Black Dog and Rebel Rose Receives the Reviewer's Choice Award

Well, it's been one hell of a week for Skriker and Rose fans...not to mention the sick and twisted little author who pulled these two lovelies outta her butt (ME!).

Yes, kids, TwoLips Reviews, one of the hottest erotica review groups in the biz, has fastened to Black Dog and Rebel Rose not onw, but TWO awards, including their most coveted, the TwoLips Reviews Recommended Read Award, a badge of honor placed on only 3% of the books they review. The other award, coming in at a close second to the Recommended Read, is the fab-u-lous Reviewers Choice Award, given to the book that a reviewer found to be the most fabulous that month.

Below is the 5 Kisses review that earned Black Dog and Rebel Rose these coveted honors:

"A dying demon's tip leads Rose to an abandoned town off the beaten path, a place once called Paradise Hill that's no more than an unfortunate run-down shadow of the nice little place it once was, a place where people worked and kids went to school. Now, it shelters things that go bump in the night: vampires, ghouls...and the worst of the worst. Demons. Just what Rose is looking for. As a hunter, it's her job – and her pleasure – to rid the human world of such deviant abominations.



Skriker does two things well. Fuck and kill demons. Women and his father's kind fell at his feet, though in different ways. Handsome as sin, he was glorious to behold, both in bed and in battle against the same monsters that had killed his mother and little brother and dragged his old man off to Lucifer knew where when he was just eleven. Half human, his demon side provides him with all sorts of useful weapons, from his inner hellfire to the black claws that pop out of his fingertips when he shifts into the hideous beast that lurks beneath his rock star looks.


When Skriker arrives in Paradise Hill to hunt the derelict town's newly reported nest of vampires, he finds that another hunter has arrived before him. And Rose, he quickly discovers, doesn't like to share. Skriker has always been able to love 'em and leave 'em, but Rosie...she's not like any woman he's ever known. She's big, tough, and dangerous. And her inner light intrigues the hell out of him, no pun intended. From where did she draw such pure white power? Who was she? And where does she come from?


As they work their bloody way through the vampires and ghouls residing in the Paradise Hill Elementary School, Skriker finally discovers why Rose has a set of wings tattooed on her back. But it's when Rose discovers what Skriker really is that she must decide where her heart lies. Is she with him? Or against him? Zafira, the demon daughter of Lilith, might have something to say about that, since she wants Rose dead in the very worst of ways.


Sequel to Psyche's Gate (Liquid Silver Books), Black Dog and Rebel Rose by Danielle D. Smith is the best Urban Fantasy love story I've ever read. It's a short but action-packed adventure centered around the most unlikely of couples – one of darkness, the other of light. One rides an All-American Harley, the other a “Eurotrash” Ducati. He carries a shotgun, she carries a Glock, and they can both slice and dice with ninja accuracy. Together, they deal in blood, gore, and bodily fluids. Believe me, their raunchy sex does more than just fill up pages. It's profound and entrancing. And most of all it's love – pure, deep, and intense. Each would give his or her life for the other. And you know that they will stand side-by-side against any adversity, something that both Zafira and Rose's all-powerful father find out rather convincingly.


Skriker is tough, strong, and determined to wipe out every single demon single-handedly if he has to. Yet, there's a depth of heart to him that allows him to cry with and for someone else. I loved that about him, even more than I loved his blonde sex appeal. And HE...IS...HOT, ladies! Black leather-clad HOT! In all respects, Rose is his perfect foil. She's a black-haired bitch on wheels, a hard-core killer in combat boots and a body-hugging’ jerkin. But her soul is the other half of his. Together, they're better than Bonnie and Clyde. Better than Bogart and Bacall. Better even than peanut butter and jelly.


Ms. Smith is now hard at work turning Black Dog and Rebel Rose into a graphic novel and screenplay. I would love to see her write a story about Skriker's father, who – if he's even half as tough as Skriker – just has to be alive somewhere and in need of his own Rosie to rescue him."

HOW FABULOUS IS THAT????!!!!!!!!! *Happy dance*

To peek into Skriker and Rose's award-winning world yourself, pick up a copy of BLACK DOG AND REBEL ROSE on Kindle (for sale now on Amazon for just 99 cents US or 71P UK!), the E-book for @3.99, or, if you prefer the lovely feel and smell of ink and paper, the Print Edition is a teenie tiny sacrifice at $12.99. Grab a cold beverage, kick back, and get your sweet funky ON!!!

Why I Don't Write Mainstream Paranormal Fiction (and why preggo bedrest eats your brain)

Bedrest can't be good for your brain.

Really.

You lie there and think waaaaay too much.

And everyone knows that thinking never did ANYONE any good.

I was on doctor ordered pelvic rest for the last 2 weeks, and lying there staring at the cieling fan in my bedroom created a lot of opportunity for me to ponder. Ponder, ponder, ponder.

Thinking never did anyone any good.

I have been working on my first anthology, a project that has been interrupted on and off my complications with my pregnancy, and while resting, I found myself in a pensive state (overly so), wondering about a question that has been posed to me on more than one occasion: why don't I take advantage of the trends in the literary market and write a vampire novel? Or werewolf tale? Throw joe public a bone and possibly rake in the big bucks, a la Twilight?

I can't say that I haven't stressed out over the concept--something that's a bit hard for me to admit. All creatives find themselves second-guessing their work from time to time--this is ultimately to be expected. Should I be jumping on the bandwagon? Or should I cherish the mid-sized pubbed cult status that I am earning now and forgo the commercially "right" thing to do?

After rolling this around in my brain for a while, I always find myself coming to the same conclusion: I will never be a "mainstream" fiction writer simply because I CAN'T be! It simply goes against the very grain of who I am. I look at other books in the same genre as my passion--angels and demons--and I see fellow authors falling into the same old mainstream trap. They may have the basis for a killer paranormal tale about a warrior angel, or a freaky badass demon--and then it all goes into the same old recycled pit with a swooning female love interest who is a vampire, or a recent example I stumbled on at Amazon, where the angel is leading a werewolf pack (sorry, but WTF?!)...sure, they may sell a lot more books, but I wouldn't feel right about watering my work down to please the masses. I look at my characters and their extraordinary, outside-the-mainstream adventures, where the only vampires are bullet fodder, and I feel...pleased. Fulfilled in a way that no trendy mainstream plotline under my belt could ever satisfy. Looking back, I have always been that way as a painter, too--Thomas Kincade can kiss my ass, despite all the bazillions of dollars he's raked in.

Not to say that I wouldn't LOVE to be on that NYC Bestseller list...who wouldn't? And yet I have started to think of myself, and others like me--small and mid-sized published (and good quality self-pubbed) authors whose work doesn't fit into the same old mold--as the equivalent of the "indie" bands of the music industry. Sure, they may not be attending the MTV Music Awards (a select few may eventually, but it will not be an easy road), and the teenage groupie masses may not be flinging themselves at us, but what we offer is valuable...something different. Honestly, I adored vamps and weres when I was a teenager--Anne Rice had a definite fan in me--and I can understand the attraction. But let's admit it--the genre has been done to death, and now that it's dead, publishers and their authors keep beating it with the same...stake. If I see one more teenage (or "sexy") vampire with douchebag hair or another Fabio-esque "Alpha" wolf, I'm gonna puke, and it ain't gonna be morning sickness!

So after lying in bed, brain cells wasting away with pregnancy boredom as I rest the womb in which my first offspring is merrily sprouting, I have come to the conclusion that I would not trade my outside-the-vampire-stable work for all the literary world...and I think that my little cult of fans prefer it that way.

*wink*

Artwork: a prelim digital illustration of Rose, the heroine of my book Black Dog and Rebel Rose, as a "badass mama".