Blog Tour Stop, Interview & Contest: Bump in the Night Anthology

Hi! I’m Sam Schooler. My six talented co-authors and I will be stopping by various blogs until Halloween to celebrate the release of our spooky-sexy dark erotica anthology Bump in the Night. A big thanks to my host Book Reviews & More by Kathy for having me, and thank you to everyone for stopping by to hang out with me! 🙂

1. Tell us about your latest release.

My part in Bump is “Blasphemer, Sinner, Saint,” cowritten with the lovely Heidi Belleau. It’s a dip into 1880s Whitechapel, and our leading man Tobias is the staunchly religious maintainer of a house for orphan boys. When his childhood friend David, a prostitute who has contracted syphilis, comes to Tobias for help in caring for his brother after David dies, Tobias refuses. After all, he’s moved past the sinful, shameful things that he and David did together when they were young teenagers. . . . Right?

Tobias’s decision not to help David is challenged when a stranger in a church offers him a deal. If Tobias agrees, the stranger will cure David.

For a price.

On a personal note, this story is something I never thought I’d write. This is my first foray into fiction with a historical setting. I’d sworn myself off historical fiction a while ago, sure that it wasn’t within my range. Heidi approached me with the outline back in June, convinced me to give it a shot, and after a night of crash-course researching, we wrote the whole thing in three days. To my surprise, the fact that BSS is historical didn’t hold me back at all while we were writing it, and plenty of prior research I’d done out of sheer interest (I’m a huge Jack the Ripper buff) ended up slotting its way effortlessly into place. Lesson learned!

2. Describe your workspace.

I’m an all-over writer. At any given time of the year, I’m usually living in a different place! I spend summers in Saskatchewan with my fiancée, spend fall living at my university, spend winter back home with my parents in Cincinnati, spring at university, and then I do it all over again!

I have a desk back at my parents’ place that I used for a workspace, and it’s surrounded by art prints, quotes, and superhero posters. Here at university, my workspace is usually the library; I’ve found that if I’m on a public computer and not logged in to any of my usual social media stomping grounds, I’m much more productive. I also love working at coffee shops—the constant activity around me keeps my energy up, and I’m only steps away from my next iced caramel latte.

3. Have you ever written outside the romance genre? Do you plan to?

No, I haven’t. I got my start in fanfiction, which, as most people know, is ALL about the romance. The funny thing is, for the longest time, I refused to call myself a romance author. Even when I made the jump to original fiction, I balked when I got the, “What genre are you?” question. I like, read, and write a whole heap of genres, from gritty dystopian to contemporary supernatural to fluffy slice-of-life. But a common thread in all those is a central romantic relationship.

I guess it’s because “romance author” comes with so many negative stereotypes. When I went to a writer’s convention in my hometown a couple years ago, I got a lot of dirty looks because I said I was a romance author. I got a lot of, “Oh, that. Well, what are you going to write when you grow up as a writer?” I was too shy to say it then, but. . . I am grown up as a writer. I like writing romance because I like writing about love. I like writing about sex. I like writing about connections between people. I like writing about queer people being happy in all the ways plenty of the world wishes they couldn’t be.

I like mainstream fiction, too, but nothing gets my heart racing like UST (unresolved sexual tension), and nothing frustrates me more than when something
I “ship” in a mainstream novel ends up being solved offscreen or not given enough time and attention for my taste. So I go to romance novels, where that problem never happens (unless I fall head over heels for side characters, which happens way too often–like my obsession with Vicks from Heidi Belleau’s Rear Entrance Video series). Maybe one day I’ll write some mainstream fiction, but for now, I’ll say that I can honestly never see myself writing a book that doesn’t have a strong romantic storyline.

4. Where do you get the names for your characters?

I’m pretty easy to please name-wise. I’m also guilty of being prejudiced against names; if I know someone and don’t like their name, you can count on it being nixed from my list of potential character names. Occasionally I’ll have a name waiting around for a character to take it, but most of the time, I end up trawling baby names sites, looking for one that catches my eye.

I’m also stingy about giving out my favorite names, but I’m learning to let go a little. Heidi and I are going to be working on a book soon where one of the MCs is named Percy, and I’m currently working on a solo novel with an MC named Jael. Both are favorite names of mine that I’ve at last parted with. *single manly tear*

For “Blasphemer, Sinner, Saint,” I suggested Biblical names for both our main characters, hence Tobias and David. Mr. Ashmedai—and his later-revealed real name—was all Heidi’s doing, based on a complicated journey through early 1900s Hell-themed literature.

Lightning round! Answer as fast as you can!
Favorite song? “Radioactive,” Imagine Dragons
Favorite movie? Tie between Cabin in the Woods and Half Light.
Leather or latex? Leather all the way!
Naughty or nice? Naughty!
Coke or Pepsi? Lemonade!
Favorite TV show? Teen Wolf
Favorite trope? One-man wolf syndrome—“I only trust/like/love you.”
Day or night? Night!
Cats or dogs? Dogs!
Favorite holiday? Halloween. ;D

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Title: Bump in the Night Anthology
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: M/M, Paranormal, Erotic, Romance
Length: 204 pages/Word Count: 55,300

Summary:

Turn off the lights . . . and turn on your darkest fantasies.

Demon pacts. Ghostly possessions. Monsters lurking in the depths. The things that go bump in the night frighten us, but they also intrigue us. Fascinate us. Even turn us on.

Join us as fan favorites Ally Blue and Kari Gregg bring over-amorous aquatic beasts to life with their mythic twists on the Siren and the monster in the lake. Erotic horror pros Heidi Belleau, Sam Schooler, and Brien Michaels show us just how sexy scary can be with a pair of demon deals destined to curl your toes and set your heart thrashing. And literary masters Laylah Hunter and Peter Hansen weave haunting worlds where ghosts and dead lovers can touch our hearts (and other, naughtier places too . . .) and teach us lessons from beyond the grave.

By turns exciting, evocative, and exquisitely explicit, the stories in Bump in the Night are sure to scratch your sexy paranormal itch. Explore your wildest fantasies with us in this collection of dark erotic tales.

You can read an excerpt from each story and buy the whole anthology here!

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Author Bio

Sam Schooler was born on a Saturday in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised by a geek, and was recently released into the wild. A university student, a journalist, and a Tumblr addict, she is most comfortable at night, basking in the healthy glow of a laptop screen. She loves queer romance in all its forms, and has found a home in writing both contemporary and speculative New Adult stories with a focus on queer characters, trans* characters, mixed-orientation couples (or threesomes, or foursomes…), and badass ladies. She can often be found crying over TV shows and comic books, and she is known to passionately campaign for the preservation of the Oxford comma. She has associative prosopagnosia. Jeremy Renner played her in a movie once.

Catch up with Sam and her backlist at her website. Or, if you’re feeling daring, follow her on Twitter as @samschoolering or on Tumblr to get the full immersive experience.

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Contest

Every comment on this blog tour enters you in a drawing for a $25 Riptide Publishing gift certificate! Entries close at midnight, EST, on November 2nd, and one grand prize winner will be contacted on November 3rd. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries.

Follow the rest of the tour HERE.