Today I’m guest blogging over at Book Lovers Inc about writing in the paranormal/urban fantasy genre and the science fiction genre – both with a romance/erotic twist. Come visit and comment what your favorite paranormal, fantasy or science fiction book is (I’m always looking for new books to read) and be entered for a chance to win my eBook Flash of Dark!

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

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It’s the time again – already – Excerpt Monday. This month you guys are getting a sneak peak at my upcoming release, Flash of Dark. It’s actually the first part of Chapter One and is the first glimpse the readers see of Ana’s powers as a Fae. For the blurb on the book you can head over to the books page.

Enjoy!

** If, for some reason, you can’t see the above document, you can find the file here: http://www.sarabrookes.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/fod_partialchapterone.pdf

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Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

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Alright, second month participating in Excerpt Monday and a few days ago, I announced that I would post an excerpt from my current-nearly-finished-WiP which is an untitled erotic science fiction romance. Please keep in mind that since this is currently a WiP, that it is unedited.

“Yes, you can return the favor, but don’t you think we should both catch our breath first?”

“I don’t need to breathe to use these.” His fingertips dragged through the folds of flesh between my legs as he parted them and I arched my back in appreciation. Nerves, already overly sensitive from the past few hours, blazed white hot as they fired off in quick succession.

Wallace chuckled deeply in appreciation and shifted our positions. He turned me on my side so that he could cup himself against my back and we lay spooned together on the decking. It wasn’t the most comfortable of positions, but I found that I hardly minded at the moment.

His hand snaked around my waist to continue what he had started, but this time his fingers caught on the metal band of my holowatch. His thumb traced the face of the piece and I felt a rumble of laughter in his chest.

“Never take it off, do you?”

He was referring to the ongoing joke we had kept up when we had been together before everything had crumbled around us. Nothing, short of death, was going to separate me from my holowatch because it had been a gift from my father the last time I saw him. Little did I know at the time that he would be dead a few months later.

“It’s my way of hanging on to him, Wallace,” I said quietly, staring out at nothing in particular.

“Careful, someone may see that crack in your kick ass tough girl exterior.”

I snorted and pushed aside thoughts of my father and his untimely death. “Because lying naked with you on the deck of my engine room isn’t enough to shatter that image?”

He pulled me tighter against him, his lips closing over the nape of my neck. “Hell, no. That just further reinforces it since you’re with the likes of me.”

Wallace shifted his hand around to cup the crease where my upper thigh met the curve of my ass and pushed one of my legs in front of me. The position allowed him to slide the length of himself against the same places his fingers had been just moments before. His teeth grazed against my skin before he nipped the tender flesh of my neck.

“A man whose kick ass exterior is in danger of showing cracks as well?” I felt his lips curl up into a smile against my flesh and it sent a wash of warm ice racing down my spine. He felt it and pulled me tighter, snuggling himself up close to me so that we fit perfectly together. He began to slip past already tender flesh when the collision alarms blared in warning all around us.

Moment in ruins, we both pushed ourselves up from the decking in a panic, grabbing for discarded clothing. I slapped at the communications panel as I reached the blast doors for the engine room. I had instructed Reece to watch the controls on the bridge for a time while Wallace and I had been standing watch back here. While I knew he would follow my orders to stand watch, he has undoubtedly been unnerved by the fact that it meant Wallace and I were back together again. Reece had nothing against him, per say, but he had known the pain I had dealt with because of Wallace. I would share what I had learned at some other moment in time because I had other concerns for the moment. “Reece, talk to me.”

“We’ve dropped out of transwarp, Captain.”

Yes, because the shaking of the hull hadn’t given that away. “Why? We’re not scheduled to drop until 0700 hours.” I flipped my wrist around and saw that it was about two hours short of that mark.

“My guess is the transwarp engines failed,” Wallace said beside me, obviously remembering what I had said earlier when he first hired me back on Nagol. If that were the case, we would have heard them do so regardless of the activities we had been engaging in.

“Negative,” Reece responded, hearing Wallace’s voice over the comm line and confirming what I had just surmised. “The transwarp engines were online prior to the drop. Captain, you need to see this.”

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Links to other Excerpt Monday writers
Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

Alexia Reed, Urban Fantasy (R)

and

Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG13)

Joining us this week:

Jane Bled, Yaoi/M-M Erotica/Vampire/Paranormal/Horror (PG 13)
Danie Ford, YA Urban Fantasy (PG 13)
Heather S Ingemar, Dark Fantasy (PG13)
Babette James, Fantasy Romance (PG13)
Cynthia Justlin, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Kaige, Historical Romance (PG 13)
Julia Knight, Fantasy Romance (PG 13)
Jeannie Lin, Historical paranormal romance (PG 13)
R.F Long, Fantasy (PG13)
Shawntelle Madison, Paranormal Romance (PG 13)
Debbie Mumford, Fantasy (PG 13)
Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG13)
Megan S, Paranormal (PG 13)
Rosalind Stone, Women’s Fiction (PG 13)
Jo Lynne Valerie, Paranormal Romance (PG 13)

Kendal Ashby, YA (R)
Jax Cassidy, Contemporary (R)
Cate Hart, YA Paranormal (R)
Inez Kelley, Romantic Comedy (R)
Aislinn Kerry, Fantasy (R)
Jeanne St. James, Contemporary Erotic Romance (R)
Cherrie Lynn, Paranormal Romance (R)
Jeanette Murray, Romantic Comedy (R)
Christa Paige, Paranormal (R)
Michelle Picard, Fantasy Romance (R)
Mary Quast, Contemporary Romance (R)
Alexia Reed, Urban Fantasy (R)
Zora Stout, Contemporary Erotic Romance (R)

Sara Brookes, Erotic Sci Fi (NC 17)
Emily Ryan-Davis, Romance (NC 17)
Ella Drake, Historical Paranormal Romance (NC 17)
Angeleque Ford, Erotic Dark Urban Fantasy (NC17)
J.W. Hankins, Dark Fiction (NC 17)
Annie Nicholas, Paranormal Romance (NC 17)
Kim Knox, Erotic SF Romance (NC17)
Michelle Polaris, Erotic Futuristic Romance (NC 17)
Bryl R. Tyne, Contemporary M/M (NC 17)

Romance books have changed a lot since I started reading them. I still remember the first one I read. Sandra Brown’s Breath of Scandal. My aunt gave it to me, knowing that I read like a fiend. At the time, my reading was pretty much confined to fantasies and science fiction. She thought I could use a “broadening of my horizons” and gave me something new. So, I read it and was hooked and I mean, hooked quick.

I moved through romance novels like I was drinking water. Sandra Brown, Linda Howard and Nora Roberts. I still read my fantasies and sci-fi’s, but now I was noticing something was lacking from the stories that I would like to see. A sweeping love story somewhere in the stories. Not even necessarily with the main characters, just somewhere. I still wanted those “otherworldly elements” too, but I wanted romance, a love story, and sex. It was rare, at that point in time (the early 90′s) for me to be able to find what I was looking for.

In today’s book market, that’s a different story. Over the past few years, books have taken being classified into a category to an organizational art form. A listmaker’s dream – or nightmare, depending on how you look at it. No longer is there just contemporary romances like those I started out reading where the Alpha male came along and swept the stubborn leading lady off her feet with little protest from her. Today, heroines fight back. They kick ass with a wide smile painted across their perfectly shaped and painted lips. Sure, those contemporary romances are still there. But now they’re cataloged on the shelf next to the likes of Jeaniene Frost, Keri Arthur, and J. R. Ward in sub-genres of romance.

No longer is romance, just a romance. There’s paranormal romance, erotic romance, sci-fi romance, fantasy romance, shape-shifter romance, etc. Historical romances aren’t just limited to ones that took place at some point in history that isn’t now. There’s Gothic romance, medieval romance, Scottish romance, Irish romance, Western romance, etc. I’ve even seen horror romance, though I’ve not personally read anything in that sub-genre. There’s even time travel romance and don’t be surprised when you see steampunk romance showing up on your shelves next year.

The basis is all the same – at the most basic, a romance novel tells a story, one with a HEA or HFN. (Happily Ever After or Happy For Now) Be it vampire, cowboy, space alien, dragon or Highland warrior all of these stories have the development of a relationship between the characters.

Of course, then there’s someone like me.

Flash of Dark, my first release, has vampires, the Tuatha Dé Danann (the Fae), humans, a mystery, loud music and rope (after you read the next line, I’ll leave you to figure out the “rope” mention… ).

So, with all of these “sub genres” of romance, is that like a sub (paranormal) sub (fantasy) sub (mystery) sub (erotic) genre romance book?