Guest Blogger: Nya Rawlyns ~ Erotic Romance Author

My guest blogger today is erotic romance author Nya Rawlyns. To my knowledge she has 10 books published with various publishers, including XOXO Publishing. Please read on and give a warm welcome to this highly creative writer.


Q. Where did you get the idea for Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts)?

I love stories about conflicted male characters, men with, shall we say … flexible moral codes who manage to do the right thing, sometimes in spite of themselves. They exist on the fringes of society, playing by their own rules. Combine that with the endless options of a paranormal ‘Verse and you have a recipe for high action, intense encounters and the kind of gritty, raw realism I dearly love.

Q. Tell us a bit about the hero and heroine in Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts).

Actually, what we have is hero and hero(ine). Let me explain. Travis McKenzie is a man with an uncertain lineage, adept at hunting the demons infesting Camden’s mean streets and protecting the only thing he cares about. That would be RayLee, the chief performer and owner of a club frequented by a clientele of whom nightmares are made. 
Travis and RayLee have a history, one that extends back to their time in the military, when RayLee was Ray, and Travis was the one who saved his only friend’s life. Fate and karma have a peculiar sense of humor, especially when Ray took those fateful steps to realize his true nature. In mid-transformation, the tranny that was Ray morphing to Raylee was turned by the Governor, the south’s biggest, baddest vampire King. 

For Travis, the journey toward reconciling his feeling for Ray, his best and only friend, and RayLee, the woman he craves, must be tempered by his commitment to protect Ray/Lee from the irate Governor who cannot abide the embarrassment of siring a travesty—neither man, nor woman … but both.

It makes for some interesting dilemmas and emotional choices. 

Q. What are you working on right now, and what can we expect from you next?

Right now I’m working on a paranormal series: Blood Haven. Book One: Micah is out with Book Two: Cajun Gothic on deck. Both are with XOXO Publishing. Find out more here: http://blood-haven.weebly.com/  The website has excerpts, teaser chapters and other stuff for your reading pleasure. I’ll be ready to dive into Book Three as soon as I finish Saints and Sinners: Roman. I’m writing this one on-the-fly as a serial with 26 chapters completed. You can follow the adventure here: http://saints-and-sinners.weebly.com/

Q. Do you prefer stand-alone books or series (As a reader or a writer)? 

If it’s paranormal, I do prefer a series because it allows time to fully develop the ‘Verse, to flesh out all the characters, to explore mythologies (and to push boundaries), and to give me something to look forward to.

For some reason, reaching The End can be such a depressing experience, especially when I’ve become thoroughly invested in one or more characters. While I don’t write fanfic, I do understand that drive to continue with characters and situations, to explore all the what if’s and to delve deeper into all the intriguing minor characters who bring so much to the total experience.

Q. Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Today that would be Nalini Singh and her Psy-Changeling series, as well as her Guild Hunter series. Both are stunning in their detail, the strength of the characters and the overarching mythology that has such logical consistency and absurdly gripping premises that you get drawn in, obsessively so (well, me at least). Plus, her characters feel flesh-and-blood, with real motivations, genuine feelings and the path before them is never a done deal. 

If you ask me tomorrow … well, I’m expecting book 5 of Kevin Hearne’s The Iron Druid Chronicles, an urban fantasy that’s a mash-up of every myth known to man and a hero with a rather unusual dog and an acolyte who might just curl our hero’s toes.

Q. Name three of your favorite things.

Chocolate: Godiva chocolate, specifically truffles
Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby: if you think you are sensing a trend, you wouldn’t be wrong
My life: yep, I am blessed with a wonderful son, horses, chickens, cats, parakeets and a home in the country, good friends and much to be thankful for.

Q. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Obviously, taking care of the farmette ranks high on my list of things-I-do-without-a-computer. I like movies, a lot. I follow screenwriters with the same slavish devotion as I do with regular authors. I am obsessively gaga over The Vampire Diaries and Sherlock and Dr. Who. If Dancing with the Stars is on, nothing else in the universe matters. I adore Dragon Con and NYC’s ComicCon and attend most every year (and in costume: a very saucy corset and satin skirt combo). And I like to cook. My son: Do you smell something burning?  Me: Ah, yes, dinner must be ready.

Q. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk? (Some write with a glass of wine, or others listen to music, what do you do?)

I often choreograph action sequences to music my son bundles into ‘rowdy mixes’, using groups I’ve never heard of (Cage the Elephant), but inevitably tunes that have me jigging around the kitchen table. When the writing actually starts, the cover goes over the parakeet cage, the radio’s off, and silence reigns. I then go to that inter-dimensional space where nothing and no one but my characters exist.


Q. How do we find out about you and your books?

Aside from the website devoted to those titles, you can find me at:
Website: http://www.romancingwords.com/ 
FB: https://www.facebook.com/NyaRawlyns
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nya_rawlyns  @Nya_Rawlyns
Author Central:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004Y80YQ4
About Me: http://about.me/nyarawlyns

Q. How may readers contact you?

I love to hear from readers. If you like, leave a comment (Contact Me) on my website or a tweet/follow or join me on Face Book. 

I want to thank you, Jan, for having me today. It’s been a real pleasure.

You’re welcome, Nya, and thank you. I’m always amazed by the wonderful diversity of talent I get to see on my blog. I love the excerpt by the way. It shows your wonderful skill as a writer. That you can get so much depth of feeling into your characters, in just a few paragraphs, is truly awesome. 

Excerpt from Acid Jazz Singer (Hunger Hurts):

Hands the size of pie-plates cradled my head, a lover’s caress, his voice deepening and the rhythm of the words changing to a lush, sibilant sound. I was intimate with spells and didn’t understand how he could possibly cast anything given his new speech impediment. Mine were hit or miss on a good day, stone cold sober.

I was going to need to read up on countermeasures because my body was having way too much fun responding to whatever suggestions Dozer was murmuring in my ear. He was grinding my hips into the rough wall, and I knew in that instant my initiation into the Cult of Dozer would not be the pleasant interlude my painful erection anticipated. 

When he withdrew without warning, I felt relieved and not a little disappointed. The muted sounds of footsteps, laughter—high girlish followed by a coarse grunt—and the steady beat from whatever canned musak Ray was gyrating to filtered back to us, spreading out and around the mountain of a man blocking my escape. 

I eased back from the brick, rubbing my palms on my jeans, and risked an intake of the fetid air. Demon guts, sex, and rotting trash warred with the part of me having the good sense to be afraid, layering thin veneers of terror intermingled with lust in a powerful eau de stupidity. 

Ray was going to be all Yoda on me if he found out. I might be immune to his glamour but I sure as hell was susceptible to all manner of naughty suggestions from his clientele. And most times spells weren’t required. We’d been working on that for years. In my youth, trolling for trailer trash, there hadn’t been much of a downside … or consequences. Now I couldn’t afford to be distracted. Unfortunately, celibacy never worked for me.

Dozer licked his lips in that slow seductive way you’d expect some hot babe would do it, corner to corner, top first, then the lower with teeth taking hold in nips and tugs. The air around me buzzed and sizzled, setting up a vibration in my belly that wasn’t stretching my comfort zone at all. I couldn’t see his eyes, they were downcast, staring at my crotch where I was stroking myself, palm curved to receive the denim and sharp zipper swaddling my cock. It hurt, metal to flesh, pain in that good kind of way that makes you feel alive and in control. 

Something glinted in the weak light. Odd I hadn’t noticed before. He had a tongue stud, a silver ball he was nestling along his upper lip, and I thought about how that might feel if he took me in his mouth and nothing mattered more at that moment than finding out. The subvocals rattled in my chest, Dozer’s mouth moving now in rapid cadence, drawing me close, closer. 

I barely registered the click, so intent on the unholy wash of need coursing through my system, setting nerves afire, skin crawling with sensation as the waves of energy ate through the last of my defenses. He was going to fuck me ’til I bled and I’d beg for more. 

“I said, back off, bitch.”

Ray? What the hell was he doing out here?

Links to Acid Jazz Singer:

Kindle US: http://amzn.to/n2AIh4
Print: http://amzn.to/ouo7jv
B & N: http://bit.ly/pggiuy
OmniLit: http://bit.ly/qeypt6
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/NlUPFA