Sleeping With Dogs and Other Lovers

Cynthia Amas has her hands full. In the middle of launching a boutique matchmaking service – Second Acts — amid the sun, surf, and celebrities of Southern California, her own romantic life gets a whole lot more complicated…and steamy. While expertly juggling the needs of her exclusive clients,her own maddeningly irresistible bad-boy, sometime lover unexpectedly returns for a hot and heavy reunion.

Meanwhile, her high-maintenance mother busily concocts harebrained schemes for meddling in Cynthia’s affairs. And her new best girlfriend—the sexy proprietress of a chic Beverly Hills dog-grooming salon—just happens to roll with a purebred Read More

Reviews

From Kirkus: “The misunderstandings and mischief will keep readers turning pages, and the light-weight content makes for easy enjoyment … erotic adventure for readers more interested in an entertaining read than deep thought.” —Read All The Reviews Here

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Love, Lies & Dating: All Tied Up? Holy Dominatrix, Batman!

Dear Second Acts;
This is a hard thing to write about, but here goes. I met this guy who, how should I put this, likes to be dominated. We met in a Whole Foods Market about two months ago. We’re both really into natural foods and cooking, etc. But this guy is big and strong and rugged…not submissive in any way. Read More

Losing It For Love

All of us long for true love. Unfortunately, however, some of us despair of ever finding it. Often it’s because we live with a gripping sense of defeat brought on by some unwanted feature. Usually our nemesis is our weight, although sometimes it’s a particular part of our body, like a nose or a chin that is undeniably out of proportion to the rest of our face.

There are more than enough thoughtless or shallow people in the world who may insist upon defining us by our single most troubling physical feature. We’re fat, we’re ugly, we’re not sexy. Read More

Reviews


From Amazon: People are always telling women to just accept themselves the way they are, yet we live in a world where being tall, thin and beautiful is just expected of us! Thank god for these stories. They actually tell the truth about what goes through women’s minds about their appearance and what we wish we could be! Bravo! Read More

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I’m Large and In Charge, So Where’s My Lover Boy?

For as long as I can remember, I’d always been the short, heavy girl
with zero confidence who was the butt of everyone’s jokes. To this very
day, I can still hear the taunts and teases, and feel my face flush with
anger and bitterness from all the misery they caused. Read More

Starstruck Romance

As her Second Acts Dating Service truly takes off, Cynthia Amas discovers that in the heady world of high-end Hollywood romance, with success comes complexity. In this wildly seductive romp through the lush canyons and lavish neighborhoods of Los Angeles, the line between business and pleasure quickly blurs in a dizzying rush of sex and celebrity.

Just as our heroine’s uncanny genius for matching up her growing roster of exclusive love seekers continues to deepen, her own love life reaches a fever pitch.

Things get complicated. And funny. And excruciatingly sensual.

Read More

Reviews:

From Kirkus: An intrepid young matchmaker in Hollywood sparks chemistry with an old flame, an ex-flame and an A-list actor, all while finding love for her clients in this engaging romance. Cynthia Amas has no trouble juggling her new dating service and a slew of fresh clients from among the Hollywood elite. Her best friend, the outspoken Lolita, has her hands full running a dog-grooming business catering to the stars and managing her three dogs of varying sizes and temperaments, who bring her juicy gossip (at least she hears them talking!) Read More

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Love, Lies & Dating: Will This Relationship Go Up in Smoke?

Dear Second Acts;
I have been seeing a gorgeous guy for a while. He’s a trial lawyer and a good one. He is passionate about his work and about me. There’s really just one problem, but it’s a big, fat, stinky one. He smokes cigars. Now I know there are lots of women who like cigars, or at least pretend to. I know they’re supposed to make a man look powerful and sexy and all that, but I find them unbelievably disgusting. Read More

F. Scott Fitzergald’s Gatsby Girls

Now Available

She was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl — F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, “I married the heroine of my stories.” All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda. Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century — the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald’s stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the “flapper” to life. Read More

 

Reviews

 

From Midwest Book Review: A prized addition for academic and community library American Literature Studies collections, “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby Girls” is very highly recommended reading and will well serve to introduce a new generation of readers to the literary talents of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Read More

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Z-- Christina Riccicrop668Z Explores the Tumultuous Life and Loves of the Original Gatsby Girl

She was beautiful, impulsive, carefree, and determined to make a name for herself. Zelda Fitzgerald, the subject of a new Amazon series, was the iconic woman of the 1920s Jazz Age and the inspiration for many of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s female characters. Read More

B&W Zelda & Scott on grassScott and Zelda: A Marriage on Fire

By Ron Hogan
F. Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre while he was stationed in Alabama, serving in the United States Army during the First World War—just as Jay Gatsby first meets Daisy in the backstory to The Great Gatsby. In the novel, Gatsby loses Daisy to Tom Buchanan for a while, but unlike Gatsby, Fitzgerald was able to marry his love… two weeks after Scribner agreed to publish his first novel, This Side of Paradise, which finally convinced the 20-year-old debutante of his ability to provide for her. Read More

F. Scott Fitzgerald and His Gatsby Girls

By Jeff Nilsson, Saturday Evening Post Historian

By the time he published The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald was already one of the best-known authors in America.  His fame had begun years earlier with the bestselling novel, This Side of Paradise, which sold out in 24 hours and went through 12 reprintings. Read More

True Romance–Love and Laughter

Layout 1Many of the relationships in these eleven stories begin as serious tales of rejected advances, broken engagements, sexless marriages and cheating husbands, but just when a happy ending seems impossible, a little laughter brings about a positive outcome! A shallow woman fixated on meeting a handsome but oblivious stranger is charmed instead by a persistent funny guy with a winning personality. The klutzy secretary with a snobby fiancé meets an admirer who finds her clumsiness more endearing than embarrassing. A married couple attempting to rekindle their sex life is faced with the challenge of finding a time and a place for intimacy while raising their two curious little boys, only to realize how much closer they’ve become since their carefree days as newlyweds. Finding a little humor in your relationship can make all the difference! Read More

 

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real loveI Found My Man In The Classified Ads

Leaving soft candles burning, I took one last look around and, satisfied, pulled the door closed behind me. It was six o’clock. By then, I had a complete picture of P. McDougal in my head: a distinguished-looking gray-haired man, above medium height, who carried himself straight and wore his clothes like a banker in a Wall Street ad. By then, I was so curious to see him that I headed for the neighborhood Italian restaurant on the corner just across the street, planning to wait around in hopes of catching a glimpse of him. Read the Story Here

The Tempting: Seducing The Nephilim

the temptingEve Dowling left Thibodaux Hospital and never looked back. She didn’t want to look back… ever. She and her son Philip moved into the west wing of the Gregiore Estate mansion with husband-to-be, Beau Le Masters and, by all appearances, they were already the perfect, happy family.

Was Eve’s life a dream? Some days were harder than others when she could not shake the shadowy fear that seeped into her sleep and turned her dreams into nightmares. Nightmares of being ravaged by an exotic creature that she comes to believe is a Nephilim. The horrors were different from night to night and yet they were the same: broken images, flashes of events, people, places, pieces of a broken puzzle that didn’t fit together.

An emotional story of love threatened by creatures first described in ancient texts as the Nephilim or “fallen Sons of God.” Could Beau Le Masters himself actually be a Nephilim? Will Eve have the strength to vanquish the evil that surrounds her and her son, Philip? Will true love be able to conquer pure evil? Can she resist the Nephilim? All is revealed in The Tempting!

Tempting Quote 1-resized

 

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A TEMPTING Interview with Author D.M. Pratt

Who is D.M. Pratt and when did the dream of being a writer begin?

D.M.: I am a story teller. I have always been a story teller. When I was very young, I would retell my dreams from the night before to my friends when we came out to play. And those rather fantastic dreams were always embellished stories by the end of the day. I started writing poetry at about 13 when I was moved by an event or a person and found it was the only way to express my feelings.

I picked up the guitar at 18 and my poems became songs. I loved performing in front of live audiences. So naturally, I became an actress and loved the exploration of self that comes with building characters.

Read the Full Interview 

Women Undone

 

 

While the ’70s were about equal rights and the sexual revolution, women in the ’80s were more concerned about their economic situation. It’s easy to understand why some of the women in these stories would fantasize about finding romance on a cruise ship, or running off to a big city and becoming a fashion model, but as this collection of stories reveals, there are no shortcuts to happiness.

These were not the days of speed dating and finding love online. Women looked for love with personal ads and a very rudimentary form of computer dating.

Read More

Reviews

From Amazon: A Unique 80’s Inspired Book for Hopeless Romantics  –The ‘80s are back! This collection is made of different short stories, but they all have one common theme — they are about women in relationships in the 1980s. I love the bits of nostalgia that come with reading these stories. This isn’t going to be your traditional romance books, but how fun to shake things up once in a while! Short and to the point, highly recommend!

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Love Walkout–Is It Really Forever?

“Last night bothered me, but not for the reasons you might think. I wanted to be with you, Gordy, but in my mind I was making love to my husband. The man I left back home. And right now that’s where I’m heading. I’m going home.” Read the Rest of the Story Here

True Romance: Nine Romantic Stories

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Who doesn’t treasure a romantic story that touches the heart?

We can all relate in one way or another to the experiences on these pages; the struggle to overcome grief after the loss of a loved one, the betrayal and guilt of adultery, the desperation to make a loved one happy, young lovers facing the hardships of the real world and much more.

Whether it’s a happily-ever-after fantasy, or a tear-jerking heartbreaker, the nine romantic adventures in this TruLove Collection will stay with you forever. Read More

 

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the best of my three loversThe Best of My Three Lovers

“I listened to the howling wind and watched the snow fall around me and waited for death. I had neither the strength nor the will to go on. I had no reason to live. I had destroyed my life years ago when I married Lawrence Williams. Now, I had come to this wilderness searching for the one man who held my heart in his hands. Well, I had found him.”
Read The Story Here

Bedroom Roulette

Love stories from the beginning of the 1970s are about as wild as you can find. This TruLOVE Collection, edited by Ron Hogan of Beatrice.com and Lady Jane Salon fame, contains an amazing selection of stories that epitomize what was happening during the era of “free love!” “Countercultural” trends of the 1960s were becoming mainstream, allowing people to tell stories that would have been taboo in previous eras.

There are many surprises and a lot of passion-filled twists in this selection of snapshots of what was on America’s mind at a pivotal moment in American cultural history. Read More

Reviews


From Amazon: I found out that Ron Hogan was editing this collection of love stories through Twitter. I am a fan of his, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to check out these stories since he loves them so much. What a great surprise! These stories showcase what love was like in the 1970s. By no means does it encapsulate everyone’s experiences, but it does let you look into the window for certain individuals.

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We’re Just Two Girls in Love–With Each Other

Cara is accepting of Edie’s sexuality… although she’s still convinced Edie could be quite pretty if she just allowed herself to be more feminine. “Two women sharing an apartment was a situation so common in that crowded, expensive city, that it couldn’t possibly cause any comment. And Edie was as good as her word. About everything. She pampered me as if I were a baby myself. She made me give up my job instantly, saying that it wasn’t good for the baby, me constantly on my feet and lugging heavy trays. Edie made enough money to support us both in a modest fashion, and she shared it generously with me.” Read the Rest of the Story Here

Age of Eve: Return of the Nephilim

Eve Dowling, a talented writer for a successful magazine that covers New Orleans society events, is leading an exciting life filled with friends, family and work–until it is turned upside down by a fateful encounter with a stunningly handsome mystery man who ignites her most sensual fantasies.

When Eve awakes naked, sexually ravaged and alone in the garden of one of New Orleans’ most historic homes, she begins her search to uncover who this mystery man really is. She tracks him through the dark side of Old Algiers with the aid of one of its most famous Voodoo priestesses to an abandoned sanitarium in the heart of the swamplands surrounding New Orleans. Read More

Reviews

From Jeff Favre: Look out, vampires—here come the Nephilim. The popularity of different genres tend to rise and fall in waves, and few have ridden a higher crest recently than vampires. That may change with D.M. Pratt’s “Age of Eve,” which introduces an ancient supernatural being that is probably new to most readers.

Read the Jeff Favre Review

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Author Deborah Pratt Reveals Secrets of Writing and Nephilim

1. What inspired you to write Age of Eve:Return of the Nephilim?
I’d been working for several years on my Vision Quest book series and related interactive multi-media entertainment. The Vision Quest consumed a large part of my life for a very long time, until I realized I needed to take a break and write something totally different.

Read the Full Interview