SEELIE KAY: Postcards from The Ledge: This week in The Loft: Fellow Extasy authors Adriana Kraft!

Joining me today is the husband and wife writing team using the pen name Adriana Kraft. Known for their steamy erotic romance and erotic romantic suspense tales, the Krafts have published more than 50 novels and novellas. As former academics, they lived in many states across the Midwest, but after retirement, they sold their home and took off across country in a motor home. Ultimately, they landed in southern Arizona, where they enjoy hiking, golf, bowling, western dance, and travel, especially to the many Arizona Native American historical sites.

The avatar for Adriana Kraft

S: Welcome back to The Loft!

You've built an impressive catalog of erotic romance and romantic suspense books. Do you write in any other genres?

A: Yes! Like you, we’ve just now branched out into something new for us. Our new release, "Two Seeds are Sown," is historical, taking place in what is now Wales, UK, during the Roman occupation in the second century AD. This short story sets the stage for its contemporary sequel, coming out in July. Up until now, all our novels and stories have been contemporary, though we’ve often written characters who can travel back in time or to other dimensions. Within contemporary romance, we write several subgenres: Romantic suspense, typically with a male/female pairing who must find their happy ending while dodging perilous danger and solving a crime. Erotic romance, sometimes with male/female pairing, but more often with a bisexual woman and three way or more-way menage. And we’ve also published a few female/female erotic romance stories. This venture into historical writing takes us back to the sources of our paranormal elements. Of course, it also taps into dimensions we’ve recently been exploring in our pleasure reading.

S: Historical romance can be a weighty endeavor. It requires a lot of research.

What would you like to people know about you?

A: Together, we have studied shamanism and energy work, and taken some beginning training in both disciplines. I feel these approaches to understanding life, spirituality, and healing hark back to the worldview of the Celtic ancestors both of us have found in our family trees, chiefly in Scotland and Wales. It is profoundly meaningful to both of us to make these connections. I think we will never cease to learn new things as we continue to explore both what is known historically about the Druids and the Celts, as well as what other fiction authors conjecture about life in the late iron age in the British Isles as well as western Europe.

S: As you probably know, my pen name, "Seelie," is derived from Scottish folklore and a nod to a family heritage in the paranormal arts.

Do you read reviews?

A: Yes. Absolutely. Do I believe everything they say about our books? No. But do they inform me? Almost always. A good review, of course, is always welcome, especially if it offers details and not just general praise that could apply to any book. It’s hard to describe the feeling of knowing that another person not only loved what we wrote, but understood it and appreciated its nuances, and then took the trouble to share it in a review. Deeply affirming. A negative review can have a lot of different meanings. Sometimes it means we mis-marketed the book, and someone picked it up who doesn’t love explicit steamy scenes in the stories they’re reading. Sometimes it’s a negative judgment about some of the characters we write. If there’s to be a menage, and it’s not a committed polyamory relationship, it’s bound to be non-monogamous. There are a lot of romance readers who don’t like that. We tend to write women who take charge of their bodies and their sex lives--some readers think such women are sluts. Both of us oppose slut shaming. Some readers think if a character has a sexual relationship with a third person, the book isn’t a romance. We disagree. Love is love is love. Whatever the reason, even a negative review can lead to brand name exposure and opportunities to comment on what we write and why.

S: I so agree. Love comes in all shapes and sizes, and it's troubling when people can't accept that. There are plenty of books out there that shock even me, but my mantra has always been "tolerance, not judgment."

Have you ever shelved or thrown out a manuscript?

A: It’s too soon to say. Have we written books we haven’t published? Yes, several. Have we thrown any out? Never. When we started writing fiction together instead of academic articles, we had a lot to learn. The structure and craft of our early efforts weren’t necessarily the best, but we have always had intriguing characters and solid plots. In recent years, we’ve revisited and published several, and some of them continue to call us. I’d especially like us to get back to a three-book series that begins in Wyoming just after the civil war and comes up to the present. A lot of historical research went into that draft, and I think the story is pretty solid, though it might not qualify as a romance.

S: Sometimes, you know what the story is, but it just doesn't flow. I have 10 years of research into a book about a relative who was a cult leader, but after two drafts it's still is not right.

What wakes you up in the middle of the night?

A: Characters. Often, they have a mind of their own about what is supposed to happen next. Does that come from our inner psyches? From the characteristics and motivations we think we’ve given them? Did we invent them? Or are we tapping into something that exists in some other reality, something that already has its own trajectory and outcome? We don’t mind that so much in the daytime, though sometimes it radically alters where a work is headed. But waking up in the middle of the night…

S: I imagine more than a few writers can identify with that.

What inspired "Two Seeds are Sown?"

A: I’m not sure I can do justice to all the threads that have converged to create the two-book series that is Seren’s Story. Certainly our study and exploration of our Celtic roots--the sacredness of all creation, the deep connectedness with the cycles of the year, the Druidic traditions, and especially the belief in a life or lives) beyond the one we’re aware of. Can I separate our interest in the paranormal from those roots? It probably doesn’t matter. In this story, Seren can communicate with her grandmother, who has died, and with her daughter, from whom she becomes physically separated forever. We wanted to explore those connections, and to play with paranormal elements as we brought the story forward to the present day, when Seren is still seeking to unite what was severed.

S: Is there anything special you would like people to know about "Two Seeds are Sown?"

A: The book is being released today, May 5. It’s a great example of a manuscript that was shelved for a long time and called to us recently. We wrote a first draft of what we then called The Welsh Story several years back, and we’d already envisioned it as the first book in a series that would bring Seren into the present era. Meanwhile, we had already begun two other series that are now published in full, Meghan’s Playhouse and Swinging Games, and we became more involved in getting those books out in a timely fashion. The Welsh Story sat on a back burner. I’m never sure quite what happens on back burners, but I think this one came to a boil and began to cook in earnest when we started exploring Celtic history, Roman occupied Britain, and Druidic spirituality. The time was right, and we picked it up to revise and publish. I also suspect we’d been a little hesitant about branching into historical fiction, and with good cause, it turns out. We were able to flesh out that early draft with accurate detail and specific information.

Here's the blurb:

Resist, or yield? The choice is not Seren’s alone.

Late in the Roman occupation of Britain, a young Welsh tribeswoman is hand selected and captured to serve as a courtesan to a Roman Legate and his wife. Escape proves impossible, but Seren is never completely abandoned. Her grandmother’s cryptic prophecy through their psychic connection seals her fate—it will be Seren’s lot to yield. The words both relieve Seren and further mystify her: You must find pleasure in your present life. Fulfillment will not be yours until after you cross into the next.

S: A worthy message. Where can readers find your book?

A: Today it's available on the Extasy Books site at https://www.extasybooks.com/Two-Seeds-are-Sown. It will be available from other booksellers soon.

S: Adriana, thanks so much for joining me today and good luck with your new book. If you'd like to learn more about the Krafts, please visit--