In Echoes of Love, my heroine Kala is a paranormal journalist and loves her work, but has a secret desire to be a fiction writer. Specifically, she wants to try erotica - in this instance, Bigfoot erotica.
I can't say I've ever wanted to write Bigfoot erotica myself, but I can understand writing one thing while secretly wanting to write another. When I first began writing I had grandiose ideas of literary fiction, of getting my books on the largest display at Waterstone's and winning prizes for my dazzling prose.
The thing was, I didn't really want to write that. I didn't even read it that much. I've read a few Booker winners, but most of them I finished because I felt like I should, not because I was enjoying them.
It was about that time that I started a writing course with Writers' News. My assigned mentor was a reader for the Romantic Novelists' Association and together we started working on a romance novel, which ultimately became Photograph. I joined the RNA New Writers' Scheme, but even then I considered myself a writer of commercial women's fiction rather than romance. There was something about romance that screamed "junk" to me.
I'm well aware now that I was completely wrong, although I've since heard the same from many other people.
After I finished my debut novel, which was The Hand He Dealt, I took it to a publishing workshop to have the first chapter and synopsis looked over by a Book Doctor. She told me I should be selling it as erotica, because "that's the best sex scene I've read in a long time". Well, with praise like that, what can you do?
So I did market it as erotic romance, and it was picked up by Totally Bound shortly afterwards, and the rest is history.
I have friends who say they want to write, but they frequently dismiss romance as not worth the bother and erotic romance as nothing more than smut. If I hadn't realised that erotic romance was what I should be writing, what I loved to write, I would never have got published and wouldn't be able to do what I love.
So now I tell them - if you like romance, or horror, or crime, write it. Don't think you have to write literary fiction or it's not worth trying. Write what you enjoy and what readers enjoy.
It's worth it.
Echoes of Love
Tanith Davenport
Genre: Paranormal erotic romance
Publisher: Totally Bound
Date of Publication: 18 July 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78686-218-1
Number of pages: 52
Word Count: 13,845
Cover Artist: Posh Gosh
Tagline: Kala wants to catch a ghost. The ghost wants to catch her. What does Tor want?
Book Description:
Paranormal writer Kala Westenra, staying with her best friend Vika in Norway, is hunting for a new subject for an article, and finds it when she hears footsteps in the hall twenty minutes before Vika's hot brother Tor Viitanen arrives home. This, Vika tells her, is the vardoger - a Norwegian ghost, a future echo which always precedes a person's arrival.
Kala plans to stake out the hallway to catch the vardoger in the act - and is shocked when, on its arrival, it kisses her. Her feelings for Tor have been hidden ever since she first met him two years ago; could it be that the vardoger is acting on Tor's secret desire for her?
As Kala and Tor work together to understand what is happening with the spirit, their longing for each other begins to overtake them - but the vardoger has more to show them than they expected...
Excerpt:
Tor reached over
the arm of the sofa, pulled up a cushion and threw it at her. Vika threw it
back, knocking over her wineglass at the same time.
“Here, let me
get you a refill.” Kala reached for the bottle, but it was empty. Vika stood
and made for the door, picking up her jacket from the hook on the back on her
way past.
“I’ll
run out and get another one. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Kala launched
the cushion after her, hitting the door instead.
“I can see why
you and my sister get on so well.” Tor raised an eyebrow. “You’re both drunks.”
“Oh, shut up.
I’m still technically a student. I can drink if I like.”
“Soon to be a
writer and they drink a lot, too, I’ve heard.”
Kala laughed. “I
don’t know about journalists, though. Although I’d quite like to be a writer,
too—novels or something. I don’t know what kind yet.”
“I’ll keep my
eyes open for your hot new release.”
Ooh.
Kala held his
gaze, her insides stirring strangely. Maybe it was the alcohol, but there was
something in the words hot release that made a rush of heat flow through her
body, her skin tingling.
After a long moment,
Tor spoke again. “So, Vika thinks you need a man.”
“I don’t need a
man. I may want a man.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Something flickered across Tor’s face, his eyes glowing. He shifted onto his
knees, leaning over the arm of the sofa, his face close to hers. “What sort of
man do you want?”
“Oh, you know.
We hotshot journalists don’t like to be tied down.” Kala gave him a taunting
look, leaning closer to him so that their faces were almost touching. “Tall,
dark, commitment-phobic. That’ll do me.”
“I can help you
there.”
A sudden rush of
movement and Tor’s mouth was on hers.
This is a bad
idea. He’s Vika’s brother.
But somehow she
no longer cared and Tor was right here and he was moving, moving over the arm
of the sofa as they were still kissing, then his body was pressing down onto
hers and they were still—
To hell with it,
she thought and arched up against him, tangling her fingers in his hair.
She felt his
hard cock through his jeans as it brushed against her leg, sending a dart of
wet heat straight to her cunt. His hands ran down, caressing her neck, her
shoulders, cupping her breasts and rolling his thumbs over her nipples through
her bra.
Oh, God—
Then the sound
of the lock clicking.
Immediately, Tor
rolled off her and onto the floor, twisting round to position himself back at
the side of the sofa. Kala sat up and ran a hand through her hair.
Shit, that was
close.
“Here's the
wine,” Vika announced as she came through the door, shopping bag in hand. “I
got back as fast as I could.”
About the Author:
Tanith Davenport began writing erotica at the age of 27 by way of the Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme. Her debut novel "The Hand He Dealt" was released by Total-e-Bound in June 2011 and was shortlisted for the Joan Hessayon Award for 2012.
Tanith has had short stories published by Naughty Nights Press and House of Erotica. She loves to travel and dreams of one day taking a driving tour of the United States, preferably in a classic 1950s pink Cadillac Eldorado.
Tanith's idea of heaven is an Indian head massage with a Mojito at her side.
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