April 2008
all material c. Anna J. Evans
18 and over only.
Welcome to the April Newsletter
What pretty April showers. I don't think I'd even mind them if I was there...and hadn't spent half an hour straightening my hair. How about you? Hope you're having a great spring!
Now, on to the newsletter!
(If you're not a member of Anna's newsletter loop just yet, click the link below. I promise I'll let you in. There's only one message per month, the newsletter, and just by being a mail-receiving member of the loop you're automatically entered to win that month's prize.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anna_j_evans_newsletter/
April Contest
Here's your chance to win the ENTIRE Perfectly Wicked series, all four books! I'm celebrating the release of the 4th book in the series, "Beauty Sleep", and giving away the entire set. But here's the catch. I need entries! If I don't receive a minimum of 25 entries, then there will be no giveaway. So tell your friends, your family, your reading buddies, your smut reading neighbors!
All you have to do is drop me an email at anna_j_evans at yahoo.com before the end of April telling me your favorite erotic genre. I'll choose one winner and make the announcement May 5th. Happy Contesting!
Anna's News:
New Reviews!!
5 Blue Ribbons for "Deep Cover"-sci-fi BDSM
"All I can say is DAMN! DEEP COVER by Anna J. Evans just left me completely transfixed. She is definitely the madame of erotica! DEEP COVER is, without a doubt, the most wickedly erotic story I have ever read. Cal is beyond sexy, beyond dominant, and most of all, the most sinfully delicious Dom...I was quickly drawn into this fantastic creation..I couldn’t wait to devour the story and find out how it ended. I'm a huge fan of Anna J. Evans and this is definitely a story I will be recommending to everyone!"
-Amanda Hafferty for Romance Junkies
Read the full review here
Read blurb and excerpt here
Captured received 5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies!
From beginning to end CAPTURED is daring, indulgent and a down right pleasure to read. Hopefully Ms. Evans is not through with her tales set in this intriguing time period. I for one would love her to return to 1897 Boston and look forward to whatever she has brewing on the horizon. She took a chance and it worked for her and I believe it will work for historical fans out there, CAPTURED is a keeper for sure"
5 Lips and 2 and 1/2 HOT peppers from TwoLips Reviews for
"Demon's Triad" by December Quinn and Anna J. Evans
"All I can say about Demon’s Triad is wow! Anna J. Evans and December Quinn have written an exhilarating book. The more I read, the more mesmerized I became...I could not get enough of this book!...I will definitely be recommending Demon’s Triad to everyone. I only have one request--a sequel please, ladies."
5 Angels from Fallen Angel Reviews for
"Demon's Triad" by December Quinn and Anna J. Evans
"Magic, demons and witches star in a story that is definitely not for the faint of heart. An action filled erotic thriller...readers are taken on a wild ride of rage, death and insatiable appetites. Anna J. Evans and December Quinn created a plot that turned into an instant hit...I think readers who gravitate toward darker thrills will find Demon’s Triad is just what they’ve been looking for. I hope this is only the beginning to a writing partnership that looks to be a winning combination."
Excerpt of the Month "Beauty Sleep":
Coming April 25th from Ellora's Cave, the 4th in the
Perfectly Wicked series...the wicked women of fairy tale fame with a seductive twist.
BLURB:
After accidentally cursing a princess to a hundred years of sleep, fairy Calliope La Fae couldn't get hired to enchant horse dung, let alone work as a court fairy to a royal family. The only way she made it to the castle was by way of the dungeon, and the only way she made it out with her life was by risking the use of her fractured magic.
And so a spell is cast, and two lovers enchanted...
King Aaron should be concentrating on saving his brother from Calliope's enchantment, but he can't seem to keep his mind on anything but the fairy herself. Whether it's in the castle bath, by the side of the road or tied to a tree--he'll take Calliope any way he can get her. Even when the spell she cast is broken, he can't get the woman out of his mind. There's no way he'll let her fall victim to own magic, no matter what he must risk to save her.
EXCERPT:
The "affliction". That's what her mother had called Calliope's rotten luck with magic, but it had all too often seemed that she was talking about Calliope herself. The "affliction" forced them to move to the most unpopulated regions of Outer Kartolia to prevent Calliope from doing injury to other children when her magic was young and unschooled. The "affliction" drove Calliope's father away, and caused her mother to die alone and friendless except for her only child…a talentless daughter, her own "affliction" to bear to the end of her days.
"But you all know I haven't tried to cast a single spell since Mother's death." Calliope walked slowly around the circular edge of the cell, dragging her fingers over stone, then bars, then stone again, imagining that she was talking to the animals on her farm. They would be a much kinder audience than the stern-faced stones.
She had lived alone for nearly five years now, just she, the pigs, the goats, the geese and a cat or two that she never let get too familiar. If she hadn't started talking to the animals she tended as if they were people, she suspected she would have gone mad. Just as she suspected she would run mad alone in this dungeon if she didn't create imaginary friends to keep her company in the cold and the dark.
"You know Mother was the one who refused to give up on my magic. I never cared. It's better to have no magic than magic cursed to yield such horrible fruit." Calliope said the words sternly, but in her mind she heard the echo of her mother's voice.
Better flawed magic than no magic, Calliope La Fae. Without your magic, you're hardly a fairy at all. You're nothing better than a human.
Nothing better than a human--truly a fate worse than death to Heliotrope La Fae. Calliope's mother had once loved a human, given him the gift of her body, her magic, a child, and, finally, that spark within her that the Fae could only give to one partner over the course of their long lifetimes. The spark gave Calliope's father longevity and a charisma that made all who met him captivated by his presence.
He was gone within a few months of receiving the gift, off to take the world by storm as an actor or a singer or some such nonsense.
"And it was nonsense, but it was just one man's nonsense, not every man's nonsense. Surely there are human men who--"
Human men who would steal your one chance at happiness, rip your heart from your immortal chest and stomp it to bits on those stones beneath your feet.
"Stop it, Mother. We're not immortal. We die just as humans--"
In their eyes, we are immortal. Compared to their short lives, we are ancients, gods. Gods who they would curse to an eternity of loneliness so they might have one white-hot moment in the sun.
This was absurd. She had to put a stop to this fancied conversation before the line between the real world and the imagined grew too blurry, before she let herself be swept away by the ghosts from her past.
"You're not really here. I can't really hear you." Calliope turned away from the voice, burying her face in her filthy hands.
Lies. You always were a pretty little liar.
"You are the liar!" She spun, took a deep breath, and tried to compose herself. "We aren't immortal. We die. You died. You aren't really--"
Silence, Calliope. If you can't say something sensible, don't say anything at all.
"I am making sense."
You're a fool. You've always been a fool, a curse upon my life. You and your affliction.
"Mother…I…"
Fool!
The world seemed to tilt on its axis as Calliope struggled to draw breath.
Goddess, she never should have started this game, never given in to the temptation to indulge her overactive imaginings. She always ended up frightening herself, even when she wasn't locked in an awful place with the sounds of rodent claws on stone waking her from her sleep in the middle of every dark, horrible night.
Her mother was dead. The animals on the farm loved her, needed her. She had to hold it together for a few more days. Then surely the king would hear of her plight.
The King of Kartolia was merciful, and kind. Calliope had never met him, but she'd seen the pictures of his coronation pasted to the billboards at market day in the village close to her farm. She and some of the other young girls had giggled together about how handsome he looked, wondering which of the many eligible princesses in the realm he would choose for his queen.
Surely such a handsome, compassionate-looking king would understand she hadn't meant to--
Foolish. You were born foolish. My fault for cursing you with a human father. If you were pure fairy, you would never be deceived by a pretty face.
"I'm not being deceived, Mother. He has done great things for our country, he has-- Damn it, I am finished with this conversation. You aren't real." Calliope pulled back a foot and kicked the stone beside her--hard.
"Ouch! Ouchouchouch," she cursed, but the pain had the desired effect. Her mind cleared for a moment and she felt the spark of hope within her grow stronger.
The king was kind and good and he would set her free, no matter that his younger brother had fallen victim to Rosamund's enchanted castle. Prince Johann should never have ventured to the castle in the first place. Everyone knew that it had a reputation for letting young nobles in but never spitting them back out. Johann wasn't half the warrior his older brother was, he should have known better than to--
Perhaps he hoped to free dear Rosamund with the power of love, all the true love in his young, princely heart.
Calliope pressed her hands tightly to her ears, sinking down to the floor with a moan. She couldn't fight it anymore. The voice in her head was too strong and she had been far too long without her herbs, the herbs that helped keep her mind a place of blessed silence. She had begged the king's advisor and his guards to let her take the potion with her, but they'd refused, certain she was about some black magic to spell them into setting her free.
And now she was alone, trapped in never-ending blackness, with the voice that had always been the most wicked of all those that spoke in her mind--the cruel imitation of the mother Calliope knew she had disappointed beyond all reason.
You weren't just a disappointment, you were an abomination. Still are and always will be.
"Please…please…" Calliope ran a shaking hand across her face, smearing tears that she hadn't even realized had begun to flow down her cheeks.
Please what? How dare you beg for mercy when you've given up your best protection of your own free will? What kind of fairy are you? To beg and plead, to bend and scrape and toil at the earth like a creature that never knew the touch of magic upon your skin?
"I can't. I just can't. Please don't ask me to. It's too dangerous, and I--"
I'll ask nothing of you. I learned to ask nothing, expect nothing. I'm content to watch you die, to see the last days of the Affliction.
"I am NOT an affliction!" She screamed and her voice echoed wickedly out of the cell and out into the vast underground dungeon. She was shaking now, her hands drawn up into claws in front of her face, as if she could tear the horrible voice from the air, shred it with her mangled nails and toss it down to the stones.
Then prove it. Free yourself. Cast, Calliope. Cast or die, that has always been the choice, whether you were clever enough to understand it or not.
"No. I will not."
Cast, Calliope, cast and live.
"Nuh-nuh-no."
Stuttering again. Now you sound like the fool you are.
"I am not a fool. I have memorized every spell you ever taught me and a hundred more I learned on my own. My mind is not lame, my magic is."
What's the difference? You're still a waste.
"Don't push me, Mother, or I swear by the Goddess I'll--"
You'll what? Turn me into a toad? I'm shaking, Calliope, trembling with fear.
"Stop it!"
You can't even get yourself out of this dungeon, let alone accomplish transfiguration.
"Leave me be, please I--"
Begging again. Pathetic, absolutely--
"By the Goddess of good and old, magic do as you are told. Liberate me from this sorry state. Liberate your daughter in her time of need, ease this heart and set me free."
A sudden wind swept through the cell, the first breeze she'd felt in the weeks she'd been confined, and Calliope knew the spell had been cast. What consequences it would bring, however…
No matter how well spoken or intentioned, her magic had a way of doing as it would, not as it was told.
Some spell…it…doesn't even…of the ancients…
But her mother's voice was no longer so strong. Calliope easily pushed it away and rolled back to the ground with a weary sigh. She was exhausted, half starved and as miserable as she had been in those dark days before her mother's death, when Heliotrope's bitterness had been at its greatest, poisoning her as surely as the disease that ravaged her body.
"Goddess, protect me," Calliope murmured as she closed her eyes. She was too tired to set out something for the rats and unwilling to part with the last bit of bread she'd tucked into the pocket of her nightdress. She would just have to trust the Goddess to keep her safe while she slept and pray that the spell would achieve the desired goal, without anyone getting hurt in the process.
Deliciously Naughty Writers News:
The Deliciously Naughty Writers are:
Sherrill Quinn, Anna J. Evans,
December Quinn, Kelly Maher, and Sierra Dafoe!
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April 12th - Stop in and chat with the Deliciously Naughty Writers at Love Romances Cafe from noon to six EST.
Hunk of the month
This man never eats carbs. Never. So let us be sure to drool properly in honor of his sacrifice :).
Love and Laughter always,
Anna J. Evans
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