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Lex Valentine Profile

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As you know, I occasionally profile authors instead of interviewing them. The difference between the two is that for profiles I don’t ask the questions – you do, and Lex Valentine is an ideal candidate for lots and lots of questions. She’s a very talented award winning writer and cover artist. Here’s her bio:

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Lex Valentine is a bestselling, award winning author who writes across genres from contemporary to urban fantasy in both M/M, M/F and M/M/F. A native of Monterey County, California, Lex now lives in a canyon in Orange County, California with her long haired tattooed husband Rott (who thinks if she gets to go to GayRomLit, he gets to buy a new guitar), her college age daughter Nikki and a bunch of cats with strange names (Noisy, Dum Dum aka Dummy, Chewy, Swirly, Bitty Junior) that she collectively calls “babies.” She loves loud rock and alternative music, builds her own computers, and has a propensity for having very weird vivid dreams about Nikki Sixx although he’s never naked in them to her great disappointment.

Lex works full-time at a 100 year old cemetery as the network administrator, collects giraffes because of a character, would love to lick supermodel Marcus Schenkenberg and adores hanging out with author-pal Z.A. Maxfield who never lets Lex be a wallflower. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and the Rainbow Romance Writers, Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal, and Orange County California chapters. A long time internet user going back to the early 90’s, Lex’s oldest domain winterheart.com has become her graphics site Winterheart Design. She does covers for self-published authors, as well as Pink Petal Books, Passion in Print Press and MLR Press and won an EPIC Ariana award for best erotic contemporary cover in 2011.

A blogger long before she was published, you’ll find Lex posting to her author blog at lexvalentine.com, her personal blog SunlightSucks.com and group blog FlirtyAuthorBitches.com. She’s also one of seven M/M authors involved in the Lords of Aether, a free gay steampunk serial story at lordsofaether.com. Her character Lord Anthony Banning is the love interest of Z.A. Maxfield’s courtesan Shelley Jefferson, a circumstance that leads to many a discussion between her and ZAM as they decide just how much to torture their characters before they give them a HFN.

Recent releases (last 90 days): Cupid Christmas 

It’s another Christmas at Forbes Ranch and this year the family is playing Cupid with Grayson and Jared’s best friend Steve Yarrow. Years before, Steve’s heart was broken by the love of his life Dalton Emory who left him to further his career by marrying a woman with a rich daddy. Now, divorced, outed and publicly humiliated, Dalton is trying to build a business and keep a low profile. He doesn’t believe he deserves a second chance with Steve after the way he hurt him. However, Dalton didn’t reckon with his former lover’s interfering friends, the depth of Steve’s love nor the forgiveness the spirit of Christmas can offer. Can one lonely, broken cowboy forgive himself and accept the love that has always belonged to him? And will the Forbes tradition of Christmas Eve Happily Ever Afters give Steve and Dalton the future they never thought they’d have?

Breath of Heaven  This is the 2nd story with my fighter pilots from Afterburner.

Sebastian Marchetti and his husband Ryder Beckett are flying high since their retirement from the Air Force. They’re still young, still hot for each other and enjoying life as a married couple and members of the Flying Marchettis aerobatic team. When tragedy strikes their extended family, the couple become parents overnight and the demons of Ryder’s past return with a vengeance. With the Marchettis and the entire town of Forza pitching in to help, Bas and Ryder strive to make Christmas unforgettable for a special little boy and his newborn brother while laying to rest past and present pain.

New release: Kissing Joan Collins – MLR Press Valentine’s Day novella

Gay suspense author Logan Moore fell in love with the most perfect gay man ever during his freshman year in college. But his roommate and best friend Chase Courtland never showed an interest in him. Twelve years and a handful of failed relationships later, Logan acknowledges that he still loves Chase. When Chase puts on a designer dress, four-inch heels and a wig and transforms himself into Joan Collins for a Valentine’s Day masquerade party, Logan’s libido rockets out of control. One look at Chase’s perfect ass in the skin tight dress and Logan is ready to drag him off to bed. But can two best friends bridge the gap of a dozen years of denial and build a life together after one amazing night of revelations, confessions and love?

Upcoming M/M releases:

Encounters: Magic Lessons – Pink Petal Books short story in the Encounters series

Short blurb: Wizard Drake Keating learns a lesson in love and magic from a man whose heart he once broke.

There are two other books coming with M/M scenes in them, but neither is strictly M/M. One is Fire Storm which is a sequel to Fire Season. In it, I continue Holden and Garret’s story but they share air time with the woman who should have been their mate. There are M/M scenes of Holden and Garret and M/F scenes of Ash with her demon Xavion.  The other book is Runaways which is a M/M/F paranormal coming from Ellora’s Cave.

I’m also in the process of plotting Inversion which is the third novella about my fighter pilots Sebastian and Ryder. I’m hoping to have Inversion out as part of MLR Press’s Father’s Day releases. I’m also hoping to have MLR release Afterburner (the first Sebastian and Ryder novella from Honorable Silence) and Rousing Caine (from Love Me Dead) in solo ebook format.

And then, there’s the Lords of Aether. LOA is a gay steampunk serial story written by me and six other authors. Currently, my main character Lord Anthony Banning is paired romantically with Z.A. Maxfield’s character Shelley Jefferson, who is a high priced courtesan. We’re just starting to get the story off the ground, all of the authors have now had at least one post and we’re looking to deepen the story weekly as we explore the steampunk genre.

 

Lex Valentine’s Contact Information

Author Website
Personal Blog – Sunlight Sucks
Flirty Author Bitches
Lords of Aether
Twitter
Facebook
Facebook Fan Page
Goodreads

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As I mentioned earlier, Lex is also an award winning cover artist and I’m enclosing her two award winning designs along with other covers that she and her daughter have produced as winterheart designs:

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35 comments

  • Lex Valentine

    Thanks for profiling me, Wave! I’ll be at the EDJ today but I will stop by a few times and answer any questions and comments as I can. I will also be around all evening Pacific time. I may even give away a copy of Kissing Joan Collins or Afterburner to the most creative commenter or question! 😀

      • Lex Valentine

        I am writing more M/M. I’ve got one coming in March from PPB (Magic Lessons) and I’ve got the 3rd installment of my fighter pilots coming for Father’s Day at MLR Press (if I make deadline.) I’m considering doing something for the Goodreads thing coming up. And every few weeks I post at Lords of Aether.

  • Ro

    Lex, how do you come up with bookcovers that match the stories? Will LOA be published as a anthology? and will there be more M/M in the future? I’m very fond of M/M loved Rousing Caine 😀

    • Lex Valentine

      Ro, you’re in luck! Rousing Caine will be out as an ebook singleton soon! It’s already on MLR’s Coming Soon page. As I mentioned above, I have Encounters: Magic Lessons coming out in March. It’s a short story with wizard Drake Keating (Weylyn’s lover in my short story In the Light from Wishing on a Blue Star) and a hottie named Justin Scott (who is named after a real person, a beautiful young gay friend of mine who takes wonderful photographs – see It’s Just Justin blog link on SunlightSucks.com.) And the Afterburner guys will be back for Father’s Day. I don’t plan to stop writing M/M.

      As for cover art, authors usually fill out a cover art form with info about the story and characters, descriptions and what they’d like on the covers. Sometimes I can give them just what they want, whether it’s something I personally like or not. It doesn’t always have to be esthetically pleasing to me. If the author is happy, I’m happy. But I do use the information they provide to come up with the cover.

      Lords of Aether will stay as a serial for now. However, the authors have been thinking of publishing short stories that are related to the main LOA story. For instance, ZAM thought about writing the story of how Shelley met Anthony. I thought about doing a short story about Anthony and Jack in their university days. Eventually, if/when we decide to stop, we can complete the storyline and bundle the whole thing into a single book for publication.

      • Ro

        I’m a print reader, got Fire Season and working my way towards the rest of your M/M, I so luv your guys, YUM! 🙂

        • Lex Valentine

          Tales of the Darkworld Volume Two is Sunstroked and Breathe Me In in print. It has a very hot cover and two M/M couples that will blow your socks off. The three stories with the fighter pilots I hope to have come out in a print book in the summer with all three of their stories together.

  • Cinders

    Holy moley Lex is a inspiring writer love her work so very much.. Waves at Lex and have a question Are you doing the cover for Lords of aether?? LOL

        • Lex Valentine

          I imagine at some point we’ll put everything under 1 cover as a huge novel, but I think it would be after we finish this storyline or if we quit doing the serial story. Meanwhile, a few of us are thinking of side stories we can publish. They are all such great characters. I love KC Burn’s Emmett Montgomery the big game hunter. He is a hunter in every facet of his life right down to who’s going to blow him when walks into a party!

  • Karenna Colcroft

    As the proud owner of (stops to count and fails) about a dozen Winterheart covers, between my romance and my YA books, I’m constantly amazed by your talent, Lex, not to mention how much you accomplish in a day!

    • Lex Valentine

      Well, not the buildings. LOL I have bad knees and a bad hip. Today, I’m limping badly, but as long as I don’t have to leave my chair I can do anything! LOL

      Thanks, Jianne!

  • Kaje Harper

    Wow, Lex – all of that on top of a full-time job? When do you sleep? I was wondering how you feel about writing a group project versus your solo efforts. Is it energizing to bounce ideas off each other or do you have a sneaking wish to grab the story and run away with it in your own direction?

    • Lex Valentine

      I sleep about 4-5 hours a night broken into two parts. I get up for about 30-60 minutes in between. Re the group story…I love bouncing ideas off the others. ZAM and I get really rejuvenated sitting at Don Jose’s plotting Shelley and Anthony! There’s something really inspiring about talking with someone else about a project you both work to create. It’s seriously helped jumpstart all my other stuff.

  • Sven

    Hi Lex,
    I just recently read “Kissing Joan Collins”, so hot – but oh so short, and “Fire Season”, a wonderful story that simply makes your heart ache – in a good way.
    I love your way with words.

    I thought I’d only praise you, but one question presents itself to me:
    As an accomplished cover artist, why was the cover for “Fire Season” not from Winterheart Design? It is a very nice cover, just wondering.
    And in the same vein: Why has the epub version of “Kissing Joan Collins” just an ugly nondescript cover picture of a gay angel? (That cover really is horrid…)
    OK, that is two questions, I admit I can’t count 😉
    One more won’t hurt:
    Will there be a longer version of “Kissing Joan Collins” within this millennium? (If the answer is no, please don’t answer this question, I couldn’t bear it.)

    Thank you for some really nice hours

    • Lex Valentine

      Hi Sven! I’m so glad you liked KJC and Fire Season! Re Fire Season, that actually is my work. It’s under my hubs business name and was created before I decided to use my domain winterheart.com for my design stuff. We own rottnroll.com too but it’s under my DH’s name.

      Re KJC, the Valentine’s line from MLR Press all versions of a cover by MLR’s art director. It was to ensure that on their website you could tell which were the Valentine’s releases, same as they did at Christmas and same as they will do for Father’s Day. The 3rd party distribution cover is my work and it’s because once you get to Amazon, people tend to judge a book by it’s cover and if they buy one book with the angel they tend to think all the other ones are the same. Having a different cover ensures that it will be seen and should boost sales.

      I’m not sure about revisiting Chase and Logan. I might. I really love them. They were fun and Logan’s sibs are funny. I might do it and introduce Chase’s dad who is a globetrotting businessman who is bi-sexual, married to Chase’s mom but with guys on the side.

  • Sven

    Thank you for those fast answers Lex!
    I will get “Afterburner” and “Breath of Heaven” as I really like the sound of those books, and if anyone would donate some free time, I will even read them 😉
    I hope you don’t mind, that I replaced the cover in my epub file with a version of your third party distribution cover, but the angel (while cute looking) just grinds on my nerves, while your cover is so fresh and somehow also a counterpoint to the story. It is daring, but with a wit that is just fitting.
    Please choose a praise from those sentences, that explains to you, why I like the cover.
    The “Fire Season” cover is a very nice cover, though I’d have preferred it, if the two men wore something (sorry, but it is winter) 😉
    I will survive, if you won’t write another Chase and Logan book, just write something as good, with about novella length (shall we say 1400 pages? I’ll settle for 1300…) 😉
    Thank you once again!
    Oh, and let me repeat Waves plea for more MM books, I’ll buy them, isn’t that enough? 😀

    • Lex Valentine

      I’m okay with you liking my cover for KJC, Sven! I’ll definitely have more M/M stuff coming. I was thinking of doing an Encounters short story with Corey and Seth from Sunstroked, the S’mores in bed on their honeymoon tale. I’ve also considered doing an Encounters story with Will and Garrick from Breathe Me In, sort of an epilogue about Will moving to Paris to be with Garrick.

      Other M/M books I have planned are a super sekrit project that I’ll probably send to a publisher I’m not already with, a sequel to my EC het story Rock My World with Firewire’s drummer Derek Vanguard and his nerdy accountant boyfriend, part two of my fantasy Spellbound Treasure trilogy from PPB which is about Bran’s twin brother who is a spy who doesn’t exist on paper and who falls in love with a man he can’t trust, and maybe some further adventures of Weylyn Randall before he’s mated. Many of Weylyn’s hookups are with men. He’s an equal opportunity lover, but other than his mate (who is female) he’s really more attracted to men so he has more hookups with men. He has a lot of fun sexual adventures before he meets his mate. (Okay, he has a lot of sexual adventures after as well. LOL)

      I have tons of stuff in my head and on paper for future stories so there is no fear I’ll stop. And you should check out the Lords of Aether too. You’ll get a weekly dose of M/M there.

    • Lex Valentine

      Thanks, Marianne! The giraffes are because of a friend’s character when we were writing in a serial story together. She had this 6’6″ vampire named Alaric who was patterned after Marcus Schenkenberg in looks. Since I love Marcus, I was enamored of this character and ended up putting my character Lex Valentine (from whom I stole my pen name) in a star crossed relationship with him. In one of the scenes, the character of Alaric explains to Lex that he does know how to dance, his mother made him take lessons even though she said he was a big giraffe. After that, Lex buys him a huge giraffe as a gift. My friend Jen, who wrote Alaric, sent me a stuffed giraffe and told me to name it Marcus and my obsession with giraffes was born. I carry a Dooney and Bourke giraffe print purse with matching wallet and I have two other D&B giraffe purses in different sizes. I need to get the giraffe print sheets though.

  • Lex Valentine

    My giveaway winner is Sven for asking me about my covers (especially the Fire Season question) and for wanting more Chase and Logan. Sven, you can have your choice of any of M/M ebooks that you don’t have or you can have a copy of Magic Lessons when it comes out the first week of March.

    • Sven

      Wow! Thank you Lex! So much for cats killed by curiosity… 😉
      I would be very interested in “Afterburner” as an epub, see if Top Gun still does it for me 😀

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