All Romance eBooks held a virtual red-carpet ceremony on Friday, February 15th, recognizing some of the best in electronic romance publishing. The readers, authors, and other industry members attending the ceremony saw many or their favorite authors, books, and publishers honored.

But the night began with the reader awards. After all, readers, we do it all for you.

Reader Recognition

The Best Reader awards were given to ARe's top ten customers.

Marjorie Clarke
Denise Pinet
Anitra Sullivan
Julian Topping
Lisa Walter
Monica Witherspoon
and four anonymous readers!

The Best in Romance eBooks of 2007

The Best Book awards were given to ARe's top selling books for 2007.

Brazen by Maya Banks
Dragon Star by Stephanie Burke
Hara's Legacy by Bianca D'Arc
Here Kitty, Kitty by Shelly Laurenston
Long Hard Ride by Lorelei James
Out of My Mind by M.L. Rhodes
Secrets and Misdemeanors by G.A. Hauser
Twin Temptations by Carol Lynne
Checkmate by Annmarie McKenna
Devil's Pact by Samantha Cruise

The Best Authors of 2007

The Best Author awards were given to ARe's top selling authors for 2007.

Carol Lynne
Maya Banks
Bianca D'Arc
G.A. Hauser
Emma Wildes
Sean Michael
J.J. Massa
Mackenzie McKade
Annmarie McKenna
B.A. Tortuga

The Best Publisher of 2007

Samhain Publishing

This publishing house was founded in November of 2005. Their founding goal?

To bring to compulsive readers books that allow them to discover new worlds and be taken on adventures through the creative minds of today's brightest authors.

With over 500 books in the ARe catalogue – they've won the readers hearts by keeping one thing in the forefront, the understanding that… "It's all about the story…"

Best New Publisher of 2007

Total-e-bound

This publishing house opened their doors earlier this year. It's founders, brought together by a mutual love of outstanding erotic fiction.

They love what they do and if their growing fan-base is any judge, their dedication and commitment are paying off as every week more and more readers buy their books and… "escape into a literagasmic fantasy…"

Wildfire would like to welcome author Megan Hart, author of this months ARe—The eBookclub pick, Tempted

Megan Hart

Julie: When a new book comes out, are you nervous about how readers will react to it?

Megan: Always! Each new book is a new adventure. What will readers think? Will they like it as much as the last book? More? What if this one isn't as good? Sure, I'm always nervous.

Julie: When you write, is atmosphere important? For example, do you use mood music or candles? Do you need complete quiet to concentrate?

Megan: I make a playlist for every book, so I listen to that while I'm working. Even now, I find that a certain song can take me back to the way I felt while writing a certain book. I also burn a Yankee Candle, Fresh-Cut Roses. I've tried to find other candles that smell as good for as long, but Yankee Candle's Fresh-Cut Roses is the only one that satisfies me. J I don't need complete quiet. In fact, I often write at a coffee shop, but I put my head phones on so I hear the music, not the chatter.

Julie: The editing process is so critical. In your opinion, what are the most important aspects of the editor/author relationship?

Megan: Trust. I have to trust that the editor will find the places where I can improve without ruining the parts I don't need to change. I've been extremely fortunate to have worked with excellent editors who have allowed me to write the books I want to write, how I want them written, but who've caught my mistakes and helped me make each project the best it can be.

Julie: Most people envision an author's life as being really glamorous. What's the most unglamorous thing that you've done in the past week?

Megan: I had to tell the houseboy to clean BEHIND the toilet and make sure to get ALL the spots. Oh, wait. That wasn't the houseboy. That was me.

Julie: Do you ever experience writer's block? If you do, how do you cope with it?

Megan: I'm never blocked for ideas, but I do suffer from lack of motivation. As in, I'd rather watch Supernatural than work. Haha!

Julie: Describe the space where you write.

Megan: I have a huge, gorgeous office that is an utter, cluttered disaster. My window looks out onto the woods, which is nice when I look up from the screen. I just got a new desk chair, so now I have no excuse for not staying put and working.

Julie: What do you do when you aren't writing? Any hobbies or special interests that you can tell us about?

Megan: I love to watch movies and Supernatural is my favorite television show. I'm also a Queer as Folk fanatic. I just started season five, and when it's done I plan to start over with season one again. I love to play the Sims 2. And read, of course!

Julie: Out of all of the characters that you've written, who is your favorite and why?

Megan: I would have to say that Elle from Dirty is my favorite. I don't know why, exactly. She's just lived in my head for a long time. I love her. I love living in her head, even though it's not always comfortable. She's not very much like me, but I like writing from her POV. Alex from Tempted is probably my favorite hero, though. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Julie: What books are currently on your nightstand?

Megan: Right now I'm reading a lot of non-fiction books for research, so I have a bunch of books about mental hospitals. Not very sexy, I'm afraid.

Julie: Dealing with writing deadlines can be a challenge. What do you do to cope with the stress?

Megan: Play the Sims 2 and watch Supernatural!

 
Megan began writing short fantasy, horror and science fiction before graduating to novel-length romances. In 1998, now a stay-home mom, Megan took up writing in earnest, attending her first writing conference and getting her first request for a full manuscript. In 2002 she saw her first book in print, and she hasn't stopped since.

She's published in almost every genre of romantic fiction, including historical, contemporary, romantic suspense, romantic comedy, futuristic, fantasy and perhaps most notably, erotic. She also writes non-erotic fantasy and science fiction, as well as continuing to occasionally dabble in horror.

 Megan's goal is to continue writing spicy, thrilling love stories with a twist. Her dream is to have a movie made of every one of her novels, starring herself as the heroine and Keanu Reeves as the hero. Megan lives in the deep, dark woods with her husband and two monsters…er…children.

 

To read the entire interview with Megan Hart click here!

***ARe—The eBookclub February Offer***

 
Get Your Free Copy of Tempted Today!

 The first-fifty-free coupon code is:

 

Join us on March 21st 9:00 p.m. in the ARe chat room for our next meeting of ARe—The eBookclub and meet the author, Megan Hart!

Join us for chats this coming week!

 February 29th 6 pm - 7:30 pm est

Phaze Author Chat

 Chat with the Phaze authors about new releases, upcoming
releases and what's in store for the publisher! Also join the chat for a chance to win prizes!

Want to schedule your own chat? Send a query to: info@allromanceebooks.com

 Check out future chats here:

Two men are better than one by Lynne Connolly

This story is rated 4 flames. It contains explicit love scenes described using graphic and direct language. Read at your own discretion.

One more piece and she could go home.

The pavement had come out of the ground in pieces, held together temporarily by special gauze but with the big Roman exhibit due to open next month, the museum had decided to get the pavement ready for its first public viewing.

And this was the final part. The whole pavement showed a wild beast show at the Coliseum, two warriors at the center working hard to kill them. Several lay bleeding at their feet, but the live ones were skulking around the edges. Heroine hoped her leopard would be one of the ones saved. Or maybe they'd get lucky and kill the warriors.

Sandi had gotten rather fond of her leopard while she'd been working on him. Holding her breath, she picked up her tweezers and carefully manipulated the last tessera, the piece that would make this part of the pavement complete.

"Don't do that."

The deep male voice shocked her into dropping the tweezers and she spun around, furious at the interruption. "Shit, Ahmok! Don't you ever knock?"

But instead of his usual easygoing expression, Ahmok Pau from the anthropology department glowered at her. He even growled a little. "Don't finish that piece, Sandi." His dark eyes glittered in the gloom beyond her spotlight.

"What the hell are you talking about? I've been working on this pavement night and day to get it done for opening day. Do you think I can stop now? I want a bath and my bed, so just go away and let me get on with it."

"Use one of the repro pieces."

A box of modern-manufactured tessera stood by, for the reconstructors to use to replace missing pieces. They were a uniform white, deliberately tinted with a blue tinge, not meant to deceive. Sandi stared at Ahmok as if he'd gone mad. Which, she thought, he had.

"Are you kidding? This is one of the few completely intact parts of the pavement and you want me to ruin it?"

"Just use a piece in the background. Nobody will notice."

She highly doubted that. Every piece of this treasure was noted and inventoried. "Stick to what you know. I never pretended to be an anthropologist."

"He's right." Another male voice came from behind Sandi. Ahmok's colleague, Chiam Greito. Slightly shorter than Ahmok but with a powerful build not hidden by the t-shirts he invariably wore, or the leathers he used when he rode his motor bike, there were more than rumors about these two. They'd arrived at the Met at the same time, done all their research together on a single obscure South American tribe and according to the experts they were phenomenal at unearthing customs and origins that had eluded others.

Chiam stepped forward into the glow left by the security lights, the only other lighting in the great hall of the museum, apart from Sandi's spotlight.

"Don't finish that piece," Chiam repeated. "Please, Sandi. Lose an unimportant part of the pavement."

"Why not?" she snapped. "What possible reason could there be to do that?"

Until now she hadn't felt menaced. Ahmok and Chiam had hit on her regularly since they'd arrived, together and separately and she'd counted on them as friends and colleagues. But now, looking at the two powerful men standing side by side in the gloom they appeared far more dangerous. Muscles rippled under their bronzed skin when they moved.

"Because you'll invoke the creature you're re-creating," Chiam told her in a voice so steady she could almost believe him. "He's waiting. Can't you feel it?"

She could feel tension in the air but she'd assumed it was hers, so close to completing the pavement. "This leopard has been dead for centuries," she said now, keeping her voice steady. "Don't be such idiots."

She turned and dropped the tessera into place.

"Fuck, no!" Chiam's low curse alerted her. She lifted her head and blinked.

At the edge of the room stood a large cat. Large was probably an underestimate. It was huge. She watched it, breathlessly as its sides rippled in movement. It would rip her apart.

She'd just dropped into Looking Glass Land.

"Oh my God, it's the biggest leopard I've ever seen!"

Ahmok snapped into action. "Get around her other side, Chiam. And strip, fast. I need your energy."

She felt rather than heard Chiam move, sliding gently across the room to stand next to her. "Don't move, Sandi. It's just waiting for you. You called it, so you're the target. If you want us to get you out of this, do exactly what we tell you."

A breath of air told her Ahmok was on her other side. Chiam, busy taking his clothes off—wtf?—glanced at him once. Ahmok put his hand on her shoulder and chanted something in a language she didn't know.

The animal snarled, its lip curling above huge ivory fangs.

"Listen, Sandi." Ahmok's voice came in softly. "This is real, understand? You've invoked a demon and it takes the form of a great cat. We can get you out of this. But only if you do as we say."

Sandi nodded.

"Take off your clothes. I need your essence, love."

"What?" She was startled enough to turn and stare at him.

Bare-chested, Ahmok was every woman's dream; strong and lean, with no spare flesh anywhere about him. His biceps flexed as he slowly lifted his arms and made some symbols in the air. "That should hold it for now. But to banish it, I need to do more. If we move out of this space, it will kill us all."

The animal moved, its black spots rippling along its fur as it slunk around them, trying to find a way in.

Ahmok's breath fell hot on her neck. "I want to join with you and Chiam. Both of you at the same time. Then I'll take the energy I need from you both. It's an ancient ritual of my people." He glanced at Chiam. "Our people."

"He's a priest," Chiam said quietly. "If he says he can do it, he can. Otherwise we're all damned."

"You could have left me," Sandi pointed out. "It would only have me, then."

Chiam huffed a light laugh. "No way are we leaving you. You're ours, Sandi. If you want to be."

"Not the best time to tell her," Ahmok pointed out. "But probably something for her to think about later. If there is a later. Lie down, sweetheart. I'm going to fuck you now."

"What?" She'd decided to go along with the ritual thing, but that last was too much. "You're what?"

"Ahmok needs to have both of us so he can tap in to our energy. His power is sex based," Chiam explained. "So he'll take you and I'll take him."

"The security cameras?" she gasped. "Dear God, is that what this is all about? You get off on doing it for the cameras?" Down to her underwear now, she paused, her thumbs tucked into her panties.

"They're disabled. They won't be able to pick up any of this. The guards will only see what they expect to see," Ahmok explained.

"And you expect me to believe all that?"

"Yes, I do. You can take us, or that. You choose. But you'll lose more than your life to that thing. You'll lose your soul."

Deep down she knew they were telling her the truth. Something told her. And what was she going to lose? "You're clean?" she asked. No way did these two mean to use condoms.

"Yeah, we're clean." Ahmok sounded amused. How dare he? "Lie down and open your legs."

She made her choice. There was none, really, these two were the only chance she had of getting out of this alive. She did as he told her, lying on the rectangle of carpet she'd been kneeling on. Then she opened her legs. I'm at the doctor's she told herself.

But it didn't work. The man looming over her, gently smiling was as far from her doctor as it was possible to get. Bronzed skin, dark, glittering eyes and a smile that was far from soothing. "Damn," breathed the vision. "You are so beautiful."

Ahmok knelt between her legs, staring at her before he brought his hand to her crotch, carefully slipping his fingers into her folds. "You're wet," he murmured. "Oh baby please forgive us for this but don't ever think we don't want you. We've been arguing about it for weeks. This wasn't the way we wanted to do it."

"Get a move on!" Chiam growled from above. "Or we'll all be dead!"

Despite the danger they were in, Sandi's mouth watered as Ahmok knelt down and pushed his cock into her pussy. Her opening wept for him, but he had to work it in gradually. He watched her all the while, his eyes anxious.

Her back arched when he pushed deeper and Sandi found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. Even more when he withdrew and plunged in again.

"Wait." Chiam reached between them and collected some of the abundant juices on his fingers. His soft groan told Sandi he wasn't unaffected by Ahmok's claiming of her.

Ahmok gasped and pushed up, away from her, his cock barely breaching her body. "Oh Chiam!"

The cat growled, creeping closer to them. The barrier Ahmok had erected was failing.

Chiam's voice came thready and hoarse as he leaned over them both. "I have to do this. That was the only lubrication we have. Forgive me, Ahmok if I hurt you."

All three cried out when Chiam breached Ahmok's body. Underneath these two men, the one on top driving hard into them, Sandi felt helpless, completely in their power. If it weren't for the creature, whose foul breath she could now smell, she'd love this.

His face taut, Ahmok threw back his head and began to chant in an ancient language Sandi didn't recognize. As guttural as old German, but at the same time with long, fluid vowels, the words flowed.

She felt the animal's hot breath on her neck.

She passed out.

Sandi opened her eyes to a room she'd never seen before. She lay in a large bed in an open, sunny bedroom decorated in shades of blue with lightwood closets. She liked it, wherever it was. When she turned her head to look out of the window she saw a brownstone on the other side of the road. She was still in New York, then, just not in her small apartment in the 'burbs.

Ahmok didn't live with her either, but he leaned over her now, his dark hair falling over his face, his expression relaxed and happy. He traced her jaw with his fingers. "You did well, Sandi. Real well."

"Wh-has it gone?"

"The demon? Yes. I banished it. I'm sorry you fainted. I had to take all the energy I could from both of you. Before you ask, nobody knows about any of this. And they won't. The security cameras blacked out what happened, and we brought everything here with us. Including a piece of the leopard."

"Where is here?"

"Our apartment," said Chiam from her other side. She whipped her head around to see him smiling at her. "Will you let us prove to you that we're not always as hasty as we were last night? Will you stay with us?"

"For a while?"

"For as long as it takes," Ahmok purred, stroking down her body.

Sandi shuddered with pure desire. How could she refuse?

While these are very gratifying, that isn't why she writes. She wants to bring the stories in her head to life and share them with others, in the hope that then she might get some peace.

Writing is what she was doing while she was working, bearing children and doing the other boring things that constitute living. Her favorite writer's motto is "I can use that."

She lives in the UK with her husband, children and cats, and her doll's houses. Creating worlds, miniature or otherwise, seems to be Lynne's specialty!

Coming Soon:
Topaz Delirium, Loose-Id Publishing
The Department 57 backlist, The Chemistry of Evil, Eternal Beauty, Eternal Darkness, Jewel of the Dragon, A Griffin's Treasure, Rubies of Fire, Diamonds of Ice, Liquid Crystal, Loose-Id Publishing
Icefire, Ellora's Cave Publishing
Isabel's Secret, Samhain Publishing
 

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