I can’t believe it.

Last year, I set a goal of publishing a work of fiction before my 40th birthday.

It looks like it actually is going to happen.

My erotic contemporary novella–Ebony Nights: Advertising for Love–is going to be published by Samhain this December. I’m so excited!

This story came about as a crazy “what-if” question. I actually remember the first time the idea popped into my head. I was taking a shower, and all of a sudden, I wondered, “What if there were an all-male escort agency that specialized in men of color?” Of course, my dirty mind said, “That would be so cool!” and then I began wondering what kind of women would hire these escorts and why. And BOOM! Ebony Nights was born.

When I sat down to write it, I thought, “This is crazy. No one would buy this story. It’s too . . . weird/crazy/off the wall. I mean, come on. An entire series focused on a male escort agency? I must be insane.” But the concept wouldn’t leave me alone, and better yet, neither would the characters, so I finished it and sent it off to Samhain, where it happened to land on the virtual desk of an awesome editor who saw merit in my crazy idea and who worked with me through revisions to more fully flesh out the story and to crank up the heat level.

She then sent me the contract. I signed it. And wow. I now have a book coming out!

This is such a dream come true for me, and I’m very excited to begin working on the next steps in the process: more editing, cover art, blurbs, etc.

I’m actually working on that dreaded 200-word boil down of the story that needs to encapsulate the novella in a sexy and exciting way (which is so hard to write!) So until I hammer that out, here is part of the query I sent to Samhain as a way of giving you a little taste of Ebony Nights: Advertising for Love:

Aisha Anderson hires an escort for her company’s gala so that she can avoid dancing with her highly inappropriate, obnoxious coworker, Phil.  And when Greg shows up with his  perfect smile and chocolate-brown skin, she is very glad that she did.  He is a charming gentleman at her company’s event and a skilled, generous lover in her bed.  She wants to pay him for his services, but instead, he insists on her phone number.

Aisha has reservations about dating a man who has sex with women for money, but Greg’s intelligence, good looks, and skills both in the kitchen and the bedroom easily win her over.  Their relationship cracks when they run into one of Greg’s former clients in a coffee shop, and it explodes when the woman asks Aisha about one of Greg’s signature sexual moves.  Swearing off men for good, Aisha refocuses on her career, but when she loses her expected promotion to Phil and quits in a blaze of f-bombs, she has to decide either to pick up the pieces of her life by herself or to renew her relationship with the escort who made her happy.