I must admit my surprise when I was asked to write this blog. I have been writing romance novels for the last seven years and have written many blogs on many topics, but this was the first time this topic has come up.
Marked! by Jaxx Steele
When I sit down to write a story I do not have the thought, "I wonder if women will like this" hovering in my mind. *smile* My main characters are men and I write from a male point of view, but I am conscious that women are buying my books. I poll women often asking them about situations that they care about. I keep an ongoing list and try to use them to spark ideas for my books. With that in mind, I try to lure people to my books with worthy characters. Even my bad guys have amiable qualities to it easier for readers to cultivate a love/hate relationship with them.
I have found that men and women are basically looking for the same things in a good book. They want to be entertained with a good story and engaging and well written characters. That is one of the many things I do keep in the forefront of my mind while writing.
As an erotic romance writer my primary goal is to focus on the romance, but I never forget about those traits when creating characters and writing interactions between them. Men and women are basically turned on by the same things. Attractive, seductive, smart, somewhat mysterious and likable characters. The main characters are passionate men, in battle and in bed. The fight scenes in my books are as detailed as my love scenes. Sometimes I re-enact them to keep them realistic, fresh and different between characters and from book to book. The reasoning behind that is I want all the reader's senses engaged while they're reading. That seems to go over well with the men and the women who read my books.
Mark is the main character in my latest release, Marked! He is charming, patient, handsome, loyal, and empathetic. But Raymond, the antagonist, is violent, arrogant, overly ambitious and overall horrible to Mark at each of their encounters. However he is liked by many of his other tribe mates because he is loyal to his clan, a very good fighter, strong, masculine and very handsome. Mark and Raymond's battles begin when they are young and go on until they are well pass adulthood.
I must admit that Marked! has turned out to be one of my favorite stories. Mark's interaction between with Raymond is filled with fear, unwarranted hatred and overconfidence. When Mark meets Victor, his potential love interest, you get to see another side of Mark. Their contact is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He is patient, loving, compassionate and vulnerable.
In this book you will see lies exposed, secrets uncovered, blood bonds healed, how patient love can be is revealed and redemption between family and clan mates. Marked! has all that plus great fight scenes and hot sex scenes to boot.
Click here to buy Marked!