In my first foray into romantasy, I’m kicking it into high gear with monster RH that has plenty of smut and, um, interesting appendages. I personally am a fan of humanoid-looking monsters (walking on 2 legs, a mostly discernible face, just like under the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, you could vaguely discern human eyes in a creature’s face). So this is how I came up with my monsters for Evynn to meet in Demonic Dynasty. Come meet the men! Lyone Aamonson leads the trio of half-demon monsters. He is the most human of them all, as his mother was an unnamed witch the trio’s father, a demon named Aamon, attacked twenty-five years ago, just in time for birthing season. He tries his hardest to keep his human features on display — long, golden curls, green eyes, goatee — however, his demon side is strong and breaks out at will, giving him shiny, almost iridescent black skin, silver eyes, fangs, wings, and horns that can go into extremely interesting places, as Evynn will find out quickly. Corel Aamonson is half elven, and while he looks humanoid, it is clear he isn’t human. When possible, he prefers a good mix of elven and demonic features. Elves’ faces are extremely “Uncanny Valley”. Stretched cheeks, pointed nose, elongated and pointed ears. His skin glows a pale jade green with black veins running through all over his body. He likes to let his horns just peek out of the top of his head. He can control parts of nature with his magic, and likes to use vines, thorns, and more while “playing” with Evynn, while his elven tongue can sometimes have a mind of its own. Finally, we have Pardus Aamonson, who wonders what their shared father was thinking when he impregnated a panther shifter while in her panther form. This anomaly, since shifters typically breed while in human forms, caused him to look more like a cat than a person. His body is lightly covered in dark brown, almost black, fur, and his face is a mix of feline and human. His eyes, however, remain a demonic silver. His hands work like hands, but he can extend his claws like a large cat. His tail serves as a second appendage for pleasure, he can both give and receive through it. And like all male cats, his cock is barbed, not for her pleasure (or is it?). I hope you come meet the Aamonson men and join them on their journey to become full demons! Pre-order: https://books2read.com/demonicdynasty1 Find S.L. Sinclair: Links: https://www.amazon.com/stores/S.L.-Sinclair/author/B097QPHSZN https://instagram.com/readslsinclair (3) S.L. Sinclair's Sinners | Facebook (5) Facebook S.L. Sinclair Books - BookBub S.L. Sinclair (Author of The Family Firm) https://substack.com/@partnersincrimebookservices About S.L. Sinclair
S.L. Sinclair is a dark romance and taboo author fascinated with human sexuality, murder, and psychology. Beyond Her Duties was her first release, which made her an international bestseller. Followed by the surprise smash hit The Family Firm, cementing her in the dark and taboo genres of romance. They’re part of the LGBT+ community as bisexual and nonbinary and uses she/they pronouns. When not writing, she’s watching horror movies and has her nose buried in whatever book is closest. Sometimes she actually goes outside. Also by S.L. Sinclair Beyond Her Duties (MF) The Family Firm (RH) The Family Secret (RH) The Family Fortune (RH) Wife For Hire (MF) Call Me Danger (RH) Don’t Get Me Twisted (RH) Please Love Me (MMMM) Unbiased (RH) Perfect Martinis (MF) Acts of Contrition (MF)
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1) Tell us about your Romantasy book/series The Heart of a Dragon Series started out with an idea I got from a premade cover. I knew I wanted to write about dragons and I saw an incredible cover online from Burning Phoenix Covers by Trish. As you can see above, the cover shows a dragon shifter in a graveyard. The idea started to form from that. The main character, Seraphina, is injured in a fight and loses her memory. She is saved by a vampire called Victor. They try to figure out who she was before her fall. Over the course of the books, Seraphina recovers her memory and tries to find the man who murdered her family. She and Victor fall for each other but it isn't smooth sailing. He lies to her to try and protect her and Seraphina isn't the forgiving type! 2) Are you a fan of a certain trope when it comes to romance such as enemies to lovers? If so, why? I do like enemies to lovers, but in the case of this series it is more wary acquaintances to begin with. They have to build trust and that is not easy for my main character. I do like forced proximity too where two characters have no choice but to work together. 3) What is your favorite fantasy creature or supernatural being to write about and why? I like to write about a range of creatures. Dragons obviously and I have a wolf in my next series. I don't like to be tied to one. In another series I have planned I will be writing about witches. 4) Who are your favorite Romantasy authors? I don't have a specific author I would read all the time, but I have read some good books from llona Andrews and Stacia Stark. 5) What is next for you? I am writing a new series called Grimm Descendant which will feature a woman who is the current descendant of the Brothers Grimm. She is given a job guarding a magical library and working beside hot Henri. It will feature fairytale characters, magic, witches and the Big Bad Wolf. Addison Sinclair is a UK author who writes paranormal fantasy books featuring dragons, fantastical creatures and even the Big Bad Wolf himself.
A huge book nerd, you will often find her reading or doodling in her many, many notebooks. I have always been a big fan of romance, but I especially love enemies to lovers romance. It is so much fun to write. Having the two main characters distrustful of each other or outright enemies who then fall for each other really adds another layer to a Romantasy story. For my Tempest Knox series the main character, Tempest, is right to be suspicious of Will. He is a former witch hunter and she's a witch! Not a great start. I put the characters in the position where they are forced to work together. Will does start off as manipulative as he tries to free himself from a curse, but he soon falls for Tempest. Of course there are issues along the way, including Tempest's actual love interest! It does take time for them to get together, but I think that makes it more realistic. I do hate when a romance is rushed. It has to be earned and believable to the audience. In the fifth and final book of this series, we see exactly how far Will has come when he goes to extraordinary lengths to save Tempest. No one loves a villain turned good more than me and it helped to have Will's backstory on why he did the things he did. He was abandoned by his mother and raised by a violent father. He ran away and joined the witch hunters, thinking he had found his place in the world, but soon discovered he was just power hungry. It was important to show how much he had grown over the course of the series. It has taken me a while to complete this series, I started it a decade ago! I am not a particularly fast writer, but I always finish what I started lol. If you love Romantasy books, the series is available now on Amazon and the final book will be released in the summer. Kat Gracey writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance novels featuring her two favorite supernatural beings - witches and werewolves.
She currently resides in the UK, where she enjoys yoga and catching up on her favorite shows. You can learn more about her books via her website: www.witchesandwerewolves.co.uk How I Write Romance as an Ace-Spec Author © Sarina Langer 2025 Disclaimer: while I am an author on the ace spectrum myself, my experience is but one of many. The spectrum is vast. I have written this post from my own perspective, and I’ve had several ace-spec friends chime in, too, to make it as inclusive as I could. If something below doesn’t match your experience, that’s okay. It doesn’t make your experience (or anyone’s, any less valid. So that we’re all on the same page, let me start with an explanation: what does ace-spec mean? Simply put, ace-spec describes people on the asexual spectrum. This is someone who either doesn’t feel sexual attraction to people full stop (more on the ace end) or who does feel sexual attraction but only once an emotional connection has been established (the demi end). This is different to someone who prefers not to sleep with someone until they’ve built more of a connection. To someone on the ace-spectrum, everyone is equally attractive/unattractive—we’re just not into you no matter how pretty you may be. To complicate things a little: aesthetic attraction is a thing, but it doesn’t mean we want to sleep with you. So, we might think you’re pretty, it just doesn’t do anything sexually attractive for us (or, for some people, it does very rarely). You might liken it to an art gallery: you might see a pretty painting, but that doesn’t mean you want to take it home and nail it to the wall. I hope that clears things up. If you want to learn more, there are plenty of great books out there that dive into all the details we don’t have time for here. (If I may recommend one: Ace Voices by Eris Young is a good start.) Now, you might be wondering how someone on the ace spectrum writes romance or sex when it’s not something many of us are all that interested in (I’m generalising - it’s called a spectrum for a reason). By the time I realised I was demi, I’d already been writing and publishing for roughly eight years. The entire time, romance either didn’t exist in my stories or it wasn’t a priority, more of a side story that developed slowly. My main characters just weren’t that bothered about dating or sex, and they’ve always needed a strong emotional connection before they developed any feelings or found anyone attractive. Folks, my characters knew we were demi and didn’t tell me. Some of my readers might have had an inkling, too: I once got a comment from someone who’d read two of my stories and praised the ace representation (this was before I knew), so I saw the comment and just thought ‘oh wow, that’s great, I didn’t know I did that but yay!’ and moved on. Now that I know, however, representing the ace spectrum (and really the whole rainbow, but we’re talking about ace-specs today) is really important to me. We see various romance tropes on TV and in books all the time, and it’s usually about how handsome, beautiful, and unbearably hot the characters are. Book covers with half-naked guys come to mind (sorry, but those do literally nothing for me; if anything, I find them extremely off-putting; I don’t even know this dude’s name yet and he’s already got his shirt off? wtf?? calm down, hun). If that doesn’t fit with your own orientation, though, it’s harder to see yourself in those characters. So, I’m more focussed in the way I write romance and sex now. I can make sure my ace-spec readers feel seen and understood, whether they’re straight, bi, gay, pan, etc. (and yes, you can be any of those and ace/demi at the same time—but that’s another post we don’t have time for today). As a demisexual author, I write romance slowly, and rarely as the focus of the story. It takes a lot for my characters to develop feelings for someone. They never know if or when it might happen. People seeing someone pretty and wanting to have sex with them because of it? My characters and I don’t feel that. Since I started writing my debut novel around 2015, I’ve written romance the only way it made sense to me (who doesn’t?), though I didn’t realise until 2023 just how much I had in common with my characters. Once the feelings are there, though… Then, and only then, does the attraction hit. Not having sex before the emotional connection has formed isn’t a preference—the interest and sexual attraction simply aren’t there any earlier. I’ve had a few readers comment on how sudden it seems—rest assured, it’s sudden for me and my characters, too. My characters have no control (and I mean no control) over who they’ll end up finding sexually attractive. Here’s a comparison for my fellow gamers: falling in love as a demi-sexual only happens when the other person has completed a very specific set of secret side quests, except we don’t know what those are either. Unconditional trust, mutual respect, and communication are the bare minimum. Once the secret achievements have been unlocked, it’ll either hit us or it won’t. We have no control over this. Likewise, I don’t always know who my characters will fall in love with. Sometimes I think I know when I’m still plotting the story, but then I write it and my characters just don’t see each other that way, or they might but they’re not there yet. That’s fine. Other times it surprises me as much as it surprises my characters. It’s also important to me to show different kinds of intimacy in my writing. In current media, intimacy is often equated to sex, but there are so many ways to be intimate. Your characters might hold each other after a rough day—no expectations around sex, only snuggles for the sake of snuggling, and it’ll be everything. They might have a deep conversation without judgement and support each other unconditionally. They can be vulnerable with each other in whatever way is relevant in that moment. Intimacy doesn’t have to be physical—it can be emotional or even spiritual, too. It all counts. So, you’ll see a lot of slow-burn romances in my books, and not a single instance of ‘that stranger is hot, want’. My main characters and I don’t relate to that. It actually feels really foreign to us. This isn’t to say I write the same thing, over and over. As writers, we should push ourselves, so I’ll try to write out of that comfort zone on occasion. I’ve written bloody battles where magic gets flung around left and right, too, and I’ve never been in one of those. (shocking, I know) It’s a lot harder for me, though, to write two main characters who see each other once, immediately fall in love because of their good looks, and then get married. I wouldn’t know where to start with their thought processes. So, writing main characters like that wouldn’t feel very authentic, and I don’t think I could do it very convincingly. It’s easier with side characters, where I don’t need to go into detail beyond ‘I saw her and knew she was the one’. My main characters and I will be happy for said side characters, we’ll just also be confused. It’s my job as a writer and author to write words I believe in, that my readers can believe in and feel seen by. It’s not my job to write something just for the sake of it. That I get to represent an underrepresented minority of the population—roughly 1%—makes this all the more important. And that is how I write romance and sex as an ace-spec author: very slowly, with purpose, and to represent. For further reading, check out The Trevor Project, What Is Asexuality, and Asexuality. Sarina Langer is a dark fantasy author of both epic and urban paranormal novels. Her characters knew she's queer (demi and pan) and has ADHD before she did (and they didn't say *anything* to her).
She’s as obsessed with books and stationery now as she was as a child, when she drowned her box of colour pencils in water so they wouldn’t die and scribbled her first stories on corridor walls. (‘A first sign of things to come’, according to her mother. ‘Normal toddler behaviour’, according to Sarina.) In her free time she usually reads one audiobook, one ebook, and one paperback (one for every occasion), plays video games, and obsesses over mythology and languages. She has a weakness for books on writing and pretty words. (Specificity, anyone? Or perhaps nebulous?) Sarina lives with her partner in the south of England. 1) Tell us about your Romantasy book/series Hearts Desire is a second-chance romance with meddling Greek gods. Living among mortals, the Muse Terpsichore has reinvented herself again and again. The one constant in her life is her passion for dancing. In Hearts Desire, she’s known as Bliss and is enjoying her dream life as the star dancer for the Paris Opera Ballet. If it weren’t for her broken heart, everything would be perfect. Then her brother, Apollo, drops in to warn her their father has awakened. Not wanting to become a pawn in yet another of Zeus's maniacal schemes, Bliss flees across the ocean to hide with her many-times great-granddaughter. Magic and mayhem ensue. 2) Are you a fan of a certain trope when it comes to romance such as enemies to lovers? If so, why? Ohhh, choosing just one is difficult. Of course, I enjoy second chance romance, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers—all because I love how the characters overcome the twisty history that’s kept them apart in the first place. I also can’t resist grumpy/sunshine. Watching the antics between the two extreme personalities always amuses me and I love how ultimately they balance each other. 3) What is your favorite fantasy creature or supernatural being to write about and why? Witches! I grew up watching Bewitched and Dark Shadows. Samantha and Angelique are nothing alike personality wise, but they both fascinated me. I love creating worlds with magic, with the limitations and the possibilities—and the repercussions. 4) Who are your favorite Romantasy authors? In no particular order—Holly Black, Erin Morgenstern, Patricia Briggs, and Ilona Andrews, to name a few. 5) What is next for you? I’m writing a follow story for Neviah, a divination witch. She first appeared in the “Shadows and Sorcery” anthology. She is one of the Kingston witches, though she is only peripherally connected to Priya and Marin. Neviah intrigues me. Her character is an optimist at heart but her story has dark themes and more ideas for her keep cropping up in my imagination. When not daydreaming about plot lines and characters Andra practices yoga, reads voraciously, and drinks too much coffee. She loves road trips and going off on wild tangents. Andra writes in multiple genres—including but not limited to—urban fantasy, steamy romance, paranormal romance, and horror.
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About the Author:S. K. Gregory is an author, editor and blogger. She currently resides in Northern Ireland. “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” Archives
April 2025
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