All About: Naughty Nine by Anastasia Rabiyah

Writing is often a lonely and very solitary endeavor. I resign myself to my proverbial cave and tap away at the keyboard while life hums on without me. I'm in another place when I mold my character's stories. Writing fiction is a selfish journey. Only the author truly knows why he or she pens a tale. Only the author knows the muse who inspired the words. Nevertheless, I hope to take my readers with me into those faraway places.

As a child I was blessed with an overactive imagination and unending creativity. My mother nurtured my will to make things--all kinds of things from cootie catchers to mud villages to play with my toys in. My father protected my wild imagination from criticism, often watching out of the corner of his eye as I played out whole stories with my farm set or smurfs, and fending off my older brother when he wanted to destroy my little imaginary world. Working with paints, clay, sewing, even gardening is a creative adventure for me, and my writing is just one more outlet to free all the bubbling energy I have bottled up inside.

I am grateful that my anthology, Naughty Nine, was nominated for best erotic anthology. N9, as my publisher fondly refers to the book, began as a writing exercise for me. I had just finished two lengthy novels and wondered if it was even possible for me to write short pieces that still did justice to the characters and offered enough backstory to allow a reader into their worlds.

Each little story is unique and stands on it's own. The first one, Among the Tides, is a mermaid tale much unlike The Little Mermaid. In it, the heroine, Yneria, is infatuated with a sinister elf, and she has been stalking him in the hopes of furthering her desires to claim him--even kill him. She most certainly gets more than she bargained for.

Ash of Fire features a demon and a budding sorceress who plans to enslave the wicked and powerful demon to use against her master. Her naivety and his strength are a dangerous match indeed. When she loses control of her new ward, she seems doomed to her ill fate, unless the demon sees something in her he wants for himself. Both want freedom, but may very well find that in each other.

The Brothers Fae is a story about how two fairy brothers, both opposites yet bonded so closely together that they could be one, fall for the same human woman. A male fairy gets his wings once he has found his true mate, but one female and two males is unheard of in their world.

Death's Minion is a very dark tale of a succubus awakened by a man's grief. Erotic and grim in its telling, it leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and a hint of what happened to the heroine to make her into what she is. Throughout she is certainly unsure of how she arrived there and what her purpose is.

Dragon's Fee sheds a different light on the dragon and the princess sent as sacrifice sort of tale. A deeply passionate story of discovery, it is both sweet and fiery in its reveal.

Luciano was written for a reviewer who absolutely loves vampires. I dedicated that story to her. Set in Greece on a beautiful beach at night, the heroine has returned to seek out her lost lover. What she finds leaves her at a crossroads between her life and the cold touch of the undead.

Michieru was written for a friend who has never felt like he can be himself. What better reason to write a shapeshifter? In the jungles of Borneo, love is not always as it seems, and the clouded leopard is just as beautiful as it is changing.

The story that worried me most yet became my favorite is the one with a centaur as the main character and a human woman. Theron's Sacrifice is by far the sweetest tale in this anthology. Forced to kidnap and take an oracle to the evil tyrant who has imprisoned his herd, Theron must come to terms with the meaning of what is wrong and what feels right. His captive struggles with her misconceptions about who her kidnapper truly is. Passion between them is forbidden but undeniable.

Wolf in the Garden is a quirky erotic tale of a first meeting and the bumbles of a werewolf who wanders into the wrong backyard at night. Steamy and strange in its own way, its an enjoyable escapade into the paranormal that might be right in your own garden one morning, if you look over your steaming cup of coffee to discover it.

While my childrens' soccer game calls on the 14th, I hope to stop in at The Romance Studio's groups to chat a bit. Thank you to Patricia Oshier Bruening for reviewing Naughty Nine, and thank you to The Romance Studio for the opportunity you allow all us authors, both new and experienced, to have.

Naughty Nine was published in 2007 by loveyoudivine, a small press that specializes in erotic fiction of many kinds. The owner of the publishing house consistently tells me that I not only tell a story, but I take my readers on a journey with the creative elements I add to my print works. I hope you would like to venture on such a journey if you have not already. Pick up your very own copy of this little print book, you can order it directly from your favorite bookstore. The ISBN is 978-1-60054-162-9.

To find out more about me and the many books I have available in both electronic formats and print, visit my website at RabiyahBooks.com.