CataNetwork has had the pleasure of reviewing books for authors for nearly a decade. We are like kids in a candy store with the variety of awesome authors, wonderful writing styles and diverse genres to choose from. Our appreciation and respect for all authors is heartfelt and we wish we could give awards to everyone for their creativity and generosity in sharing their talents with readers everywhere.

It is a great honor for the reviewers at CataNetwork to present our prestigious Reviewers’ Choice Awards for 2012 to the following authors at

CataRomance

Single Titles

Sensual Reads

CataNetwork sends heartfelt thanks to all of you that participated in our Summer Kick Off Blog Hop and websites’ relaunching!  We especially want to thank all the authors and bloggers that took part.  Readers were the winners in many ways.  They were able to discover new authors to add to their must read lists and took part in dozens of contests.

Speaking of contests, we have winners for our boxes of books!!  Ally will be contacting you to obtain your snail mail addresses.

AND THE WINNERS ARE…

CataRomance – Deb
SingleTitles – Caroline
SensualReads – Kristin

Have you ever stayed up really late at night and turned on a channel to find couples having sex? I have and did it on purpose out of curiosity. Since becoming an erotic romance writer, I have felt it my sworn duty to research, research, research. LOL

Actually, I watched it a couple of times and took notes. This type of sex can also be quite degrading and humiliating to one partner. It’s not for me. The characters, let’s say a man and a woman, have this low budget corny movie or story to perform and dress rather slutty then have sex. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Porn is about sex with no strings attached. (see BDSM for strings) There is no emotional attachment and no commitment to the ‘act’.

Erotica is more in depth. It’s about the five senses. Still, when the lovers are in bed, on the kitchen table, office desk, in a closet and so on, there is no emotional attachment. They may use lots of sex toys, such as dildos, vibrators, butt plugs (It was strictly research. Honest) or Ben Wa balls to pleasure each other or themselves. Many like to play dress up. Naughty nurses, cat women with whips, and even school girls in extremely short skirts are some of the get ups known in the movies that depict erotica. For men…well, let’s just say that less is more in the dress up department. A bow tie without a shirt is darn sexy. Still, without the love and chemistry, it’s just plain sex.

Now Erotic Romance, there’s the key to true love and excitement. Not only are hearts involved, but the chemistry is electrifying and the emotions run like a rollercoaster. The stories have to end with a happily ever after while during them there is a heavy taste of the erotic, including toys if the characters want to use them. It’s all about the senses: sound, smell, taste, sight, and touch. The lovers talk dirty, play dirty, act dirty and simply love every minute. No degrading or humiliating moments are allowed, just good clean fun and frolic.

There’s something about the sound of a sexy man’s deep voice murmuring in your ear that sets chills of awareness down your spine. His smell, earthy, rain-fresh, musky or even spicy is great, but never B.O.! Then…he tastes like wine or whiskey, mint, or cinnamon¾Mmmmm.  To look upon him is to see health, taut muscles, six-pack abs, and a killer grin. His eyes should melt you on sight, and when you touch him¾oh, the bliss of soft leather on steel. His heat burns you up.

Enough said?

I go for what’s behind door number three. Erotic romance rules the day.

Bobbi Brattz
www.BobbiBrattz.com

www.facebook.com/messages/1442140965

bobbibrattz.blogspot.ca/

It is a privilege to announce the winners of the 2011 Reviewers’ Choice Awards.  Congratulations to all the winners and much appreciation to all  authors for entertaining readers with your wonderful creations!  Click the links below to discover the RCA winners…

Sensual Reads

CataRomance

Single Titles

The annual Reviewers’ Choice Awards will be announced on February 14th, a very appropriate day for romance, Valentine’s Day!!!  Be sure to see if your favorite book won this prestigious award.  Tell all your friends and congratulate all the fabulous authors.

I must admit the stress level has run high here at CataNetwork as reviewers worked to narrow down their choices.  It is very difficult because there are so many great authors to choose from.  So we want to tell all of you creative authors, you are greatly appreciated and deserve accolades galore and lots of chocolates!

Urban Fantasy deals with fantasy species living in our suburbs and shopping at our malls.  Which begets the immediate question:  Do the humans in that fictional world know about these fantasy creatures living amongst them, or not?

And that’s where an urban fantasy author’s headache immediately sets in.  Right from the get-go she has to make decision about whether the species are known or secret, and each decision has huge implications for the universe she’s building, and the human characters in it.

If she’s writing urban fantasy romance, it adds layers of complication to the romance, too.  Usually, one of the romance couple is human and the other is the fantasy creature.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s deal with vampires for the rest of this post, although urban fantasy doesn’t have to be just vampires.  It could be elves, witches, fae, gargoyles, demons, angels…anything.  Vampires still continue to be incredibly popular, and my latest book is about vampires, so we’ll use vampires as the example for now.

An urban fantasy romance where the vampires are secret makes life difficult for the hero and heroine, because usually, one of them is human and the other is vampire.  The human has to adjust first to the whole idea that vampires exist in the world, before any true romance can begin to happen.

If vampires are openly living in the world, such as Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series, this problem doesn’t exist, but a whole new series of problems arises:  prejudices against vampire & human relationships, and a whole truckload of political issues that the author needs to decide about before they start page 1 of the novel.

These are the two alternatives that most urban fantasy/urban fantasy romance authors tend to consider when they’re building a new urban fantasy universe for a novel or series.

I went a third way when I was building the world for Blood Knot.  I asked the question “What if the vampires were on the cusp of emerging?”  What if the novel caught them at the moment when they were trying to reveal themselves to humans?  What sort of ramifications would that have?

After that, the background for the novel (and the series) wrote itself.

As it turns out, vampires trying to “come out” has some very interesting complications indeed.  In the world of Blood Knot, not everyone likes the idea of vampires becoming common knowledge, and you’d be surprised at who tries to stop them.

______________

After thirty-five novels with various publishers, under various pen names, and after nearly ten years with Ellora’s Cave primarily writing in romantic suspense and paranormal romance, I have finally taken a deep breath and self-published Blood Knot, an erotic urban fantasy romance (MMF, Contemporary, Vampires, Paranormal), and my 36th novel overall.  It was released on March 9, 2011 and is available at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, All Romance Ebooks, Apple Ebook Store and the Sony Ebook Store for $2.99 in all the common e-book formats, and will soon be available in print.

I’ve won a number of awards, including Australia’s Emma Darcy Award (the equivalent of the Golden Heart) and was most recently nominated for the CAPA’s Best Erotic Paranormal and Favourite Author categories.  You can find out more about me and my books here.

——

Tracy is giving away an ecopy of KISS ACROSS SWORDS. To enter, leave a comment before May 1st. We’ll pick a winner randomly. Good luck!

Taylor Yates never dreamed growing up she would end up happily living with two drop-dead sexy vampires and time-hopping through their thousand years of personal history. Her life is complete…or is it?

When she finds herself at the seige of Jerusalem during the first crusade, Veris doesn’t know her at all and doesn’t want to.  Worst of all, he and Brody are total strangers, and Taylor drives a wedge in deep between them by trying to seduce Veris at their first meeting—not something a lady of the day does if she wants to keep her head.

Taylor and Brody must woo Veris using the customs of medieval England, win his heart and his full commitment before Jerusalem falls in four days time—or when they return to their own time, their lives as they know them will be gone…

FMI:  tracycooperposey.com/books/time-crossed-love/kiss-across-swords/

One of the search terms that brought a visitor to my site recently was “dress like selena blake.” How marvelous that I’m a fashion icon! Who knew?

Since I’m obviously so fashionable (wink) that visitors are flocking, flocking I tell you, to my blog to find out more about how I do what I do and dress like I…dress, I thought I’d share a few tips.

I’m a professional. We all know this, yes? Good, I’m glad we’re agreed. As a professional, one must dress the part. So on any given day, I’m dressed to the nines. It just makes me feel ready to tackle the world. If you’re going to run an empire you want to look the part.

I like to stick with the classics. Black and white. Pencil skirts are so hot. I lurve them. Sorry, I’ve digressed into girlish gushing.

Where was I?

Oh. Yes. Professional attire.

Don’t forget to accessorize. A great handbag can make your outfit. So can great shoes. I don’t need to tell you that.

At night when I’m ready to party, I stick to a few basic rules. Cute, comfortable with sexy shoes. (And again with the great accessories!)

And that my friends is how you dress like Selena Blake.

Selena Blake writes erotic paranormal and contemporary romance. First published in 2008, her series Stormy Weather has been on the best seller lists and nominated for awards.  Most days you’ll find Selena wearing yoga pants and a comfy crewneck. Learn more about her online at www.selena-blake.com or catch her at facebook: www.facebook.com/authorSelenaBlake

Be warned, I don’t particularly care for many “classic” novels. Which makes me wonder, why are the classics consider classic? The themes in them? Because readers can still relate to them? Or are they classics because a chosen few have said “these are classics, all high school students should read them.”

Which books from the last few years do you think are destined to become classics?

The Floor is open. What are you reading this month? Come on up to the mic and tell us.

Authors, what project are you working on right now?

Last year I asked the readers on our Readers’ Loop if they write to authors and let them know what they thought of the author’s book. Responses varied. Since I discussed etiquette last week I thought this was worth mentioning this week.

I’ve met dozens of writers of the years and they all have a few things in common. A passion for writing and they love hearing from their readers. Writing, despite advances like the internet, is a lonely profession. Even when surrounded by other writers, critique partners, and editors, writers can find themselves living in a bubble of their creation. Isolation, if you will.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like getting bills in the mail. Or spam. Or letters written to the people who lived in my house six or more years ago.

I love getting a nice hand written letter. Or a birthday card.

Reader letters are like birthday cards to an author. A ray of sunshine in their inbox. A break from the isolation. Even if you didn’t love, love, love a book, I’m sure if you sent a nice letter to an author they’d be thrilled.

Not only will you brighten an author’s day, you might just give them a reason to keep writing. Let’s face it, some days writing really is like opening a vein. It can be painful, exhausting, and frustrating. I know many authors who keep letters from readers on tap and reread them when they need motivation.

Some author’s might ask you if they can use your letter on their website, and how cool would it be to encourage other readers to pick up that author’s book?

So keep that in mind the next time you pick up a book and make it a goal to contact the author when you’ve closed the cover. Most author’s have contact information on their website. And gone are the days when it will cost you a stamp to brighten someone’s day.