Today I’m happy to welcome back Sommer Marsden with another fabulous offering from The Thousand and One Nights anthology of Xcite’s Secret Library collection. Sommer is here to tell us about her hot novella, The Highest Bidder. The Highest Bidder is also available as a stand-alone novella on Kindle.
Danger, Danger, Gentle Constant Reader…
This will be a bit different than my normal goofy, slightly flighty blog posts. This one has a bit of, dare I say, emotions wound into it. Read at your own risk.
I’m supposed to discuss The Highest Bidder today, one of my favorite things I’ve written in the last year or so. Funny and intense with lots of sex. But so romantic I even set my own little (very repressed) girlish heart going pitter patter. I almost always have romance in my work, but not to that degree.
I think a lot of the romance and sizzle stems from Casey having lost her husband and how much she needs to heal. My man was diagnosed Type 1 Diabetic about three years ago. Odd for a 40-something year old man, yes. But due to a birth defect that left his pancreas compromised it finally gave up the ghost. He went from ‘normal’ to insulin dependent pretty much overnight.
Scary.
I think of myself then and how scared I was to hear his diagnosis and how it’s still sinking in to me how he must have felt. I cannot imagine his internal reaction even though I have been with him all but seven days or so days for the last 17 years (you heard that right. we’ve spent *maybe* a week to ten days apart)
I chose to spotlight diabetes in The Highest Bidder because it hits close to home. It also allowed me to write my way out of the fear box. I admit, there are times when I still get very afraid and my brain goes to what I would do if I didn’t have my better half. Not to be icky, stick and gushy, but the man makes me whole. If I didn’t have him, I’d be lost.
I certainly can’t imagine ever falling in love again. Ever. I think I’d roll up the dating carpet and buy a cat. I can’t fathom ever experiencing again what I have with him, but I could certainly give that to my heroine. Because I’m generous that way 😉
Casey Briggs is funny and kind and sexy, she has a humongous heart and she also had a big-big love with her husband. But it’s time for Casey to experience something she hasn’t in a long time. Attraction, connection, and even lust. Good old fashioned, bone rattling lust.
It doesn’t hurt that Nick Murpy is a good guy. So good that he wonders if he can even live up to what it is Casey’s trying to accomplish—a big donation to the aide research of the disease that took her husband. It’s a bachelor auction, but clearly no one is going to bid big bucks on an average Joe like him.
So he thinks, anyway.
I just love when two good hearted people connect and fall in love, don’t you?
As for writing my way out of the fear box, I think I did an okay job. My mother lost my dad when he was 26. I can’t imagine. Not only losing my partner at such a young age but being left with a four year old. Death is hard to understand at four. It doesn’t’ get any easier as we age, though, in my opinion.
36 years later and I still miss my dad. And so does my mom. But she was lucky enough to meet someone who made her happy. They started a whole new chapter of life together. And over 30 years later, they’re still together and happy.
I took the fear I was working through at the time to start the story and then gave Casey the happily ever after that my mother got—because they both deserve it, don’t you think?
As for how a writer’s mind works…which is sort of what this blog was meant to illuminate…well, I could sit here all day writing and still never manage to explain it. I guess the best way is this: however it works and cranks out that story, is how it works. I’m just grateful every time it does its thing and leaves me with a new piece of work to show off and take credit for!
XOXO
Sommer
Where to Buy :
Amazon UK
Amazon.Com
Best selling author Sommer Marsden has been called “…one of the top storytellers in the erotica genre” (Violet Blue), “Unapologetic” (Alison Tyler), “…the whirling dervish of erotica” (Craig J. Sorensen),and “Erotica royalty…” (Lucy Felthouse for Blog Critics Books).
Her erotic novels include Restless Spirit, Big Bad, The Best of Sommer Marsden, Hard Lessons, and Angry Sex. Sommer currently writes erotica and erotic romance for Xcite Books, eXcessica, Ellora’s Cave, Pretty Things Press, Resplendence Publishing and House of Erotica. The wine-swigging, dachshund-owning, wannabe runner author writes work that runs the gamut from bondage to zombies to humor.
Sommer’s short works can be found in over a hundred (and counting) erotic anthologies. Her short stories have also been included numerous adult and romance magazines–both in print and online. Visit sommermarsden.blogspot.com to see what she’s up to.
The whole world is going on about Fifty Shades of Grey. But erotic literature has been around for centuries, and has simply seen a revival with electronic devices. But, the 50 shades phenomenon has a different angle. It is primarily erotic fiction for women, written by a woman and has at its central core an all-consuming love story.