I Need A Man!

Ever had a problem dreaming up your next hero?

I was trying to picture my next hot guy, and so I was perusing the various photos that I have amassed. This one stopped me dead.

You know...I would LOVE to be that woman with her arms wrapped around this delicious guy! All thoughts of looking for a hero left my mind and I sighed.

Whatta hunk.

This is the same couple on my cover for Out of Her Dreams...except I sorta like him without the white towel. Rowrrr!

This is the problem of erotic romance authors who just happen to be old, chubby, and single. Damn, but I would love to get me some of that!

But I think he could easily outrun me if I did see him at Romanticon (if I were going). *sigh* Ah, well...at least my imagination is still in great working order.

Do you ever wonder what on earth would happen if the heroes in all our hot novels suddenly came to life, and came knocking on our door? Now, those of you who have HH's might not be pleasantly surprised to find a batch of hard, hot, handsome hunks standing on your doorstep, all drooling over you, but this old fart would probably die of delight. Yum! Okay guys...I know I write hot stuff, but one at a time, please? This antique body and heart won't handle all the stuff I write. That was sort of the premise behind Out of Her Dreams. But Samantha could more than handle that hot, delicious guy...while this author would most likely hyperventillate and turn blue at the sight of a man like that grinning at me.

Ah...the powerful imagination of an erotic romance author is wonderful, is it not?

Fran
http://www.franleeromance.com

You Live And You Learn...

My, Oh, My! Choices, choices!

When you write romance, you have a huge variety of possible characters and situations to pick from. Romance is not necessarily just "one boy-one girl" anymore. You can write about m/f, or about m/f/m, or m/m/f, or f/f,

or even m/m/m/m/f/m/f/f! *whew*

And for each and every type of story, there are readers who love or hate each type. That is one reason why many authors try to explore all the possibilities.

For example, my debut book, Out of Her Dreams, was a sensual (erotic) romance between a woman and a man. The bedroom door was wide open, but fans seemed to adore it! I received dozens of rave e-mails telling me how much folks loved it. I got several top notch book reviews for it. I assumed it would be the same with my second book.

Now, Hallie's Cats came out on July 31, 2009, and I didn't hear a single word about how readers felt about the book. And that was an ominous sign to me. Hallie's Cats is a shape shifter menage. In a world where people can be both cat and human, and mores and morals are shaped by a different set of physical rules, I had my heroine fall in love with two gorgeous brothers. But in their world, females shape shifters normally took more than one mate because it was acceptable. You must remember that every world has it's own rules of conduct.

I got an e-mail this morning from a fan who adored OOHD, but detested Hallie's Cats. She was very disappointed that I hadn't written a "normal" romance again, m/f. I actually expected that something of the sort had happened. Not all readers can accept a menage situation. I know, because once upon a time, before I sold my first book, I felt pretty much the same.

But then I began to read other books, and realized that not all romance is heterosexual, nor is it all "one boy-one girl". In the real world, there are realities that we do not all agree with, nor do we have to approve of them. But we accept the fact that others may not feel the same way about things as we do. In a fiction novel about romance, we have the choice to buy or walk on by.

But in a way, it upsets me to think that my readers may have been offended because they expected something entirely different from my second book, and bought it sight unseen simply because they wanted to read more from me. I was flattered that my reader loved OOHD, and dismayed that she seemed to think less of me for writing a different type of romance novel than she expected. So I wrote back to her to assure her than I did have other m/f romances in the pipeline (like Dictated by Fate) and that I would make certain that all my books that contained alternative lifestyles like m/f/m were more clearly marked as such.

So, if you are a reader who loved my first book, and absolutely hated my second book, please remember that we write for many readers, and that we do love our fans. Perhaps another reader hated OOHD but loves Hallie's Cats. And I will definitely write tons of m/f romances, so don't give up on me, okay?

Fran Lee
http://www.franleeromance.com