Smutketeers

RG: Today the Smutketeers have another amazing guest. She is a bestselling author of several hot paranormal series at Samhain—and she’s a fantastically funny and smutty friend.  Now its time for all our Smutkedettes to welcome Dana Marie Bell!!

Dana, thank you so much for being here today.  I want to dive right in. You have a new book in your Gray Court series coming out tomorrow, a ménage called Noble Blood. We’re very excited about it, because we know how talented you are, but we have a question….A vampire, a Sidhe and a Leprechaun…now I know you have recently made one of the hottest heroes around out of a Bear shifter named Bunny (so you can do anything). But how did you make a sexy leprechaun?

Dana: It’s the tights. Green. Tight. Nummy.  I can picture Sean Dunne, the father of the heroine, in them. Black haired, blue-eyed, totally sinful Sean. Sigh. Nom nom nom…

Actually, the leprechaun is Moira, the heroine (who would be totally skeeved to find out I’m perving on her Da).  I’m going to write a male leprechaun at some point, but I have to get Shane and Robin and Oberon done first.

Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Leprechauns can rock your world. Literally. But I promise not to put him in tights (where you’ll see him).

RG: Sounds sexy to me! You’ve been writing since you were thirteen, have you always been drawn to romance? The paranormal?

Dana: I wanted to be Isaac Asimov when I was thirteen. My parents are still wondering what the hell happened. But I’ve been attracted to myths and legends forever. I devoured Tolkien and Ray Bradbury and Andre Norton. Then the librarian near my house introduced me to Harlequin Silhouette books when I was fifteen, and I became hooked on the HEA. Add in my parents’ love of dressing up as the Wolfman and Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween every year and you’ve got the makings of a paranormal romance author.

P.S. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get spirit gum out of a beard? My father still has flashbacks.

RG: I can imagine. Everyone always asks me this, but you create such interesting worlds I’d like to know. Do you plot? Pants? Receive strange space messages from alien shifters?

Dana: Believe it or not, yes. I plot. I pants. And I dream (I got a totally cool idea in a dream for a girl in a coma who falls in love with a werewolf firefighter… but I digress). I do whatever works. I plot a book out from beginning to end, set fingers to keyboard and hold on for dear life as the characters take over and try to drive me insane.

I forgive them, but only if they give me chocolate.

RG: Mmmm chocolate. Okay I can’t wait. Can we have a blurb and excerpt from Noble Blood right now?

Dana: Sure!

Noble Blood

The Gray Court Book 2

Nobility has its privileges…and its price. Sometimes it just sucks.

For Lord Duncan Malmayne, it was love at first sight with his true bond, the lovely half Sidhe, half-leprechaun Moira Dunne. Yet something is missing from his relationship with the fiery redhead, something that prevents him from completing the Claiming and making Moira his forever.

As problems multiply in what should be a magical, idyllic time, the depression weighing on Moira’s Sidhe heart signals a potentially devastating condition. Mate sickness. Her instinct tells her what’s missing: Jaden Blackthorn, Gray Court vampire, Duncan’s bond brother and closest friend—who tactfully withdrew from their lives after Duncan declared his love.

Jaden is both heartbroken and elated that the two people he loves most in the world are together. It’s best he cut off all contact to give them space to complete the Claiming. But trouble is brewing in the Malmayne clan, and when Jaden’s forced

back into their lives by the Hob, their extremely rare tribond clicks with a reaction that’s swift, sensual and all-consuming.

But not everyone looks upon it as a blessing. In fact, the price of their love could be a potentially fatal shift of power…

Warning: This book contains explicit sex, graphic language, and M/M/F love scenes between a Sidhe lord, a vampire and a leprechaun. And no, that’s not the start of a dirty joke no matter what my Beta readers said.

Moira wanted to kick Jaden and Duncan’s collective butts. How could they have danced around each other for so long? The heat between the two of them was burning her up! But the worry and fear in Jaden was reaching critical mass. She needed to diffuse it fast. “Duncan is suffering from mate sickness.”

Jaden turned on her so fast her head spun. He was quick, but she’d forgotten exactly how quick. “Why? Why won’t you complete the mating?” He stalked towards her, black bleeding out to the whites of his eyes. “C’mon, sweet. You can tell me.”

She shivered, the deep purr in his voice calling to her, a siren’s song she longed to answer. Where she found the strength to keep from responding to his vampiric lure she didn’t know. She took a deep breath, drawing in his coppery scent. “We couldn’t. Neither one of us could work ourselves up to it.”

Red flames danced in his eyes. “Why is that, Moira?” He stroked his finger down her cheek. “I can tell you that if I had you waiting in my bed there’s no way I’d hold off on making you mine.”

She smiled. He was trying to intimidate her. She shook her head, amused. You’d think he’d know better than that. She had to make him understand why they hadn’t been able to recite the Vow and complete the Binding. “How can you bond to your heart when your soul is missing?” He frowned, confused. Did he even understand what a true bond really meant? “Do you know what each step of the bond entails?”

He huffed out an irritated breath. “There’s the Claiming, which begins with a kiss and ends with a fuck.” She winced. He was being deliberately crude. “Then there’s the Vow and the Binding. The Sidhe recites the Vow, magic swirls, and the Binding takes place. Voila, you are married for eternity, life forces bound together.” He tilted his head to the side. “I hear Leo’s Binding with Ruby was quite the light show.” He smiled, the expression full of evil pleasure. “Kaitlynn was so pissed.”

She nodded. She’d been there. She’d known that if anyone had laid a hand on Ruby at that moment, Leo’s power would have destroyed them. It was never a good idea to get between a Sidhe lord and something he wanted. “It was. Do you know what was missing from my Claiming with Duncan?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.” For the first time since Duncan left the room Jaden looked truly worried again.

She reached up and stroked his cheek, pleased beyond belief when he nuzzled into her touch. “You, Jaden. You’re the other third of our bond.”

He started to laugh. “Oh, that’s a good one. Try and sell me a bridge. C’mon. You know you want to.”

She kicked him in the shins.

He leaned down and clutched his leg. “Ow!” The surprise in his face would have been amusing if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“I’m not joking. You left, and Duncan and I both went into mate sickness. We were pining for you and didn’t even know it.” She figured the only reason she hadn’t been even more sick was her leprechaun blood. It must have shielded her. Duncan had taken the full brunt of it, the mark of his anguish left on his body for all to see.

“Uh-huh. Sure.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “So how come after all this time I’m not bound to him? I’d think in the hundred years we’ve been together he would have popped wood over me at some point.”

Oh, he was going to be a pain in the ass about this. “My mother thinks—”

“You talked to your mother about Duncan’s erectile dysfunction?” He glared down at her. “Has he considered taking your TV away?”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose with a weary sigh. “Jaden.”

“Hey, it’s not like we were together for a hundred years or anything.” He tapped his fingernail against his teeth and sucked in a breath. “No, wait.”

“If you don’t knock it off I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’ll fart everything you say.”

He barked out a startled laugh. “God, I love vicious women.”

She smirked up at him. “Listen. We think the reason Duncan didn’t feel the pull toward you was because of your blood bond. We think it masked the need to Claim you. When you went away and cut off all contact the mating sickness set in.”

Jaden was shaking his head. “Duncan isn’t gay.”

“No, he’s not.” Jaden’s expression turned cynical. “He’s bi, just like you.”

Jaden frowned. “Honey, Duncan has never shown an interest in men. Believe me, I would have known.”

“Of course not. He had you.”

Jaden’s eyes rolled, which looked really weird. They were still vampiric, black with red hot flames in the center. “If Duncan was ever into men then he’s been so far in the closet he’s been living in Narnia.” Jaden turned his back on her. “Are you sure some other funky Sidhe sickness isn’t holding him back?”

“I’m positive.” She put her hand on the small of his back, smiling when he jumped. “He finally Claimed me today.”

“Good for you.”

God, the pain underlying that cheerful façade would drop a stronger man to his knees. She could feel it roiling within him. “Jaden, he couldn’t Claim me until you were here. Frankly, I think it was what you were doing in the shower that tipped him over the edge.”

His face turned bright red, his eyes leeching back to normal in shock. “Oh God.”

“Jaden, it’s all right.”

“No it’s not. He’s going to kill me.”

“Why?”

He shot her a disbelieving look. “I saw you naked. I rode, uninvited, in his head while he…” He gestured towards her body. “On the desk, no less!”

She laughed. Her sexy vamp sounded so prissy! “Are you kidding me? He was thrilled!”

His jaw dropped. “I have to get out of here.”

“Oh, no you don’t.”

His hand curled around her throat, but she wasn’t afraid. She could never be afraid of him. “Sweetheart, how are you planning on stopping me?”

”Like this.” She got up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

RG:  That was awesome! :) I’m sure all the Smutkedettes would like to know about your other series at Samhain, as well as what you have coming up in the year ahead. (we’re book addicts over here)

Dana: You had to go there, lol! I have two (no, three!) other series besides the Gray Court with Samhain, and a brand new one starting with Carina Press late this spring, possibly summer. One of those series, the Halle Pumas, is the precursor to Bunny, the Bear shifter! So I have two pure shifter series, one very odd god series (based on the Norse gods and the premise that Odin, not Loki, was the bad guy), my fae series and soon my paranormal town with Carina Press.

Oh, I almost forgot! I just got a contract for my very first M/M book, Finding Forgiveness, which starts ANOTHER series (I’m an addict, I know) called the Poconos Pack. So yeah, that makes… (counts on fingers…) yup, three shifter series, all set in the same world.

I’m not doing a whole lot of M/M, but I found it an interesting change to do Ben and Dave. I’m finishing up my second one (for the True Destiny series) then I’m back to either ménage or straight M/F for quite a while.

My books so far, in reading order:

With Samhain Publishing

Halle Pumas

The Wallflower

Sweet Dreams

Cat of a Different Color

Steel Beauty

Only In My Dreams

Halle Shifters

Bear Necessities

True Destiny

Very Much Alive

Eye of the Beholder

The Gray Court

Dare to Believe

Noble Blood

And coming soon:

Poconos Pack

Finding Forgiveness (M/M)

Comin soon with Carina Press:

Maggie’s Grove

Blood of the Maple

I’m starting the second Halle Shifter book once I’m done the third True Destiny. Julian and Cyn are already butting in on Jeff and Fenris, and Fen is starting to get all kinds of snarly. And, insane person that I am, I’m hoping to do a space cowboy story. Or maybe I should I say space cowGIRL.

You can find my booklist here: http://www.danamariebell.com/eBooks.html and my coming soon books here: http://www.danamariebell.com/ComingSoon.html

RG: You sound even busier than we are. Now on to the juicy questions:

Wolf or Cat shifter? Cat. Duh.

Boxers, briefs or commando? Not commando. Not a huge fan of zipper rips, thank you. I like my man’s bits in working order, and honestly? An extra minute in the clothing removal department saves embarrassing trips to the emergency room and mocking the likes of which you’ve never experienced before.

Oh yeah. Briefs.

To spank or to be spanked? I’m not tellin’! Neener neener neener!

Lobster or steak? Steak. I am a devoted carnivore. Especially if it’s got Heinz 57 on it.

Future or past? Future. I want to be the first romance writer living in a space station.

Ocean or mountains? Ocean! Except at jellyfish season. That sucks rocks.

m/f/m or f/m/f? *wink* M/F/M, definitely. I want to be the meat, not the bread.

Bare feet or OMG there’s a shoe sale!? Um. Yes.

RG: Now I do believe that Dana has a contest for our Smutkedettes. She’ll pick a winner on the 19^th.

Dana’s Contest: I’m giving away a free .pdf of Noble Blood! Just list here whether you’d rather be with a Sidhe, a Vampire or a Leprechaun, and I’ll add your name into the hat!

RG: Thank you so much for coming to see us! Can’t wait to read Noble Blood!

Dana: Thanks for having me, Smutketeers!