I want to thank Bewitching Book Tours and Jeffe Kennedy for making today possible. Today's a day where we learn about an intense BDSM read just released entitled Sapphire. To learn more about it, let's start with my interview with Jeffe. Without further ado.....
TSP: You've had a very intriguing path to get where you are today. How do you think that's affected your writing, if at all?
JK: I think the total of our experiences greatly affects us as writers. I’ve heard writing teachers give students the advice that it’s better to go work a series of jobs for several years than to tuck themselves into an MFA program. Not that I planned it this way – but now I have a wide range of experiences and knowledge to bring to my stories. I also think it makes a huge difference that I’ve worked in a variety of corporate and government environments. Doing that you’re forced to learn about professionalism, team dynamics and how to take criticism you might not deserve. When authors have public meltdowns, I sometimes think they’ve never had a client or pointy-haired boss tear into them at a meeting. You learn a lot about how to conduct yourself in the job world that you don’t necessarily learn playing with words and stories.
TSP: Your most recent releases have been erotic in nature. What draws you to that genre?
JK: I’ve always loved a good sexy story. They’re fun to read and they’re fun to write. Most of my erotic stories come from fantasies that I find interesting to explore. The whole idea of intimacy, of what you let another person see in you is powerful to me. I like exploring the power exchange of BDSM. I’m attracted to the idea of a man who might know more about me and my secret desires than I know about myself.
TSP: What's your new release Sapphire about and what is it about Taylor and Adam that makes them a good match?
JK: The official blurb on Sapphire is:
A successful executive, M. Taylor Hamilton is on track with her ten-year plan. Too bad her personal life consists of hitting the gym and grocery shopping.Enter the seductive Adam Kirliss. They may have a working relationship, but everything changes at an office party when he handcuffs her to the rail of a yacht.
Taylor writes the adventure off as too much champagne, but when Adam challenges her to a date, she agrees to meet up with him. And follow his rules. They share a night of exquisite intimacy, brimming with both pain and pleasure. But afterwards, fearful of losing her heart, Taylor pulls back emotionally.
Adam is determined to prove that she longs for the loss of control he can give her – and the passionate release it provides. How can he make her see that he wants her, and not just her body?
So it’s about Taylor, who’s this tremendously driven and guarded person, and the man who manages to get under her skin. Adam is also driven – so much so that he takes a major risk to get her attention, to get her to see him as a man and a lover. The two of them have been working together and both love the art of the deal. Each is a worthy opponent for the other, so they enjoy trying to get the best of each other. It also means that they understand each other in a way that many people would not.
TSP: How do you feel about the digital revolution going on right now and how has it affected your career and how you market yourself?
JK: I think digital is the way of the future. I’ve had my Kindle for nearly three years and I love it. It’s green, saves on storage space and the instant gratification can’t be beat. I love my paper books, too, but for me the story is key. I don’t have to have it on paper. The brilliant thing about digital publishing is that it’s allowing so many more authors to get in front of readers whose stories would never have made it through the marketing gauntlet before. I’m online pretty much all day every day for my day job anyway, so I do a whole lot of my marketing online. I love the community of Twitter. And I love blogs like yours and those of other readers and reviewers. You all are able to start and continue such great conversations about books. Now people in The Netherlands and Malaysia have read my stories and talked to me online about them. That’s just an amazing thing to me.
TSP: After you finish writing a book do you have any after-writing celebration rituals?
JK: Hmm. Interesting question. No, I guess I don’t. Usually I kind of feel sad when I finish a book. Like post-partum depression. And it rarely feels “finished.” I draft and then revise. Maybe a few times. Then there are developmental edits, line edits and copy edits. I do have a special ritual after I get word that the last copy edits have been accepted and I’m totally done – then I get to move the files for that book into the Published Works folder I keep. It might sound kind of lame, but I love getting to do that.
TSP: Speaking of completed books, what's coming up in your writing future?
JK: I have a novel coming out in June – my first full-length novel. It’s called Obsidian, about a neuroscientist who winds up in Faerie. She encounters Rogue, this very sexy and diabolically manipulative Fae man. The two of them have a negotiation relationship not unlike Taylor and Adam’s, though I wrote them at very different times. And Obsidian, while sexy and dark, isn’t erotica. I’m really excited to see how readers receive it.
TSP: My blog is all about your favorite things. So what are your favorite things, the things you can't live without?
JK: A good view, an excellent book, a glass of wine. I’m a hedonist at heart, so anything that lets me enjoy life’s pleasures tops the list. Fortunately the world offers a great deal to enjoy!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions and making a stop at my blog!’
Thank you , Jody!
Sapphire
By Jeffe Kennedy
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Published: October 24, 2011
A successful executive, M. Taylor Hamilton is on track with her ten-year plan. Too bad her personal life consists of hitting the gym and grocery shopping. Enter the seductive Adam Kirliss. They may have a working relationship, but everything changes at an office party when he handcuffs her to the rail of a yacht. Taylor writes the adventure off as too much champagne, but when Adam challenges her to a date, she agrees to meet up with him. And follow his rules. They share a night of exquisite intimacy, brimming with both pain and pleasure. But afterwards, fearful of losing her heart, Taylor pulls back emotionally. Adam is determined to prove that she longs for the loss of control he can give her – and the passionate release it provides. How can he make her see that he wants her, and not just her body?
EXCERPT:
Kirliss captured her other wrist and held them close in front of her, his warm fingers massaging her skin, while he studied her face. The boat surged over a wave, disturbing her balance. Kirliss’s unusual eyes caught the light, boring into her.
“This is silly,” she tried.
“Do you want me to make you stay?”
“What?” Taylor choked. She couldn’t let him treat her this way. “No! You’ll do no such—”
She lost her breath entirely when he pressed up against her. Thinking he was trying to embrace her, she pulled away and found herself backed against the brass railing.
By the time she gathered her flustered thoughts, her wrists were handcuffed to the rail behind her. Mortified, a bit afraid and—worse—suddenly and wildly aroused...
Jeffe (pronounced Jeff- ee) took the crooked road to writing, stopping off at neurobiology, religious studies and environmental consulting before her creative writing began appearing in places like Redbook, Puerto del Sol, Wyoming Wildlife, Under the Sun and Aeon. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow (2001), was a Wyoming Arts Council roster artist, when she lived in Wyoming, and received the state’s 2005 Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award for a woman writer of exceptional talent in any creative writing genre and the 2007 Fellowship for Poetry. Jeffe has contributed to several anthologies, Drive: Women’s True Stories of the Open Road. (2002), Hard Ground (2003), Bombshells (2007) and Going Green (2009). Her first book, Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel was published by University of New Mexico Press in 2004. An erotic novella, Petals and Thorns, came out under her pen name of Jennifer Paris in 2010, heralding yet another branch of her path, into erotica and romantic fantasy fiction. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range lizards and frequently serves as a guinea pig for an acupuncturist-in-training.
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