Today I am very excited to welcome Rachel Haimowitz to the blog today. Rachel and Cat Grant are the authors of the new Riptide release, Power Play: Resistance, which I reviewed here earlier today. Please join me in giving Rachel a big welcome!

Thank you for joining us on the Power Play: Resistance virtual release tour! *throws penis-shaped confetti borrowed from Anne Tenino*

No party is complete without favors, so we’ll be giving away winner’s choice of a signed paperback from Cat or Rachel (any of their Riptide titles other than Power Play) to one lucky commenter from this blog at the end of the tour. We’ll also be giving away a classic Nook pre-loaded with six of our titles to one lucky commenter drawn from all the tour stops, so follow along and party with us at each–you can earn an entry at every stop!

Baby I Was Born this Way: Part I

Hello, my name is Rachel, and I am a sexual sadist. I am β€œout”; I do not hide this fact or take the least bit of shame or embarrassment in it. I may, in fact, have been known to revel in my cruelty from time to time. Fortunately, there are a great many masochists in the world who are more than happy to revel with me.

Take Cat Grant, my co-writer for our new BDSM kinkapalooza, Power Play: Resistance. In Power Play, we follow the story of an out-and-proud Dominant (Jonathan) and a deeply closeted submissive (Brandon). Brandon is hamstrung by his shame and fear of his urges. He doesn’t understand why he is the way he is. He doesn’t want to be the way he is. It takes a firm and patient (and did I mention firm? Because, wow, is it ever) hand to teach him how to be proud of himself and the gifts he can receive and give.

The thing Brandon fails to understand at the startβ€”and the thing that, unfortunately, a lot of naturally inclined sadists and masochists, submissives and Dominants also don’t understandβ€”is that these desires don’t come out of some life event. I’m not a Dominant now because I felt helpless as a child. My last partner wasn’t a submissive because his father beat him. There’s nothing wrong with any of us. We don’t need to be β€œcured” (as a certain ragingly popular β€œmainstream” BDSM novel that shall remain nameless is trying to suggest). Submission isn’t weakness and Domination isn’t bullying. They are gifts, both of them. Exquisite things that make even more exquisite things when the right two people come together. Not a β€œdeviation” or a β€œperversion” that needs to beβ€”or even can beβ€”programmed out of us.

As with many other things to do with our minds and bodiesβ€”sexual orientation, gender identification, etc.β€”we are simply, well, born that way. (Tune in for tomorrow’s blog

tour stop to read when I discovered my love of making pretty men cry; you might be surprised!) And I’m sure natural selection has a reason for it, too. Who knowsβ€”maybe way back when, Dominants made great and caring tribe leaders, and masochists volunteered to climb the trees and steal the honey from the bee hives.
So to all of you who wish to kneel or see others kneel, whip or be whipped (which often, but not always, go togetherβ€”not all submissives are masochists and not all Dominants are sadists), embrace your desires. Be proud. And find someone who will love you not in spite of those things but at least in part because of them. Just like Jonathan and Brandon did.

Blurb:

Give me six months, and I’ll give you the world.

Brandon McKinney has scraped and sacrificed for what little in life he’s ever had. Though it’s been fifteen years since he escaped his father’s abuse, the damage remains. Trust seems as far out of reach as his dream of becoming an architect, and though he’s come to accept being gay, he can’t deny the shame and confusion he feels at other urgesβ€”the deeply-repressed desire to submit.

Jonathan Watkins is a self-made Silicon Valley billionaire whose ex-wife took half his money and even more of his faith. Comfortable as a Dominant but wary of being hurt again, he resorts to anonymous pickups and occasional six-month contracts with subs seeking only a master, not a lover.

When a sizzling back-alley encounter cues Jonathan in to Brandon’s deep-seated submissive side, he makes the man an offer: Give me six months of your life, and I’ll open your eyes to a whole new world. Brandon doesn’t care about that; all he wants is the three million dollars Jonathan’s offering so he can buy the construction company he works for. But he soon learns that six months on his knees is no easy feat, and shame and pride may keep him from all he ever wantedβ€”and all he never dreamed he had any right to have.

You can read an excerpt and order Power Play: Resistance here.

About the Authors:

Rachel Haimowitz
is an M/M erotic romance author, a freelance writer and editor, and the Managing Editor of Riptide Publishing. She’s also a sadist with a pesky conscience, shamelessly silly, and quite proudly pervish. Fortunately, all those things make writing a lot more fun for her . . . if not so much for her characters.

When she’s not writing about hot guys getting it on (or just plain getting it; her characters rarely escape a story unscathed), she loves to read, hike, camp, sing, perform in community theater, and glue captions to cats. She also has a particular fondness for her very needy dog, her even needier cat, and shouting at kids to get off her lawn.

You can find Rachel at her website, Tweeting as RachelHaimowitz, chatting in the Goodreads forums, and blogging at Fantasy Unbound. She loves to hear from folks, so feel free to drop her a line anytime at metarachel (at) gmail (dot) com.

EPIC Award–winning author Cat Grant lives by the sea in beautiful Monterey, California, with one persnickety feline and entirely too many books and DVDs. When she’s not writing, she sings along (badly!) to whatever’s on her iPod shuffle, watches lots of movies, and fantasizes about kinky sex with Michael Fassbender.

Where to find Cat:
Website: http://www.catgrant.com
Blog: http://catgrant.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cat.grant
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/CatGrant2009
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1912055.Cat_Grant

Thank you so much to Rachel Haimowitz for joining us today. And don’t forget to leave a comment here to enter to winΒ a signed paperback from Cat or Rachel (any of their Riptide titles other than Power Play) Β at the end of the tour. Β They are also giving away a classic Nook pre-loaded with six of their titles to one lucky commenter drawn from all the tour stops, so be sure to follow along with them and enter at the other stops as well. Β The contest closes on April 18th. Β