Moonlight and Mayhem with Kate Douglas!!!!

Toasty Thursday Everyone!

Like many of you, I have followed author blogs for some time, commented regularly and take time to learn about the different authors I read. Now, this is a switch for me. Kate Douglas is a top author of erotica novels, and to date I haven't read her work yet, but I plan to. Yes, I hang my head in shame on that one. I have thus far made a point to read at least one book before an author makes a guest spot on our blog.

However, I think that you may forgive me once you've had a chance to meet Kate. She is so cool and, from what I've read from her blogs, website and some of the email conversations we've had, we seem to be cut from a similar cloth and she is definitely someone I want to meet in the future. Because you can read her bio (and I hope you do) on her website, katedouglas.com, I'm only going to give you a brief background.

Kate is the author of Wolf Tales I to VIII as well as one of the regular contributors to the Sexy Beast I to VI anthologies. She has also written four other Romance novels, Last of the O'Rourkes, Cowboy in My Pocket, On Wings of Love and Honeysuckle Rose.

Since most people probably won't find Kate Douglas in their local library, and I was curious to gain an understanding of all these characters that I've heard readers rave about for the past year, I asked Kate to tell us more about them and their relationship.

First of all, thank you to Carrie for her invitation to guest blog here at Moonlight, Lace and Mayhem—love that name, by the way! Conjures up all sorts of images. This is a pretty exciting week for me—Wolf Tales VIII, which is actually the fifteenth story in my erotic paranormal series, releases this week. I’m currently writing the nineteenth and am contracted to twenty-one...for now. When I first began writing these stories as an online serial back in 2004, I never dreamed they would be my key to a fantastic career as an author writing for a New York publisher. Sometimes, though things work in mysterious ways, but who am I to question fate?

When my good friend Margaret Riley started Changeling Press, she asked me to write something really “over the top” that was short and hot and ongoing. I wrote Stefan without knowing, in the beginning, what my main character, trapped in a beast’s body, was even going to turn into. I did some research, discovered a species of wolf native to the Himalayan steppes called Chanku (spelled Changu), and the premise for my series was born. Of course, my Chanku live as humans but have the ability to shift into wolves—an ability they’ve lost after migrating away from their homeland.

As I wrote more stories, with a new one releasing about every six weeks, my Chanku began to evolve and I discovered more about them with each chapter I wrote. They were still discovering their heritage, the fact that they needed certain types of grasses native to their homeland to enable their genetic gift as shapeshifters. They’re a matriarchal society. The women have complete reproductive control, but once they become shapeshifters, they can only conceive in their wolven form, and then only when they consciously release an egg for fertilization. They’re telepathic, with the ability to block others from hearing their thoughts, but if a pair mates as wolves, they create an unbreakable pair bond, a link so powerful that they can have no secrets from one another.

The one thing that sets my Chanku shapeshifters (and note I do NOT call them werewolves—as my über alpha, Anton Cheval says, “Chanku are not werewolves dependant upon the phases of the moon. We are not creatures of legend. We are shapeshifters, and we exist.”), apart from other stories is that mine are ruled by a powerful libido. Sex is as important to them as breathing, and after a run as wolves, they’re so aroused they must find release. This leads to open sexuality among the various packmates without jealousy...their sensual natures are a fact of life for them. In fact, quite often if two unmated Chanku are making love, they maintain a link with their mates so that they can join in through the mental connection. It leads to all kinds of interesting situations, to say the least!

Unmated Chanku never have sex with one another in their wolven forms, though they often switch with one human and the other wolf. When the series first came out, I was accused of promoting bestiality in my stories, but far from it. When Chanku are wolves, they still have the minds and thoughts they would have in their human form. Granted, if they are hunting and bloodlust has them wound up, they might be more feral than human, but the sex scenes I write, while definitely kinky, are not between an animal and a human. They’re between packmates who merely choose a different shape for variety, and that’s something you’ll always find in my stories—lots of variety. I work hard at keeping the relationships fresh, the stories exciting, and the characters as compelling as possible. I firmly believe that if I can’t create an emotional connection between my readers and my characters, then the story won’t work, so when I hear from readers telling me they had to pull out the tissues to get through a book, or that it made them laugh so hard they snorted a latte, I know I’ve done my job.

I’ll be around all day, so if you have any questions at all about the series, the characters or where the story line is going, feel free to ask. I have first chapter excerpts of all my books posted at www.katedouglas.com/eroticromance in case you haven’t read any of the stories before. Those excerpts will give you a good idea of the level of sexuality in the series—but please, only enter the site if you are over eighteen.

Also, if you have any questions about my new mass-market series, Demon Slayers, coming out next March from Kensington Publishing, feel free to ask. The first book, DemonFire, is with my editor now, and I’m getting really anxious to see what the cover will look like!

Links to find more about Kate and her books:
Facebook
MySpace
Newsletter

Note: Kate is from California, so it may take her a little longer to respond, but please be patient, because she will respond!