If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Let me start out by saying that sci-fi isn’t one of my favorite genres’ especially when it comes to erotic storys.  But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised how this book turned out.  I couldn’t put it down.  The story is about a couple of young women who by way of the Bermuda Triangle are transported to a land not unlike Earth but at a different time.  Here they must fend for them selves in a remote area from wierd and wild creatures.  They are soon taken in by a family that is more than willing to help them aquire the skills to survive in this new land.  But the best part is how they are accepted into this new family through some of the best sex scenes I have seen or read.  The sex is hot and raw from multiple partners to partners unlike any you have seen.  If only I had the chance to meet this family.   This was one hot read. 

OK, it’ been great getting to know Barbara and reading those bone crunching excerpts…We’ll leave you with this one!

       In the meantime, now that he knew how strong this healer was, he wanted her more than ever. He smiled with greedy anticipation at the thought of feasting upon her fear and draining every scrap of her potent lifeforce while he whipped the flesh inch by inch from her screaming body.

copyrighted text from Barbara Karmazin’s Night Moves.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. If you haven’t picked up one of Barbara’s books, what may I ask are you waiting for?

Get ‘em before I review the next two, Huntress and Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

As promised a scary morsel from Barbara Karmazin’s Night Moves!  Of course they all deal with the psycho-vamp. Maybe I’m a little obsessed…

 The insurance adjuster placed the phone receiver in its cradle. Sweat beaded on his pasty face. The copper tang of fresh fear oozed from his pores like blood. “Ms. Thompson says she’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”

Eamon leaned over the desk, opened his laptop and connected it to the agent’s PC. A few clicks on the keyboard brought up Ms. Thompson’s data and downloaded it to the laptop. The insurance agent squirmed in his seat.

Eamon held the man down with the sheer strength of his will and drank the bliss of raw terror. The agent’s fear turned into silent paralysis. A black-tinged rainbow streamed from the man’s mouth, eyes, nose and ears into Eamon and flooded him with heady delight.

Terror gibbered and wailed through his victim’s mind and soul, swamping the man’s brain with adrenalin. His body jerked up like a puppet on strings. His heart struggled so hard to beat it looked like it was going to explode from his chest. He took a gratifyingly long time to die.

It wasn’t enough.

The human had no trace of psychic ability to enhance the flavor of his death. Eamon stepped back, pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the flecks of saliva from his mouth. He straightened his tie, shut down his laptop and slipped the machine into a sleek, black leather briefcase.

He exited the cubicle and strolled past the work areas of more agents and clerical personnel typing data into their computers and speaking quietly into their phones. Using a miniscule portion of the power he’d drawn, he radiated a simple compulsion of forgetfulness over the office.

No one would remember him.

Text is copyrighted work excerpted from Barbara Karmazin’s Night Moves.

Is your spine tingling yet? Don’t worry, there’s one more tomorrow!

This will wrap up our interview with Barbara, but don’t worry, I’ll have some scary bits for you to savor from Night Moves over the weekend.

LMReviews: As a full-time writer, how long does it take you to finish a novel?

BK: A full length novel of about 80,000 words takes me about nine months to a year to write. A novella, ranging from 29,000 to 45,000 words takes me from thee to six months to write.

LMReviews: Great complex stories definitely take time. Who are your favorite writers?

BK: A few of my favorite writers are as follows: Elizabeth Moon, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hophkinson. Angela Knight, Camille Anthony, Tananariv Due, Steven Barnes, Stephanie Burke, Zenna Henderson,
Samuel Delaney, Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

LMReviews: I love the variety in your list. I will have to check some of them out.  What was the biggest compliment you received as a writer?

BK:Winning the Dream Realm Award two years in a row for Best SF Erotica
was the biggest compliment I received as a writer.

LMReviews: What or who influences your writing most?

BK: Reading Science Fiction and Fantasy novels since I was seven years old have influenced and shaped my writing the most.

LMReviews: Sounds like it goes back to writing what  you know and shaping it to reflect who you are. Creating the plot, the characters or the imagery, what part of your writing do you enjoy the most?

BK: Revising and editing is the part I enjoy the most. Writing that first rough draft is the hardest part. I struggle and struggle, trying to get the bare bones ideas down on paper before I lose them.

Then, after the story is written, I can lovingly add in all the special details and images I forgot to add in during my mad rush to get that first draft written.  I can correct my mistakes and polish the manuscript to professional standards with each edit.

LMReviews: You have given me so much experience and knowledge to chew on Barbara. I really appreciate your work and your willingness to let  us delve into the mind of a Sci-Fi Romance writer. Thank you so much.

Visitors, now I know you can’t wait to sample some of Barbara’s work. I’ll be posting some excerpts tomorrow and Sunday. If you’re impatient like me and can’t wait, feel free to re-read my review of Night Moves and then pick up a copy of your own from Loose-id.com.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow for those scary morsels!

I don’t know about you readers, but I love to put an author’s face with her work. To find out more about Barbara and her growing list of work click on her picture above. Now back to our interview:

LMReviews: So many novels just focus on the conflict, do you consider yourself a trailblazer in being able to depict cultural characters in multi-genre works with such authenticity?

BK: Each story I write, I create a notes files for background and world-building information. Then I do extensive research in order to make the story as realistic as possible. I’m a research junkie. I enjoy the process of digging up information and then weaving it into a story to create detailed characters and the worlds they live in.

LM: Your website shows pictures of dolls you created to represent the
characters from one of your books, is this a practice you still employ?
This is an interesting technique, how did it come about?

BK: One of my early critique partners like to create dolls.
She designed and made those dolls for me, for a reasonable fee.
Since then, we’ve lost touch with each other over the years and I haven’t
contracted any new dolls from after she created those first three dolls of
Cait, Indio and Tiny from the last two books in my Sidhe series.

LM: How do your plots develop?

BK: I’m a pantser.  I start with the bare bones story idea and as I write it out
my characters become alive for me.

LM: You’re attention to sensory details is laser sharp, is that something that develops over many drafts or are you always thinking about the senses
as you write?

BK: After I write the first draft,  I carefully revise and rewrite the next two to three drafts, layering in the details and fleshing that bare bones idea into a complex plot.

LM: That is amazing Barbara. I wrote my first book as a pantser and this second book I’m working on as a plotter. I’m still trying to learn to let it flow in the first draft but that crazy critic in me is trying to hard to layer and sharpen as I write. As any writer knows find what works is a process.

Well, we’ll continue with more insight into Barbara’s writing life tomorrow. Thank you so much for all the great information you’ve provided so far, Barbara!

We’ll chat with you tomorrow. If you haven’t entered the Thanksgiving book giveaway with Hachette Books, check the Win Books link at the top of this page. Also visit Barbara’s page by clicking her picture to see all of her great works.

Until tomorrow…

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the purpose of October’s Horrific Reads Contest was not only to review and feature some great reads in the Horror genre but also to provide one author with an opportunity to showcase his or her talent with an interview here at Sable Lit Reviews.

Still haunted by that psych-vamp the winner was Barbara Karmazin’s Night Moves. This post starts a series of in of which includes questions I posed to her as the winner of that contest.  Enjoy and I hope you pick up a copy of Night Moves for yourself.

LMReviews: For those of who may not have been exposed to your work before, tell us how you came to writing novels?

BK: I was very upset when the Beauty & The Beast TV show got canceled
and what started out as a simple letter of protest turned into a 400 page manuscript that took me three years to write. I read tons of books, spent many long hours researching the episodes, the streets, buildings, aqueducts, subways, Central Park, and the Metropolitan Opera of NY city.

Whenever I wrote a scene that took place in one of the buildings of New York, I researched that building and street beforehand so I could give a reasonably accurate background description.  By writing that manuscript I proved to myself that I had the determination, ability and patience to write a complex, full-length novel. The amazing part of this was I wrote this novel on a typewriter and spend many tedious hours retyping entire chapters each time I had to insert new information.  Inserted one paragraph meant I had to retype 20 pages because inserting that one paragraph reformatted the entire chapter.

I bought my first computer after I wrote that first novel and immediately appreciated the ease of proofreading, correcting misspelled words and inserting new material while using a word processor program instead of a typewriter. LOL

LMReviews: Wow, that shows tremendous dedication and no doubt speaks to the depth of your scenory details which hooked me in Night Moves.

What is your professional background?

BK: I graduated from Penn State University with a BA in Social and a minor in Spanish. After that I worked for 29 & 1/2 years as a bilingual social worker.

LMReviews: Your link to Social work gives you a keen ability to read people and understand different cultures. Knowing that social workers often see people at their worst and/or at their weakest, how do you manage to create a realistic balance of believable traits for your characters?

BK: I start out with the simple fact that each character is a human being or an extraterrestrial alien and build up from that basic template.

LMReviews: Your plots are very unique, how do you build universes, dangerous conflicts, and unique villains all while holding true to the variety of cultures you incorporate in your stories?

BK: Research is the key for me to create unique and believable cultures. Plus, I incorporate cultural knowledge I’ve learned during my 29 and a half years as a bilingual social worker into the characters I create.OK folks, be sure to come back tomorrow as I delve deeper into Barbara’s writing techniques and talents. You won’t want to miss it, I promise.  Check out Night Moves and her other releases at www.loose-id.com or by clicking the book cover above.

In my quest for the most terrorizing scary novels and stories for this first annual Sable Lit Reviews Spooky Friday Showcase, I received some amazing entries. While I liked some and loved others, every author who was showcased for this event should be proud of their stories and the way in which they told them.

So, who got the coveted bewitching Halloween spot???

None other than Twisted Tails III: Pure Fear….!

As an anthology of very talented writers, it provided a variety of stories highlighting what scares us most both in reality and the imaginative recesses of our minds.

Here’s the trailer (if you can stand it) and look forward to the review which will be posted on Halloween!!

While Twisted Tails III landed the coveted Halloween spot, the entry that truly had my heart racing and my nails bitten to bloody stumps was Barbara Karmazin’s Night Moves. I simply can’t get that psyco-vamp out of my head. As a result, look forward to more book reviews featuring Barbara as well as an author interview! Congratulations Barbara and the Twisted Tails Posse!

Happy Halloween-eve ghouls and ghoulettes, until next time!

Sincerely,

The Sable Lit Reviews Blog Mistress

Looks are deceiving and nothing should be left to chance in Barbara Karmazin’s Sci-Fi Erotic thriller Night Moves. IN this book we are taken on a fast journey through a ruthless urban city where gang bangers and crack heads roam and accost the residents by day and set car bombs by night.

Karmazin acutely describes every detail leading the reader through each cavernous nook and cranny of the city revealing a subculture that truly reverberates under the city’s radar. With a healer in Dr. Jasmine (Jazz) Thompson who has an untapped potential beyond her veterinary surgeon designation it is up to Ossian Woldenkin, a wood elf cab driver to show her the full extent of her healing touch as well as the ultra sonic attraction between them. He must break through her barriers of disbelief toward the supernatural as well as her perceptions about white men in order to live out her purpose.

But it’s not all supersonic sex and mystical healing in the tough streets of the urban anti-utopia as a psi-vamp is loose in the area feeding on the dregs of society. With one violent touch he restores his youth from the torture of others one city dweller at a time. Tired of the temporary recharges, he must torture and feast on a healer to retard the aging process for another four decades.

Will Ossian and his best friend, a shape shifting wolf cop, catch him before he makes Ossian’s African queen healer his main course?

I really enjoyed this story. So much happens in just 133 pages, it’ll leave you exhausted. I especially enjoyed the rich description and the great multicultural details. If I can develop Karmazin’s knack for sensory detail and pacing, I will be very blessed. Night Moves earns 5 out of 5 stars.

Publisher: Loose ID

Format: Ebook