Lissette E. Manning

Having written two Valentine’s Day stories this year, I am feeling a little like a fraud. I mean my stories are full of the appropriate settings and customs, from candy hearts and steamy bedrooms scenes in the contemporary story to lace and valentine’s poems in the historical story. Yet here I sit having not really celebrated a Valentine’s Day with my own husband in the 16 years we’ve been married.

You see my husband is a musician, and so he has had a standing gig on Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, you name it of the romantic holidays. There is one place he plays where the woman who owns the bed and breakfast/restaurant does send me home a rose for sharing my husband on such a day.

So, how do I usually spend my time on this lover’s holiday? Well, I spend it with my boys, although that won’t last much longer as they are both now officially teenagers! But, in the past, I’ve make pink punch (really good and easy – per cup a scoop of raspberry sherbet, a third a cup of pink lemonade and pour over about a half a cup or more to taste of 7-UP). I usually also bake some kind of sweet red and pink dessert. If I’m lucky, I catch time to watch a sappy chick flick.

Sometimes I do dream though of a romantic Valentine’s Day, and I think in my own way I put those dreams into my stories this year, in my own magical sort of way of course. As one can in fiction, I took things up a notch with each story. In Sacred Sex, a contemporary tale, I had a modern day witch and her hubby trying to reconnect with love potions and candles, elaborate dinner and steamy sex rituals. And let me tell you, I really want to try that ritual someday *winks*

Now, in Love, Creativity & Magick, A Steampunk Valentine’s Day Tale, I got to live out those dreams in Victorian England, a place I often daydream about living in lots of Regency set stories I read. Again, I had a witch, but this time a more old-time one who can make things happen with just a thought. Add to that the dream date of a dark and mysterious vampire, and well isn’t that the stuff dreams are made of? There is still lace and Valentine’s cards, but the story is much darker than the first, my kind of paranormal, more tragic with the happy ever after fought hard for.

So there, two Valentine’s Day dreams. Of course, I would be just as happy with dinner and a movie, even take out and a rental if the house was empty.

Synopsis for Love, Creativity & Magick: A Steampunk Valentine’s Day Tale:

All acts of magick take on shades of gray in the end, especially for Emma, one of four females witches who by birthright belong in the social circles of the privileged upper ten thousand in London. Yet, by rumor of the unknown and the misunderstood, she stands apart, cut by her peers along with her cousins, because they hold a secret—each is gifted with magick.

Their elders had taught them respect for their powers even when mixed with a spanking amount of fanciful mischief. On the other hand, if a lesson was warranted, then white verses black magick could be hard to define. Nowhere was the color of steam more evident than in the matters of justice, a slippery term to define. Yet, they’d made breaking the laws of society their mission. Most of their nights at parties and balls were spent creating a magickal comedy of errors, helping the uptight aristocracy side step their fastidious standards.

Only this year, days before Valentine’s Day, a damnable day for women without suitors, Emma is not quite sure what is happening to her. Something dark and seductive, something not of this world, is luring her, possessing her, and she has no comprehension of what or who the presence really is. But, when he does show his face finally, and she feels him to be a nightwalker, she must fear not only the threat he poses to her blood and to the energy or magick he can suck from her, but also the danger he poses to her heart. After all of these days feeling him, wanting him, she has to wonder if her feelings are just a matter of his compulsion, if she is under this vampire’s own type of magick.

To complicate matters further, the vampire’s propositions are as exciting as they are scandalous, to teach her how to power her magick with the overabundance of sexual energy she bears. But, how he knows such things he remains elusive about. And there is the added attraction that this vampire was a failed inventor in life, one with a basement full of contraptions she finds she can power through the use of her sexual energy. Valentine’s Day seems like it could be all kinds of fun this year now.

Yet, in these days of social unrest and out-of-control creativity, what is a witch to do with a vampire? When Valentine’s Day rolls around, and a secret is revealed, what will be left for her?

Synopsis For Sacred Sex:

Just a few days before Valentine’s Day, Margaret visits her aunt’s craft consignment shop hoping for a spell or oil, and any advice on how to re-connect with her husband, Michael, who has become distant since losing his job. Determined to save her marriage, she gets more than she bargained for from Aunt Minny, a practicing witch. Armed with recipes to enhance love,  a massage oil type love potion, a new Valentine’s Day candle and a book on Sacred Sex Rituals, Margaret prepares to seduce her husband.

But, his initial reaction is not what she planned for…

Follow Margaret and Michael on a holiday of love journey, a throwback to the kinky pagan sex rituals once practiced long ago on this day before it was named after a saint.  You may want to take notes to enhance your own Valentine’s Day this year!

About The Author:

Ever since she was young, Kiki Howell has loved to listen to a well-woven tale with real characters, inspired plots, and delightful resolutions. Kiki spend hours lost in books and soon knew creating lives, loves, and losses with just words had to be the greatest thing she could do.  She’s now had over twenty stories published and couldn’t be more thrilled or grateful to see her creations polished and out in the real world.

www.kikihowell.com