Kallypso Masters has taken over the blog!!!! She has Masters & Prizes!!!

Masters at Arms—behind-the-scenes & a GC Giveaway!

This is the traditional Memorial Day for oldies like me, and I wanted to make this announcement about my military romance here, because Kelly was the first blogger to review Masters at Arms (review HERE) when it first was published last August. Plus I just love her bunches! (Mwah, Kelly!)

When I wrote Masters at Arms last summer, I introduced readers to three very different men. In the first three vignettes, each was at a life-altering stage in his life. As the story progressed, some even felt their lives pretty well were over. Then fate brought them all together on a rooftop in Fallujah, Iraq, where they were forever bound as brothers.

I gave each one of my Marines the most honorable characteristics I could imagine—brave, protective, looking out for those who couldn’t fight back—plus a few characteristics they needed to work on. (As my readers know, I do not write perfect characters. And for these first four books in the series, I also don’t write stand-alone novels, so you pretty much need to start here in Masters and take them one at a time, even if you are tempted to skip ahead to Adam’s or Damián’s stories first.) As the managing owner of the Masters at Arms, the Denver BDSM/kink club these three men started after they left service, Adam Montague runs the show and is the rock for this adopted family of lost souls he’s brought together to help him start a new life. (By the way, my Minnesotan Dom pronounces his last name MON-tag, similar to how the French trappers he descends from would, rather than the English version, adding a “gyew” sound at the end.)

Well, I must have made Adam sound incredibly real, because Sandy, a reader and now a friend, wrote to me in February saying she knew I made up the name, but asking if Adam was based on a real person. I told her, “No, I’m sorry. Not at all. He’s totally a figment of my imagination.” I mean, come on! He is everything you’d want in a guy—except that his communication skills need work and he doesn’t think he can love anyone. Aside from that, he’s a hell of a lot more perfect than a lot of the guys we’ve all met out there! And you want this man to have your back, believe me.

Adam also is a very commanding and real presence in my head, dominating my thoughts in a way no other character ever has before. As my avid fans and blog visitors know, he was inspired by Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS. *shiver* See what I mean? Didn’t you just melt a little when I said that? But even Gibbs is nothing like Mark Harmon (who doesn’t strike me as a Dom in interviews I’ve seen.) He’s fictional!

So, imagine my surprise when less than a month after I replied to Sandy, “Adam” e-mailed me saying how much he loved my first three books (and lots of heady stuff about my writing), and that he loved the Corps and wanted to offer his help in getting those aspects of my stories correct. (He was a gentleman and didn’t say he was offering help because there were a couple things that smacked him in the face when he read them in the original.) I was to just call on him any time and if it was public info, he was at my service. Um, wow! Another Master Sergeant Adam at MY service! How lucky can a girl get?

Anyway, we started corresponding and I learned there are so many parallels between this retired master sergeant and “my” Adam that I’d love to spell out for you, but I promised not to identify him. I’m skirting getting myself spanked just telling this much, but I can’t explain why I revised the book without explaining this. (Darn him, but he sees helping me as one of those selfless acts he needs to do without claiming credit or fanfare. See? I told you! He is SOOOO Adam.)

Anyway, early in our ongoing conversation, I asked him if there was anything in Masters at Arms that needed to be corrected and he replied, “Well, now that you ask.” LOL. Luckily, they were minor things to most readers, but I’m sure they jarred other Marines (and Marine moms, like Sandy). So, they began nagging at me. Thank goodness these two readers didn’t put the book down because they’ve become not only readers, but friends.

But knowing there were some issues to correct, I was consumed with the idea of having it revised and re-released. (Have I mentioned before that I’m a perfectionist? Well, my Facebook friends and those who read those long Author’s Notes in the fronts of my books know.) When the online “Adam” offered to go over Section Four (Iraq and its aftermath) and make the needed corrections, I jumped at the opportunity. Then, being “Adam,” he decided to just go through the whole book because he knew he could help. And he did!

If you’ve read the book before, you may not even notice the changes. My fictional Adam was just made to sound even more like a Marine by the online one. Instead of saying words like craphole, dickwad, and pistol, we now have the three S’s: shithole, shithead, and sidearm. Frigging becomes fucking. (Master Adam’s favorite word of all time has always been fuck, but the ONE time I had him say something else, I’m busted and it’s changed to fucking.)

The most significant changes were in the firefight scene. I added that scene to the book late, just before publishing, and didn’t get feedback from my military experts as I should have. (It amazes me at the small number of things I got wrong!) But now the scene is more accurate and detailed. More realistic.

Oh, and over the weekend, I hired Liz Borino to edit Masters for me. She taught me some things that would strengthen the writing throughout the series, so, while I was at it, I also tweaked Nobody’s Angel and Nobody’s Hero.

I am excited to announce that these books were uploaded to my buy sites last night, but it may be a few days (especially at Amazon and B&N) for the price change and new files to take effect. I’ll leave a comment here when that happens, if you want to check back. Starting today at Smashwords and All Romance eBooks, though, you can get Masters at Arms FREE! Forever, not just for three days!

I also want to alert you that the price of Nobody’s Angel will increase to $3.99 soon, because, well, Master Marc is just as awesome as the guys in the $3.99 books. All three books are at least 115,000 words long—a bargain at $3.99! But the $2.99 price will disappear as soon as Amazon makes the change.

And hang on because the fourth and long-awaited happy ending for my two most wounded characters, Damián and Savi, is coming up in June. Nobody’s Perfect will be released by June 19, and I’ll be back here with a hot excerpt on June 22.

Now for a scene from the third edition of Masters at Arms, this one involving Damián, the young Marine who feels life is over for him after Iraq, and my “fictional, but real” Master Adam. One of the things my readers and I like most about Adam is that he is a straight shooter. Okay, so is the online “Adam”—I know because I’ve been on the receiving end of some of his straight talk a couple times.

In this scene, several months after the firefight in Iraq, Navy Corpsman Marc “Doc” D’Alessio and Master Sergeant Adam Montague are on a mission to rescue a depressed and near-suicidal Damián Orlando. Can’t you just picture “Master Gibbs,” as Adam in this scene?

Oh, to add a little humor from my online Marine, when I asked him what would have happened if Damián and Marc had seen Adam at that fetish club in LA (which is against the Marine morals code—but I needed a way for Adam to know they might be open to the idea of joining him in his kink club business), he wrote:

“In the club in LA, you handled that exactly right. Adam would have avoided them. If they had seen him, they would have first spit out the beer (or the redhead) and run. Of course they would have wondered why he was there; but they would have never asked in hopes that he didn’t mention it to them.”

God, I love Marines!

(Authorized excerpt from Masters at Arms, © 2011, 2012 by Kallypso Masters)

Adam nodded, and then entered the room to find the blinds closed and the room in near darkness. No wonder the kid was depressed. He marched to the window and opened the blinds full force.

“What the fuck? I’ve told you to keep them closed!”

Adam turned and came around the bedside curtain to see Orlando lying there, the white sheets bunched around his waist. Shirtless. His dog tags hung against his brown chest, buried in a diamond-shaped tuft of black hair.

“You talking to me, grunt?” Adam tried not to smile as the kid practically came to attention while lying flat on his back. God, he missed having that kind of power over people. Couldn’t wait to get his club started. At least, he’d have submissive women responding to him like that again. Even better.

“Master Sergeant Montague!

“What’s this I hear about you refusing to follow orders?”

Regaining his composure, the kid slumped back against the pillows. “The orders make no sense.”

“Come again?”

“There’s no point fixing me up.”

“Since when does a grunt decide which orders to follow and which to ignore?”

Orlando turned away. A new maneuver was in order. He remembered the night he’d seen them at the fetish club in L.A., getting a screaming redhead off on the St. Andrew’s cross, right before they’d deployed. Of course, when Adam had seen Doc and Orlando, he’d high-tailed it out as fast as he could. That would have been a real morale buster if the two could have held it over his head. Not that they had any business being there either.

“So, have you ever restrained a woman on a St. Andrew’s cross?”

Orlando looked back at him. If the man could blush, he would have. “Say again?”

“I asked if you were into kinky sex—tying women up, spanking them, that sort of thing.”

Orlando seemed unsure how to answer. “I tried it once—well, maybe a few times.”

Well, hell. Adam had seen them the one time, but didn’t know there’d been others. He’d just figured Doc had dragged him up there. This might be just the therapy the kid needed.

How the hell many Doms did he have in his unit, anyway? D’Alessio for sure. And he’d heard rumors Grant was a Domme, although he’d never been able to speak with her about it; sexual harassment regs and all. Serving with a female Marine was like dancing on eggshells and trying not to break one.

Right now, Orlando was the one needing a little dominating.

“Well, I can tell you one thing, grunt. I’d rather be with a sexy redhead right now making her round ass all nice and pink than to be looking at your ugly face.” He watched as the kid’s face did flame a bit at the mention of a redhead. Adam tried not to smile at the look of surprise on the young man’s face.

Orlando got over the shock of Adam’s words pretty quickly, though, and the defenses came up yet again. Stubborn wasn’t the word for this one.

“Guess I didn’t tie mine good enough. She got away.”

Fuck. What kind of woman would dump a man while he was recovering from something like this? If you asked him, good riddance to her. Adam would find the kid as many women as he needed to get over her. But obviously, she’d sunk her claws in him pretty deeply. He wouldn’t get over her very easily.

Joni would never have ditched him, no matter what had gotten blown off. That’s what she’d told him—and he believed her.

“Come back to Denver with me. You can help me out with a little business I plan to start.”

Orlando took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Adam could tell he was choosing his words carefully, afraid to disrespect his former master sergeant. “I don’t need your charity, Top. When I leave here tomorrow, I’m just going to hole up in a motel in Solana Beach and get a good drunk-on.”

Memories of his own two-week bender in Minneapolis after Joni died came back to Adam full force. He didn’t want to count the number of times he’d come close to pulling the trigger with his sidearm, rather than go on without her. Would Orlando have access to a weapon? If not already, he’d have little trouble getting one.

No way was he letting this kid leave here alone.

“It’s a BDSM and fetish club.”

* * *

Damián wondered if he’d heard the man right? “Pardon, Top?”

“You heard me. I’m starting a kink club—bondage, domination, discipline, sadomasochism, fetish—any kind of kink you want to get on. Doc’s joining me, but we can always use another good Dom.”

Damn. His dick went into a full salute just thinking about it. First hard-on since before the grenade blast. “I’m no Dom. I’m not interested.”

“Like hell you aren’t interested.” Montague grinned, and then directed his attention to the tenting of the sheets.

Damián adjusted the sheets to hide his hard-on, and then slid his leg out to reveal his bare, grotesque stump. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m missing a foot.”

“Well, last time I checked, most of the ladies at BDSM clubs are more interested in a firm hand and a stiff cock. You still seem to have both of those in your inventory. Sure, there may be some chicks with a foot fetish, but you still have a good one, don’t you?”

Damián was speechless.

Thanks for having me back again, Kelly! For those who don’t know, she believed in me even before I published my first book—and she gave it a great review (Here) back on August 11 just a couple days after it was released. She now heads up my Street Team and is just an amazing friend of authors everyone—and this one in particular.

Now for a giveaway! Monday is my 29th wedding anniversary with my imperfect, but oh-so-loveable hero, so  I’m going to give away a $29 gift card to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, or Smashwords (winner’s choice).  Just leave your comment below telling me about the hero in YOUR life (and if he hasn’t come along yet, tell us about one from your favorite book you’d like to meet), and I’ll draw a winner on Monday, June 4. The lucky winner also will receive some cool Rescue Me series and Kallypso Masters swag, including the “Eyes on Me” hand fan (with Master Adam’s naked chest that will make you need an extra fan so you can look at one and fan with the other), a purple pen, the 2011 Romance Trading Cards (for the first three books in the series), and a smoking-hot bookmark.

BE SURE TO LEAVE AN E-MAIL ADDRESS and watch for an e-mail from Leagh Christensen, my awesome assistant, who will contact you for your mailing address and particulars so we can send you your goodies and find out where you want to spend your gift card. CONTEST OPEN INTERNATIONALLY, unless there are restrictions for such gift cards in your nation, in which case, we’ll have to find a creative way to reward you.

My RESCUE ME series is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance eBooks, and Smashwords. For buy links to all of my books, go to http://kallypsomasters.blogspot.com/p/books-by-kallypso-masters.html. And check out my awesome Web site at http://kallypsomasters.com, where you can find out about the upcoming books in the series, go to links to reviews, interviews, character scenes, and such, find out which causes I support, and more!