"You're too young to know what love is. You don't love me. You're infatuated with me." -- Sir Aric, The Prince's Knight

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The Prince's Knight

Royal Guard Book 1: The Prince's Knight is now available at Purple Sword!
Genre: Fantasy Erotic Romance
Price: $4.99
Warning: Book contains m/m erotic scenes and one m/m/f scene


Blurb:


Becoming the prince’s bodyguard was supposed to be easy. No one warned him to guard his heart...


After receiving a crippling injury, Sir Aric finds himself reassigned to the crown prince’s royal guard. He thinks it will be an easy job, but Prince Matthew turns out to be a spoiled brat, too used to getting his own way. Within the first week, the prince disappears and almost gets himself killed in his desire to be a part of the ongoing war effort at the southern edge of the kingdom. Matthew’s brief taste of battle is more than enough, making him ready to settle down and attend to matters of state. Marriage tops the list of those, but in the meantime, Matthew and Aric find themselves drawn together by irresistible forces. Until Matthew’s chosen bride arrives.

Excerpt:


He scanned the visible windows, not seeing anyone. One little kiss couldn’t hurt, could it? He’d given her the ring, asked her to marry him. There was no taboo against one little kiss. Besides, he’d already kissed her once. This wasn’t much different; there were just more potential witnesses.


“All right,” he agreed. His hands rose to grasp her upper arms.


Before he could change his mind, he leaned forward, his lips brushing against hers. So soft! He deepened the kiss, pulling her closer, dragging her against his suddenly hard length. He was attracted to her—there was no doubt about that.


“Am I going to have to pry you two apart?” a deep voice asked.


Matthew released Jessa abruptly. She stumbled against him before regaining her balance.


Aric stared at them from two feet away. Every muscle was taut with anger. Or jealousy. He took two quick steps forward. “I know your decision,” he hissed. “You don’t have to taunt me with it.”


“Aric,” Matthew said with a clear warning in his voice.


“What? Afraid Jessa might guess your dirty little secret?” The knight sheathed his sword and turned away to pull his shirt on.


“Shut up! You will respect your king!”


The cold look Aric gave him sent shivers down Matthew’s spine. The knight stepped closer, his tone dropping to a dangerous level. “The same way you respect your lover?” He shot a glance at Jessa.


“Actually, I already g-guessed.”


“Ah.” Aric leaned back. “Well, let’s get everything in the open then. Your groom is a jackass.”


“You’re the jackass right now,” Matthew sniped back.


“S-stop it!” Jessa’s raised voice stopping them both in their tracks. Both men stared at her, wide-eyed. “You’re both behaving l-like children.”


Matthew sighed and ran a hand over his face, taking a step back to gather himself. “Aric, you know how I feel about you. What will it take to make this easier on you?”


A sly look appeared on the knight’s face, and Matthew knew he was in trouble.


“I think it’s only fair I get a kiss, too.” Aric’s gaze slid from Jessa to Matthew.


“Absolutely not!” Matthew exploded. “That’s completely inappropriate.”


“Not from her.” Aric sidled closer. Now his expression could only be considered smoldering. “From you.”


Matthew retreated from the knight’s advance. “You’ve kissed me plenty of times,” he mumbled.


“Then it shouldn’t be a big deal.”


Matthew glanced at Jessa, but there was no help to be found there. “I th-think you should. I don’t want to come between you two.”


A triumphant smile lit Aric’s handsome face. He reached out, his hands fisting into the fabric of Matthew’s tunic. Displaying his strength, the knight dragged him back into a corner created by one wall of the castle and a towering turret.


“Prove to me you don’t want me,” Aric challenged, and then his lips descended on the king’s. Matthew’s thoughts dissolved. No longer did he worry about their audience, or whether or not anyone could see them from a castle window. The kiss was rough, bruising, but he only wanted more. His wilting erection grew hard and firm, pressing against the thin leather of his trousers.


He took over, pushing Aric hard against the unforgiving stones of the castle wall. Had he thought he could live without this passion? He’d been so wrong.


Finally, Aric pushed him away with a smirk on those beautiful lips. Matthew was breathing hard, and when he glanced at Jessa, ashamed that he’d lost control so easily, he saw that she didn’t look entirely unaffected by the display.


“I want love like that,” she said, breathless.


Aric turned away from Matthew to throw a companionable arm around her shoulders, steering her towards the front of the castle. “Then you’d better hurry along those wedding plans, my dear. It’s inappropriate for Matthew to kiss you like that.”


“And doubly so for you.” She ducked under his arm and skipped to the front door, laughter trailing behind her.


Both men stared after her for a moment, perplexed.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Tied to a Demon review

Romance Junkies has given Tied to a Demon 4 blue ribbons.

"Rachel D. Thompson creates delightful characters."

Read the full review.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Contest and Contract

It's August already! That means LASR's scavenger hunt has started. Three lucky winners will win Nooks at the end of the month, and all you have to do to enter is find the hidden Nook on a participating author's website. Easy. Check out LASR for full rules and details.

I've also signed a contract for my next book, a gay erotica fantasy romance. Yeah, it has a lot of labels. (I feel the need to warn people that it's not strictly gay romance, as it contains one menage scene.) It's called Royal Guard Book 1: The Prince's Knight, and it's releasing Sept. 1st at Purple Sword. Hopefully people will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Here's the official blurb:

Becoming the prince’s bodyguard was supposed to be easy. No one warned him to guard his heart...
After receiving a crippling injury, Sir Aric finds himself reassigned to the crown prince’s royal guard. He thinks it will be an easy job, but Prince Matthew turns out to be a spoiled brat, too used to getting his own way. Within the first week, the prince disappears and almost gets himself killed in his desire to be a part of the ongoing war effort at the southern edge of the kingdom. Matthew’s brief taste of battle is more than enough, making him ready to settle down and attend to matters of state. Marriage tops the list of those, but in the meantime, Matthew and Aric find themselves drawn together by irresistible forces. Until Matthew’s chosen bride arrives.

Oh! And the cover art:

I plan on penning the sequel in November, but in the meantime, I'm working on a vampire book, tentatively titled Demon's Tattoo. I'm three chapters in so far, but I think I've just started hammering out some of the plot, and I'm pretty excited to get more work done on it once I've got that all figured out.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

New Submission

I've submitted my latest completed novel to Purple Sword. While I'm waiting to hear back, I've started working on an untitled vampire book. I'm currently two chapters in. I expect this one to hit around the 30,000 word mark, as most of my recent interest has been in creating enjoyable novellas. But I don't really have the details of the book worked out yet. Generally, when I start something new, I jump right into the first chapter and think about plot later, as the book comes together.

I look at each chapter as having a plot itself, so by the time I reach the end of a chapter, I know how I want it to end. I settled on the last line of the first chapter before I had completely gotten to that point. I like crafting hooks that make the reader want to stay with the story rather than putting it down and moving on to other things. This is very important to me, so I hope that in most cases I succeed. Now, I've got a tentative plan in place for chapter 3, which I hope to sit down and write within the next few days. Progress has been good so far, though I also plan on working on Immortal Book 1: Blood Rage, when I'm not working on this new book.

I want to wait until I hear from my publisher to mention more about my latest submission (I'm a little superstitious like that). But if it's accepted, I plan on tackling the sequel during November, as part of National Novel Writing Month. After last November, I had decided I wouldn't participate this year. The stress always wears me out, especially during the holidays. By the time July rolls around though, I'm usually ready to gear up for the challenge. I'm not sure I'll be shooting for 50,000 words this year. I will be happy if I hit 30,000, which I expect will be enough to finish the planned sequel. We'll see what happens after that.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

My Coffee Corner

I've just opened my own forum over at Coffee Time Romance, to more easily communicate news, announcements, and contests with readers. Click on the graphic to go check it out.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Inspiration

Inspiration

What inspires me?
For a writer, inspiration can be found just about anywhere. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing – sometimes it’s even hard to pinpoint where an idea came from, but here are a few things that inspired the books I’ve written.

Demon’s Torment
I’m an active member of an online writing community (Writing.com). A while ago I entered a scary story contest that had to include certain words in it. The words were: red dress, party hat, cake, surprise, balloon, and confetti. Now how do I get a scary story out of that? By throwing a macabre birthday party for a demon, of course. Daemon (the male lead of Demon’s Torment) was born! Of course, he’s changed a lot since that short story, becoming a kinder, gentler demon – though he can still be scary from time to time! The short story actually appears in the final book in an altered form. Yes, I kept the creepy birthday party idea.

Tied to a Demon
I’m pretty sure this one came about simply because I wanted to write another demon book. This one would be a shorter length, and heavier on the romance, plus I wanted to set it in a fantasy world. I decided I wanted a witch to summon an unwanted demon and deal with the consequences.

Royal Guard
This is the one I’m currently working on (hoping to submit it to my publisher soon). It involves a crippled knight being reassigned to become a spoiled prince’s bodyguard – yes, it is a romance, and a bit of a departure for me. I wanted to get away from demons for awhile and try something new. This idea came to me after looking for another contest to enter. This one just wanted a story about a bodyguard. I never wrote anything to enter in that contest, but the idea would not leave me alone, especially when I came up with the m/m romance angle. Having a crippled knight fall for a prince sounded like a great story to me.

I like thinking back over the things I’ve written and remembering how inspiration struck me. It’s sometimes amazing what a person can come up with, especially when they least expect it.

What do you think?
What inspires you?

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Ambiance

Ugh. I meant to post this about a week ago, but I just recently moved, and started working at a new place, so life has been hectic to say the least.

Ambiance

Ambiance is all about setting the mood. Paranormal often involves things that go bump in the night. Even though my books deal with romance, they still have elements that add to the ambiance. I like things that send a chill down my spine, things that make it difficult to turn out the lights. As a writer, I’ve given myself goose bumps – that’s the best way to tell when a piece is truly scary. I try not to make my creatures too scary. After all, I want people to like them! But there were a couple of spots in Demon’s Torment that gave me chills while I was writing them. If I can’t move myself, how do I ever expect to move others?

So how does one write an ambient scene? Having a character stumble through a dark room is good. Added details make it better. Perhaps the flashlight glances off something strange – a picture that looked different a second ago, shadows that move. Face it, darkness is terrifying. These days I’m scared of zombies hiding under my bed, even though I’m really too old to think there might be monsters living under there. What about strange creaks and groans? Lots of old houses have them. In the dark, a commonplace noise takes on horrifying implications.

What do you think?
So what scares you? Ever read a truly terrifying book that had you leaving the lights on?