Words of Wisdom....from The Scarf Princess: Book Tour for Landscapes by KD Grace (GIVEAWAY)

Fans of the paranormal will find themselves drawn to this m/m tale of love and sacrifice that I'm introducing you to today and be kept on the edge of their seat from the first page to the last. Keep reading to get a tempting glimpse of Landscapes by K.D. Grace, and get her thoughts on the heroes and villains of paranormal reads, then add this story to your bookshelf. In honor of this compelling read make sure to fill out the form below for the chance to win a $30 Amazon GC and increase your chances of winning by visiting the other sites hosting this tour too!

The Thin Line between Heroes and Villains......

I’d like to thank the lovely Scarf Princess for hosting me on Day 9 of my Landscapes blog tour and giveaway! It’s lovely to be here in your delightful company while I talk about Alonso and Reese and their strange love story.

I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that a good villain is almost as sexy and attractive as a good hero. By the same token, a good hero – certainly a paranormal hero, should be almost as frightening as the villain and the less clearly the lines are drawn between the two, the more intriguing the story. I have a long list of villains I’d happily shag, and I have more than a few fantasies of just exactly how I’d imagine that shagging to take place.

While vampire, Alonso Darlington, is clearly the hero of Landscapes, he’s by no means a paragon of virtue. His seduction of mortal Reese Chambers, if one really thinks about it from any other point of view but Alonso’s, is extremely disturbing, and yet in his eyes, it’s the only way he can be sure to keep Reese safe. Perhaps that shows just a tiny bit of fear and cowardice on his part, but like most really good heroes, Alonso is seriously damaged goods, and he views Reese as someone who is best kept untarnished and safe from interaction with someone like himself. And yet, in his lust for Reese, in his weakness, he can’t just walk away.

I honestly can’t think that anyone could really fall for a vampire or a werewolf or a demon or any other paranormal hero without being, at the same time, terrified. In fact just the right combination of fear and attraction is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs EVER! I think it’s absolutely essential in a sexy paranormal story. It certainly works for Reese Chambers.

A part of what makes good paranormal story work for me is the fact that the hero often actually is a monster. That makes that line between villain and hero even thinner still. Knowing that the hero could easily turn and destroy the very thing he loves and longs to possess means that nothing is ever black and white and pure motives are constantly battling instincts. More often than not, the hero is really an antihero, striving to be greater than his nature, and the more difficult the struggle, the more endearing I find him to be. Certainly this is Alonso Darlington in a nutshell.

In fact, there are times when the only separation between the hero and the villain is how willing they are to do battle with their own flaws. That battle with flaws is nothing but the age-old human struggle magnified and highlighted for the sake of the story. In Alonso’s eyes, the act of sending his friend and familiar, the succubus, Talia Zephora, to seduce Reese instead of going himself is exactly that battle to overcome his flaws. It’s also a glimpse at just how out of touch with humanity Alonso has actually become and how desperately he needs to reconnect.

That niggle of fear, that edge of uncertainty is what raises the stakes, what raises the level of tension and excitement in a good paranormal story, in any good story. The lover is not safe, and yet that danger makes the sex all the hotter and the angst all the angstier. In my opinion, it’s the lack of safety that makes paranormal romance so stimulating in those larger than life ways that are more difficult to achieve in ordinary romance, though are definitely brought into play in BDSM stories. In fact, I would suggest that BDSM, at least on some level, is, in part, the desire to make our sexuality a little more dangerous, a little more edgy, in the absence of demon lovers and vampires. The whole sexy, super-heated, blow-your-mind purpose of good paranormal erotica is to make those boundaries between hero and villain more permeable and, in doing so, to make totally dangerous sex and plunging-off-a-cliff romance a vicarious possibility for the reader. It’s quite possible that in paranormal erotica, one good fu*k may be all you ever get, but it will damn well be worth it!

Alonso Darlington has a disturbing method of keeping landscaper, Reese Chambers, both safe from and oblivious to his dangerous lust for the man. But Reese isn’t easy to keep secrets from, and Alonso wants way more than to admire the man from afar. Can he risk a real relationship without risking Reese’s life?

EXCERPT:

It was nearing dawn when Talia returned to our accommodations smelling of sex, as I knew she would if she were to obtain for me what I wanted. By then my blood burned in my veins, and my body felt too close to me, as though the flesh that I dwelt in suddenly conspired to crush me with its demands. And though I knew that Reese Chambers could not have refused her even if she had come to him as a toothless, foul-smelling hag, I hated her that he had poured himself into her body while I had been left with only my fantasies kindling my lust to an inferno.

Though my need was such that my flesh was fevered and my cock an insistent throb, until she returned, I held myself contained within skin that felt too thin. When she saw the state that I was in, she pulled the heavy drapes with an efficient tug, then with a nod of her head, motioned me to follow her down into the basement room that had been prepared for me. When she turned to me at the foot of the bed, before she could opened her kiss-bruised lips to speak, I took her mouth, starving for the first taste of him, the taste of his saliva, the taste of his blood, mixed with hers. She’d bitten him; he’d bitten her back. He was rough, and he liked to be treated rough, but he kept that to himself. He was embarrassed by it. His lips were slightly chapped from so much time in the sun and wind, and they’d slid against hers, suckling and stroking and pressing until her mouth opened to his. With ravenous laps of my tongue, I tasted him in her mouth, and she held back the moan of response, so I could hear the echoes of his groans, heavy with need he’d not satisfied in awhile, and I felt kinship in my own unsatisfied needs. Images of him flashed through my head. Christ, his eyes were green, dark green like the evergreen forests of the north, and he kept them open when he kissed her, taking her in with his eyes.
I shoved aside the silk of her low bodice exposing her breasts, breasts that his hands had cupped. My nipples peeked to sharp aching points at the feel of his calloused thumbs raking, pressing and releasing. I breathed in his scent on her breasts, burying my face in her cleavage, licking the taste of salty, slightly picante maleness, sniffing and tasting until I could stand it no more. In one violent jerk, I tore the dress all the way down and shoved it off her shoulders, away from the flesh he had licked and kissed and mounted. I cried out at the feel of him, weight on one elbow, knee spreading her thighs, fingers opening her heaviness, anxious to penetrate, anxious to relieve his need. And then, with Talia free of clothing, Reese Chambers’ essence filled the room. Talia’s panties were still wet with his semen mixed with her humid desire, and I tore them from her and forced her onto her stomach, onto her hands and knees, so that it was not her face I saw, but his that I imagined. With hands on her hips, I raised her bottom in the air and spread her still swollen, still slippery folds with fingers made awkward by my arousal, letting the scent of his hot bread and honey release intoxicate me. Then I buried my face in her snatch and, as I ate his lust from her, I knew him.

He was Cumbrian born and bred, and his accent was the soft lilting sound of the fells. He was a landscaper and a gardener by trade. His hands held the magic of the earth and his mind conceived ideas for beautiful outdoor spaces; those he liked best were patterned after Renaissance and medieval gardens. He was homesick and heartsick. He’d gone to Surrey to work with his father because the money was good. But his father had died recently and he had returned home to Cumbria. He didn’t care if he had to work in a pub or muck stables. He wanted to be home. He missed the people and he missed the fells. He missed the simpler, more honest rhythms of life. He was shy, even a bit reclusive. He read voraciously and widely, he liked astronomy and he was afraid of snakes, though it embarrassed him to admit it. He hadn’t had sex in a long time, and found it better to have a wank session than a meaningless encounter. The facts of him, the details of his life raced at me in a flood I consumed ravenously with each lap of my tongue.

As I ate Talia I felt the shape of his face, the curve of his chin, the rise and fall of his chest as he had done the same. I felt the soft tuft of bronze curls nestled between the hard rise of his pecs and the courser, deeper curls that caressed his testicles and his cock when it was at rest, but it hadn’t been at rest. How many times had he taken her? He was thick enough to fill her and the friction of him inside was delicious and maddening. The shape of him – I wanted to caress the shape of him, with my hands, with my mouth, and the taking of his essence from Talia was an act of ripping away something that should have been mine. As I bruised her arse with kneading fingers and, as I licked the last of his release from her, she managed a breathless moan. ‘Take the rest. God, Alonso, take the rest, and release me.’

BUY LINKS LOCATED here.

AUTHOR INFO:

Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?

When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.

KD has erotica published with SourceBooks, XciteBooks, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, CleisPress, Black Lace, Sweetmeats Press and others.