Bring the Heat!

Dragons. I love 'em. You can tell, right? The first image was my first logo when I started my writing career. I used Paint to make him out of a piece of free Microsoft clip art, and called him Cedric.

After being told Cedric wasn't adult enough for someone who writes paranormal and sometimes erotic romance, I had him grow up into the next piece of free clip art below. Later, I found the heart-shaped two-dragons kissing image and used that on my business cards and website for a while. I'll admit, I still have a soft spot for old Ced.

I have stuffed dragons and dragon figurines in both my house and office. I occasionally even dress in dragon wings for Renaissance faires.  As for dragons in my books, my second sale was to Ellora's Cave, with the book Dragon in the System. In it, you meet Drake. He's not a shape-shifting dragon, at least not in that book, although somewhere during the sequel, Djinni and the Geek,  Drake does learn how to shift. I'd planned to write his story, but due to sales issues, never did.

My next dragons are also at Ellora's Cave. Brother and sister shifter half-dragons, Bram and Dana star in Between a Rock and a Hard-On and Stone and Fire, respectively. Over at Totally Bound, I have a historical dragon story, Georgie and the Dragon. I even tried to fit dragons into my steampunk series, The Gaslight Chronicles from Carina Press, but the closest I could come was in Dragons and Dirigibles, where the dragon involved isn't really a dragon.

My most recent book, #8 in the Chronicles, is Ether & Elephants, releasing next Monday, July 20, which unfortunately has nary a dragon in sight. Nonetheless, I hope you'll check it out. There's plenty of other cool paranormal adventure going on.

Here's the blurb: Sir Thomas Devere and Eleanor Hadrian have loved each other most of their lives--but sometimes love doesn't conquer all.

Their chance at happiness was ruined by Tom's hasty marriage to someone else. Heartbroken, Nell left home, finding a new life as a teacher at a school for the blind. But when one of her supernaturally gifted students, Charlie, is kidnapped, Tom reappears and her worlds collide.

Tom claims he hasn't seen his wife since the day of their marriage...yet he fears the missing student could be his son.

The deeper they dig, the more Tom and Nell discover: a deadly alchemist, more missing gifted children and long-suppressed feelings neither of them is ready for. A race on airship across England and India may lead them to answers--including a second chance at love--but only if all of British Society isn't destroyed first.

Finally, I've done a little Flash Fiction with a character named Mordecai (Mort) Gwynn, a white dragon shifter who owns a bar in Detroit. At least one of the Mort's pieces has appeared on this blog before. In honor of Dragon Week, I've added a NEW one, Mort's Birthday. You can read them all on my website.

Have a smoking good weekend!
Cindy Spencer Pape
www.cindyspencerpape.com