The Story Behind The Story: Playing For Keeps

Like FANGS AND FUR, PLAYING FOR KEEPS started thanks to Jamie Hill.

She's the mastermind behind SAWA (Sexy Authors With Attitude) and the reason I met Kayleigh Jamison and heard about Aphrodite's Apples.

Aphrodite's Apples had put out a call for submission on the theme of a Masquerade ball with the Gods/Godesses of Geroc-Roman mythology. Authors were invited to submit their stories, with any diety, set around the premise of the Masquerade.

Jamie Hill, Jude Mason, and I all wrote stories. Mine was called Worshipped (the first of the two stories in PLAYING FOR KEEPS). It was accepted and published in the second volume of Masquerade, along with Jude Mason's story.

I worked on other projects, but as a fan of mythology, I kept coming back to the idea of a sequel to the story. A secondary character, a feisty Goddess, kept demanding that I reveal what happened to her during the Masquerade ball.

So I wrote her a hot MFF work called A Wish and A Threesome and subbed it for a future Masquerade anthology. It was accepted for the fourth volume, but never saw publication. Aphrodite's Apples closed its doors in February of 2008 and my stories were released back to me.

I wasn't about to let them just fade into nothingness, so I reworked the heck out of them both and fit them into my mythos universe that I had since created with FATED TO BE (with Phaze).

I already had plans, and the beginning of other stories for the same universe, so it was a good fit. When I was working on both sets of stories (PLAYING FOR KEEPS and FATED TO BE) I had already woven interlinking themes into the stories, so it wasn't too hard to rework them. Then I crossed my fingers and sent off the email.

Phaze accepted PLAYING FOR KEEPS, and now it has found a new home. The best part, it will be out in just two weeks. Whoohoo!