Guest Author Post: Cari Silverwood on Writing BDSM Steampunk Romance and Nasty Zombies

Welcome Cari Silverwood, author of erotic romance with a touch of BDSM. Cari's new release, Lust Plague is set in a Steampunk world with ravenous zombies, a smart airship captain heroine and a hottit human clone hero. Now that's quite the combo!

KB: How long did it take you to get published and/or how long it took you to write each of your books.

Cari: The answer depends on where you’re counting from. If you include my long run-up time figuring out how to write fiction and what exactly I was good at writing, you’d have to say ten plus years. I started out trying to write the words for picture books. That was not very successful at all! Moving on to when I started submitting a book for epublishing the time was zero as I had a friend who was an editor with Lyrical Press. After that I decided to try my hand at writing an erotic romance. I’d never read romances, but I read one erotic romance anthology and went WOW! So I wrote a story in a month and sent it out to 4 publishers – Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Siren and Loose Id. Siren offered me a contract but then Loose Id said, do some rewriting and we’ll look at it again. I knew it needed rewriting so I went with Loose Id. After 3 rewrites, maybe, I got a contract. That one was Three Days of Dominance.

Of my erotic romances, the time to write them would be two months all up for Iron Dominance, and about the same for Rough Surrender (due out June 4^th). 31 Flavors, which I co-wrote with Leia Shaw, took only a couple of months at the most – it’s being re-released from Loose Id as 31 Flavors of Kink on July 3^rd. Lust Plague, my zombie BDSM steampunk adventure, took the longest at about six months, but that was done after I became published and promo swamped me.

KB: How long did it take you to come up with the idea.

Cari: The initial idea for Lust Plague wouldn’t have taken more than a month but fine-tuning it took months and months. Initially there were no zombies but I found they made damn fine nasty guys…and cannon fodder.

KB: Talk about one of your characters and why readers may want to "meet" them?

Cari: Sten, my alpha Dom and hero in Lust Plague would appeal to readers the most. I can’t picture him anywhere but in the world of my story and to me half the fun is the steampunk setting of Lust Plague. Though he’s the sort of man who would be there in an instant to help you if something went wrong, he’s darn good at dispensing hugs too.

Of course something going wrong in his world would generally mean you’ve just missed being eaten by a zombie, or being shot by someone, or catching a mostly incurable disease that turned you into a zombie. Or if you were the heroine…you’d have a fair old chance of becoming accidentally naked and falling into bed with him. Beds are optional too, now that I think about it. Rooftops, forests and deserted shops are just as useful. 

Sten isn’t fussy. Neither was Kaysana. 

So Sten would be a marvelous man to talk to as he has oodles of adventures to chat about and he’s pretty good at listening if you have a problem that needs to be discussed. You could cry on his shoulder too. Nothing like a big hug to fix the world’s woes.

KB: Zombie dating tips, anyone?  Either tips on attracting that special undead somebody, or what to do if you run into one while on a date. (you know, because that beautiful someone special might not be so attractive once they’ve fled the scene screaming...)

Cari: The solution is simple, if you have a gun. Shoot that zombie dead, right in the center of the forehead. My zombies don’t get to date even if an initial symptom of the lust plague is insatiable lust. I think there’s only one mention of zombie sex that gets even vaguely described in the book, and that’s at the beginning when they’re still healthy looking.

After that, all zombies got shot on sight if Kaysana and Sten had enough ammo. Running out of ammo is not good in a zombie story by the way. If you go visit Sten, take some. And give him a kiss from me too. Last bit of advice, if you have no ammo…RUN! No tripping your date either. That’s bad karma. If I see you do it, next thing that will happen is you running around a corner smack into a shuffling groaning zombie. I’m a writer *cracking knuckles* and some of us are sadistic. We writers play god in our stories and gosh it is fun.

Now available for $6.99 from Loose-Id

Synopsis:  Saving the world should be easier.

When airship captain Kaysana meets Sten, the last thing she wants to do is have mad rough sex with him while bound by ropes and clamps but fate pencils in their appointment. The lust plague strikes. From her infected crew, zombies arise.

With her ship gone, she must rely on Sten, a human clone, a man who has fought all his life to master himself. She despises his kind and detests Sten’s growing hold on her. Though he never takes no for an answer, surely it’s the plague that makes yes slip from her tongue like melted butter? Or should she blame her own traitorous heart?

Hordes of slavering zombies await them. Sten and Kaysana unlimber weapons, don goggles, and set a course for the origin of the plague. Yet their victory will be hollow if they cannot also solve the puzzle of their hearts.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual situations, graphic language, and material that some readers may find objectionable: anal play/intercourse, BDSM theme and elements, exhibitionism, spanking, strong violence.

Other buy links: http://store.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b132777/Lust-Plague-/Cari-Silverwood/?si=0
http://www.amazon.com/Lust-Plague-Steamwork-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B007P0OLSA/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_1 

You can find Cari at her website or on her blog and on Twitter: @carisilverwood