Welcome! Please introduce yourself and tell us about your latest release.
Hi Molly, I’m delighted to be here and share a bit of my life and work with your readers. In case you don’t know me, I’m the Italian globetrotter author published by eXtasy Books, Whiskey Creek Press Torrid and Romance Divine on the genres of M/M, M/M/F, paranormal, horror, historical and a touch of the contemporary. For those who do know me, I’m the author of Visionquest, my newest release and a dark, bloody, shape-shifting one, in the best of my horror tradition. Or maybe you know me as the author of the new fantasy saga that’s raging on Internet, the Virtus Saga. Already 3 chapters have been released—The Sex Book 1, The Game Book 2 & The Festival Book 3—with many more to come. But I also signed more contemporary works like To Seduce A Soul Mate, more horrors like Bloody Passion and Sacrificial Sex, or paranormal fantasies such as Spying the Alcove & historical Roman Seduction and Divinitas. As a special mention, and you’ve probably already heard of it, is my contemporary novel Tasting Leon’s Mark, the reason being that it’s the sequel of my next release, Re-Scue, out by July 2010, publisher Romance Divine. Hot borderline story, it centers on two souls reincarnating through several lifetimes to fulfill their lust for blood and sex, pain and pleasure tied together in an intriguing game of erotic enslavement through knife cutting that shapes the character’s repeated lives. Only one rule: never fall in love. Sex and blood are the only fair game in a tantalizing chase through time and space to deal with an attraction not even death can stop. But are they ready to take the next step?
Have you ever had an idea for a story which scared you after you began writing it?
Well, when I first started writing horror, I really got scared. I couldn’t believe I was actually plotting human sacrifices like in Visionquest and Sacrificial Sex, knife carvings like in the Virtus Saga and in Re-Scue, and blood spattering like in Bloody Passion, For the life of me, it was totally out of any context. Never, no, never even READ that stuff, much less watched it on TV or in movies ‘cause I’ve always been afraid of it. The rare occasions I happened to glance at something vaguely in that genre, I lived it like I was the victim, like my skin was being slashed to bits not an actor’s, and of course, it terrified me. But then, this “sensitivity” of mine proved effective in writing somehow. Conjuring up the most horrifying scenes didn’t scare me as much as reading or watching one, quite the opposite in fact. To my surprise, I turned them into erotica, still dark and bloody, yet seductive, too, too, like a perversion or a fantasy the characters actually enjoy to the point I built entire stories on it. Just to mention a few, my upcoming Re-Scue and the Virtus Saga, where things get pretty rough between Christopher Templeton and Ylianor Meyer as their bond grows, thanks to a knife carving game he likes to play on her skin.
Have you incorporated actual events from your own life into your books?
I don’t like writing about myself, so generally avoid my direct experiences or even me as a character. However, in one case I did use some of my experiences, if not myself, as the character in one of my books, Tasting Leon’s Mark. Those who know the book, also know there’s a female character, Janet, who is crucial in resolving Leon and Sean’s issues, the same ones started in Re-Scue and never completely solved with the close of the first book. Well, Janet is loosely based on me. She has my tastes and shares experiences, particularly her very important love story with a woman named Laurie. Yes, it happened to me when I was as young as Janet, a great love I can never forget no matter how many years have passed. And like Janet, I was too young to understand fully, and our ages were too far apart to presume there could be a future to our relationship. Still, it was a key part of my life, and I’m glad it found its way into Janet’s experiences.
How much research do you do? Do you research first and then write, or do you write first, then research as needed?
I do a lot of research depending on the genre. As you know, I have a vast range—from contemporary to fantasy, horror, historical, and paranormal—but not all of them require research. The contemporary, fantasy and paranormal rely solely on my imagination and knowledge, whereas in historical contexts, I use Internet to fill in the gaps of what I don’t already know from my extensive studies and readings. To me, history is a fascinating subject and my good memory has stored a lot of information that have come useful in my books, although sometimes it’s not enough. My novel Divinitas, for instance, would have never seen the light without a solid research behind it because it’s set in and portrays ancient myths and legends of the past, spanning from Ancient Egypt, to the Persian Empire and to Celtic Britain. So I needed to understand thoroughly both the times and the myths before I changed them to fit my own imaginative story line. Research also had a fundamental part in Roman Seduction and Spying the Alcove since I wanted to get the customs of 1st century AD as exact as possible.
This form of research, like I said, is mostly based on books and Internet, but there is another, very pleasurable type of research that has to do with travel. And since I’ve done a lot of it in my times, I’ve also used it extensively in my books to describe settings, culture differences, moods, nuances. For example, my stay in India, however brief, found its way into several books, from Trespassing All Hallows Ever, to Divinitas, to Re-Scue and Tasting Leon’s Mark. Or my month long vacation in Sicily returns in Spying the Alcove, while my trip to Jordan became the setting for my Virtus Saga.
Is there any message you want readers to take from reading your work?
My books are full of messages, all of which I hope readers take with them because my stories go beyond a purely erotica genre. I use sex to make readers think. Where else would you find religious themes mixed with hot sex if not in Divinitas? Or Plato’s theories on soul mates described in To Seduce A Soul Mate? I give my novels contexts, plots, even philosophy to bring my readers to question values, beliefs and prejudices they take for granted, and realize they can make alternative choices. It’s also the reason I prefer writing the M/M genre, controversial by nature, which I use to show there is no black and white in this world, rather there are infinite shades of gray, all equally right for a person if such becomes their choice in life. So I blend it all in with the sex and it makes my stories more powerful while equally enjoyable as any other erotic tale.
Are you a plotter or a pantser? And have you ever had a story take on a life of its own?
I’m more of a pantser, usually acting on my first instinct no matter how rash it can turn out to be. My personality’s fault, no doubt, since I’m too straightforward to go through much plotting or sneaking around, especially since things in my life happened without much planning, rather when I was ready for them.
So no long thought-out plot will do for me, rather a story that starts without any clear direction, then suddenly develops into the Virtus Saga, a ten books affair. Yes, this definitely took a life of its own, the characters playing inside my head for quite some time before I set them down on paper. Mostly, I kept seeing this handsome dark prince with long hair flying wild as he rode on his black horse, utterly lost in a land he should’ve known but oddly didn’t—a storm about to hit him just to make the situation more tragic—until he sees candlelight shimmering in a window. When he gets to it, he realizes he’s not lost at all, in fact he’s very close to home, but with the storm’s fast approach, he decides to stop there for the night if they’ll offer him hospitality. But the woman standing on the thresholds feels awfully familiar, though he hasn’t the slightest idea who she is or why she should feel like someone he’s intimate with. Thus begins Virtus and from there on, readers will get more surprises than they’ve bargained for LOL
How long did it take for you to be published?
Long enough to know an upstart author should never lose faith in herself and in the value of her work. This is what I learned from my complicated publishing history. Virtus was the first book to be contracted back in 2007, but saw the light of day only starting in 2010…just to make a long story short. Instead, the first book I published was Trespassing All Hallows Eve, back in 2008, which it was the answer to my publisher’s holiday season submission call. Now that went smoothly, but only because the editor already knew me and I didn’t have to go through the long process of submitting, then waiting for an answer, usually negative, then submitting again, another no thank you answer, and so on. Patience…yeah, it’s what I learned during my long wait, but eventually Virtus, submitted to about a dozen publishers in the course of about two years, finally found a home!
If you could go back and tell yourself anything when you first began your writing career, what would you say?
To have more sex in order to write hotter stories LOL ROFLAMAO! That's a good one!
Laptop or pen and ink? What are your ‘must-haves’ when writing?
Definitely PC, no strange keyboarded laptops with separate mouse, with tiny screens impossible to read and…well, I think you get it. As for pen and ink, I long abandoned both, too much work to type everything into a DOC file afterward. If I work at home, I write in what I consider the computer room. It’s the smallest room of the house, a cluttered space, full of CDs, comic books (about 3.000 of them), some books, a TV, a computer on a cluttered desk, a leather office chair with wheels, a low table, a portable computer, a large closet with mirror doors and a couch. When I write, my mate usually sits on the couch, working or playing on the portable. I always have music playing, anything from jazz to country, pop, rock, Brazilian, Italian, revival, disco—not house my mate hates house music—and it’s a blissful time of writing, hearing music, commenting emails, sharing bits and pieces of my story, asking advice and anything else to feel creative yet close together.
Who are your favorite authors? Who would you say influenced you the most?
Too many to count, but I’ll try listing them anyway, even if it’s far from comprehensive: Philip K. Dick, JRR Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Mitchell, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Jane Austin, Robert J. Sawyer, John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Lindsey Davis, Ellis Peters, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Ellery Queen, Katherine Kerr, Emilio Salgari, Umberto Eco, Elsa Morante, Alexandre Dumas, Fiedor Dostoievski, Lev Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Thomas Mann, Eric Maria Remarque, PD James, Marguerite Yourcenair, Simone De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Miguel De Unamuno, Albert Camus, and many more. As you probably noticed, they include a vast variety of genres and believe it or not, they’ve all influenced me and my writing—either in the way they told the story or drew their characters—and I feel rich inside for having read them all. Oh, and they all influenced me in one way or another, both as ideas and writing style.
What would your readers be surprised to learn about you?
That I’m really a woman however manly I write my M/M erotic scenes LOL
For Fun:
Mountains or Beach?
Beach, beach, beach and more beach. I just love laying under a hot sun, cocktail in hand, the sound of the sea lulling my imagination into conjuring a story. Yes, definitely the beach.
Favorite amusement park ride?
Anything dangerous ! I'm beginning to think I'm in the minority with my 'no roller coaster' attitude!
Father’s Day ritual?
Mmmm…never had one.
How do you balance kids being at home 24/7 and writing time?
Great…have no kids to worry about. Can I trade places with you for about a month, lol? I might actually finish my current project!
Thank you for being here today! Please tell us where we can find your books.
My Web
Website www.lallagatta.com
My Web Feature Pages
Amazon Author Page
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002DBFPDQ
Authors Island
Coffee Time Romance feature page
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/OurAuthors/LauraTolomei.html
Goodreads Author Page http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2903352.Laura_Tolomei
My Network
MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/152533159
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1464230924#!/profile.php?id=1554716201&ref=nf
Twitter http://twitter.com/LallaGatta
Goodreads Friendship requests
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1025370-laura-tolomei
Linkedin
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?id=45342878&trk=hb_tab_pro_top
Coffee Time Group
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=1465
Gay Starta http://www.bebo.com/c/home/index.html
The Blood Bank (Bitten by Books)
http://bittenbybooks.ning.com/profile/LauraTolomei
Erotic Romance Writers & Readers
http://eroticromance.ning.com/profile/LauraTolomei
M/M/M/M/M Scene from Visionquest As if they were waiting just for those words, the three grabbed me and brought me to my knees. Since there were three of them, I couldn’t dedicate too much time to anyone in particular. Opening wide, I swallowed the first one and since it slid straight to my throat, I wrapped my tongue around the bulging head to stop its devious move as I was learning to do with my master who had an insatiable appetite for my warm mouth. At the same time, I jerked off the other two hard cocks pushing on my cheeks, trying to keep them satisfied by sliding the skin up and down. Hardly pleased, Kristioff grabbed my head and shifted it to his convenience, shoving his erection deep until he almost gagged me since he was blocking me to hinder any escape while he banged as fast as he liked, with the predictable result I choked every time he came crashing in, pulling out the second before I threw up. Luckily, Threstian felt his turn had come, so he stole me from his friend, sticking another thick piece of flesh into my bruised mouth, even if I had to admit he had much gentler manners. To thank him, I sucked hard, running my tongue up and down his long length, trying to enfold his balls, too, before Kadrisky claimed his turn again. They passed me around, never letting me linger on any single equipment, almost fighting among them to have my mouth’s complete attention. I sucked, licked, lapped, teased, brushed, stroked, wrapped, held, clasped, gripped, jerked, slid, swallowed, gagged, choked along their every whim until my jaw, not to mention everything else, was sore from their harsh treatment, although my cock didn’t seem to mind. To set the record straight, it strained painfully in the open air, standing high in its proud splendor to show the world how much I was enjoying it. After having followed my head bobs, Kristioff licked his lips as he raised his gaze to the Seigneuros. “Mmmm, he looks delicious.” “You can’t tell until you’ve tried his other hole,” the master instructed thickly. “We can?” “You must,” Lord Brahany ordered curtly, “because the puppy has to learn what it means to receive.” And you’re going to receive more than your fair share. I couldn’t even argue my point. A pair of strong hands had grabbed my ass to spread the buttocks wide apart. “I’ll be the first.” I heard Kristioff’s voice tell the others before addressing whoever was holding my butt. “And you, keep it wide open.” “Sure, Kristioff.” It was Threstian talking. “And maybe you even want me to stick it in for you.” “Why not?” Kristioff replied hotly, obviously excited at the prospect. “Come on, Threstian, shove it into his sweet tight ass.” I braced myself, feeling the bulging head stroking the narrow entrance from the outside, probably Threstian’s way to be delicate, then the brutal thrust cut off my breath. With a single push, Kristioff was inside all the way to the balls, which couldn’t fit despite his earnest attempts to get them inside, too. Instead, they tickled the sensitive spot between my ass and my balls, slamming against it every time he swung forward, his drive steady and with a precise rhythm. When Kadrisky shoved his cock in my mouth, ramming it at the same tempo Kristioff was keeping in my ass, my hand wrapped around my rigid shaft to pamper it while the rest of me was busy sucking bulges front and rear. “Stop him immediately, Threstian!” |
2 comments:
Thanks for being with me today Laura:)
Great interview!
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