 5 reasons:

5. Fashion

Corsets, leather, and garter belts, oh my! Just like steampunk gadgets take Victorian era technology to a whole new and improbable level, so does the fashion. And the women have got it all over the men. Sure a guy can be hot in a well-fitting suit, but go ahead and Google “steampunk women.” Who doesn’t feel sexy in a snug corset, flouncy little skirt, and stiletto boots? 

4. Nerdy heroes/heroines

Steampunk is a subgenre of sci-fi, and as such often features heroes or heroines with geeky professions. Someone has to manufacture all those steampunk gadgets after all! Inventor, engineer, detective, explorer … they’re just a few of the geeky professions popular in steampunk stories. RAVEN TAKES A PEARL features an inventor/tinkerer hero who is part sexy dom and part absent-minded professor. 

3. Creative gadgetry

Erotica plus fantastical gadgets … We probably don’t need to put too fine a point on this one! The hero in RAVEN TAKES A PEARL is determined to figure out how his lovely “puzzle box” works, even if he has to invent new devices to aid his research. 

2. Heroines with agency

Steampunk heroines are no shrinking violets, and they’re not about to take a backseat role in their own stories. They’re tough, packing smarts as well as blades or side arms. Their undergarments are out there for all the world to see, a kind of dare to other characters not to take them seriously. Nobody wearing 5-inch, metal-accented stilettos or strappy, riveted combat boots is going to wait around for a man to rescue her. 

1. The perfect genre mash-up

Steampunk blends fantasy and sci-fi, and that equals freedom from all kinds of fictional and historical constraints. The imagination can run wild with costumes and props, with no need to justify any of it as practical or realistic. Steampunk settings are often alternative or post-modern, so stories can be set in rich fantasy worlds free from modern advances that can make for chillier settings. Yet the characters aren’t constrained to behaviors considered appropriate for the Victorian era (which is pretty critical when writing about empowered heroines embarking on sexual adventure).

So what’s your favorite erotica genre (and why)? 


Photo attribution: Kate Lambert [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons



Raven Takes a Pearl
Fantasies in Color
Book Two
Sharon Lynn Fisher

Genre: Steampunk Erotica (BDSM)

Publisher: West 26th Street Press
Date of Publication: Oct. 29, 2014

ISBN:
ASIN: B00P1INX9G

Number of pages: 45
Word Count: 12,000

Cover Artist: Rafido

Book Description:

Second novelette in the Fantasies in Color series by RWA RITA-nominated author Sharon Lynn Fisher ...

Pearl knows it was Raven who stole her mama's heart -- a beautiful quartz stone given to her by Pearl's father right before he died. She sets off alone to the crow-man's keep determined to bring back the stone, but she's caught by a servant and taken to the tower.

The dark-winged ruler of the keep isn't at all what she imagined, and he isn't about to let Pearl go before unlocking all her mysteries -- mysteries she never dreamed her body possessed.

Available for $2.99 at Amazon

Available for $1.99 at AerBook

Excerpt:THE PUZZLE BOX

We pass through a corridor lit by more of the strange lamps, most notably an octopus with an arm span of a dozen feet and a large green light bulb for a head. A clock is mounted just under the bulb, and as it strikes the hour, the arms begin to adjust their position along the wall, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of grinding gears.
Wilkes catches me eyeing it and says, “Master makes them all himself.”
“Who is ‘Master’?” I reply, fear sharpening the edges of my voice. “Where does he come from? Who made him like that?”
“Same as makes us all, Pearl. The Maker.”
“You mean to say he was born like that?” 
“Are any of us as we were when we first separated from our mothers’ bodies?”
This sounds like something my pa would say, and is not at all the sort of chat I want to have right now.
“What makes him do it?” I demand. “Why does he steal things?”
“Master Raven acquires objects for his inventions. Cast-off things, or things the owner will not long miss.”
“Ha,” I grunt, “and what would a silly old crow-man who has no use for other living souls know about that?”
 Wilkes follows me down the corridor, so he can’t see it’s not only anger that’s choking me up. But also I can’t see what he thinks of my answer.
At the end of the corridor we climb a dizzying number of steps that wind upward like a corkscrew. We rise up through a hole in the floor into the “workshop.”
Workbenches line the walls, and every surface is covered with what look like machines in various states of repair or assembly. There are heaps of “acquired” objects up here as well, and I steal a quick look around the room for Ma’s stone.
The tower has but one large window fitted with amber-tinted panes, so it’s only moderately brighter than the rooms below. More lamps range around the perimeter, but these mostly use clear light bulbs so it feels less like being in a submersible — or at least what I’d imagine a submersible to feel like. Near the window is a tall easel holding a stack of parchment. Symbols and numbers and diagrams have been scratched over almost every inch of the first sheet. I notice now that many sheets, similarly scrawled upon, have been hung along the walls. Some of the diagrams seem to be carefully labeled drawings of Raven himself.
“Here, Wilkes,” he calls, and Wilkes takes me by the arm and leads me over to the easel. Next to it is a sort of stand, shaped like an X, with a system of straps and buckles.
I jump as the manservant pushes me toward the stand, and the moment my back touches it I begin to fight him in earnest.
“What are you doing?” I demand, shoving at his chest.
Wilkes doesn’t reply, but he uses his body to seal me against the stand. His eyes bore into mine, transmitting something hot and alive, as he raises my arms over my head.
Raven joins us, and I cry out as he fits leather cuffs over my wrists and ankles.
“Leave us,” orders Raven.
As Wilkes withdraws, Raven steps back, cradles his elbow in one hand, and props his head on the other, watching me.
“What do you want from me?” I shout, straining against the cuffs.
His brow furrows as his eyes move over me. I’m not sure he’s heard me.
“Master Raven!” I insist.
He drops his arms and moves to stand directly in front of me. We regard each other, my heart vibrating my chest, and I become aware that the fear that grips me is changing — in a way I don’t understand well enough to explain to anyone, including myself.
My heart still hammers. My breaths come faster. I am afraid. But something warm and velvet is awake and moving low in my belly.
Raven reaches for a lever and tugs it gently. The X-stand tilts backward, angling my body.
He draws nearer, reaching a gloved hand to the top fastening of my corset. I gasp as he runs a finger from the hook, along the ridge of the corset, tip grazing the soft, rounded flesh above. His finger passes back and forth, my breath increasing with his momentum, until finally his fingertip stops just above my nipple. He presses into the soft flesh and then suddenly tugs upward.
My nipple pops free of the corset. Heat builds between my legs and my mouth waters. He meets my gaze, and my lips part, short puffs of breath moving in and out. His fingertip slides down, and with the soft leather of his glove he begins to slowly rub.
“I … Master … ”
He ducks his head closer, positioning the magnifying device over his eye and focusing it over my nipple. I feel the cold metal of its tip pressing against me, surrounding the small red flower.
“Hold very still,” he says, and I try to stop breathing. But it’s not possible.



About the Author:

An RWA RITA Award finalist and a three-time RWA Golden Heart Award finalist, Sharon Lynn Fisher writes stories for the geeky at heart — meaty mash-ups of sci-fi, suspense, and romance, with no apology for the latter. She lives where it rains nine months of the year. And she has a strange obsession with gingers (down to her freaky orange cat). In addition to her erotica stories, she’s authored three science fiction romance novels for Tor Books: Ghost Planet (2012), The Ophelia Prophecy (2014), and Echo 8 (2015).

Visit her at www.sharonlynnfisher.com  








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