Searching for her husband who abandoned her, Claire McFarlane has come to London penniless, desperate and still a virgin. Or so she says. But how could any man have left such a delectable bride untouched? Darius himself can barely keep his hands off her. Lord Cantwell is Claire's last hope of discovering her husband's fate — but no man has ever made her burn the way Darius does. And it's obvious he believes her a liar. There's only one way she can prove her honesty — surrender her innocence to this grim, angry lord.
Reviews for His for the Taking
"[A] fantastic story that will leave you wanting more." - 4 hearts, TRS
"His for the Taking isn’t your mother’s regency romance! Ms. Dafoe made me feel as if I was a fly on the wall of British aristocracy, capturing all its nuances with such detail in this short, enjoyable story about the ton." - 4 kisses, Two Lips Reviews
"There are powerful emotions between Darius and Claire from the moment they meet, and their scenes together continuously simmer until control is lost as their hidden feelings blaze to life. Scorching!" - 4 1/2 stars, ECataNetwork
"Ms. Dafoe...brings her remarkable talent with the written word to full force in this 'quickie'..." - 4 1/2 hearts, Niught Owl Romance
"Good reading and great fun." - Alternative Reviews
Read an excerpt from His for the Taking
Visit Sierra Dafoe's web site
About Sierra Dafoe
An erotic romance author who writes for Ellora's Cave, Siren, and Changeling, Sierra Dafoe has twice been nominated for Favorite Erotic Author in The Romance Studio's CAPAs. Her Dragon's Heir series at Changling has picked up numerous awards, including Best Fantasy Book of 2006 and 2007 for Dragon's Heir and Dragon's Desire in the Love Romances Cafe Reader's Choice poll.
Sierra lives in New Hampshire, where she is currently hard at work on her first full-length novel, an erotic contemporary paranormal. His for the Taking is her first historical. Visit Sierra on the web at www.sierradafoe.com, or join her reader's group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Sierra_Club/.
Backlist
From Ellora's Cave:
His for the Taking
Make Me
From Siren:
The Mighty Flynn
From Changeling:
The Dragon's Daughter
Dragon's Heir
Dragon's Desire
Dravidian
The Dragon Prince
Double Dragon
Shifter Sisters 1: Sex and the Single Werewolf
Shifter Sisters 2: Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Shifter Sisters 2: Stray Cat Strut
Devarian Exile
Devarian Uprising
Devarian Revolution
Devarian Pleasure-Slave
Devarian Renegades
Non-series books:
All Wrapped Up: Absolute Power
Wolf Bound
The Pool Boys
BloodWolf
Dancer
A note from Sierra...
Sierra will part of the Dark Pantheon series, a multi-author vampire series coming this year from Ellora's Cave!
An Interview with Sierra Dafoe
By Holly Hewson, Marketing Director for The Romance Studio
HH: Sierra, welcome back to TRS BLUE. Please tell us about your featured work, His For The Taking.SD: Hi Holly! Thank you for having me! His for the Taking is my latest release at Ellora's Cave, one of the Jewels of the Nile Quickie series. In it, Darius, Lord Cantwell has just returned from the Napoleonic wars, bitter and jaded. At a ball given by a friend, he meets Claire McFarlane who is young, innocent, even naive -- everything Darius is not. Not any longer. It never occurs to him that part of his attraction to her is a longing for his old self, the man he was before he went to war. It's a longing that, had he been consciously aware of it, he would have denied fiercely -- but through his relationship with Claire, he begins to regain some of his earlier self.
HH: So when you’re challenged with coming up with a story centered around a gemstone, how do you begin? Where did you get the idea for your story? SD: Actually, I'm loving seeing what other authors have done with this premise! There have been some really creative stories that have come out of the Jewels of the Nile series so far. In His for the Taking, I wanted the gemstone (a garnet) to be a metaphor for Claire herself -- something that can be mistaken for what it's not. In this case it's mistaken for a ruby, which would of course be a more materially valuable stone. But the garnet, and the necklace it's set in, used to belong to Claire's mother, and so is very valuable to her, indeed. Despite her desperate situation, she's refused to sell it, which reflects the fact that she hasn't lost touch with her own inner self, as opposed to Darius, who has.
It was really fun playing with that contrast between them. Even though Darius is a lord and a physically powerful man, Claire is in many ways stronger than he is. He 'forces' her to submit to him, trying to break her and get her to admit she's lying, but in the end Claire's honesty and own inner strength break him, or rather the shell he's built around himself.
HH: What do you like best about Lord Cantwell? SD: I like his grimness, actually. I like his anger. Post-traumatic stress is a very twentieth-century term, but I think we forget, sometimes, that it would be a real problem in wars in any century. So it was neat getting to take this very modern concept and explore it in a different time period. And he's a mess -- emotionally, he's a wreck, lol!
But the very core of who he is is still intact-- although it's buried -- and it's that core of decency which is what's really torturing him. He's angry at the people around him not because he despises their innocence, but because he longs for his own. Nevertheless, though, despite his claim to have rejected the 'false' values of his society, he can't, for example, actually bring himself to rape Claire. He's quite rough with her physically, but in fact part of him keeps checking for reassurance from her that what he's doing is okay.
HH: What did you enjoy most about writing this story? SD: First of all, I love that it's a Regency! I love Regencies, and it was a lot of fun to get to write a story in that particular time period, with characters whose thought patterns and beliefs were very different from my own. Second, I really love the emotional interplay between Claire and Darius. Like the sexual component, some of it is pretty rough -- these aren't easy emotions to deal with.
Each of them has something that the other lacks -- Claire comes seeking Darius because he's friends with Jamie McFarlane, the man who married and then abandoned her, and if anyone would know what's become of Jamie, it's Darius. But on a deeper level, she comes seeking him because he has knowledge, pure and simple (Jamie abandoned her before consummating their marriage). And Darius is attracted to her because she has what he has lost: innocence.
HH: What are you working on now? SD: Right now, I am very excited to be working on my first full-length novel, which will hopefully be the start of a series. Believe me, I'll be talking about it a LOT when it's done, lol!
HH: What do you have coming up for readers and fans?
SD: Let's see... In February, I released the sixth book in my Dragon's Heir series at Changeling Press, Double Dragon. I love that series, and am very proud that book three, Dragon's Desire, picked up the "Best Fantasy Book of 2007" in January's Love Romances Cafe Reader's Choice Awards -- Dragon's Heir, book two in the series, won the same award in 2006, so that was a great feeling!
Also, my fellow Deliciously Naughty Writers and I have been working on a shared-world vampire series called Dark Pantheon, which will be releasing this year from Ellora's Cave -- I think that's going to be very exciting! Other than that, I have a few novellas in the works including a sequel to The Mighty Flynn, which as I type this is the #1 best-selling short story at Fictionwise (that might change by the time this is published!). But most of my energy at the moment is going into the novel.
HH: How do you keep things fresh for yourself in your writing?
SD: Oh gosh! I don't know. I really don't. I know there's stories I've thought of and chosen not to write, because they didn't really excite me -- they felt like something I'd already done or explored. I like it when a story goes somewhere unexpected for me, like His for the Taking did -- originally, the story idea hadn't been anywhere near as dark or rough, but as I started to write it and Darius started to come to life, it started taking on a life of its own. I love it when that happens!
HH: How do you write across many genres effectively? SD: Oh, man -- just that question is such a wonderful compliment! Thank you! Of course, that's assuming I do... but I guess, when I put something like the Shifter Sisters series, which is paranormal erotic comedy, next to something like His for the Taking, I have to concede the point.
One thing is that story values don't change that much from genre to genre. I mean, the basics of story are still the same -- character, conflict, tension, and resolution. It's just how you present them, what choices your characters make and how they're played out, that change. And what kind of characters you have. That part, I'm not really in control of -- the characters just start forming in my head.
Honestly? I really don't know! :p I just write the stories that come to me to the best of my ability. I think that's all any of us can say.
HH: What’s your favorite guilty pleasure? SD: Designing websites, lol! Well, at least that's one of them. I built our Deliciously Naughty Writers website at www.dnwriters.com, and I'm working on one for the Dark Pantheon series (which, if I do say so myself, is gonna be GORGEOUS when it's finished!)
I keep redesigning mine, too, because I'm still not entirely happy with it -- although I'm being good and not playing with it till I get the novel done! (And I'll just mention that the featured author this month at www.sierradafoe.com is Joey Hill -- I'm so pleased to have her! She's a wonderful, wonderful author and really great woman -- you can check out her interview at http://www.sierradafoe.com/interviews/joeyhill.php).
I think it's because it's such a different process than writing stories -- it's like algebra after poetry. It's a good change of pace.
HH: Will you be attending any conventions or conferences this year? SD: Yes! I am very excited to be going to Lori Foster's Reader-Author Get-Together in Cincinatti this June. It'll be my first 'public' appearance as a published author, so I'm excited about that part, of course -- and I can't wait to finally meet so many of the authors and readers I've gotten to know over the internet. It's going to be a wild and crazy time!
HH: Thank you!
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