A-musing the World. Historical Inspiration. Comment for a chance to win!!!

Welcome! Though there are only a few weeks left, my A-musing the World Blog Event is still going strong. This week I’d like to introduce Clio, Muse of History and the talented author who wrote her romantic tale, Alisha Paige. In A Love Beyond Time, part of The Song of the Muses Anthology, we’ll travel back in time to the Salem witch trials.

As always, there’s a contest! Two winners will be drawn. The prizes? One winner receives an Ecopy of A Love Beyond Time and an Ebook of your choice from Alisha’s backlist. The other wins a $5 gift certificate to Digi Books Cafe. How do you enter to win? Answer the following question…who would Clio like to meet? Find the answer by clicking HERE then return to this blog and leave the answer in a comment. (Hint: The answer may be found somewhere on the right hand side and the first sentence in the paragraph is acceptable)

Now, let’s get to know Clio and Alisha better!

A Love Beyond Time

Cursed for mocking Aphrodite, the goddess of love, Clio, muse of history and her lover are thrust back in time to the Salem witch trials and then the Italian Renaissance. Only love can save them both, but is it enough? Is their love A LOVE BEYOND TIME?

SKY: Thanks so much for joining me this week!

ALISHA: Thanks for having me, Sky! I missed my sisters!

SKY: Oh, me too! Tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been writing? Do you have a genre preference? What have you published thus far?

ALISHA: I’m a mother of three beautiful, very active children, two girls and one boy. When I’m not writing, I’m driving my kids to practice, school events or having fun with them at the Dallas Arboretum or the Dallas Aquarium. I’ve been writing all my life but decided in 2004 to get serious about my writing and pursue publication. My debut novel was published in 2007. I prefer to write paranormal romance but I also write fantasy, time travel, young adult, erotica, and vintage romance. I have six books published and I’m working on number seven, a full length paranormal romance. I have two young adult novels I’m in the process of shopping to agents and editors.

SKY: When you first knew you were going to be part of The Song of the Muses Anthology, what was your first thought?

ALISHA: Wow. How cool and what an honor to work with eight very talented writers.

SKY: Awe, I couldn’t agree more! Did you find yourself researching Greek Mythology quite a bit while writing your story or were you already a guru in this genre?

ALISHA: I’ve always had a love for Greek myth but yes, I did quite a bit of research for Clio’s book.

SKY: Let’s chat about your muse. What drew you to her? As she was literally your inspiration, share a little about how you formed an entire story around her?

ALISHA: Clio is the muse of history and I love history so she was a natural fit for me. She is the muse who helps shape history and gives life to the natural celebrity in all of us. All of us have our own special gifts for our chosen time in this world and really, that is the heart of Clio. She works to help souls find their gift in life and use it to better the world. History is affected by gifted people. Great men and women have shaped history and Clio is there to inspire.

SKY: Time to crawl inside your muse’s head romance style. I’d love to read an excerpt from your story that revolves around her interacting with your hero. Pull us in─lead out with three words you feel could be a mini title for this glimpse inside your tale!

ALISHA: Painting Like Breathing

Giulio touched her cheek, gazing at her, pensiveness lined the corners of his eyes.

“Remember?”

He dropped his hand and sighed. “Is this some kind of trickery?”

“No, my lord. It is true. We once knew one another.”

“In another life?”

“Yes! You remember, then?”

Giulio stood, crossed his arms and studied the beautiful woman. “No. I cannot say that I do. I have not an inkling.” He hesitated, tilted his head and backed up a few steps, studying her as if she were one of his famous works of art. “I do know that I’ve seen you. I know every curve of your body and this I do not understand. I know now that if you bare yourself to me, I can tell you fully where every birth mark lies, every lovely mole. Do you find that odd?”

Giulio giggled. “And I in turn can speak of the mole that decorates your…uh…”

She blushed and giggled again while covering her mouth.

His eyes flew opened wide. “I beg your pardon, Miss! The mole on my what?”

Clio shook her head, flushing even more.

“I beg of you to tell me!” He was pulling her to her feet and still she shook her head in feigned embarrassment. Clio was not shy about her lover, but a lady in this day and age would be. “Forgive me, my dear. I didn’t think a conversation with a person in your station would bother you so.”

His words angered her more than she thought possible. She glared at him, grabbed a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself.

“Ah. Yes, you’ve been under my employment. We’ve lain together and I was perhaps too drunken to remember it all.”

He took a swig of wine from a nearby bottle and slammed it down upon the table. A look of disgust crossed his features.

“No! We’ve never shared a bed!” She paused, staring at the painting of a nude lying in a field of daisies.

“Not in this lifetime at least,” she whispered with a hint of melancholy in her voice.

He lifted one brow, studying her. “And you expect me to believe that?”

“Well, no. I suspect you won’t believe me, but I can tell you things about yourself that no one else knows and how else would I know of your…your mole,” she stammered.

“Hmm…I wonder. For a moment I thought you held some kind of significance, something akin to magic seemed to flow between us.” He shook his head, clamped his palm over his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. “I’ve had too much wine, inhaled too much of the hempseed. I need some fresh air.”

“But don’t you need a model?” Clio asked, afraid he’d dismiss her and they’d be separated yet again. She didn’t wait for his answer. With quick, shaking fingers, she untied the corset and let it fall. She stepped out of it, and stood there in stockings and nothing else.

Giulio groaned out loud. “I suspect I could paint for awhile. See if you inspire me.”

A fire grew deep within her belly and a mischievous grin curled around her lovely face. “Oh, my lord…I can definitely do that for you. It’s what I do best.”

Giulio wasn’t listening. He was already gathering his brushes and paint. He grabbed two flickering candles and moved them closer. “I need the light to be perfect. You have such skin. So flawless. Turn around.”

Clio did as he asked. He ran his hand over her hip, dipped his head down and found her bottom rib. There it was. Just as he’d remembered it. A pair of tiny, black moles, diagonal. He took a deep breath.

“There is something about you…so familiar.”

“Mmm.”

“Turn around. I shall paint.”

And so he did. With brilliant, broad strokes. The paint mixed so perfectly, he never paused to think of how much of one color to add to another. He knew her coloring, how the shadows would fall on each curve. How he knew this, he had no clue, but he knew this would be one of his loveliest nudes yet.

He painted long into the night, stopping only once to fetch her some water to drink and pillows to lie upon. His hair was dripping wet in the warm, candlelit room and he noticed for the first time that his arms were now aching. Never had he painted with such lust for his object, such desire to capture every freckle, every beautiful mole, each wisp of hair, to perfection. That silver curl of hers, sparkled like a dove’s wing. Why did he imagine twirling it between his own two fingers and why did the mere thought of touching her hair harden him so?

SKY: Spectacular excerpt, Alisha! Now it’s Hero time! Introduce us. What does he look like? Where’s he from? Why was he lucky enough to hook up with one of the nine muses of inspiration?

ALISHA: Pierus is my hero but he has many faces because Clio must travel back in time and forward in time to rescue him. And Pierus is reborn in each life but always with dark hair and eyes the color of cool water. Here’s an excerpt when Pierus is living in the days of the Salem Witch trial as Ben, the prison guard.

Ben tied his horse to the post outside Salem’s jail as a trickle of sweat snaked down his temple and into the rough stubble of his jaw. He grabbed the satchel tied to the side of the horse and held it over his crotch. He’d had no contact with the witch for three weeks and still she haunted his dreams. Even while awake, she called to him during the day, whispering to him with that sultry voice of hers. He’d had a hard-on for days. Even Betsy had noticed it and couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t make love to her. How could he tell her that he didn’t want the witch in the bedroom with them and that the sex he shared with Clio in his dreams was more magnificent than anything he’d ever experienced?

He barged inside and sat down at his desk, shuffling through the papers the minister had sent that very morning. Six others had been accused of witchcraft. He’d send his men to pick them up this afternoon. Now Clio would have to share her cell. He pitied the poor soul. Even Tituba had stopped her infernal moaning, resigned to her fate.

Come see me, Ben.

“Good God, woman!” Ben burst out loud as he stood and barged down the hallway, grabbed the ring of iron keys from an old rusty nail and headed to Clio’s cell.

She was standing up against her cage, her long fingers grasping the bars loosely. Ben thought she looked incredibly beautiful to have been in jail for so long. She smiled at him and then licked her lips as he unlocked the cell. Clio threw her arms around his neck. A heated sensation came from her embrace, something akin to hot honey that flowed between the two of them, instantly drugging him, lulling him back into one of her fevered spells.

He struggled to push her off of him, grasping her wrists, intending to fling her from him, but the memory she sent him was much too sublime. There they were, just as if nothing had changed, back in time. Back to when they were husband and wife. He struggled to go back to Salem, back to the cell where the witch tortured his mind. Clio kissed him when he fought, feeding him luscious harmonies, songs of a lifetime already passed. A lifetime they once shared, full of a love so beautiful it made his heart ache.

“Do you remember now, my lord?”

Only a ferocious growl came from his heated lips as he removed his hands from her wrists and wrapped his arms around her.

Clio sighed out loud as he ravaged her neck, grasping a handful of ebony locks in his fist. She arched, giving him full access to her heated, milky skin. He moved to her face, holding it between his hands as he breathed in the scent of her. A scent he now remembered from so long ago. How could he have forgotten? She smelled of cool ocean water and desert wind storms. A tantalizing concoction of both sea and sand that only hardened him further.

“Clio,” he whispered between kisses.

Her one lock of silver hair fell over one eye and he brushed it tenderly to the side. And in doing so it triggered another memory. Her silver curl was forever misbehaving, falling over her left eye and he was forever pushing it out of his way so he could find those glorious lips of hers, so full, so sweet, so Clio. He smiled against her lips and she knew that it had all come flooding back to him.

“Pierus.”

“Clio.” That was all he needed to say. Her kiss grew hungrier. Their souls traveled, swirling and bolting past stars and centuries gone by, light years in a flash of kisses, memories tangled by time and straightened smooth as a raven’s feather just by one touch and the whisper of her name.

SKY: Just to mix it up, make you think─if you could’ve chosen one other muse to write about in this anthology, which one would it have been? Why?

ALISHA: Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy because tragedy and romance make for one good dang story!

SKY: I was wondering if anyone else wanted to write about Melpomene. Nice! Thanks for visiting and sharing sister Alisha!

ALISHA: I had a blast, sister Sky! Thank you so much! **Calling out to Dionysus…Yohoooo…pour the wine, now!****

Watch a book trailer for A Love Beyond Time



Rating: 5 Stars by romance novelist, Michele Hart, author of No Funny Stuff!

I loved "A Love Beyond Time"!

I felt for Clio cast into a anxious tour of History by Aphrodite's spite. Even through the temptation of Dionysus in seduction, tempting her to forget her lover for a while. But Clio stays strong and finds her man in the time periods in which the beautiful but jealous goodess sends her.

You'll love "A Love Beyond Time" like I did. I recommend it highly. The ending is very clever.

Vengeful Aphrodite tosses Clio, the Muse of History, through time, to chase the soul most beloved to her but kept from her full possession. Only Clio’s continuous reunion and separation from her heart’s affection pleases the goddess’s jealousy. Tastes of Greece in her classic days, the hysteria of Salem’s punishments, the indulgence of a delicious god. Devoted to seeking her lover, the muse slips through the seductive hands of Dionysus himself, willing to woo her into forgetfulness. Clio must be strong and enter Hades to regain her lover’s life…and relive history once again.

Ms. Paige paints a wonderfully visual world with words, easily takes you along on Clio’s heart-felt journey, sprinkled with powerful Immortals and the mortals at their mercy and blessing. I loved the appearance of many mythical beasts and places, the swings into the past, and you will, too. The clever ending will surprise you, so reflective of History’s role in the mortal realm.

I highly recommend this tale of fated passion and A Love Beyond Time. Ms. Paige weaves magic into her worlds.

Rating: 5 Stars by romance novelist, Rita Thedford, author of Hot Night at the Bluebug Saloon and One Dependable Man

Take a sensual journey through time with Clio, the Muse of History, where she meets and mingles with figures from the past, each time reuniting with Pierus, the love of her heart. The journey begins when she is cursed by the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, into the time of the Salem Witch Trials and later to the Italian Renaissance and back again. In A Love Beyond Time, author Alisha Paige, crafts a visual feast for her reader with her glimpses into the past, the clashes between good and evil, and the sensual majesty of a love that refuses to be lost within the boundaries of time. What a wonderfully written tale of love lost and found again.

Rating: 4 Lips by Barb at Two Lips Reviews

Aphrodite is furious with Clio who chided her for loving Adonis. So what better punishment for Clio, the muse of history, than to have to go from one lifetime to the next correcting mistakes made in the past? Thinking that this is still not enough of a punishment, Aphrodite throws in a cruel twist. As each life unfolds Clio will find the reincarnated soul of her mortal lover Pierus. Each time having the task of trying to make him remember, having a brief moment with him, and then losing him again. Leaving Clio wondering each time if in this next life she will find him again, and also if she can take the pain of watching him die over and over. Thus making Clio suffer the pain Aphrodite felt when Adonis was ripped away from her.

Well you know what they say about a women scorned. Never has it held more truth then in Alisha Paige's A Love Beyond Time. I think it’s important to know why Aphrodite is sensitive about Adonis; a dispute about Adonis between Aphrodite and the Goddess Persephone has to be settled by Zeus. He decides that Adonis is to spend one-third of every year with each goddess and the last third wherever he chooses, usually with Aphrodite. That is until his death in a hunting accident. Ouch!!! But enough about Goddesses and their petty squabbles, let’s get to the juicy parts shall we? Alisha Paige is not shy when it comes to heating up the pages with scorching hot sweaty sex. Dionysus also has an intriguing part and is a delightfully sexy character. When he was swept away, leaving the reader hanging as to what happens to him, (hint, hint) I desperately wanted to know more about his fate. Alisha Paige has penned an emotionally charged, uniquely imaginative and very sexy tale that is worth the time and money to read.

Purchase A Love Beyond Time now! Click HERE.

Every week I urge the visiting author to chat about another one of her stories. This week Alisha would like to share Voodoo Moon. Check it out!

Voodoo Moon

The plantation mistress known as the White Witch always killed her lovers. Talin knew as soon as she summoned him that he was a dead man, but even then he had no idea how far her rage could take her if she was thwarted.Two hundred years after his death, a teenager tries to impress his girlfriend by casting a voodoo spell and resurrecting the wolf that had killed the white witch. Still cursed to be half-man, half-wolf, Talin thrives on nothing but revenge and the small hope that he could somehow use the death of his enemy’s descendant to resurrect his long lost beloved.

Short Excerpt:

Her stomach lurched when she turned onto the winding country road that led back to Rose Hall. She dreaded going back inside, but she had to face it. She’d surround herself with her band mates and cook. Pretend that last night didn’t happen. Maybe Annie would stop. She wanted to ask her how to make her stop, but how do you ask a dead person to stop haunting? How do you explain to them that you moved across the ocean and that her haunting is just damned inconvenient?

She passed a lonely goat, probably an escapee from one of the nearby farms, and then something caught her eye. Crouched on the edge of the road was a black man, sitting in the tall grass, a few yards away, his muscled arms stretched over his legs, head bent. She stopped her rental, rolled down the manual window, and honked. He jumped, looked at her and grunted, seemingly panicked.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought you were hurt. Do you need a ride, mate?”

Probably a drunken local, a bum, displaced after last night’s storm. The man shook his head, searched her face, and his jaw dropped.

“Ya all right?” she asked, shielding her eyes, squinting into the bright sunshine.

The man nodded. “Ya stayin’ in tha great house?”

Tammie wasn’t sure she understood. “The great house? You mean Rose Hall, up ahead?”

The man nodded again. “Ya look like her.”

A chill slithered down her spine, despite the sticky damp shirt that clung to her in the humidity.

She was afraid to ask. More afraid of his answer. “Who?”

“The White Witch.”

Tammie only stared at him through her round glasses.

“Ya okay, Missus?”

This time Tammie nodded.

“I worked her fields.”

“Who?” Now she was confused. He couldn’t mean Annie, she thought to herself.

“Ya, Annie.”

She knew she didn’t say Annie’s name out loud. “I didn’t say her name.”

“Wha . . . ?”

He could read her mind. She started to put the car back in gear. This was not happening. Now she missed London more than anything. What she thought would be paradise, an island with white sands and turquoise waters, was making her head spin.

Jamaica seemed a mysterious, dark land.

“No. Donna go. I need to talk to ya ….”

“Look, mate, I don’t know ya. Can I ring someone for you when I get home?”

“Home?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, bloke. Home. Yes, that’s my bloody home.

Only now it’s haunted.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Why was she telling this perfect stranger about the ghost?

“Been that-a way for ’bout two hundred years, Missus.”

“Who are ya?” she asked, now genuinely curious.

“No one. Sorry I took so much of ya time,” he replied and then stood, turned, and began to walk back across the wide field, heading nowhere, away from the main road. Tammie gasped. The man was stark naked. Her jaw dropped as she watched him stalk away. She spoke before she had a chance to choose her words. A drunken bum would not have an ass like that. Or a body. Or interest her so.

Reviewed by Storm at Bitten by Books

Rating: 4 1/2 Tombstones

In 1825, the Rose Hill Plantation was the horror of Jamaica. Annie, the White Witch, had been orphaned as a child and raised in the blackest form of voodoo. As an evil voodoo priestess, she killed her slaves for the smallest slight and the rest lived in terror. She used male slaves as her lovers, and none lived for long. She made a terrible mistake, though, when she called Talon to her bed. Talon had been a white voodoo priest in Africa before being captured and sold into slavery. Slavery, though, had brought him his wife, Daisy, and he was determined to protect her and end the terror of the White Witch. He planned a voodoo ceremony for Daisy to do while he pleasured the witch, but Daisy’s fear and jealousy caused her to do something different, and that difference led to death and tragedy for all of them. 200 years later, Talon was given a second chance. And although the forest guardian told him to use this chance for healing, he was consumed with his need for revenge. He knew that the White Witch’s spirit still roamed Rose Hill, and now one of her descendents, Tammie, was living there. Talon has to decide whether he will take the path of revenge or the path of love and healing.

“Voodoo Moon” is a powerful, intricate story of the worse and best aspects of humanity. Although love does not conquer all, it endures and teaches. The author has created some of the most authentic and interesting characters I’ve ever met. The tale is full of twists, surprises, terror, creepy atmosphere, and passion. They say that good things come in small packages, and this is a whole lot of story skillfully crammed into a novella

Interested in learning more about this fantastic author? Visit Alisha at her Website.

Don't forget to enter the contest! The contest question...who would Clio like to meet? Click HERE, locate the answer, then return to this blog and leave the answer in a comment. Contest closes Friday, November 12th, 12 PM EST.

Okay, I'm off to have some wine with Clio, Alisha & Dionysus. :) Thanks for popping in!

~Sky