Karin Tabke | Bouncing Off the Walls!

If someone doesn’t glue me down soon I’m going to hurt myself. Why all the extra energy? Lot’s of reasons. Despite this economic downturn and the lull in publishing, romance has not only survived, it’s thriving!

Take that, literary snobs! Okay, that isn’t nice, but it’s how I feel. Would someone please tell me what is so bad about losing yourself in a passionate love story? One that ends with a Happily Ever After? Hot heroes to die for, heroines we’d like to befriend and that warm fuzzy feeling we get when we read The End. How can anyone have issues with that?

Not me, and I don’t defend romance either. I blow off the snarky comments with a shrug of my shoulders and a suggestion to the naysayer that perhaps they might want professional help to deal with that cynical chip on their shoulder. Okay, maybe that is a wee bit defensive, but it’s true!

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Karin Tabke | The Holidays Are Here!

And I’m still full from my turkey induced coma of last week, have done no shopping and don’t plan to. What am I going to do this holiday season? Read. And read some more. Funny thing that. Thanksgiving night I was going a bit stir crazy wanting a good book. One with a hot alpha, who had hot alpha friends, and who meet up with a heroine who was like no other woman any of them had ever encountered. I was stumped because this story also had to have mad passion, conflict and angst. I looked over my to-be-read pile and still could not quite find what I was looking for. Then I looked down at the box that had arrived from my publisher Simon and Schuster the day before. I knew what was in it, and I smiled. There in that box was a true love story that still haunts me almost 8 months after I wrote it: MASTER OR TORMENT, book two in my Blood Sword Legacy series. This story is of Sir Wulfson and Lady Tarian Godwinson. It is without exception a story of my heart and soul, and it transcended the pages. Reviewers love this story, readers are panting for more, and well, I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed a copy, went downstairs and stayed up until 6 the next morning reading. I loved it more. While I love writing my contemporary hot cops, there is something different about the Blood Swords, something more primal. More is at stake and these brave proud men must fight not only their own longings for love and acceptance in an era where bastards were looked upon as less then whole men, but they must carve out a place for themselves and their lady love and begin a legacy that will transcend time. They always make me sigh. What is the Blood Sword Legacy?

The Blood Sword Legacy

Eight mercenary knights, each of them base born, each of them bound by unspeakable torture in a Saracen prison, each of them branded with the mark of the sword for life. Each of their destinies marked by a woman.

‘Twas whispered along the Marches that the demon knights who rode upon black horses donned in black mail wielding black swords would slay any man, woman or child who dared look upon them. ‘Twas whispered their loyalty was only to the other and no man could split them asunder, nor was there enough gold or silver in the kingdom to buy their oath. ‘Twas well known each of them was touched not by the hand of God but by Lucifer himself.

‘Twas also whispered, but only by the bravest of souls, that each Blood Sword was destined to find only one woman in all of Christendom who would bear him and only him sons, and until that one woman was found, he would battle and ravage the land...

If you love proud, handsome knights in black armor whose passion runs deep and swift and the ladies who bring them to their knees, this is the series for you. I love writing the stories of these eight Blood Swords. Each knight is unique but bound to the other by blood and suffering, and to their ladies they are bound by their hearts and souls. Set in the tumultuous time of William the Conqueror’s England the stories are gritty, hard hitting with passion woven throughout every scene and through the hearts of the heroes and the heroines who love them. I sigh each time I think of them and their stories. Whether you love contemporary or historical romances, the stories of each Blood Sword is a testament to love conquering all. I invite you to pick up a copy of MASTER OF TORMENT, and see for yourself.

I’ll also be giving away a signed copy of MASTER OF SURRENDER, book one that unleashes them all into your heart at my ONE DAY ONLY BLOG contest.

I also have a question: Does time period matter or do you always fall for the love story regardless of where and when?

And since ‘tis the season, I want to wish you all a safe and joyous holiday!

Karin

MASTER OF TORMENT, Pocket Star, Out Now!
HAVE YOURSELF A NAUGHTY LITTLE SANTA, Pocket Star, Out Now!
www.karintabke.com/

Karin Tabke | Hot Cops and Hot Knights

I want to start off by thanking everyone here at Fresh Fiction for inviting me as a guest blogger today! I’m really happy to be here.

So, let me ask you this: What is it we find so sexy about those sexy cops and to die for knights??

Hmm, could it be the washboard abs and the muscular arms? Or those brilliant piercing eyes that seem to look right into our souls? Maybe it’s that thick dark hair we want to run our fingers through. Or the uniform or the chain mail?

Or maybe it’s more, much, much more. Could it be the many layers that comprise an alpha’s true character? You know? that command presence they have when they walk into a situation and immediately know what to do: The bad guy is apprehended, the damsel in distress is no longer in one kind of distress but now a completely different kind of distress.

I think for me, what makes a guy sexy, whether he is a knight of William the Conqueror or a beat cop, is his brain. It’s all connected to how he works. How he thinks. His compassion, his take control attitude, his willingness to stand for something and fight for it, but mostly, his passion for everything he does. Whether it’s work, play or love.

A man who is unwaveringly committed is sexy. A man who when he walks into a room does not have to roar to let everyone know he is the king of the jungle, he just is, is damn sexy. That understated rawness and power that every woman wants to tame is beyond hot.

He could be wearing a five thousand dollar Italian suit or holey Wranglers and a faded tee-shirt. A sexy man looks good in anything. He wears it all, well. He has that charisma that smile that way to make each woman he makes eye contact with feel as if she were the one. Be still my beating heart. A sexy man can make a woman forget her name, where she lives and what she had for breakfast. He can take a confident over-achiever and reduce her to a pile of stuttering mush. He can make a wallflower bloom. He can make grandmothers blush and wish they were forty years younger and make a school girl wish she would hurry and grow up.

Sigh, it is because of men just as I have described that I write romance. I fall in love each time I write a book. How about you? What makes a guy sexy, and tell us who your all time favorite romance hero is.

Karin
http://www.karintabke.com/