2013 GRL Authors: Silvia Violet

I first met Silvia online through a mutual publisher where we had one of those "Hi, how are you?" "Oh, new release, congratulations!" kind of relationships. We first met in person, though, in September of 2012 in Tennessee of all places, where we were staying in the same cabin. ("Cabin" is a misnomer here. It was a wood structure set up on the side of a mountain but the dang thing was bigger than my home and could house and feed a small army.)

We were both early risers and began to run into each other stumbling about the half dark kitchen, trying to get coffee started or Silvia would find me after her walk out on the veranda sipping coffee, watching the morning light filter through the mountain mist. We clicked, through some odd grace of the universe, with enough mutual geek girl overlap in different subjects to keep things interesting. Full disclosure - Silvia is one of my favorite people, and one of my favorite authors to work with. Since that first time together, we've worked on several anthologies together and often serve as the each other's beta readers.

We tease Silvia that she could be a school librarian. Sweet, kind and gentle, her polite southern soul rarely has a harsh word to say about anyone. Bless their hearts. But don't let the exterior fool you. Silvia's stories are hot, with a big, red, flaming, capital "H." While we both write adult fiction, mine is definitely in the "plot with a little sex if I feel like it" camp while Silvia's work tips more toward the "sex built around a plot" style of romance.

The first Silvia books I read (before we ever met) were her SF novels, the Galactic Betrayal stories. (What a shock - I dove right for the science fiction. Anyone surprised? Show of hands? *crickets chirping* Yeah, that's what I thought.) I didn't go in with high expectations. I've been horribly disappointed by M/M "science fiction" before - the kind that had no SF in it, that was really just one sex scene after another with maybe an alien thrown in. But no, Silvia's work sucked me in. There is a lot of sex, don't get me wrong (a LOT) but it's sex for a reason, sex that furthers the relationship and development of these seriously damaged characters. And the SF portion? Built right into the sex in some really imaginative and kinky ways. Lark and Derek are both such lovely messes - the reader can't help but fall in love and I'm excited to see these being re-released now with beautiful new covers and all. Good stuff.

Since then, I've discovered Silvia is a versatile author of steamy hot romance - with shifters of all sorts (including but not limited to wolves) and various sexy contemporary heroes to go with the SF stories. It's a full service buffet of yummy tales into which she invariably builds a lot of sexual tension, badly damaged souls in need and some of the loveliest mouth-watering meal descriptions you'll ever find. Really, it's often as much food porn as it is erotica :D

Can't wait to hook up again in Atlanta, Silvia! (Well, not in the sense the young folk mean...you knew what I meant...)

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