Meet Laura Tolomei.. If you really want to know, I was born in 1965 in Rome, Italy, but soon started my travelling career. At the age of five, my parents took me to Lagos, Nigeria, where I grew up free and hot like I've never been since. I loved it there and still think of it with nostalgia. Anyway, it was also where I learned English.
After my African experience, I was ready to tackle the US. I lived in Atlanta, GA, five teen-age years, attending the Crestwood High School, where I started my writing career by publishing a short story Nostalgia on the Crestwood Journal. Very thrilled about discovering my new talent, I went ahead during college, writing for the Emory University journal The Phoenix. Three articles mark my first-and last-steps in journalism, "The peace Corps", "WAMM, Women Against Military Madness," and "Lesbism".
After my American experience, I moved back to Rome, but still kept living from time to time abroad, spending several months in Mumbay India, a country I always felt very close to me in more ways than one.
Today, I write both in Italian and English, mostly fiction of various genres, from fantasy erotica, to mysteries up to plain ordinary life stories.For those of you who read Italian, you can simply visit the Italian sections of my website. In English, I write erotica in various genres, mostly fantasy, sci-fi and paranormal, sometimes trespassing into contemporary. Feel free to look over my current and future projects by clicking here.
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RE-SCUE by Laura Tolomei
However you lived your past, today you’re the key to changing your future.Only one rule: never fall in love.
But the sex and blood is just too good to pass up. So what to do? Blood and sex are the only fair game he, the hunter, allows me, his prey, to have in our passionate chase through time and space. And for his sake, I’ve had more lives than I care to count. From one life to the next, I played his savage game, hungering for him in a way no amount of blood or sex could ever satisfy me. But not anymore!
So how to beat him at his own game and get away with it?
Author Laura Tolomei crafts four stories that trace a passionate and tumultuous relationship through time and gender. Don’t miss this exciting prequel to Tasting Leon’s Mark, now available! BUY THE eBOOK *** BUY IN KINDLE *** READ THE EXCERPT *** WATCH THE TRAILER
WIN - Leave Laura a question today about her or her new book and your name goes in the hat to win a copy of it!! Please leave your email address, so we can contact you if you are today's winner - Good Luck!
WOO HOO super congrats on the very long-awaited release Laura!!
ReplyDeleteYou must be thrilled to see this book come out! Please tell us all about your new book. Is it divided into four separate stories? And I see there is a shapeshifter twist to it as well.
Reincarnation, the idea for this story, is something you're very interested in (me too), please tell us about that.
I'm so happy we can celebrate this new release with you!! Enjoy your Cyber Launch Party and I hope RE-SCUE is your bestselling book yet!
Leon is one interesting predetor. I'm anxious to know more about him & his lives.
ReplyDeleteDid the multiple past lives aspect of Leon make him any more difficult to write?
drainbamaged.gyzmo at gmail.com
Wow, just sounds interesting. I haven't read any of your work before, but I'm going to be looking into this for sure.
ReplyDeleteDoes this book lead right into Tasting Leon's Mark?
If this is anything like Ms Tolomei's other works it's going to be a must read for me :D
ReplyDeleteFANTASTIC! I am so very happy for you!
ReplyDeleteRe-Scue ... The demon's lover ... and december 1st another release: The pirate's surrender!
You are spoiling us! You are an inescapable MM author to read, Laura!
Now... what makes Re-Scue so special for you? What inspired you or... who? How would you describe Re-scue in 5 words?
Thank you so much for sharing your talent but for being an incredible human being. I am honored to know you.
Mary
Hi, Laura!!! I asked you about travelling last time soooo how about how much research do you have to do for the books you write?
ReplyDeleteJan
gembrat94@yahoo.com
Hey there. The concept for this book sounds really interesting. I was wondering: How did the concept for this book occur to you?
ReplyDeleteHi, DeNita, and thanks so much for hosting me on your GAB Cyber Launches. Mmmmm....where do I start to tell about Re-Scue? From its beginning back in 2008? Or perhaps from the fact I had to submit it more times than I care to count? Interesting, it also had the most number of covers, too! But that's explained also by the fact the first publisher that agreed to release it back in 2009 closed after 6 months that it had contracted Re-Scue. Not my book's fault, of course, still it was just an unlucky turn of events. But I didn't give up and submitted it again. Like the first time, placing it wasn’t easy. It’s so very borderline, so fetish, so BDSM in a non-BDSM way, so bloody and sexy, so out of any conventional story you've read so far that publishers were afraid of it until Romance Divine decided to take it it on. It's something out of their usual catalog, the EIC made no mystery of it, but it intrigued him enough to take it aboard. So here it is! And just to end the topic of its release history, the story was so good and the characters so vibrantly alive in my mind that I didn't stop writing about them. Even if Re-Scue still waited its destiny, I wrote the sequel, Tasting Leon's Mark, which had no trouble getting contracted then released by WCPT. This confirmed my impression LOL
ReplyDeleteSynopsis coming up on the next post...
Synops
ReplyDeleteThe prequel to Tasting Leon’s Mark, the bloody game that started it all with the inter-play of different lifetimes all aiming for the same passionate lust. Divided into 4 books, the story takes place in four different worlds, with eight different protagonists that are the same two souls that keep reincarnating and crossing paths, hunter and prey inevitably liked in a doomed destiny.
BOOK One - In a hi-tech world, Tylean teaches Didri pain and pleasure while slicing tiny cuts on her soft skin. The game, intended only at a physical level, turns into love for Didri, but sadly not for him…
Book Two - The predator, in the shape of a panther, recognizes the bond with its gazelle/prey, but will they find a way around nature’s ways?
Book Three -.In a peaceful farming community, the hunter Rhodri meets Aural and the game begins anew. He makes her go beyond her boundaries, hovering between pain and pleasure, trapping her inside the same knifing game he used as Tylean. Once again, though, Aural commits the fatal mistake of falling in love with her lover/tormentor, and consequences will be drastic, to say the least
Book Four - On Twenty-first Century Earth, Leon and Sean resume their game in a typical American business context. This time, however, things are bound to change as the lesson “However you lived your past, today you’re the key to changing your future” sinks in, so much so their story continues in the sequel Tasting Leon’s Mark.
REINCARNATION
ReplyDeleteYes, DeNita, it’s one of my favorite subjects, probably because I believe in it personally. I like to think we don’t have one shot at making it right, that the span of eternity gives us plenty of time to correct our mistakes and evolve.
Thus said, the topic has a lot of space in my literature.
The closest example to Re-Scue is Divinitas, my philosophical/erotica (yeah, sounds sophisticated LOL), but that’s what it is. Like in Re-Scue, the focus is on two souls struggling to reach higher understanding in various worlds of religious myths, from the Egyptians, to the Celtic, then finally to the Christians. And like my Re-Scue characters, they too will reach a sort of closure and understanding of the Higher Beings.
Another reincarnation book, and one of my favorites, is To Seduce A Soul Mate. Here, too, Martin believes he’s going to meet his soul mate one day, which of course means he believes he’s lived other lives and has the one special being waiting for him. Too bad Drake, the pirate as Martin calls him, doesn’t believe him and he won’t until the sequel to the book, The Pirate’s Surrender. Here, too, the characters were so intriguing and the story so gripping, I had to write a sequel, The Pirate’s Surrender, which will be released Dec. 1st, in just two weeks. Can’t wait LOL
Hi, Kathryn, what an interesting question. To answer you, first I'll post this on the characters in Re-Scue.
ReplyDeleteCharacters
The hunter: Tylean, panther, Rhodri and Leon
He is a dominant Alpha man who loves to cut up with a knife his prey, then drink the blood while having passionate sex. He always expects his prey to live by his rules and play the game without the burden of emotions. When the prey trespasses this stringent limit, the hunter feels compelled to take drastic measures, which result in tragic death or dramatic endings.
The prey: Didri, gazelle, Aural, Sean
She/he accepts the hunter's rules at first, but inevitably falls in love with him, risking disaster each time until he develops a winning strategy that will change the terms of the game.
Now to answer your question, Kathryn, it wasn’t very difficult to write Leon or any of the other character. The trick, if you can call it so, is to remember that every character does have traces of his past life, but he’s also a unique individual. Mostly, he evolves from Tylean to Leon, going through the panther and Rhodri, until he becomes Leon Sterling, a modern business man who knows he has a prey waiting for him, but won’t behave like a man of the future or the past, only like a man of today’s world. He’s also learned from his past mistakes and his behavior will change accordingly.
ReplyDeleteI’ll also tell you a secret. Leon was inspired by a colleague of mine, to whom I dedicated the book. Not his actual personality, but his way of doing business is what gave me the idea of placing Leon in today’s world and turn him into a successful businessman. And that’s why he comes out so real, so three-dimensional!
Thanks for stopping by,
Laura
Yes, Katie, Tasting Leon's Mark picks up right after Re-Scue leaves off. And it's a way to test if Leon and Sean have really resolved their issues, the same started so many lives before they can't possibly count them. And still, there's a third book in arrival, and this is a REAL insider info! Yes, their story doesn't end with Tasting Leon's Mark. The title right now, but I don't know it it'll stick, is Traveling Through Souls, and I'll be working on it 2012. So you might want to stay tuned for that.
ReplyDeleteAnd one more interesting bit of info. Originally, I thought the storyline was about a twosome until somehow a third character started to become so important with each story, I realized it was in fact a threesome. It wasn't thought out that way, just happened along the way, and I'm glad I had the chance to go back to Re-Scue after the release of Tasting Leon's Mark, to make it clearer to the readers, too. Those who have read Tasting Leon's Mark know I'm talking about Janet. For those who haven't, the both books reserve more than one surprise LOL
Thanks, Ilona,
ReplyDeleteyou're very kind! And you can call me Laura LOL
So very good of you to stop by,
Laura
First of all, Mary, welcome and thank you, thank you, again thank you (did I thank you already??) for your compliments!
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess you got it right, lots of releases in just three short months. Then again, I have been kind of biding my time, working my ass off on Re-Scue from the time of my last release, Visionquest, which was November of last year.
This alone would make Re-Scue special, but it’s hardly the case. What makes it unique are a series of factors. First, it was the first and so far only storyline, I submitted to a different prublisher than eXtasy. This was a choice I made back in 2008, when the book was born. It seemed to me eXtasy was simply accepting my books ‘cause it had already contracted a couple, which meant they didn’t much care about the value of the work, only the fact they knew me. Today I know it isn’t exactly true, but back then I wanted REASSURANCE I was good as a writer and this meant NOT accepting my work face value, but analyzing their worth objectively like any publisher does when it receives subs from authors it doesn’t know. So mine was a gamble and a hope that I was capable of creating original stories other publishers would value, too. And this paid off in the end.
So much so, one publisher wrote me the BEST rejection letter EVER! Strange to say, yet this publisher said their staff had been overwhelmed by this story, they all read it and talked about it among themselves, fascinated by the plot, the development and the characters. Only thing they couldn’t accept it ‘cause it was too fetish for their catalogue. But their heartfelt compliments still ring in my ear and made me so very proud of what I consider now my true calling in life.
Second reason I value Re-Scue so much is that it had a hard time to get published. Mostly because, like the publisher above, the story’s crude in telling the knife slashing, the bloody ritual between the two characters and it cannot be labeled easily. It’s fetish, true, but only in the knife cutting. It’s not a proper BDSM ‘cause there’s no real bondage, except maybe in Book One. It doesn’t have only human characters, but animals, too, very unusual in any erotica novel to find them. It’s not a love story, though it’s the greatest testimony of two souls’ attachment to one another (I mean what other love lasts countless lifetimes?). It’s not sci-fi, yet Book One takes place in a futuristic world. It’s not a fantasy, yet Book Three takes place in an invented world. It’s not contemporary, yet Book Four takes place in 21st Century Earth. It’s all this and more all wrapped inside an intriguing game neither can stop. For sure it’s a paranormal, what with the characters actually remembering bits and pieces of their past lives. But that’s the key to everything, the one thing that enables them to evolve and correct their mistakes for:
However you lived your past, today you’re the key to changing your future
Now as to what inspired it…what can I say? For sure it was born out of my Oriental convictions, the philosophy of reincarnation and all. I wanted to prove a point, to myself mostly, about how lives have a way of forcing one to face his mistakes, however distant they might be from your present self. So if one cannot evolve enough to go beyond them, life will keep hitting you in the head with them until you either succumb or learn your lesson. A bit drastic, I agree, but I do believe it’s what happened to me in a way, and I found a way of telling it through Leon and Sean.
Re-Scue in 5 words or less:
Borderline tale about destiny’s cosmic irony
Like it? Oh, shut, it’s 6 words, will you forgive me? LOL
LOL Laura. I so love your sense of humor!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this thoughtful response. I can see how re-scue is important for you, an achievement you succeed.
While so many MM authors (I should add MMF too!) are not developing much the plot and the characters and concentrate on sex, on the other hand, you, you do it with maestro. Of course your sex scenes are hot but what make your work special in my opinion is that you always go further. You always analyze 20 different ways and find a 21 unique one.
Laura. I wish you incredible success with Re-Scue!
Oh, and Mary, you're the real original one. Have you guys seen the UNIQUE interview she gave me on her blog? Talk about ORIGINAL QUESTIONS. Took the hell out of me to answer them as truthfully as possible while in fact I had to dig into my very soul in order to come up with the answers!
ReplyDeleteAnd I loved every one of them, Mary, reallly AMAZING INTERVIEW.
Have you guys checkd it out?
Go to http://marywhispers.blog.com/?page_id=318 so y'all know, too LOL
And thanks again, Mary, for the incredible opp! You picked my brains and I'm still reeling from the experience!
Ciao from Rome,
Laura
aura
Han,
ReplyDeletegreat of you to stop by. I tried reaching you to inform you that you were one of the winners last time, a winner of a free copy of The Demon Waiter, but you never answered me. Can you contact me since I'm having trouble reaching you? The email is lalla_gatta@yahoo.com.
Now for your question, the amount of research I do depend on the type of book. When it's historical. I do extensive research, want to be sure I'm saying the right things and not inventing them. I use a lot of my knowledge in these cases 'cause history has always been a favorite subject of mine and I also have a good memory. Still I surf the Internet to verify my facts and get them in the right sequence. This happened with Roman Seduction, the story of Attilio and Aurelio that takes place in the 1st Century A.D., but also with Bloody Passion and Trespassing All Hallows Eve, both set in the same time period. Spying the Alcove also required research for the parts set in Ancient Roman times, while the contemporary story between Valerio and Andrea was easier since it's based in today's Italy at an archeological site I've had the pleasure of visiting in Sicily. But undoubtedly, the historical book I've had to do the most research on is Divinitas because it covers large chunks of history, from the Ancient Egyptians to the Persian Empire to Celtic Britain, a mix of history, cultures and religions I had to check thoroughly before I could set them down on paper.
For my fantasy books, I hardly use any research. What would be the purpose? It's all invented, comes right out of my imagination and there's nobody to contest it. Works great for the Virtus Saga, which as you all know takes place on the planet Sendar, a planet familiar with me alone LOL
Then again, I do research for my contemporary novels. In writing The Pirate's Surrender, which is due out Dec. 1st, I've had to research towns in Ireland, since Martin takes Drake to his mom's house to celebrate their first Christmas together. I also had to check the flight schedule from Atlanta to Dublin, so I guess research is always a must in an author's writing.
Only thing I never research, besides fantasy, is the paranormal twist of my tales. That is all my imagination and my beliefs working together to create the most paradoxical and sometimes incredible situations. But I think they work perfectly well for my characters LOL
Please Jan contact me ASAP.
Thanks for stopping,
Laura
Hi, Alyna, well, the concept came out of my beliefs that we all have lessons to learn, not all necessarily in the same life. But if we fail to do so, these lessons won’t go away, they’ll await our next lives, however many it takes to get it through our thickheads that we should evolve, learn and move on. It’s what happens to Tylean and Didri, to the panther and the gazelle, to Aural and Rhodri who go on repeating the same pattern that brings them only despair and tragedy. But then they learn. Somehow, Sean and Leon evolve beyond their premises to move on. Not easy, though, to break a pattern lasted countless times already. Still it becomes necessary ‘cause you either succumb or learn. There really aren’t many alternatives, especially for them who have already traveled the lengths of time and space to renew their bloody game.
ReplyDeleteOr you gotta have a twisted imagination like my mate claims ever since we met, 27 years ago LOL
Have a great day,
Laura
Yeah, Mary, you're absolutely right. Re-Scue is an achievement for me, the measure of my worth as a writer, so to speak, and this makes me treasure it above the others.
ReplyDeleteOh, Mary, there you go again making me blush all over the place! I cannot thank you enough for your heartfelt praise. I never like to parade myself, but I do think books, mush like music or arts, are a creative way to express opinions and ideas, in a form people might fing attractive. And that's how I think up my books. And my characters, too. In all my work, they start off at a certain level, and end up at a much higher one before the book is finished. It's the only way a tale makes sense to me. Has to show a growth, a development that readers might use as a basis for their own need to change. Reading opens your mind, which is why I never concentrate on the sex alone. Without a plot, it would be meaningless. In fact, I often use it to show how the characters are growing, for it's often without words that they say the most to their significant other or others.
Thank you so much for your wish! Keeping my fingers crossed, too LOL
Laura
All right, guys, it's late here in Rome and time for me to catch up on my beauty sleep. Funny how lately I'm requiring more and more of it...must be age gaining up on me LOL
ReplyDeleteFor those of you who come after, feel free to leave your comments. I'll answer them tomorrow. Given the time difference, DeNita doesn't mind leaving the party up for another day, to make me get the best of it.
A huge THANKS to DeNita of Author Island!!!! You throw such wonderful parties, I wish I had a new release coming up every single month LOL
But at least, I know for sure I'll be back in a month's time for the release of The Pirate's Surrender. So thanks again and good night to all,
Laura