Special Guest - Sarah Masters

Please welcome my great friend, fellow Brit Babe and super-duper MM author Sarah Masters to my blog today. She's just released new books and one of them Mane Attraction stole me away from my to-do list yesterday as I immersed myself in a steamy shifter story set in London, it was one of those once I'd dipped into the first page,  I was hooked.

Tell us a bit about Mane Attraction.

I wrote this book years ago. It was previously published elsewhere, but the publisher folded so I popped the story in a file and didn’t think about it until recently. I thought it was about time it was sent out into the world again, so I revised it and here it is!

What kind of story is it?

It’s a shifter book, about a lion called Levi who appears on Dominic Hurley’s fire escape. Dom is Levi’s mate, and it takes a while for Dom to accept that. It was fun to write. I didn’t plan for it to be funny, but Dom’s voice came out that way, as well as him being really Brit-blokey. I love him, he’s amusing and hopefully comes across as a typical British man.

Have you written any other shifter books?

Yes, I have one with Pride Publishing called Cabin Fever, about a panther and a man who lost his partner. The panther teaches him to love again. It was very emotional to write.

Do you have any more shifter books for us in the future?

I should imagine so. I wouldn’t mind writing another in the same style as Mane Attraction because it’s easy-going and laid back. I fancy a tiger next time, though!

Blurb: 

Dominic Hurley is presented with a mission—by a lion who changes into a man. Can he fulfill destiny's wishes without bringing himself harm? 

Dom is an average guy, working in a book packing company and getting through his boring life the best way he knows how. One Friday night, after sinking one too many beers, he finds an animal on his apartment balcony window—an animal that changes his life.

Levian Brooke is that animal, although he’s also one sexy-as-hell man. He has arrived in London to make Dominic his mate—and to get Dom’s help in a quest to free one of Levian’s family members from London zoo. 

Dominic is drawn into the seedier parts of his beloved London in his search for someone to create fake passports so Levian can return to where he came from. A sinister element find out his involvement in Levian’s quest and come after him. 

It’s a race against time and a fight for his life as Dominic finds inner strength to do things he’d never even dreamed about.

Excerpt:

This was the life. Sitting up on my bed, back against a few pillows, cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. All right, so it wasn’t the most exciting thing to do, but after a hard week working my arse off, a Friday night kicking back was just what I needed. Shame I didn’t have anyone to share this time with, but what the hell. I had no family, and Rick was out on the town—my pal, by the way—and I hadn’t much fancied joining him. Besides, I always felt awkward, you know? Like, I’m gay and he’s not. Watching him hit on women had got old a while back, and finding a bloke to spend some time with was hard in the clubs Rick took me to. Difficult to judge who was into what, know what I mean?

I stared at the TV, the reception fuzzy because the damn whacky aerial needed tweaking. And I couldn’t be arsed to get up and tweak it. Too much effort, what with the alcohol flowing through my veins, the cigarette smoke making my head light. How many had I sunk so far? Three beers? Four? I glanced at the bedside cabinet. Eight empty bottles.

Shit.

The show on the TV was doing my nut in. Some boring crap about a cop trying to solve a crime. A cold case—been cold for so long the damn thing was iced up—and it didn’t take a genius to work out the cop was going to get a light-bulb moment in a minute and crack the fucking thing.

Jesus. I should have gone out with Rick—Rick with the hairy chest and back that I kind of wanted to tell him might put women off.

A creak outside had me jerking my head toward the fire escape doors. I rented an apartment—the Brit name for a flat that’s just a little bit fancier than your average place—with sky-high rent, a shower that dribbled water, and a bloody doorman who never manned the damn doors. I begrudged paying a service charge for that kind of rubbish.

The creak sounded again, and I smiled. It had to be Rick, pissed as a fart and on his way up here to lament the fact there were no decent women out tonight, something he did way too often for my liking. I wished he didn’t use the fire escape. It wasn’t funny when you were sprawled naked in bed on a Sunday, morning glory standing to attention, and found your best mate staring at you through the glass in the door. Fuck, he was such a—

I looked through that glass, frowning because, hell, Rick ought to be standing out there right about now. The stairs only creak twice—once on the middle step and once on the top—so unless he was crouching down behind the wooden bottom half of the door, something was way weird. He was probably fucking about, planning to scare me. Wouldn’t be the first time.

I swung my legs off the bed and stubbed my smoke out in the overfull ashtray I kept meaning to empty but never did. After standing—head was a bit fuzzy, but hey, whatever—I tottered over to the door and peered out. Nope. No Rick. The only thing there was the sprawling city of London topped with a black sky and gray smoggy clouds. Lights, bright and multi-colored, stretched for miles, an expanse of illumination that never failed to amaze me.

Yeah, I dug that kind of thing.

But not the lion sitting on the balcony, looking up at me.

Eight beers didn’t usually mess with my mind like this, but tonight they had. I shook my head and blinked. The lion was still there. Now, if I’d smoked a joint I could understand the big bastard’s appearance, but… My legs weakened, damn near sent me to my knees, and my heart beat so hard I thought I’d have a heart attack. Yeah, the reaction to a lion sitting on your balcony does that to a body, know what I mean? Who the hell sees this kind of crap after a couple—all right—eight beers, eh?

Dominic Hurley, that’s who. Thirty-something, sad-bastard-with-no-life Hurley.

The lion yawned, showing teeth that shit the life out of me and a cavity that could easily fit my head inside. Okay, having arms and legs like jelly wasn’t something I wanted to cope with—if it had been just from the beer I wouldn’t mind—and I staggered a little, reaching my hand out to steady myself on the wall beside the door.

A groan that sounded human followed the yawn as the lion’s mouth closed, and that lion, that massive, should-be-in-a-zoo-or-Kenya lion, winked. Yeah, as insane as it sounds, it winked. Like it was more than just a lion. But that was stupid, wasn’t it, to think like that? Those animals didn’t have human qualities. And they didn’t damn well come visiting blokes on a Friday night for a bit of a chinwag and a game of poker.

It was the beer. I knew it, the lion knew it, and I swung the door open. The lion remained seated, looking me up and down as though deciding which part of me to eat first. Surreal as all this was, I fully expected to snap out of whatever dream I was in any second…now.

I didn’t snap out of anything. The beast was still there.

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