Lori gets the lowdown from Louisa Burton (if that really is her name)

Get ready for a treat everyone!

I'm chatting with Louisa Burton, whose new Hidden Grotto series of "epic erotica"—yes, I will ask her what that means—has just been launched with the publication of the first book in the series,
HOUSE OF DARK DELIGHTS.
Louisa and I go way back, having met on a bus about ten years ago during a five-day romance authors' tour of the Midwest.

Louisa: That tour is memorable to me for three things.
First, meeting you, of course.
Second, the constant ache in my jaw from the rictus grin I had to maintain for five freaking days.
And third, a live radio interview where the guy pointed to my current historical romance, asked me if there was any sex in that book, and shoved the mike in my face. On high alert (it was a crude trap—he didn't even try to cover it with leaves and twigs) I said, "Yes, there is."

Lowering his voice to a salacious purr (so help me God), he said, "Ooh, it's one of those dirty books. You write those dirty books, huh?"

The reply that leapt to my lips was, "Where's your head at?"

Later, he thanked me for being a good sport. I said, "I wasn't."

"I'm still befuddled by people whose primary response to sex is that it's filthy, and that right-thinking people don't talk about it, read about it, or do it except between freshly starched sheets with the lights not just off, but unplugged, and maybe the circuit breakers tripped. Personally, I think God knew what she was doing when she made sex fun.

Lori: Yeah, uh, Louisa... You got the conversation turned around to sex pretty darned fast.

Louisa: I do my best.

Lori: So, speaking of sex, (since I guess that’s what we’ll be speaking of!) what's this I hear about your father's dresser drawer, hmmm?

Louisa: Okay, that just sounds wrong.

Lori: Don’t I know it! But I heard the reason you have such a thing for Victorian erotica is that your dad had a collection of the classics in a locked dresser drawer, and you and your sister figured out how to pick that lock with a bobby pin. (You were obviously very clever girls!)

Louisa: Yeah, Pam and I were maybe twelve or thirteen—an impressionable age.

Lori: I have to mention that’d be Pamela Burford, known in romance circles as the Evil Twin of romance author turned mystery author turned erotica author Patricia Ryan. Oops. Was I not supposed to say that?

Louisa: I've already been outed. It's cool.

Lori: Shew! Okay then, is it all right for me to mention that one of your characters has his own MySpace page? http://www.myspace.com/inigothesatyr



Louisa: Yeah, Inigo the Satyr.He's one of the four immortals who lived in a secluded French château where my series is set. The others are a tall blond elf who can change his gender at will, the beautiful Babylonian goddess he loves but can't make love to, and a reclusive djinni who must fulfill the darkest desires of any human he touches.





They all qualify as incubi or succubi, "sexual demons" who satisfy their carnal hungers by seducing—sometimes by enchantment—human visitors to the château.

Inigo is the only one who isn't tormented to one degree or another. He's the incubus with the lampshade on his head, a total hedonist who always has to be up on the latest trend. He keeps a running blog on the MySpace page, but it's also on my website:

http://www.LouisaBurton.com

Lori: Very smooth, how you slipped that in there! I'm impressed.

Louisa: I've got to get the word out about this website. I really want people to see it. It's totally Byzantine and getting more so by the day. The entire world of the Hidden Grotto is explored on there in lunatic detail, or it will be before I'm done with it. Who am I kidding? I'll never be done with it. I'm way too into it. Somebody ought to stage an intervention and get me into a twelve-step program to stop adding new content.

Lori: ::: hauls Louisa back before she can run off to add new content::::
So, I guess now is as good a time as any to ask you what epic erotica is.

Louisa: It's how I describe the Hidden Grotto series, which doesn't really fit into any existing genre.

Lori: Didn't Romantic Times call HOUSE OF DARK DELIGHTS "literary erotica?"

Louisa: ::::puffing herself up self-importantly:::
No, they called it "exquisite and riveting literary erotica," but I don't like to use the L-word. It scares people. The way I think of it, HOUSE OF DARK DELIGHTS is made up of a half-cup of fantasy, a half-cup of romance, a pinch of mythology, a dash of history, and a great big gooey ice cream scoop full of erotica (rocky road—yeah, baby). I think that's why Bantam put "Fiction" on the spine, 'cause they couldn't figure out where it should be shelved. Just to further complexify things, the books aren't novels per se, but collections of connected stories, three or four to a book.

Lori: :::raising an eyebrow::: Complexify?

Louisa: It's a real word, just obsolete. The stories are set in different time periods, some in the present and some in the past, giving each book a lush, multigenerous quality—

Lori: Sheesh. Now you're just showing off.

Louisa: —so that as the series progresses, the books themselves will link together into an epic tale that spans centuries—millennia, actually. I'm hoping to create a universe of fantasy and sensuality that becomes real for my readers, one they can explore and savor and lose themselves in the way I have.

Lori: Um, about that twelve-step program...

Louisa: I know, I know.

Lori: That's it folks. Run, don't walk, to get your copy! You won't be sorry, I can promise.