Tasting Fire by Shelly Holt - Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway

The Menagerie welcomes Shelly Holt to the blog on her tour with Goddess Fish Promotions. We're excited to showcase her latest release for her paranormal romance, "Tasting Fire".

Even better, Shelly is giving away a $20 Starbucks GC to a randomly drawn commenter during her tour, so leave a comment here today and then follower her tour to increase your chances of winning. Her tour posts are listed here.

We asked Shelly one very important question: What physical attribute do you find most sexy and why?

Forget tight asses and long fluttering eyelashes, it's all about the forearms for me. I read a book on my Kindle I purchased to help me write love scenes. It's called (Just Fuck me! what women want men to know about taking control in the bedroom) by Eve Kingsley. This wonderfully illuminating book explains why women want men in a committed and trusting relationship to take control in the bedroom. According to the book women apparently want to be sexually dominated in the bedroom. They want to be laid on their backs and ravished. Outside the bedroom, of course is a whole different story!

After reading this book and thinking about what physical attributes I find most sexy for this essay, I have to agree. I believe deep down that is why I personally am attracted to a man with strong forearms. It's an indicator of physical strength, which translates later to domination in the bedroom. Why is it so hard to admit that as a woman you want to be dominated sexually? OK, here goes, I want to be sexually dominated in the bedroom. I said it, wow! the world didn't stop spinning. In fact nobody is even looking, even my cat is still snoring. Why was that so hard? I personally just published a paranormal romance with no less that five fully explicit love scenes. I shouldn't have these hang ups at this point. Maybe I was hiding behind my characters in Tasting Fire, but here it's all about me. Maybe it's not all about sex, maybe it's really about giving up control. I'll be the first to admit, I don't like giving up control of any aspect of my life. It was why I self-published in the first place. I had full editorial and artistic control over my book. That also meant I have full responsibility to edit, proof, and publicize it too.

Romance novels, mine included are all about the alpha male. In my novel Tasting Fire, my hero Kai Tenzin is very much an alpha male and takes charge in the bedroom. That shouldn't really surprise anybody, romance novels are not about real life they are a romantic fantasy. If you wanted to read about real men you would be reading chick lit or Men's Health. I believe reading romance is a safe way for women to give up that control and be dominated in the bedroom of their minds, if not in their houses.

In the end, sexual attraction for a woman is about feeling safe with a man, feeling desired in a sexual manner and being protected after the relationship is forged. If a man has skinny weak arms, at least on a subliminal wavelength we don't feel safe. In the real world, just because a man does have strong muscular forearms doesn't mean he is trustworthy or protective, but we are discussing sexual attraction not important social issues like trust and responsibility. We are all sometimes (some more than others) at the mercy of our hormones, but that doesn't mean you let them rule you. Common sense must balance those raging hormones, but for the bedroom of the mind and the one in my house, I'll try to let go a little more and not just on paper.

Shape-shifters have always walked the earth. Shrouded in myth and folklore, hiding in the shadows, watching and waiting. Advances in modern science are now about to reveal them to the world. Kai Tenzin is the self appointed leader of the Pari people. He and his kind evolved from the most reclusive predators on earth. They live and hunt in the most fearsome and rugged terrain known to man, the Himalayas. Kai leaves his small village where the mountains touch the heavens, determined to do anything to protect his people. When he is forced to enlist the aid of the beautiful American scientist Dr. Rae Hales, the last thing he expects to find is a woman who will ensnare his heart and endanger them all. Their action-packed adventure will take them around the world to discover the truth behind the legends and reveal the future of humanity.

“My name is Kai Tenzin. I was born in a village high in the Himalaya mountains of Tibet.

I am a Pari. My people are born with the ability to transform into the animal you call the Asian Snow Leopard. The Pari have been among you since the dawn of human civilization. We have seen humanity at its worst. We have watched from the safety of our mountains, as human tyrants unleashed their destructive fury and let the blood of the innocent flow freely over the land. For centuries we have cowered in fear of what horrors the human heart would unleash upon us if discovered. We always strived to know the animal within us, but we always considered humans to be the true beasts. We feared you and did not wish to know you.

I am guilty of that crime more than any others of my kind, and yet, I personally have seen human compassion in action. When it does happen, it is an act of such profound beauty, that the darkest place in the universe, namely, the human heart, can not hide the infinite luminescence that shines forth. You have it within each and every one of you to be a shining flame that brightens the darkest night. We should have had more faith in that. I should have had more faith in your humanity and my own. Instead, I chose to help my people to continue to hide in darkness.

We stole from you the chance to know us and hid where only hate and fear can grow. For that I apologize and can only ask for your forgiveness. I stand here today, humbly begging you for a second chance. If we possess the courage, together, we can open our hearts to each other.

My name is Shelly Holt and I live in the middle of the harsh and unforgiving Mojave desert. I write my stories looking out of a window that shows sweeping desert views. Outside is a barren and severe landscape, yet inside my head lives a world filled with exotic shape-shifters come to life, pulled from the pages of myth and legend, ready to entice and seduce any reader brave enough to take them on.

It's funny, I never wanted to be a writer! In 7th grade English, we were given an assignment. We were told to write an original poem and turn it in the next day. I was determined to turn in not a good poem, but a great poem. I spent the whole night working on it instead of watching my favorite show, The Waltons. (Hey! it was 1980.) I turned it in the next day. Apparently, I succeeded a little too well and was accused of copying it from a book. (1980 remember, no internet yet). The teacher stated and I quote "this is too good for a seventh grader, where did you copy it from?" Well, I didn't write for 30 years after that. In my 40's, after a life changing move to rural Nevada as a caregiver to my father, I realized I needed a way to earn a little money on the side. I did some research on the internet and read all about a certain little book, about a certain little college student and a handsome billionaire with some ahem! (issues.) I decided after reading that book, I could do that, and Tasting Fire was born. I'll admit it's been strange revisiting a talent buried deep inside for so long, forgotten, but apparently not lost. It's been an important journey and one I am quite thankful for and excited to see where it takes me.

Shelly Holt

P.S. Mr. Jordan, I really did write that poem!

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