Tag: guest post

Neo-Geisha (Phoenix Rising #2)—
EXCERPT:
Phoebe stood there letting the steaming water pour down over her body, wishing it would wash
away the doubt. She didn’t hear the swish of the door opening so when Cage stepped into the shower
behind her she screamed, coming at him with the tiny penknife she kept on hand at all times.
“Whoa,” he chuckled, grabbing her wrist. “Calm down. It’s me.” She held firm to the hilt of the
knife for a few seconds before letting him slip it from her grasp. “You’re all right.”
“Am I?”
He nodded. “You’re always safe with me, love.”
“Is that a promise?” She met his gaze, searching for sincerity in it.
“Always.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead. “You really must stop taking
weapons into the shower. That’s a nasty accident waiting to happen.”
All the pent-up emotion and stress from the last several weeks bubbled to the surface and she
crumpled against him, her tears mixing with the falling water in a mixture of relief and fear, exhilaration
and uncertainty. “There now, baby. You’re all right.” He wrapped his arms around her, brushing the
matted tendrils away from her ear and kissing her lightly at the small hollow beneath. It made her feel
small and protected. She craved the strength she felt in the hard muscles cording through his arms and
chest.
“Is it like this every time?” she sniffled.
He chuckled. “You get used to it.”
“I didn’t think you were supposed to be afraid.”
“Where on earth would you get that idea?” he said. “Fear keeps us on our toes.”
“It didn’t do so well for me,” she replied, rubbing at her burning eyes. “I fucked up everything.”
“No you didn’t. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened.”
“If you hadn’t been there…” she sniffled. “I’d… I…”
He took her chin between his fingertips and forced her head up. “You would have figured a way
out. You’re smart and managed to keep your cool. As soon as the antidote took hold, you were able to
shift. That confusion you created saved both our skins. So no more of this doubt, all right? You need to
not worry so much,” he purred, nudging her back under the spray. The steam was a comfort, wrapping her
in a blanket of humid warmth and she began to relax. “You’re so tense.” He turned her around brushing
his fingertips along her spine.
“You know I’m a worrier,” she muttered.
“It’s a useless endeavor, I’m afraid.” His fingers came to rest at the swell of her ass and began
tracing circles at the base of her spine. The callouses at the tips tickled at her skin and she shivered. He
pulled her against him, so close that she could feel his lips fluttering against the cuff of her ear. “You have
to let that go. Let me help you forget all about the wolves in the dark.”

She leaned back, luxuriating in the sensation of his hands slip-sliding over her body. Her skin was
slick with the water and the remnants of expensive bath oil. “I think you’re trying to seduce me, Mr. St.
John.”
“Of course I am,” he replied, pushing her hair away from her neck so that he could feather gentle
kisses under her hairline. “Do you mind?”
“I’ll tell you when I mind,” she mumbled with a groan as he pinched her fleshy earlobe between
his teeth. She reached back, tangling her fingers in the soft curls at the base of his skull. They were short,
but long enough to wrap around a fingertip and tug lightly. She could feel his body so close behind her,
hard against her softness. The contrast was so erotic that she was breathless even before his hands slid
over her breasts.
“It isn’t fair,” she sighed as the blunt edge of his thumbnail slid over her nipple. “To let me get all
clean only to make me dirty again.”
“I’ll gladly scrub anything you have, Miss Addison.”

To Trope, or Not to Trope
By Alexandra Christian

You can’t talk about the romance genre without talking about tropes. Tropes are certain conventions that
appear in literature. Those comfortable little plot points that we can nestle down in and escape. Some
people are of the opinion that tropes are bad. That our jobs as writers are to break new ground and blow
those tired old tropes out of the water. And I can definitely understand that point of view. I like to read
different stories that aren’t like every story I’ve read before. But I can also appreciate the familiarity of a
tried and true trope that makes the story an escape.
We all love things we can predict sometimes. Take the success of Midsomer Murders. It’s a British
detective series that’s been running for a thousand years. If you watch it on a regular basis, you start to
notice a formula: a body is found, Inspector Barnaby is called away from some quirky family business to
investigate, they talk to everyone in the village that has reason to want the person dead, you think you
know who the murderer is until that person gets murdered before the commercial break, the killer ends
up being the person you least expected, and we all live happily ever after. People tune in for it week after
week because the comfort of that formula is there.
Tropes do this for romantic stories in a very effective way. We want there to be twists and turns, but we
have basic elements that we look for when we start searching for a new favorite read. Here are some of
my favorites:

1. MC in peril: Phoe Addison, the heroine of Naked, fits in easily with this trope. She is a woman
   that is in danger from outside forces and needs Cage’s help. I love these stories because the
   lovers are thrown together in difficult circumstances. They grow to rely on one another and their
   relationship grows through their teamwork at solving the larger problem.
2. Fairytales: As a child, fairytales were my favorite kind of story. Incidentally, fairytales are often
   romances at their core (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast… need I go on?). As
   a romance genre trope, the fairytale stories are often updated to present day, or transported to
   different settings or times in history. I love writing fairytales, as is evident in my books Beast of
   Burden and Huntress. In Beast, it’s an erotic retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” where the hero,
   Marek, is a werewolf. For Huntress, I found a very old Scandinavian dragon story for the basis of
   hero Malik’s redemption.
3. Performers: Stories where one of the protagonists is a performer of some sort (actor, musician,
   etc.). Sometimes they’re called celebrity romances. I think we can all identify with those. I know
   that I’ve been mentally dating Benedict Cumberbatch for years now. I wrote a short, summery
   piece called Mr. Hollywood (which you can get for FREE on my website) about a romance
   novelist in Bora Bora who meets her celebrity crush and has a little rendezvous. Gee… I wonder
   where I got the idea for that?
4. Virgin: This trope can be controversial if the author doesn’t get the ages right. For me, the key to
   these kinds of stories is the slow-burning romance between the two main characters. Showcasing
   the alpha hero’s tenderness with an unsure lover can always bake my muffins. I tried to
   incorporate this trope a little in Naked with Phoe and Cage’s first love scene. Phoe is not very
   experienced and has been sheltered most of her life. She doesn’t come right out and say that
   she’s a virgin, but the concept is there. More obvious is in the first installment of a short story
   series from several years ago, The Virgin Queen. It’s a medieval romance where the heroine
   Joanna is married off to the king, who she assumes is a cold, disfigured brute. He turns out to be
   quite the opposite and their story is probably one of my more luscious stories.
5. Protector: I know, you’re going to take away my feminist card, but I love this trope. A story where
   the hero has to protect the heroine in some way– those make me melt. Now, that’s not to say that
   in the same story, the heroine can’t turn around and rescue him right back. In Naked, Phoe is
   very timid at the beginning and Cage steps up and protects her from the men chasing her and
   from the terrible creatures that try to kill them. She’s terrified at the prospect of leaving her home
   and is paying this “big strong man” to help her through it. Of course, by the end, Phoe becomes a
   badass in her own right and has to help Cage out of some sticky situations. As the series
   progresses, Cage and Phoe take turns protecting one another and this is part of what fuels the
   heat between them.
   So tropes can be useful tools in choosing stories as well as writing them. They can also be traps, so
   choose wisely. The trick is to take those comfortable tropes and give them a twist that will make them
   stand out from the rest.

Emily Knight touched the bird-shaped necklace on the display. She picked it up and held it to
her neck. She thought the contrast of the blue against her caramel skin was beautiful. Emily
looked around the shop. The staff were running up and down the stairs, there was a long queue
at the till and the burly security guard was talking to a lady pushing a pram.
Emily slipped the necklace into her jeans pocket. She continued to look at the other displays,
gradually filling up her pockets with jewellery.
“Excuse me, but you’re banned from this shop.”
Emily recognised the chubby blonde lady, today wearing a pink knitted dress, who was frowning
at her. She had caught Emily shoplifting twice over the past few months. Some of the customers
stopped and stared. One of them pulled out their camera phone.
Emily shrugged her shoulders. “Am I? Cool. I’ll leave.”
She turned to go, but the lady grabbed her arm tightly.
“Hey!” Emily said clenching her fists.
“Aren’t you forgetting something? That jewellery hasn’t been paid for.”
“I ain’t got nothing,” Emily spat, unclenching her fists and a small fire flame flickered in the
middle of it. “So take your fat hands off me.”
The lady quickly released her when she saw the flame.
“Right. Ahmed,” she called over to the security guard, who winked at the woman with the pram.
He marched over to Emily, shouting codes into his walkie-talkie.
“Be careful, she’s one of them,” the lady whispered to the security guard.
“One of what?” Emily said angrily, as the flame turned red.
“Do you want to empty your pockets, miss?”
“Like I told her,” Emily said, through gritted teeth. “I ain’t got nothing.”
The security guard raised his eyebrows and pointed at her pocket. A flower pendent was
hanging out of it. Emily’s flame rapidly disappeared.
“Let’s go downstairs,” the blonde lady said, when she saw the customers staring. “I believe you
know the way.”
She stared coldly at Emily, who rolled her eyes and allowed herself to be led towards the stairs.
Emily placed her forehead on the wooden table, listening to the clock tick. A policeman next to
her tutted and shuffled some papers beside her. Emily looked up and saw him reading the
newspaper. The headline read KNIGHT’S FREE SPREE IN HARRODS and underneath was a
picture of her, holding Harrods shopping bags and six security guards chasing after her. Emily
snickered. The policeman looked at her and turned the paper over, so he could see the
headline.
“Stealing isn’t funny. It’s a serious offence.”
“So I’ve been told. That’s the good thing about being rich, you can buy your way out of
anything.”
The policeman put down the paper and looked sternly at Emily. “Why didn’t you pay for the
jewellery? Or the things from Harrods? It would be petty change to you.”
Emily stared at her nails, checking to see if her red nail polish was ruined. “Didn’t feel like it.”
The policeman picked up his paper. “Spoilt brat,” he muttered.
Emily hit the front of the paper, so that it fell out of the policeman’s hand.
“I don’t care what you, or anyone thinks!”
“When I get a hold of that girl!”
The office door opened and a skinny, scraggy-faced woman with long, oily brown hair and small
grey eyes stormed into the room.
“You!” Sally Meran screamed at Emily, who looked unfazed.
“How many times do the police have to call me because of your stealing? If your father could
see you—”
“Well, he can’t,” Emily cut in, rolling her thick dark hair into a messy bun. “They’ve got back all
the jewellery, so can we go?”
“Do you even know how wrong stealing is?” Sally asked in disbelief, as she walked towards her.
“I’ve heard it’s pretty bad,” Emily said, smiling.
“Don’t you be smart with me, young lady,” Sally snapped.
“Ms, she was caught with two hundred pounds’ worth of jewellery,” the policeman informed
Sally, whose mouth dropped open.

“Which is nothing to the thousands I almost got from Harrods,” Emily said.
“Enough!” Sally roared, pointing at Emily. “Just be quiet!”
Emily sighed and placed her head back on the table as she listened to Sally apologising to the
policeman. That was the problem with getting caught. She always had to listen to the same
lecture. Sally complaining that she was at her wits’ end with what to do with her, then her
husband Michael
would say that they were letting Thomas down and they had to be stricter on her. Then Jenny
Li, her counsellor, was called and Emily had to talk to her about her issues.
Emily didn’t feel she had issues. She knew she was an angry girl, but who wouldn’t be? Her
mother had died, her brother had run away causing her father to go and chase after him, so she
had no family around her. Emily had a constant ache in her heart that didn’t go away whenever
she thought of her family. She often wondered if her dad loved Lox more? Or if he would have
left Lox to find her? Jenny
said she shouldn’t think such thoughts and of course her dad loved her, but it was hard to tell
when he wasn’t around.
Sally and Michael were her godparents, but also fostered four children who lived with them in
her family mansion. They loved that Emily was a warrior and constantly hassled her to show off
her powers. They thought she was cool because she was the daughter of Thomas Knight, the
leader of the Five Warriors.
The Five Warriors were some of the strongest warriors to exist; Thomas Knight, Roberta
Taniana, Hubert Jenkins, Cecil Archinia and Niles Thompson.
They built their reputation on defeating evil warriors, using their powers for good, saving lives
and winning worldwide warrior competitions. They were treated like rock stars by warriors and
non-warriors. Boys loved Roberta Taniana because she was beautiful and strong and girls loved
Niles Thompson because he was sixteen and gorgeous, but Thomas Knight was the most
popular amongst everyone. He was the only warrior in the world to battle the evil Neci and win.
Neci was notorious for winning battles and killing her opponents. Her goal was to be the
strongest warrior in the world and she didn’t care who she had to kill to succeed. She had
famously killed Cecil Archinia and Niles Thompson in the same battle that Thomas had won.
The deaths of Cecil and Niles eventually ended the heart broken Five Warriors.
After her first loss, Neci had fled. No one knew where and no one hoped to see her again.
Thomas had gone down in history, for being one of the greatest warriors that had ever lived.
Emily thought back to the day of when she had got her powers. She was seven years old. She
ran crying into Sally and Michael’s room, screaming as smoke surrounded her hands. She felt
like her flesh was burning off. Michael had grabbed the bottle of water by his bedside table and
thrown it at Emily. The water sizzled as it hit her hands and the smoke disappeared. Sally
grabbed Emily’s hands and was in disbelief to see that they were fine with no scars.
After that night, Emily had felt different. She felt stronger, faster, her senses were heightened
and her body felt lighter. She wasn’t surprised by the changes to her body, or even that they
appeared earlier than the average age (warriors usually received powers when they turned
thirteen) because Lox and
Thomas’s powers had also come early. But she didn’t expect her powers to come and go as
they pleased. One minute she could barge through walls, making them c rash down around her,
then the next minute she would knock herself out as she charged at the wall and it stayed solid.
Emily hated that she was constantly compared to Thomas and Lox. She hated that she had no
control over her powers. She hated that the kids at school treated her differently out of fear or
adoration.
Sally refused to send Emily to private school like the other warrior children in the
neighbourhood, for fear that she would end up spoilt. Instead, Emily was sent to public school,
but she stood out like a sore thumb. She was harassed with questions about her family, money,
even about her famous neighbours to the point where Emily begged Sally to fire the driver and
maids and to get rid of the Aston Martin, just so she could fit in a little bit more. But what Emily
hated the most was when everyone assumed that she was this brilliant, skilful warrior and she
wasn’t.
It didn’t help that she lived in Legends Village. An exclusive neighbourhood where the residents
were famous warriors. Everyone lived in five-storey mansions with an indoor swimming pool,
cinema, training room and a zillion bedrooms. She was surrounded by excellence. She lived

next door to Roberta Taniana and Hubert Jenkins from the Five Warriors, so the press camped
in Legends Village.
They would be outside her door waiting for a story, hoping that they had found the next ‘legend’
in her.
One time, she took her little foster sisters, Rosy Lang- Sheen and Yvonne Saunders, to the park
and they were immediately ambushed by the press. Bright lights flashed at them and the girls
started to cry. Emily had felt an anger rise up in her and before she knew it, most of the
paparazzi were on the floor, knocked out. She didn’t know how she had done it, but since then,
she had a reputation as a dangerous brat.

What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven, One of Us is Lying by Karen M.McManus, Turtles All The
Way Down by John Green, Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, Harry Potter by JK Rowling, Life
Swap by Jane Green, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella, A Piece
of Cake by Cupcake Brown and the Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging series by Louise Rennison
What book do you think everyone should read?
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is one of the most important books written.
How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since I was eight but it was just for fun. I got serious maybe when I was about 12.
Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?
They usually come to me at the same time, just before I start writing.
Do you see writing as a career?
Writing is definitely one of my careers and I feel very fortunate that it is
What do you think about the current publishing market?
I think it’s slowly evolving. Publishing is a very slow industry and for me the whole discussion of
diversity is pretty strange. I come from a dance background which is so diverse so coming into
publishing, which isn’t is probably something I’ll never get used to. There are now loads of books with
strong female characters but the diverse side still needs some work.
Do you read yourself and if so what is your favorite genre?
I read everyday. Nothing beats a good book. I love chick lit!! It’s my guilty pleasure. I really like
psychological thrillers and YA fiction.
Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?
Depends on my mood! Sometimes I just need to focus and need complete silence and other times the
silence is stifling and I’ll play some Hip-Hop as I write. For some reason it doesn’t distract me at all.
Rapping along can help! Like right now I’m listening to Travis Scott ‘Sicko Mode’ and I’m convinced it’s
helping me write faster.
Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?
I have a bad habit of having multiples at a time but training myself to be more disciplined and just focus
on one. It’s so tempting when a book is challenging to write and you get this new idea and you just want
to get stuck in. I think most writers are guilty of that.
If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?
Harry Potter for obvious reasons! I did fall in love with Holding Up The Universe as soon as I read it.
Pen or type writer or computer?
Computer. I used to write pen to paper and then would type it up but my writing is so rubbish it would
take me forever to work out what the hell I was writing.
What made you want to become an author and do you feel it was the right decision?
I never even thought of being a writer until my English teacher told me to be. My mum was training me to
be a tennis player or a lawyer. I think being a writer is the best choice for me. I think I’m bringing
something a bit different and I feel like Emily Knight ticked the boxes of diversity and a strong female
lead, ahead of the curve, way before it became a discussion.
Advice they would give new authors?

Your first book may not be the break out star and that’s okay! Keep writing and perfecting your craft.
Your book will end up where it needs to be
Describe your writing style.
Hmm I don’t really know! I’ve been told I write dialogue well like it’s real and I create vivid imagery and
I’m funny!
What makes a good story?
I would say relatable characters. Most stories aren’t original but the characters make the story.
What are they currently reading?
A Spark of Light by Jodi Picolut
What is your writing process? For instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
I kind of write an overall blurb on what the book is about and then just go for it. As I’m writing more
ideas develop and I usually have a list of the main characters with their description, flaws and how they
link to my main character.
What are common traps for aspiring writers?
Trying to be the next big thing. Trends change so much in publishing. Remember the Twilight era? Just
write what you would love to read. Also most authors think they want to be traditionally published but
then don’t want to give up their control of the book. Research as there are so many ways to get published
and maybe not all of your books are right for the traditional market
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
I don’t think either of them. I write what I want to read and just what I feel like I’m missing from books
I’ve read.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
You’ve got this girl
How long on average does it take you to write a book?
Oh gosh it can take me up to a year. Want to try and do it quicker as I want to hit 7 books before I’m 40. I
reached my goal of 3 books by 30 so I’m upping the stakes.
Do you believe in writer’s block?
A million percent. Best advice is just to leave it for a week and then come back to it with fresh eyes.
Usually in that week break, I’ll think of the perfect idea to get the story to move forward.