Hi, Korey Mae Johnson, so happy to have you here today. I gotta say, I wish I was one of these Conquered Brides 😉 I love the cover ❤

Thanks so much for having me on your blog, Mary! I love to lurk here, so it’s so cool to take a spot! And because I’m really proud of the collection I’m part of (along with Renee Rose, Ashe Barker, Sue Lyndon, and Dinah McLeod), I’m on the edge of my seat simply needing to talk all about it

I’m going to admit that writing medieval fiction can be kind of scary—it’s sometimes hard to imagine what the world was like back then and we have so much that we use nowadays that they didn’t have back then. How they spoke, related to each other, carried themselves, mannered themselves, what they ate, what they sang, and even how they told stories was all so different. It’s not a world I think I would do very well in. I can’t even go without air conditioning and heat.

No air conditioning would definitely be a big problem for me! By the way, I loved your story. I also love a heroine with a lot of sass and spunk. Susanna has both and, in this scene, gives Gerhard some grief which he handles well.

Here is an excerpt, of ‘Commanding the Princess‘.

“They’re hardly scraps. I gave you the best I could find,” he argued, even seeming stung. “Stop being a brat, princess. It’s less than becoming.”

She lifted her chin; she hadn’t been called a brat by anyone in her whole life. “I’m not a brat. I’m a princess,” she gritted.

“Not any more. Now stop acting like a child.” She had a feeling it wasn’t about the food anymore. He was trying to force her to do something just to show that he could, that he was the master, and that he could rule a princess.

She took a deep breath, but it did nothing to abate her anger. It only made her frustration simmer to a boiling point as he stood there, looking at her like she was being silly. “I am not acting like a child. You are acting like a deranged brute. It’s bad enough that you take my whole kingdom from me. My life. My friends. I’m not going to stand here and—” She picked up her cup of wine and threw it at him. Unfortunately, he ducked, but she never stopped her tirade. “—do what you tell me as if you’re my master! Bullying me like I’m a dog!” He stepped forward so she picked up a leg of roast chicken and threw that at him as well. That hit him in the forehead, despite his attempt to avoid it.

“Calm down!” he barked furiously, pointing his index finger toward her.

She didn’t listen. She couldn’t calm down; she was at the edge of her sanity, and slipping off the edge. “Treating me like a—a—!” She picked up the whole wooden plate and threw it, seeing it clip him in the shoulder and spill the extra food everywhere. “—child! I won’t have it!”

She continued throwing anything in arms’ reach at him, and then when she ran out, she turned to grab more things. She didn’t know why, but every time something cracked against him, the better she felt. It didn’t strike her that she was in any danger until he marched behind her, grabbed her elbow, and spun her around. He gave her a hard shake. “Stop this. Calm yourself, Susanna.”

She slapped him and enjoyed the resounding sound that echoed through the room. It didn’t quite seem enough to repay him for taking everything precious in her life away from her, but it was a start.

She didn’t regret it until she noticed that his face had become a glowering mask of rage. His lips were pursed, his jaw tight. “I have only one way I deal with tantrums, my lady,” he threatened, his voice a low rumble, but then he dropped his hand from her shoulders and began to remove his belt.

She blanched white and stepped back, her anger dissolving like mist and only fear remaining. She took a giant step backwards. “Don’t even think about it!” she growled.

“I’m done thinking about it,” he assured her, advancing just as quickly as she was retreating. “If you think this will give me joy, then…” he paused. “Actually, it will. Nothing is better than putting a spoiled child in her place, no matter how high she’s born.”

Her cheeks burned. “I am not a child.”

“The food wasted on the floor indicates otherwise,” he retorted, and then reached out to grab her arm.

Susanna was very used to be being treated like glass, so this was an awful lot to be taking in so suddenly. Her mother made sure her nursemaid or a servant held her hand whenever she went up and down the stairs in fear of her falling. Her food was sampled by a trusted taster before it ever reached her mouth in fear of sickness or poisoning, and not even her father had ever raised a hand to her. That’s what her whipping girl had been for—and she thought it worked because she had been good friends with the whipping girl until she was married outside of the kingdom. She studied and obeyed as well as she could back then to make sure that her friend wouldn’t get whipped.

That being the truth of things, Susanna had never felt so physically threatened in her life.

“Let go of me!” she cried, trying to jerk his grip off her arm. She began to fight him with all the strength she had in her. Eventually he had to come behind her and pin her arms up against her chest as he brought her over to the desk and sat down upon it.

“The more you struggle, the more I’ll enjoy this,” he told her warningly, trying to wrestle her down across his knees.

BLURB:

As the ruler of Hohenzollern Castle in name only, Susanna has watched helplessly for years as her power-hungry uncle made one enemy after another for her. One enemy stands out, and the moment she catches sight of him, Princess Susanna is certain that it will be Gerhard of Bavaria who brings her world down around her. As his army smashes through her gates, Susanna makes the only choice she has left. She surrenders herself to Gerhard, hoping to win mercy for her people, though she fears it will come at the cost of her life. But she soon learns that Gerhard has other plans for her, plans which may end with her surrendering much more than just her castle to him.

Awesome excerpt, Korey. Thanks for stopping by.

Conquered Brides is a collection of five full-length stories that happen at the same place, at the same time, and all begin at the same event. They’re completely different books, despite the fact that they’re all similar in theme. Though I think all of us definitely got into the medieval spirit. We were inspired by our book’s setting and we really took off, even though we didn’t write about historical people or events. We took the essence of history and made it our own, and therefore we were able to cast our worries aside and really get into our characters, and into their world through them.

And these books are hot, some more romance, some more erotica, and all of them are full of spankings. Which actually wasn’t too unlike the times. For all the scariness of historical novels, there’s definitely a freedom as well there… we get to write spankings without making excuses for it. Speaking for myself, that’s one of the reasons I was salivating at the opportunity to write a medieval book.

In contemporary novels, you have to address why a man would spank his wife and not end up in the back of a police car afterwards, thus killing the romance. I LOVE non-consensual spankings. I think the roughness of the encounter and the high emotions and the erotic humiliation factor is a huge factor in the hotness of the genre for me. I’m not saying non-consensual spanking is a great thing in real life in the contemporary age, but the idea of it is intriguing nonetheless and is what drives me in the genre.

Publisher’s Note: The Conquered Brides contains spankings, sexual scenes, and more. If such material offends you, please don’t buy this book.