I’m going to run with Estella’s idea and chat about the making of Hands On.

Hands On is a single author anthology with three stories about three female friends who all work blue collar jobs. I came up with the idea after watching the Blue Collar Comedy Tour (which I bought bec I wanted to see Chris Cagle singing in the video at the end *sad* I know just sad).

Anyway I got to thinking wouldn’t it be fun to write about blue collar WOMEN! Since I came up with the idea, I’ve done some research. More and more women are opting for blue collar jobs because the pay is so good, but being a woman in a blue collar world definitely has it’s downside. Namely sexual harrassment.

Names were a huge consideration for all three female leads, since I wanted all of them to have names that could have a male and a female nickname. So Monday through Friday Alexandra is Alex and on the weekends she’s Lexi. Melanie is Mel and then on the weekends she’s Lanie. Funny enough in the third story, Carlotta’s male nickname (Carl) didn’t come into play since she up and decided to quit her job on me! ;)

The first novella is about Alexandra Kimball, a female construction supervisor who has the hots for one of the crew supervisors. If ever a on-the-job fling was a no-no, it was for these two. Originaly the beginning was a short story written long ago and of course used for the novella. I have to give a huge shout out to Mik whose experience in construction was invaluable.

Melanie Daniels comes froma large Irish Catholic family and owns her own garage. She’s the proverbial red-headed step-child because she chose to go into the family business (and she’s successful). She’s also bisexual. And she knows she’s an outsider in her family. But you won’t catch her whining about it. Instead, she finds herself giving her brother Jackie, (get it? Jack Daniels? LOL yeah that was deliberate) the other outsider (and an ex-con), a job in her garage and a second chance at life. I have to be honest here, when I first wrote Mel’s story I didn’t like her and worse, I didn’t like the hero. Giving Mel a bigger part in Jackie’s life really helped redeam her for me. The hero? I had to find a new one. Opting to use one of her brother’s best friend’s was a bit cliche but Jeff Cash is hot!

Carlotta was the most interesting of all the stories for me since it was my first foray into BDSM (so please forgive the mistakes). I didn’t choose a BDSM theme because it’s hot and I thought it’d sell more books or for the titilation factor. I chose it because a) it fit and b) it’s fascinates me. Of all my hero’s I think Devon Fry is by far my favorite. He’s the epitomy of “still waters run deep”. Quite, unasuming and outwardly a beta male with a core of steel. *sigh* He could spank me anytime…….