Elizabeth Amber | Lustworthy Pin-up Guys

As I write each novel in The Lords of Satyr series, I always have an idea of what the hero looks like in my head. And pinned on my wall. Since my pin-up guys are cut from magazines, they’re usually actors, musicians, models--someone I consider lustworthy. He has to have the right hair, eyes, and muscles.

But most importantly, my pin-up guy(s) must capture the mood of my hero. It’s the mood that inspires me and reminds me who my guy is, inside and out, lest I forget over the months it takes me to write a novel.

For The Lords of Satyr series, which is historical paranormal erotic romance, I found at least some of my inspiration in a single statue I saw on a trip to Europe a few years ago. I was writing about half-satyr half-human males. Imagine how thrilled I was when I stumbled on this life-size statue of a satyr male in the Louvre! I took so many photos of it, I’m pretty sure I worried the hovering guard. I explained to her that I was writing romances about satyr brothers in Tuscany and showed her bookmarks. She was intrigued—or maybe that was bafflement I read on her face due to the language barrier. Either way, she was happy to have me autograph the bookmark, which she pocketed. But she still kept an eye on me.

The face of this statue doesn’t match what I envisioned for any of my satyr guys—Nicholas, Raine, Lyon, or Dominic. I’d find those faces elsewhere. But talk about mood! This alpha guy has what I remember Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City calling great “throw down” when it comes to his women. And the statue as a whole has a voluptuous, sensuous mood that’s perfect for what I wanted.

Like many authors, I don’t see my covers until long after my novels are finished, so I can’t base my heroes on the cover models. Rather, the marketing department and my editor choose the covers based on their vision of the heroes I’ve written. And I have a feeling readers put their own spin on every hero they read as well. I know I do.

In my November e-newsletter, I asked members to rank my four book covers in order of preference. Each cover depicts a single image—the satyr hero. Results are still coming in, but so far, one cover has been ranked last most often. It’s Raine, the most naked of them. Interesting. Still, three readers who ranked this cover last said it was the one that initially drew them to the series. They found the other books afterward. If you’d like to weigh in, visit www.elizabethamber.com/ to join the newsletter and vote (for a chance to win a book). I plan to pass the tally on to my editor.

How important are visual images of heroes to you? If the guy on the cover doesn’t fit your image of the hero, does it dampen your interest in the book itself? Is there one truly lustworthy romance cover that has stayed in your head for months or years? Which is more important to you--the specific look of the hero on the cover or the mood of the cover? Do you even want to see the hero on the cover?

I hope you’ll leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of my newest release, Lyon, The Lords of Satyr. I’ll randomly select a winner from among the commenters a week from today.

Elizabeth Amber
Nicholas, The Lords of Satyr
Raine, The Lords of Satyr
Lyon, The Lords of Satyr
Dominic, The Lords of Satyr (March 2009)

Jenna Petersen | Accidentally Dark: Or I Didn’t Mean to Make Him Alpha

I am funny. Okay, I may not be stand-on-a-stage-do-The-Last-Comic-Standing funny, but I can tell a funny story and I have a quirky sense of humor. I really like to laugh and I am silly more often than I care to admit in a public forum. When people meet me and they find out what I do, they often assume that I write light-hearted romantic comedies with a sarcastic sense of humor that matches my life "voice".

They are wrong.

No, I don’t write romps. I don’t do slapstick. I can’t tell funny to save my life. Instead, I write highly sensual, intensely emotional, dark historical romances set in the Regency period for Avon Books and Avon Red (erotic romances, those are written as Jess Michaels). People emailed me after my debut, Scandalous, came out in October 2005 and told me I made them cry. And I was happy about it!

So how did this happen? How did I go from being a reasonably happy person with a high sense of the absurd and the amusing to writing super dark romance?

I tell you what, I blame the men. That’s right, it’s not my fault, it’s my heroes. You see, I tried my hand at a few light stories in the dark days before Avon came calling. I sat down and I told myself that there would be no angst. There would be no brooding. There would just be a nice, normal, sexy hero with a sense of humor.

And then he whispered to me, “By the way, I accidentally killed my brother three years ago. I’ve never quite gotten over the guilt.”

No!!! Bad hero. BAD. You aren’t supposed to be wracked by a guilty secret. You aren’t supposed to be torn apart and broken by emotional turmoil. And yet, as soon as he said that… I knew it was true. And it made him far more compelling to me. Although that story never sold, ten books have and all of them feature the common thread of a emotionally tortured hero in one way or another.

My latest book, Lessons From A Courtesan (which just came out Tuesday) features a hero, the Earl of Baybary, Justin Talbot, who isn’t any different. Like many of my previous heroes, he has a dark secret that he’s trying to keep. He has a complicated relationship with the members of his family. Oh yes, and he was blackmailed into a marriage of convenience with his wife, Victoria, who just showed up in London posing as a courtesan.

Well, that’s just enough to make any man dark and brooding, isn’t it?

So, as a reader do you like the tortured, brooding, darkly sexy hero? What do you think draws us to these alpha male types? And is there a twelve-step program for writers who are addicted to tormenting their characters?

Jenna
www.jennapetersen.com/