Then Comes the Baby... (Children in Romance!) by Elva Birch

 

"A DAY CARE FOR SHIFTERS" SERIES by Elva Birch

There is a certain logical order to romance and children, as outlined in the famous schoolyard rhyme: First comes love, then comes marriage, then (usually in a convenient epilogue) comes the baby in the baby carriage. 

Nothing will squash the romance of a candlelight dinner faster than a fit or spaghetti in the hair, and finding a sitter is always an extra expense and complication!

The “Nope” Moment

 Romance books wouldn’t be very interesting if the meet-cute went straight to the happy ending. In nearly every book, there is something that keeps our heroes from getting right together - their families hate each other, they’re from opposite sides of the tracks, there are professional hurdles, one of them is trying to kill the other… and sometimes, there are little kids gumming up the works.

 Kids can be a wonderful plot complication. It’s hard enough to be a single parent and manage a career. Adding a dating life to that? Older kids can be left unattended, but they’ll have strong opinions about their parent getting romantically involved with someone, and younger kids absorb every available moment! The trials of juggling all of that can be perfect plot material.

 Add to that the wrinkle of paranormal offspring and magical secrets, and you’ve got plenty of challenges. In Dragon’s Instinct, Ian is a writer and stay-at-home dad, and getting work done is hard enough with a squirrel-shifting toddler who can hide anywhere…but when she starts bursting into flame, the twos get even more terrible. Ask any new mother how easy it is to take an uninterrupted shower or eat a full meal - and now add supernatural complexity for extra fun. What’s more powerful? Fate or a four-year-old?

Children as “Plot Moppets”

Kids don’t have to only keep our heroes apart, though! If the many versions of The Parent Trap have taught us anything, it’s that kids will often take matters into their own hands if they have strong feelings about the romantic lives of their parents. They may not understand the gritty (or spicy!) details of romance, but they want their mom or dad to be happy, and they’ll try to manipulate circumstances to make that happen. (Often with hilarious results!)

 Protective instincts

A book with kids doesn’t need a bad guy to provide plot (rugrats are perfectly capable of supplying ample drama!), but threatening children can add a level of danger and peril to a book that hits at a gut level.

 A possessive ex who wants custody? Someone willing to ransom children for leverage? All of a sudden, you’ve escalated the danger far more than you could with simple threats of personal danger.

There’s also nothing quite as sexy as a gruff bachelor who is soft for a little kid. I guarantee you that a big burly guy having a high tea with a circle of plushies and a princess will melt any panties.

The Things Kids Say

Not only are kids awesome plot pieces, they are also filter-free and perfectly happy to say the things that everyone in the room might be thinking. Between their innocent honesty and adorable misunderstandings, they can provide a comic relief unequaled by any other story element.

Agents of Chaos

In real life, babies are hard. Anyone who says otherwise has only read about them in romance books where they are always sweetly-behaved and never have dirty diapers. But kids are dealing with big feelings and new things at every turn. They are often awful and messy and destructive and heart-breaking…at the very same time they are wonderful and beautiful and creative and awe-inspiring. It’s a balancing act to truthfully portray the hard parts of being a parent without destroying the escapism of a satisfying romance book. Make it too easy and you don’t honor the honest work of parenting. Make it too realistic, and it’s no fun to read.

Children are unpredictable and universal. If you need to escalate a plot, they can get into terrific trouble just by wandering away after butterflies. While readers expect a certain amount of sense from their lead characters, the sheer randomness of children and the unexpected things they can say and do lend well to spicing up an adventure, and they can be heart-wrenching and honest. Done well, they add a satisfying layer to a new relationship, and provide an instant found family.

Kids don’t have to be reserved for the happy-ever-after epilogues!

Can you suggest romance books that have handled children as characters particularly well? I’d love to know!

Elva Birch writes a lot of adorable children in paranormal romance and has a book out this week called First Comes Love. A single mom is caught by surprise when her son turns into a penguin and a polar bear shifter comes to her rescue! This collection includes hilarious baby penguin sketches and is from the world of A DAY CARE FOR SHIFTERS.

SHIFTING IS IN THE BLOOD by Terry Spear

 One winning person who leaves a comment (include email address) will win an audible book and another winner, an ebook. Thanks so much for dropping by on this lovely Halloween!!!

Jaguar Pride Excerpt

   by Terry Spear

Stepping through snarled roots and wet and muddy leaf litter, Melissa's paws didn't make any sound as she moved through the towering tropical trees, her ears perked, listening for human voices.

Wearing his black jaguar coat, Huntley was sniffing the air nearby, pausing to listen. Darkness had claimed the area, the trees blocking any hint of light at dusk, not to mention the rainclouds moving in. Though Melissa's golden coat, covered in black rosettes, was difficult to see at night if anyone should shine a flashlight on her, Huntley was even harder to see, making him hauntingly ghost-like. In broad daylight, his rosettes could be seen, but in a darkly elegant way. She'd never tell him though. As hot as he looked, he probably well knew it, and she didn't want him to think she was interested, or anything. Not when they were both currently seeing someone else.

She loved working with him though.

Black jaguars, a melanistic form, averaged about six percent of the regular jaguar population. The jaguar shifters weren't sure about the ratio with their own kind. Huntley's mother was a beautiful black jaguar, and his dad, golden. Both his brother, Everett, and sister, Tammy, were golden also. For whatever reason, Huntley's coat appealed to Melissa, especially on missions like this. He seemed like a Ninja warrior in jaguar form, sleek, agile, and deadly. And she liked that he was wild, like she was, able to live in their native environments without a hitch. Unless they had trouble with poachers.

***

I was reading a “white warrior shifter” book once where there was no shifting. What??? Yep. They had sex, and talked about how she was a white warrior wolf, but never showed how she was, nor did she ever turn wolf. To qualify as a shifter book to me, the heroine or hero have to shift.

Earlier on, I had read this cool fantasy historical where she was at a lake, talking with the animals, and then a black panther is watching her. Later, we have a handsome dude who is panther-like in his movements, but nowhere did the story actually show him shifting or that he was truly a shifter or that the panther was a shifter. Maybe it wasn’t. But then why say the man moved like a black panther and was watching her at the lake like he was a hot panther shifter? Bad form. If someone is a shifter, show it. If not, don’t allude to it. I kept feeling like the author was afraid to show a shifter as if it might hurt sales, so she just alluded to it for coolness sake. But if there is to be a shifter, I want to know it—for real.

The first shifter story I ever read was when I was a kid and fell in love with the handsome prince who had been cursed by a wicked witch to be a polar bear during the day and a handsome man at night, East of the Moon and West of the Sun. It was the first time that I’d ever envisioned that someone that was a wild animal at some point in their life could be the same as a regal and kind and loving and handsome man. Yum.

I loved Ladyhawke where he was cursed to be a wolf and she a hawk and neither could be with each other in their human forms. Of course, it drove me crazy that they couldn’t be together, but I loved the beauty of the characters and their wilder halves.

I fell in love with Dracula when I was thirteen and saw him in a college play. He’s a shapeshifter too, you know. Some show vampires shifting into bats, others, wolves. And still others, all kinds of different things. But I also felt sorry for Dracula and Wolfman, and in both cases, I felt they deserved to be loved, just like anyone. And so when I wrote vampire stories, and shapeshifting stories to include wolves, jaguars, cougars, and next year, a polar bear shifter, I wanted to show that they were real people, based on real animals, needing real love. I also wanted to show that they were their own people, not despising what they are, but comfortable in their skin…or fur.

I love writing contemporary, but I’m also a huge fan of historical, so I’ll be working on a historical wolf story also.

What would you do if the sexier than life prince that you fell in love with was cursed as a polar bear during the day and you only had him at night to have and to hold?

TERRY SPEAR

About the Author

Bestselling and award-winning author Terry Spear has written over fifty paranormal romance novels and four medieval Highland historical romances. Her first werewolf romance, Heart of the Wolf, was named a 2008 Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, and her subsequent titles have garnered high praise and hit the USA Today bestseller list. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry lives in Crawford, Texas, where she is working on her next werewolf romance, continuing her new series about shapeshifting jaguars, and cougars, having fun with her young adult novels, and playing with her two Havanese puppies, Max and Tanner. For more information, please visit www.terryspear.com, or follow her on Twitter, @TerrySpear. She is also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/terry.spear. And on Wordpress at:

Terry Spear's Shifters

http://terryspear.wordpress.com/

ALPHAS UNWRAPPED

FOR THE LOVE OF SHAPESHIFTERS by Susan Lute

DRAGONKIND CHRONICLES
BOOK 1

As I'm writing this post, I'm watching The Wedding Date, a classic romance if ever there was one, and one that's right up my alley. Fun. Quirky. Unexpected. I'm also making a new version of teriyaki chicken with baked potatoes. Multitasking. Since there's never enough time in a day, that's a skill writers need.

But this is about dragons. I'm a little obsessed with them. I've always loved paranormal romances, just never envisioned myself writing one. Nor did I set out to write dragon shapeshifters on purpose. It was more the result of a temper tantrum, believe it or not, and came about while on a flight to Norman, Oklahoma to see the hubby. Women's fiction was tanking. My agent, who worked her little heart out, had just received another rejection from an editor we thought was on the verge of buying.

That's when the shift happened. I thought...I'll try anything. Anything that's not women's fiction or contemporary. So...Logan Pen, Beyla, the Umbra, and The Dragonkind Chronicles were born. At a lusty, crowded bar, in a post apocalyptic New Orleans, they came to life. He'd come to capture an elusive shadow thief. She escapes after stealing his greatest treasure—a talisman forged at his birth on the night of the apocalypse. Of course there's more at stake than the loss of his telein. That's what kept me writing to the end. It took eight months to write that story and I enjoyed every minute of the process.

Why do we, as readers, love paranormal romances? I think we relate to a world gone a bit sideways. We're willing to take the journey in order to see if good overcomes evil. Along the way, the discovery that things are not exactly as they seem answers age old questions. Who are we? Are we alone in this universe? The answer to that in my universe is a world inhabited by dragons, shadow thieves, shaman, the phoenix (a hint of what's to come), Avalon, more dragons, fallen angels, all recorded in the Dragonkind Chronicles. We want to fight on the side of good. Victory is our reward.

The cool thing about paranormal romances is that the genre draws it's multitude of fans into the story's central struggle, takes them on a ride, invites them to be part of the triumphant party at the end. The stories and legends are gripping, interactive, and best of all uber-satisfying. Some of my favorite shapeshifter storytellers are Rebecca Zanetti, Jessa Slade, Elsa Jade, and  J.T. Geissinger. Who are yours?

SUSAN LUTE

Susan Lute is an award winning, multi-published traditional and Indie author. She is published in women's fiction, contemporary romance, and paranormal/fantasy romance. Her most recent release is A FOOL FOR LOVE, Book One of the Sellwood Novellas. Look for the second book in The Dragonkind Chronicles, DRAGON'S FLAME, coming out in 2016. You can find Susan at www.susanlute.com. Visit and sign up for her newsletter, Su's News, to be one of the first to hear about new releases and special deals.

Website: www.susanlute.com

To signe up for Su's News: http://susanlute.com/contact-me/

For the Love of Shapeshifter Romances by Susan Lute

DRAGONKIND CHRONICLES
BOOK 1

As I'm writing this post, I'm watching The Wedding Date, a classic romance if ever there was one, and one that's right up my alley. Fun. Quirky. Unexpected. I'm also making a new version of teriyaki chicken with baked potatoes. Multitasking. Since there's never enough time in a day, that's a skill writers need.

But this is about dragons. I'm a little obsessed with them. I've always loved paranormal romances, just never envisioned myself writing one. Nor did I set out to write dragon shapeshifters on purpose. It was more the result of a temper tantrum, believe it or not, and came about while on a flight to Norman, Oklahoma to see the hubby. Women's fiction was tanking. My agent, who worked her little heart out, had just received another rejection from an editor we thought was on the verge of buying.

That's when the shift happened. I thought...I'll try anything. Anything that's not women's fiction or contemporary. So...Logan Pen, Beyla, the Umbra, and The Dragonkind Chronicles were born. At a lusty, crowded bar, in a post apocalyptic New Orleans, they came to life. He'd come to capture an elusive shadow thief. She escapes after stealing his greatest treasure—a talisman forged at his birth on the night of the apocalypse. Of course there's more at stake than the loss of his telein. That's what kept me writing to the end. It took eight months to write that story and I enjoyed every minute of the process.

Why do we, as readers, love paranormal romances? I think we relate to a world gone a bit sideways. We're willing to take the journey in order to see if good overcomes evil. Along the way, the discovery that things are not exactly as they seem answers age old questions. Who are we? Are we alone in this universe? The answer to that in my universe is a world inhabited by dragons, shadow thieves, shaman, the phoenix (a hint of what's to come), Avalon, more dragons, fallen angels, all recorded in the Dragonkind Chronicles. We want to fight on the side of good. Victory is our reward.

The cool thing about paranormal romances is that the genre draws it's multitude of fans into the story's central struggle, takes them on a ride, invites them to be part of the triumphant party at the end. The stories and legends are gripping, interactive, and best of all uber-satisfying. Some of my favorite shapeshifter storytellers are Rebecca Zanetti, Jessa Slade, Elsa Jade, and  J.T. Geissinger. Who are yours?

SUSAN LUTE

Susan Lute is an award winning, multi-published traditional and Indie author. She is published in women's fiction, contemporary romance, and paranormal/fantasy romance. Her most recent release is A FOOL FOR LOVE, Book One of the Sellwood Novellas. Look for the second book in The Dragonkind Chronicles, DRAGON'S FLAME, coming out in 2016. You can find Susan at www.susanlute.com. Visit and sign up for her newsletter, Su's News, to be one of the first to hear about new releases and special deals.

Website: www.susanlute.com

To signe up for Su's News: http://susanlute.com/contact-me/

SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE by Marie Harte

COUGAR FALLS SERIES

Erotic and Comtemporary Romance Author Marie Harte has written multiple series about different groups of Shifters. Read on to learn more about this popular subgenre!

Shapeshifters. The new black in paranormal romance. It used to be vampires were all the rage. Now it’s things that go all furry and fangy at night. *grin* I love shapeshifters, and I love how varied the types can be. There’s an animal connection, a sense of nature and wildness a lot of us forget surrounded by concrete and computers. When I first started writing them, I envisioned normalcy, for the most part. Small town life populated by people with small town values and a sense of community…who just happened to shift into animals. Contemporary but with a twist—Cougar Falls.

I named my series after the fictional town of Cougar Falls, set in Montana. Big Sky country, open and full of the wildlife my characters often inhabit. There are cougars, wolves, bears, raptors and foxes. And more species I haven’t had the time to dig into, unfortunately. The Cougar Falls series is 8 books long, and I have several more on the backburner waiting to be written.

Another series centered around people changing into animals is my Mark of Lycos series. I recently rewrote all three books, and Totally Bound plans to re-release them next year with shiny new covers. With the Mark of Lycos books I went a little more outside the box and involved magical creatures, demons and gods. There are animal spirits that guard my shifters in their Great Forest. The Wolf in the Forest, the Bear in the Cave, and the Fox in the Den. Clan wars, sorcerers, and demons populate the lands the shifters inhabit, away from humanity. The Mark of Lycos series is different from Cougar Falls, where the shifters are more mainstream.

AUTHOR MARIE HARTE

But my current leaning on shapeshifters is even less traditional. I created my own group of shifters, the Circs. The men of Circe’s Recruits, the surviving squad of Marines, have been genetically modified with the hopes of turning them into supersoldiers. Except the experiments had side effects, and of the 78 men initially tested, only 5 turned out sane. The men of Circe’s Recruits change at will into hulk-like creatures with armored skin, fangs, claws, enhanced senses—and enhanced sex drives.

The newer shifters have psychic abilities as well. My Circs are a ton of fun to play with, because I weave government conspiracy, mating problems, and genetic mutation into the mix. Think mad scientists funded by the rich and immoral.

And of course, there are mating heats. Fated mates are a trope of shapeshifter romances I both like and loathe. So I took out the fated part and forced my shapeshifters to have to mate only with another Circ—gender notwithstanding—to sate that biological imperative to procreate. It’s not an easy transition from human to Circ, and it makes for great conflict. My books also explore sexuality and polyamory. Pack mentality in a carnal sense.

CIRCE'S RECRUITS
(Dawn Endeavor)

When my Circe’s Recruits series first released years ago, they resonated with readers. So I wrote a second series continuing the Circ shapeshifters called Dawn Endeavor. Fast forward a few more years.

Having obtained the rights back to Circe’s Recruits, I decided to write a new Circ book. I wanted to see how my original shifters turned out, and how they’d handled marriage and babies, as well as dealing with a new group of Circs who’ve never played by the rules.

Make no mistake. This book is really about Gideon and his crew. They aren’t disciplined. They aren’t military. Most of them are barely a step up from being criminals, and now they have fangs and claws and drives they can’t control. I can’t wait to see how they turn into the heroes they were born to be.

Visit Marie at http://marieharte.com/