UPDATE: The winner is…Debra Guyette!
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Who is A.J. Harris? My alter-egotist? A pen name for my spicy and erotic work?

All the above. But, also, a reminder of the people who (unknowingly) got me into writing ribald tales.

The first was my sister. She calls me A.J., all the time, even though those aren’t my initials! She was also one of the two big romance readers in my house when growing up. It’s only fitting my name is a memorial to her unsung influence. There was never any stigma to a good romance for her. She always proudly displayed her hardcover on our sitting room shelves.

The other big romance reader was my Baba (Grandma) Ivanna. We’d always find old-school Harlequin romances in her room — spines cracked and pages dog-eared. She’d bring them to the beach and read them. She’d also ignore me when I told her bending the spines around to hold them one-handed was bad for the book.

She also had a secret stash. In the laundry room was an old, blue chest of drawers. The first two drawers held extra tablecloths, fancy napkins, and – occasionally – bags of hand-shelled walnuts. The other drawers were filled with romance novels. I think this is where my sister got many of her second-hand books.

But my sister’s Harlequin covers were tame and polite compared to what I found on Baba Ivanna’s books. No coy glances here. This was classic “clinch” art, with heroines spilling from their dresses while clinging to bare-chested men. Hair flowed like waterfalls down naked skin.  I still remember the one about warring Highland clans and a strategic marriage becoming a passionate love affair…

Later on, I discovered I could combine lusty romance with my other loves — science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal. And folks would read them! After all that, how could I not let A.J. out to play?

I was amazed when my story was included in Delilah’s STRANDED anthology. Shortly thereafter, a story of mine found its way into Rachel Kramer Bussell’s BIG BOOK OF ORGASMS, Vol. 2! With luck, a future author will pick up one of my stories — hidden away in an old eBook file — and get a little inspiration from these tales to start writing.

For a chance to win a FREE download of one of the A Boys Behaving Badly Anthologies, pop over to my website, and then comment HERE about one thing you saw there. 

About the Author

A.J. Harris is a native of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, who indulges in a bit of photography, spends entirely too much on books, and uses Twitter to comment on old movies. A.J.’s spicy romance stories have previously been published in the anthology Stranded and The Big Book of Orgasms 2.

His story inside Silver Soldiers: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology was “Fight Like Cats and Wolves”…

After their helicopter is forced down by a rogue war machine, an Army veteran must use wits and fangs to survive with his mysterious pilot…