Can love conquer all, even death? It is the question that comes to mind when reading Bianca D’Arc’s Sweeter Than Wine.

One of only a few single Vampires left in his tight knit group, Sebastian has bided his time, waiting for the day when the love of his life, Christina, would be free of her tumultuous marriage. When a late night phone call advises him that Christina is dying, beaten beyond repair by her psychopathic husband Jeff, Sebastian knows what he must do to save her life – bring her to the other side.

For Christina it’s been a long battle to be free of her violent husband; a battle that nearly took her life. Now changed by Sebastian to be immortal, she undertakes the chore of learning how to defend herself so she’ll never be afraid again.

Ever find yourself attracted to a particularly scrumptious man? Not that unusual in itself, but you don’t often act on your attraction. What if you did and things didn’t work out as in your well-rehearsed fantasy? Instead, you’d find yourself avoiding the same delightful man that before you took such pleasure in greeting every day. Sound familiar? Maybe you have a great deal in common with Nico, the heroine in Savannah Chase’s newest novel, Bid For Love.

Nico thinks of herself as a modern gal, perhaps a little on the boring side. Maybe that’s why her friends’ constant badgering about Jeff is starting to get on her nerves. Audrey even has the nerve to hint she’ll take the yummy Jeff if Nico never plans to make a move on him. Great---all she needs is man-hungry Audrey gobbling the source of her fantasies. If only she could be more adventurous and take a chance. Besides her hidden tattoo, the most excitement in her life at this point is agreeing to attend the Valentine’s Day Bachelor Auction. She is unsure why she is attending because none of those hot guys would want to go out with her.

What’s an intelligent, educated woman to do when her rich and powerful father insists that she marry someone completely repulsive to her? Author Jaid Black gives us her premise on this scenario with Adam & Evil, one of the White Hot Holiday reads from Ellora’s Cave.

Julia Cameron is ready to marry, but she isn’t interested in the shrewd, bossy man her equally bossy father has chosen for her. Samuel Ian Adam knows his employer wants him to court his daughter but isn’t interested in the overtly business-like woman so different than the submissive type that usually turns him on. But during the Christmas season, Samuel ends up obliged to escort Julia home for the holidays. Their plane crashes and the pair find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Alone together, Julia and Sam discover sensuous passions brew and foment just beneath the surface of their otherwise clashing personalities.

It is a sad thing when a writer creates an estimable character like Doug in Roping His Filly and has him step aside for another hero. What is a writer to do? Leave a good guy in the trash bin with the rest of the edits? Or take advantage of the fact that you've got a fully rounded character, plus a boatload of readers who are mailing you in protest, demanding to know what happens next with him?

You'd think that as a female, I'd know all about females, but being kind of low-key myself, it's not true. I never learned about divas until I had my daughter. Not that she's a diva; but she is very high drama. She's the female equivalent of the little kid who disobeys his coach and deliberately runs through the dirt because it will look like a better play. What I learned is this: some girls just do things the hard way--they just have to have the drama, sometimes in spite of themselves.

Strong men and women embarking on a fledgling D/s relationship either find (or don't) matching kinks, strengths, weaknesses and secrets. In the psychology of domination and submission, it is frequently the strong woman who runs things in the real world whose fantasy life is contingent on losing control. It does make sense in a way; certainly if you have to be in charge most of the time, it is perfectly understandable that in order to let down your hair, you have to relax that control. That means letting down your guard too; and that's not easily done. In fact, the element of trust is the most crucial thing that the actual D/s relationship is based on--in real life anyway. Of course, fantasy means we don't have to rely on safety because what is happening is already as safe as can be, tucked between the covers of a novel (in the case of readers) or in the mind (in the case of fantasies that are spun "on the hoof" so to speak.)

There are more than two types of erotic/romantic BDSM books, but right now I classify them into two categories. In one, D/s is a historical or situational (as in speculative fiction) situation. Generally, the situation is non-consensual, but since this type of book is written in the romance genre, there is a strong element of love that is at the core of the story. In the other, the contemporary culture of playing D/s in a club is fundamental. Sometimes there's a mystery involving a club, or someone is pretending to work at a club; or gets a job there and finds out they're actually a sub or dom; and sometimes, as in

I want to make it clear that I have no desire to step back thru time to when women had no rights--certainly the fact that women have rights is what makes it possible to want to be submissive. How else could a sub (female or male, for that matter) ever have that requisite element of trust if equal rights were not part of the picture? I'm just thinking that it has to be difficult for a sensitive guy who has tendencies toward domination, especially with society being the way it is. After all, he's been trained all his life to respect other people. In most books, the sub is central, and the Dom controls even the progress of the book, because in most literature, Doms are born, not made. But what about that initial point--where an outwardly ordinary guy has spent his life hiding his inner Dom?

So many things happen in real life where we get just one chance to get things right. We only have one childhood. We only have one first anything. Ultimately, we only have one clean slate, and then, forever after what we write on the slate of our lives is colored by what lies beneath and what came before. Then there's that rare case when we get a do-over. I'm not talking about a second marriage to another partner where that marriage erases or tempers the damage of the first one. I'm talking about an actual do-over with the original partner.

For me, Judy Mays is one of the most talented writers out there and I find it amazing that the New York publishers haven’t “discovered” her. They don’t know what they are missing: a writer with a serious ability to draw the reader into the story from the first page.

Meredythe Walsh is a hard-driven reporter determined to get to the truth. So when her boss pulls her off the story she has worked so hard on, she storms into his office to have a showdown. What she finds is her boss in the middle of a meeting with one of the, if not the most gorgeous man she has ever seen, a man who it seems holds an unnatural attraction for her. But when she is given a new story to investigate she turns her attention to a possible serial killer who uses a “wolf” dog.

Remember back to your high school days when being a tease was a bad thing? It usually referred to a girl who advertised one thing, but never delivered. When is being a tease a good thing, even a delicious thing? Maybe when you least expect it. Maybe when you get to be the tease, even if you have to take lessons from an instructor who is temptation personified. That's the situation Joan Blair finds herself in Nathalie Gray’s novel, Tease.

Did you ever have one secret perfect dream? A dream where everything you ever wanted was yours, from the perfect job to a drop-dead body sheathed in "to die for' clothes? In your dream, everything seems to be going your way, except there is something missing. Make that someone, scrumptious and delicious and totally gone on you. Janet Widgeon, the heroine of Kira Stone’s Dreams Eclipsed is more than ready to springboard her dream into fantasyland. All she needs is the man, the right man.

It was one of those days when I couldn’t find a book on my shelves interesting enough to spend a few hours with. I checked with a friend who knows me well enough to know I like stories that are a little unusual and she recommended I try Annmarie McKenna's Blackmailed. I knew in the first few pages that I had found the book I was looking for.

Blackmailed introduces us to Brianna Wyatt, a young woman put in a very unusual position by her power-hungry father. Brianna's father is interested in having an heir for the family fortune and he has decided he's waited long enough for his daughter to take a mate. Since she hasn't found one so far, he takes matters into his own hands and finds one for her.

This must be military week for me--Roped is the second book in a row I've read that has a military hero. I don't know if it is a sign of the times or a sign of Ellora's Cave's buying strategy, but in either case, Jared McTavish, our protagonist, begins our tale in desperate circumstances by nearly dying of thirst in an Iraqi desert. By the end of the first scene, however, we find he is having reoccurring dreams in a small VA hospital in Cheyenne recovering from a roadside bomb that "ended up taking part of his right leg" and "ended what he'd planned as a lifelong career in the Marines."

I remember back when I was in high school, I had an assignment to turn in a sample of political music. I think the only thing I could think of was Country Joe and the Fish's Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag. It is a common thing for current events to find its way into the arts–back then it was Vietnam–so it's no surprise for war to find its way into fiction, even when the genre is Domination and submission. Perhaps it is more likely in D/s fiction since the military is certainly focused on strict obedience.