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Janine Ashbless Had a Dream — Writing the Lovers’ Wheel Books

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FallingDeep (4)I’m so excited to welcome Janine Ashbless to mine on the release day of Falling Deep, Book 2 of her fabulous Lover’s Wheel Series. I love discovering what inspired people to write their stories, and Janine is going to tell us just that. Welcome, Janine!

 

I Had a Dream – writing the Lovers’ Wheel Books

One night some decades ago, probably before I was even a writer, I had a dream so real and so emotionally powerful that I’ve never forgotten it. I dreamed that I was standing at the gates of a big old house somewhere in the English countryside. The grounds were so overgrown that the gates were almost choked shut with brambles and weeds, but when I scrambled through and made my way up the drive I found that the house was still occupied despite being decayed. In fact it was a retirement home, with old people sitting around in wheelchairs, dozing and playing chess. Then I realized that these old men were the disguised King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, who had retreated here to await in secret the last call to battle when England would need their heroes again.

That was it. That’s all I dreamed.

Years later, this became the seed for the Lovers’ Wheel quartet I’m currently writing for Ellora’s Cave.

Now I know roughly where the idea grew from. All my childhood I’d been reading stories from authors like Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, and Diana Wynne Jones, in which the nice cosy English countryside was a place where lurked gods and elves and Ancient Powers pretending to be human, just biding their time and perhaps waiting to be woken by plucky middle class school children on holiday. I LOVED those books! I wanted to write a wondrous story about a girl who discovers a hidden world of magical adventure, a girl who is marked for a special destiny, a girl whose choices decide the fate of the world.

Only I wanted to write the adult version, with really dirty sex and way more moral greyness.

So Lovers’ Wheel is about Liz, who goes to stay with her Great-aunt Moira at spooky old Enniswitrin House in Somerset, and finds that she’s been picked for the noble task of fucking each of the Twelve Months of the Year in turn, to keep the seasons turning. But being Chosen isn’t nearly as nice or as vanilla as she’s been lead to believe, especially as the Brothers start to lead her into the darker half of the year.

As for Arthur – yeah, he’s there too! Read Summer Seduction and Falling Deep to find out about him. And I promise that When Winter Comes and Joys of Spring will complete the cycle of the year in due course…

xxx

Janine

 

Falling Deep Blurb:

Book 2 of the Lovers’ Wheel series.

Liz is reeling with shock. She has just discovered that her Great-aunt Moira’s spooky old house is the last disguised remnant of mystical Avalon, and that Moira has been manipulating her into initiation as an immortal sorceress serving the old powers of nature.

Liz’s ordained role is to turn the Wheel of the Year through the seasons by having sex with each of the Twelve Months in turn. The Brothers of the Fall appear to be hot and handsome men, but they are far more daunting than their summer predecessors. Liz now faces three new avatars who are increasingly dominant and kinky. As the year turns inexorably toward the darkness, Liz must embrace the allure of total submission and give them complete control of her sexuality.

Inside Scoop: Liz explores a wide range of erotic experiences, including light bondage and brief f/f touching.

Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!

A paranormal erotica story from Ellora’s Cave

 

 An Official Excerpt From: FALLING DEEP

Copyright © JANINE ASHBLESS, 2016

All Rights Reserved, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

 

She was on the train again. The one that had brought her to Somerset and to Raskelf village and to Enniswitrin House, all the way back in June. She recognized the blue seat covers of the Great Western Railway and the patronizing safety notice on the bulkhead of the carriage, and the cardboard coffee cups abandoned on the little tables. Only, this time it was dusk and she was completely alone. There were no bags on the overhead racks, and no other travelers in the seats. Outside, through the long windows, the world passed in a gray-green blur.

Looking down at herself, she saw the nineteen-fifties style dress she had worn for the Midsummer dance. But she remembered the black skirt and white blouse she’d really worn that morning, and she remembered the lion. Just not how she’d gotten there.

Yet it all seemed far away and unimportant.

I’m dreaming again. I wonder if he’ll turn up this time?

Rising to her feet, Liz walked down toward the end of the carriage, glancing into each seat as she passed. She could feel the vehicle swaying beneath her, and hear the click of the points as the wheels passed over. It sounded like hoofbeats. The muted roar of steel and wind outside made her think of a great crowd of people faintly heard at a distance. People shouting and banging things together. A clashing of metal.

Where have I heard that before? What does it remind me of?

There were no other passengers hiding behind the tall seat backs. Reaching the door, which failed to open automatically for her, Liz peered through the smoked glass. She should have been able to see a matching door at the entrance to the next carriage, and maybe a toilet cubicle. All she could make out were dark forms in rapid, jerky motion against a background nearly as dark. Flags, she thought. And horses. Those are horse heads. Like a whole crowd of riders are stampeding past. No, it’s a battle.

“Did you tell her?”

Liz jumped. Three rows away, exactly where she was sure there’d been no one at all, stood the black-clad figure of the man with the dark red hair that she’d seen in her last train dream. The one she’d been expecting. Mr. Foxy, she’d labeled him. He stood with arms folded and his butt—an exceptionally fine, tight ass as she remembered—propped against the side of a seat. Liz felt an instant rush of arousal and dread course through her body.

“Did you tell Moira, as you promised?” he asked again. There was an edge in his voice, and those blue eyes burned under angled brows.

“Yes.” She nodded rapidly, relieved to be able to report it. “He’s trying to wake up.” That had been the message she’d been charged with. Okay, so she’d only passed it on after weeks of delay, but at least she’d done it in the end. She felt somehow that she didn’t want to break a promise to this man.

“What did she say?” Unfurling his arms, he shifted until he was standing to block the aisle, one hand on a headrest, either side. She’d thought him a surfer dude or a climber, the first time she’d seen him, based on his body type and his untidy hair and his outdoor-sports manner of dress. His demeanor, though, was more military interrogation than civilian. His tense body loomed like an exclamation mark.

Squirming inside and trying hard to hide it, Liz cast her mind back to her recent argument with Moira. “Nothing really. She looked pretty upset though.” She looked awful.

“Did she say what she’d do?”

Summer Seduction“She didn’t say anything! Except, uh…she asked how I knew. That’s all.” It wasn’t quite the whole truth. Their argument had certainly ratcheted up a notch after that. She swallowed hard, drawing up the old stories nibbling in the undercurrent of her mind. “If he’s King Arthur—the old guy sleeping upstairs—and she’s his sister, does that make her, like, Morgan le Fay? The witch?”

For a moment he held her gaze with his fierce eyes, and then he looked abruptly aside. She could see the muscles bunched in his jaw and the tension in his neck. Then he nodded curtly. “The Queen of Northgales.”

“Some queen. The old cow tricked me!” Liz’s complaint did not burn as hot as it had when she was awake. “She set me up with Shane and now she’s telling me I can’t stop or we’re all in big trouble. She says she wants me to save the world…or keep it going, anyway. Turning the year over.”

“So?”

“Can you believe something that crazy? That the world depends on who I’m humping? Like I’ve got some kind of a…magic pussy?”

He shrugged, which riled her.

“What does that mean?”

“It means it’s nothing to do with me.”

“So what am I doing here, on this train?”

“This what?” It came out through clenched teeth.

“This train to Somerset. Intercity.”

His mouth pulled taut. “Perhaps you are between stations.”

“I fell down a bank. There was a lion in the garden, and it chased me.” She licked her lips. “That sounds much less likely than being on a train,” she admitted. “Maybe that bit was the dream.”

He arched one eyebrow, studying her. “Have you been initiated yet?”

“Initiated? Oh, you mean—” As an Argante. She shook her head. “No way.”

“Then you cannot command the lion.”

“But I don’t want to command it.”

“Then it will eat you. That is the way of the world, Liz Haven.”

“I just want to have my own life, that’s all!”

He grimaced, and when he said, “As do I,” the words were thick with bitterness and regret. He’d seemed so dominant the last time they’d met, sexual charisma pouring from him like a wave that swept her feet from beneath her. But now that force was all pent up within him, his every muscle clenched.

“Are you in trouble?”

He laughed. “I’m in hell.”

“Can I do anything to help?” she whispered. It was not entirely compassion that prompted her. Feelings in dreams were stronger, wilder and more imperative than waking thoughts. Unhampered by rational checks and balances, they had a momentum all their own, and her attraction to him was impossible to ignore.

“I don’t know,” he answered, capturing her in the sapphire net of his eyes once more. “Can you?”

She felt her heart jump as if he’d cracked a whip. But even he was surprised when she took a step forward and sank to her knees before him.

Why am I doing this? she wondered as she laid her hands on the coarse black cloth of his jeans. But she knew the answer already. It was pure lust, burning like a bright coal at the meeting point of her thighs. Her deepest urges were taking command.

He made a noise in his throat that has half surprise and half appreciation. The button fly under her questing fingers suddenly overlay a bulge that had not been there before, and Liz felt a rush of pleasure.

“I mean, this’ll help, won’t it?” she asked, made confident enough by his body’s response to lift her eyes and question him, even as her fingers plucked the stiff buttons.

“I… Liz, no,” he answered, his voice huskier even than before. There was a look on his face she had not seen before and it gave her great satisfaction to see his black brows hooked up like that. She’d taken him by surprise. He’d not anticipated that, and for a moment he was not the one in control. He looked almost afraid.

Liz smiled.

He wasn’t wearing underwear. His cock fell eagerly into her grasp from the V of his jeans, warm and silky, and he had to set his stance a fraction wider to stop his clothes sliding down those long hard thighs. She cradled his length in her palm, squeezing it encouragingly.

You look delicious. I want to eat you.

“Liz, I can’t.”

“Rubbish,” she told him firmly.

 

 *****

Buy Falling Deep & Summer Seduction Here:

 

Falling Deep at Amazon US:

http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Lovers-Wheel-Janine-Ashbless-ebook/dp/B01C639HPC/ref=sr_1_1

Falling Deep at Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01C639HPC

Summer Seduction (Lovers’ Wheel Book 1) at Amazon US:

http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Seduction-1-Janine-Ashbless-ebook/dp/B00OTU9SEQ/ref=sr_1_1

Summer Seduction (Lovers’ Wheel Book 1) at Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Summer-Seduction-1-Janine-Ashbless-ebook/dp/B00OTU9SEQ/ref=pd_sim_351_1

 

Find Janine Ashbless Here:

www.janineashbless.com

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/Janine-Ashbless-author-page-140154696078980/

 

About Janine:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure. She likes to write about magic and myth and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Her work has been described as: “Hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “Vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.” (Portia Da Costa)

 

The Voices in My Head by Janine Ashbless

Guest Blogger, , , , ,

tourbutton_fierceenchantmentsThe voices … the voices …

The really great thing about writing a collection of short stories is that you can stretch yourself in all sorts of directions, writing from many contrasting points of view.  In my Introduction, I warn the readers of my fantasy anthology Fierce Enchantments not to trust the narrators of the stories therein, and I mean it! Some of them are simply unreliable, some are ignorant of real-life modern moral standards, and some are downright wicked. You have to make your own judgment when reading the stories…

The book opens with a cold, cold voice – Too Much of Water is a fairy tale told in the embittered priggish tones of an old biddy sitting by the fire, warning her young audience not to go down the pagan primrose path to damnation. Some, in contrast, are burning hot: The Last Thing She Needs is an agonized, guilt-riddled confession by a sadist vampire-hunter who has bottled up both his lust and his love for years, not daring to confess what will truly make him whole. Guinevere in Knight Takes Queen is mired in a confused mess of a cuckolding triangle, because no one in Camelot has the vocabulary for bisexuality or BDSM, and they try to frame everything in terms of sin and honour. At Usher’s Well is drenched in rain and grief and pity, the narrative of a servant girl whose three lovers drown at sea … and then come back for one last tryst. The world of The Military Mind is a quasi-fascist future one where individual liberty and choice have been sidelined in favour of keeping the human race alive in the face of alien invasion – so psychic Peyton is prepped by a lifetime of biological and psychological conditioning to take up her role as comms officer and sexual plaything for a squad of horny marines.  The Merry Maid is another fairy story, but this one told with playful humour. And Sycorax is a Shakespearian tale retold by an inhuman monster: don’t expect any mercy or sympathy from her.

Just because these are ten smutilicious erotic tales doesn’t mean I want them to be true. Just because they are fantasy doesn’t mean I morally approve what goes on in them! But I do love listening to the protagonists’ many voices, however strange or frightening, and I love giving them shape on paper because I think they deserve to be heard.

xxx

Janine Ashbless

 

Fierce EnchantmentsExcerpt from Fierce Enchantments:

(from the story Sycorax)

 

But Prospero I have not forgotten. No.

The Isle is mine. It is the Omphalos—the navel of the world. I rule from the earth, by night. The sky above and the day: they belong to Ariel. Belonged, I should say. I … I think we had other names once, long ago. I do not remember them. It does not matter. All stories are leaves on one tree, and the branches may be long but they are all fed by the same roots. Names come and go, like dead leaves. It is perhaps better to forget them, in the end.

Are you hungry, little man? I have a haunch of meat here that is well-cooked and only a little gnawed upon.

Yes, it is from the wreck of your vessel.

Do not ask that. You are hungry, or not. And the night is long, and my story only just started.

Ariel ruled the Isle by day, and I ruled by night. At dusk and dawn we met, as husband and wife, to act out our carnal dreams. At sunset I would ride astride his long beam, and at sunrise he would pin me flat and plough my deeps. His seed came forth in great quantities, I recall—like sea spume, or like the white fluff of poplar-trees blown upon the wind. When I dug my long nails into his golden flesh, then the dawn would come up blood red.

I had many children by him. Have you not read that this Isle is full of noises? We are surrounded by legions; if you have not seen them yet, then it is because your mortal eyes are too dull. But this is the sorrow of it: Ariel let live only those babes I spawned that resembled him, that were of his delicate and airy nature. Those childer that bore my stamp—the dark and earthy, the heavy of flesh—those he hated, and devoured at first sight.

No. For years I bore this, until even I grew weary. And with age fewer and fewer babes were birthed at all. So when at last I whelped my youngest son Caliban, and saw that he favoured me and not his father, I knew that I must hide him to preserve his life.

Oh, have you seen my boy then? Don’t look so green. Think you he is ugly? I do not. Are not his teeth strong and keen? Isn’t his skin, hued with all the shot-silk colours of oil upon water, soft and smooth? The eyes that he opened upon me that first night, in such perfect trust, were as golden and beautiful as the eyes of a toad—and if two eyes are deemed lovely, must not many be even more enchanting?

I gave to Ariel a stone wrapped in blood-stained birthing cloths, and watched as he swallowed it whole. The babe I hid anew within the caverns of my body. And inside me, Caliban grew. But at last the night came when I could carry his weight no longer, so huge of limb was my child; so I birthed him a second time, half-grown. Even then, we both knew he was not safe. We went under cover of darkness to Ariel’s crag, and as the first light of the sun touched the sky with grey, Caliban seized his sire and I split a great pine tree, and together we thrust Ariel into the cleft and closed it tight. It was over in moments: when it was done Ariel was entrapped and my child was safe.

You think I played my husband false? Don’t bother to answer: I see it in your eyes. Well, you may be reassured to know that I have suffered great pangs over the years for my part in the betrayal. I missed his cock within me and his hands upon me; the ache of my loss brought forth great groans of anguish from my innermost being every dawn and dusk. For twelve long years.

That was when Prospero came to this Isle, with his infant daughter in his arms.

Listen well and mark this: the deposed Duke of Milan was no great sorcerer, however he styled himself afterwards. He was a second-rate alchemist—a mumbling book-wizard—a natural philosopher whose philosophy went no further than his own self-importance. But he was a man, and my cunt ached beyond bearing for the rough touch of a man. I saved his life, building him a cell in which to hide him from my own son; bringing him the fruits of the Island; fetching the contents of his leaky vessel from where it had foundered upon the rocks of the bay. I even let the girl-child live, though Caliban licked his drooling chops at the thought of such a tender mouthful. I forbade my boy to harm either of them.

In return I asked only that Prospero service my appetites. It was, I admit, not as easy for him as for my poor Ariel, for he was not so well-endowed. But he was a man of ingenuity and imagination, and where cock would not suffice, fist and forearm would. I demanded only that he persevere in his efforts.

In return for my mercy he betrayed me.

 

Cover Blurb for “Fierce Enchantments”

 

Inside the covers of this, Janine Ashbless’ third collection of erotic short stories, you will find delight and terror and lust – and perhaps even unexpected tenderness.

The wayward daughter of Shakespeare’s sorcerer Prospero; a runaway slave who becomes king only for as long as he can stay awake; a servant girl whose three dead lovers return for one last tryst; vampire-hunters haunted to the point of madness by what they have been through; warriors in a desperate future war for the survival of humankind – and one very dangerous frog prince – all appear in this collection of erotic stories that will take you to the edge and then pull you over into the glittering darkness beyond.

Weaving worlds of fantasy, Janine Ashbless draws from fairy stories, history, myth and the darkest depths of her imagination to bring you tales of passion and desire that will enchant, shock and dazzle you.

Buy links:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

 

Janine-AshblessBio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure – and that’s “fantasy” in the sense of swords ‘n’ sandals, contemporary paranormal, fairytale, and stories based on mythology and folklore.  She likes to write about magic and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000, and her novels and single-author collections now run into double figures. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology Geek Love.

Her work has been described as: “hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.”   (Portia Da Costa)

 

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

Goodreads

Janine Ashbless Facebook

Amazon UK Author Page

Amazon US Author Page

 

Fierce Enchantments by Janine Ashbless

Guest Blogger, , , , ,

thingsthatgohump300x200Inspired by my love of M R James – and by a bunch of like-minded friends – I started writing ghost stories years before I wrote any erotica. The very first story I wrote (Wah!) was about a man who murders his wife by throwing her into the sea. She doesn’t stay there. This is how it ends, as he gets into bed with – he thinks – his lover:

After a few days of being unoccupied the air here in the master bedroom was, he thought, a bit stale. Tomorrow he would see to that, but it wouldn’t matter while they slept.

He blew out the candle. Darkness thickened around him.

“Goodnight, love, he said softly, as he pulled back the coverlet. Then Richard climbed into bed with a woman in whose hair was the smell of the sea.

 

From the start, it now occurs to me, I was combining Bed and “Boo!”

When my erotica career kicked off, I made sure to include at least one ghost story in every one of my collections. From Cruel Enchantment (2000) comes Montague’s Last Ride (See what I did there?), in which a very icky revenant is summoned from his tomb by the power of lust:

“My poor Lord Montague,” she murmured, “lying there all alone in a cold bed. No warm body to hold you close. I’ll bet that never happened to you when you were alive.”

Then she discovered that, standing, her mons was directly on a level with the top of the tomb slab. Where she stood now the corner of the stone pressed into her groin, and she could rub her swollen, needy sex against its cold thrust.

 

Dark Enchantment (2009) includes two ghost stories among all the gods, monsters and other scary mythological creature. Pique Dame is about a ghost who haunts a theatre and possesses two opera singers:

What if he comes back? I asked myself. Would he stand and watch, delighted, or would he pull up the back of my skirt and wrench down my knickers and stuff me hard from behind with his eager cock, just as I deserved? 

Reflected behind me, in the shadow behind the costume rack, two eyes glinted. A dark figure stirred.

 

Whilst Cold Hands, Warm Heart is about a night in a haunted house that goes incredibly wrong for the two upstanding Edwardian gentlemen who dare it:

Directly at my shoulder, barefoot in the pool, stood a young woman. She had not been there a moment before; she was there when I turned. My heart nearly flew out of my mouth. She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring up at Morgan, her eyes wide and unblinking. She was soaking wet. That was what you noticed about her first of all: she wore a sleeveless white linen shift of some sort and it was so sodden that it clung to her body and had turned half transparent on her pale skin. Her long dark hair was plastered to her shoulders.

 

This autumn Fierce Enchantments (Sweetmeats Press) is being published and I’ve included stories about a zombie apocalypse, a group of traumatized vampire-hunters, Shakespeare’s Tempest, a Russian water-demon … and At Usher’s Well, a Scottish-set tale of three brothers who come home after being lost at sea for weeks:

‘Meg, stay here and serve at table. Bring them anything from the kitchen that they choose. My sons are to have all they desire, tonight.’ She turns away and walks off down the hall, leaving me alone with the dead men.

There’s a long, unpleasant silence. I know there’s no point in offering them food. The three men watch me from eyes filled with the grave’s darkness.

‘So Meg,’ says Rory quietly, pushing out his chair. ‘Will you sit on my lap, for old times’ sake?’

His thighs are as broad as ever, though his slowly drying clothes are stained with salt. I remember his playful embraces and the rasp of his hairy skin, rough as bark, against mine. I shake my head. ‘I think not, Master Rory. Your lap has grown cold since last I knew you.’

He doesn’t react, except with the slightest inclination of his chin. He doesn’t even blink. Not one of them has blinked since they arrived, I’m suddenly sure.

I fold my hands before me, determined to wait it out. The platters of wasted food steam.

‘Pretty Maggie,’ says Allan, with something approaching expression in his voice and—to my horror—a movement of his grey and bloodless lips that approximates a grin, ‘will you play at bob-apple between my thighs once more, for old times’ sake?’

Oh how well I remember the fever-heat of his lithe body beneath mine, and the unaccustomed narrowness of his bucking hips, and the urgency of his thrusts.

‘I will not, Master Allan,’ I answer him. ‘That’s a fruit that does not keep well in salt water.’

He nods.

Finlay presses his hands to the table and bows his head, and then lifts it to look at me directly. ‘Will you kiss me, my Margaret?’ he asks, his voice as stripped and thin and strange as sea-worn driftwood. ‘For auld lang syne?’

Oh Lord, help me.

His kisses had always made me blush, unaccountably. They’d been nothing like his brother’s straightforward pecks, but instead gentle, lingering creatures of breath and warmth, caresses bestowed on my mouth and throat that seemed to have no other purpose than their own pleasure. They’d made me feel almost uncomfortable. I feel a tear escape and run down my cheek, which I don’t doubt is as pale as theirs.

‘The taste of your clay-cold lips would be awfy strong now, Master Finlay,’ I say. My voice is hoarse, but I try to speak gently. ‘It would do me terrible harm, I fear.’

He doesn’t reply, but his expression holds me. I don’t know what to read in his still, harrowed face. It seems to me that there is pain there behind the mask of cold flesh: an ache that cries for respite. But whether it is the fires of Hell or the gnawing cold of the sea that torments him, I cannot tell.

I want to stroke back his damp locks. I want to see peace in those troubled eyes.

‘I’ll go fetch more wine,’ I mumble, though they have done no more than touch their full cups to their closed lips until now. But I cannot bear this. I have to get away. My insides are knotting under my ribs.

I get as far as the passage to the kitchen before my Mistress blocks my way. ‘Meg!’ she cries forlornly. ‘Their bedchambers are damp and drear—the rain has entered and ruined the linen. I didn’t know!’

‘Wheesht now,’ I say, daring to place my hand upon her arm. ‘It’s the weather; it’s not your fault.’

 ‘I wish them to sleep in my own great bed tonight. It’s warm and dry. We will make shift elsewhere tonight.’ Her voice, so weak and plaintive, becomes suddenly stronger as she pulls away and looks me in the face. There is something in her eyes—something that burns, that hurts, and that frightens me far more than the darkness in the open, watchful eyes of the dead brothers. ‘Go pile the fire in my room high, Meg. Don’t stint with the wood. I want them to be warm.’

No, I want to say. But she is my Mistress, and she is so alone, and love has broken her heart and her mind. I bite my lip and I nod. And I go out to the woodpile.

Up the dark stairs with the log-basket on my back I go, as I have done a thousand times. But not like this night. When you lay a corpse out for a vigil you normally keep the room cold, for obvious reasons. But not tonight.

On my knees in the split ashes, I build up the fire, coaxing the flames with my breath until they roar. The blaze scorches my pale cheeks. My insides are in turmoil. I don’t know what to feel. I am torn between horror and exultation at this dreadful miracle. I am torn between pity and a wicked, secretive pleasure I will not confess to anyone until my dying day: the joy of looking upon a face thought lost forever, a face longed-for and hotly desired. I am outraged that God has let them walk again—and yet, in my deepest core, sick with gratitude.

I am so afraid.

But not just of the dead.

Then I hear their feet, heavy and measured, upon the stair, and my heart nearly climbs out of my throat and bolts across the room. What do I do? I cast about myself in panic. I don’t want to be cornered here in their bedchamber. But to go to the top of the stairs as they ascend—to see those corpse-faces looking up at me through the darkness, while they tramp slowly toward me—that I cannot bear. There’s no other way out, only a door to the tiny garderobe. I might go hide in there all night, crouched over the draughty, stinking hole. Would I be safe in there? I’m as sure as I can be that they have no need for such facilities.

Ach—I have dithered too long. Their tread is at the door. My heartbeat punches me in the entrails, over and over and over.

The door creaks and falls back with a slam.

I look up. I have to. All pretence is over.

The dead men stand, all three of them, beyond the foot of the bed. Finlay is a little to the fore, his brothers to either side. There is no sign of my Mistress; perhaps she kissed them goodnight downstairs. They are still as posts, still as earth: no breath, no flicker of an eyelid.

* * * * *

 

I love writing spooky. Have a very happy Hallowe’en season!

xxx

Janine Ashbless

 

*****

Fierce EnchantmentsCover Blurb for “Fierce Enchantments”

Inside the covers of this, Janine Ashbless’ third collection of erotic short stories, you will find delight and terror and lust – and perhaps even unexpected tenderness.

The wayward daughter of Shakespeare’s sorcerer Prospero; a runaway slave who becomes king only for as long as he can stay awake; a servant girl whose three dead lovers return for one last tryst; vampire-hunters haunted to the point of madness by what they have been through; warriors in a desperate future war for the survival of humankind – and one very dangerous frog prince – all appear in this collection of erotic stories that will take you to the edge and then pull you over into the glittering darkness beyond.

Weaving worlds of fantasy, Janine Ashbless draws from fairy stories, history, myth and the darkest depths of her imagination to bring you tales of passion and desire that will enchant, shock and dazzle you.

Buy-links for Fierce Enchantments:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

*****

JA-colorBio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure – and that’s “fantasy” in the sense of swords ‘n’ sandals, contemporary paranormal, fairytale, and stories based on mythology and folklore.  She likes to write about magic and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000, and her novels and single-author collections now run into double figures. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology Geek Love.

Her work has been described as: “hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.”   (Portia Da Costa)

 

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

Goodreads

Janine Ashbless Facebook

Amazon UK Author Page

Amazon US Author Page

*****

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Janine Ashbless Interviews Her Latest Hero

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thingsthatgohump300x200Hello everyone – I’m Janine Ashbless and today I’m delighted to announce that I have managed to blag an interview with Azazel, the hero of my new novel Cover Him with Darkness—

Azazel [smirks audibly]

Janine: Er … I’m sorry? Did I say something wrong?

Azazel: Not at all. Please, do go on.

Janine: Okay … Azazel is, of course, a leader amongst the fallen angels. He was imprisoned under a mountain in the remotest part of southern Europe, and guarded there for millennia by a family who kept him secret until the last of that line, Milja, disobeyed the Divine command and risked her life and soul by letting him go free. You must be feeling pretty relieved then, Azazel?

Azazel: That’s not the word I’d pick.

Janine: Really? Okay – so how do you feel?

Azazel: Angry. Yes, that’s not inaccurate. Imagine you’d been tied up for five thousand years. That your wife and children had been slaughtered. That your brothers had all been incarcerated too, for the heinous crime of becoming sexually involved with humans. Then tell me that you wouldn’t be feeling a teensy tiny bit like burning Heaven to the foundations and pissing on the ashes.

Janine: That’s your human wife and children, yes? That’s where it all went wrong, wasn’t it? You were set to watch over the human race, but you ended up…

Azazel: Falling for them.

Janine: [laughs uneasily] Well, I’ve got to say you don’t seem to have learned the lesson from your time in prison. You launched straight into a relationship with Milja, didn’t you?

Azazel: She was my only hope, my only joy, in five thousand years of torture.

Janine:  So don’t you feel bad about risking her life? Exposing her to the wrath of the Heavenly Host, and all those priests who are trying to recapture you?

Azazel: That’s a subject you might find it safer not to bring up.

Janine: Fine – let’s stick to some easy questions. Say … How old are you?

Azazel: Four billion years. Give or take. Slightly older than life on this planet.

Janine: Well that clears up the “seven days” question … And Milja is twenty-three. It’s hardly a relationship of equals, is it?

Azazel: Did I say it was? She’s mine. She loves me. That’s what matters.

Janine: She loves you? Don’t get me wrong—I can sort of see why. You’ve got the whole gorgeous Byronic dark-n-dangerous look going for you … even if the silver eyes are kinda creepy … Look, is that even your real form, or is it something you put on to please the girls?

Azazel: What do you think?

Janine: I’m thinking No, then.

Azazel: Pray you never find out.

Janine: Um, where was I? Oh yes – clearly there’s a mutual lust, but it takes more than red-hot filthy sex to sustain a relationship. Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you love her?

Azazel: Of course. I told you – she is mine.

Janine: You see, that’s the bit I’m struggling with. She must be like a mayfly from your point of view – here today and gone tomorrow. And fragile and useless and completely ignorant. How can someone like you, with all your power, love that?

Azazel: Hardly useless. She freed me. She saved me. She loves me. And we all need love, don’t we?

Janine: You mean that literally?

Azazel: The Almighty has withdrawn His love from His outcast sons. We must have something to take its place, or we go out like flame with no fuel.

Janine: So you … I mean, that sounds a bit vampiric, if I’m understanding you right. You need Milja to love you because you’ll die otherwise?

Azazel: I’m sure your readers will find that terribly romantic. Won’t they?

Janine: Uh … it’s not exactly hero material.

Azazel: I never said I was the hero. You’re the one who used that description.

Janine: Um. Well, it’s a romance, you’re supposed to be…

Azazel: If anyone’s the hero it’s that Egan who keeps trying to rescue Milja. He’s like a faithful dog, bounding to her side at every crisis.

Janine: No, he’s not exactly … he’s not telling the … Oh.

Azazel: What do you mean?

Janine: Nothing. Never mind. Forget it. Oh dear. If you’re not the hero, Azazel, then what are you?

Azazel: I’m a fallen angel. I’m damned for eternity. I imagine I must be the villain, surely?

Janine: I don’t … I don’t think it’s that simple.

Azazel: [smiles] Tell that to God, Janine. See how far it gets us.

[disappears]

*****

Excerpt:

I was book-smart, as they say in America – there was no such phrase in our village, though they understood the concept perfectly – and I was burning with curiosity, and not wise. One day I lay down beside him on the stone and nested my head on his chest. I could hear the slow beat of his heart. The bars of his ribs were like carved prehistoric rock-glyphs, and I walked my fingertips across each ridge and furrow. The skin above his hip was so smooth it was like stroking feathers, but the old altar cloth felt damp and coarse in comparison. There was something repulsive about the feel of the grimy cloth that preserved his modesty. With my right hand I drew off that swatch, and then for the first time I touched him without the excuse that I was tending him. Without any excuse at all.

Hair, matted into curls. Below that, duskier skin. I shut my eyes. My hand, for once, was bolder than my gaze.

A small cool heft in my hand, yet heavy with a secret weight: the significance invested in the forbidden. My heart was racing, far faster than the heavy beat against my ear. My mind shied away from what I was doing. But my body seemed to be sure of what it wanted, and urged my hand to its task.

Tentatively I began to caress him.

He responded to that. Not just that sleeping creature stirring to wakefulness under my open palm, but his heartbeat waking with a kicking thud  and then his whole frame following on – his back stretching, his breath catching in his throat, his toes flexing and curling. I snatched my hand away, terrified and thrilled, and when he groaned deep in his chest I felt it through my bones.

“Ansha?”

I didn’t recognize the name, if it was a name. His eyes were wide open, staring, but I couldn’t be sure he saw anything. I pushed myself up into his line of sight.

“Milja,” I whispered. “I’m Milja.”

His cracked lips parted, and he made a sound of need. He was beautiful in a way I couldn’t understand: so beautiful I felt it as pain. So I returned my hand to its former position, and nearly jumped with shock when I found that everything had changed. Nothing soft any more, and nothing cold, and just so much more of him, flesh brought into existence from the nothing, from the void. Like a miracle.

I wrapped my hand around that burgeoning miracle.

So heavy. So strong. My hand embraced that hardness, stroking. His breath started to come faster, with a little tremble at the end of each exhalation, interspersed with murmured, unintelligible words. Soon he was so eager that he was too thick for my grasp.

I paused. I wasn’t entirely sure where this was going, or how long it would take to get there. My own body was a cauldron of conflicting needs and fears.

“Milja!” he groaned, desperate.

*****

Cover Him with Darkness

Blurb:

What happens when an archangel banished from heaven falls in love with a very human woman? Milja’s story begins when she is shown the winged prisoner her father, the village priest, keeps hidden away in a mountain cavern. This mysterious and unearthly charge is a beautiful being like the most handsome of men – and yet not. Unable to keep away from this silent creature chained in darkness, Milja is torn between family loyalty and her growing connection to their prisoner. One day her father discovers their forbidden intimacy and sender her off to America to be raised by her aunt in Boston. But Milja cannot forget her the one she loves—and she determines to free him even though that puts everything at risk: her family, her life and her soul.

Cover Him with Darkness, the story of what happens when a young woman releases a fallen angel from centuries of imprisonment, is available from October on Amazon US : Amazon UK

“If you loved an angel, how far would you fall with him?”

*****

“Calling Cover Him With Darkness a romance is like calling a Lamborghini a cute little car. Janine Ashbless has broken every unwritten rule of writing romance and makes it work most spectacularly—it’s dark and gritty and so beautifully written that the words are pure poetry.”

—Kate Douglas, author of the Wolf Tale series

 

“Janine Ashbless has long been a master at conjuring the erotic in myths and legends. Now she’s taking on religion and all I can say is wow. Just wow! What is evil? What is good? Could the faithful have completely missed the point? Sexy food for thought: Cover Him With Darkness is an intensely wild ride.”

—D. L. King, editor of Seductress and The Sweetest Kiss

 

“This book was truly a fantastic read.”

—Rose Caraway, editor of The Sexy Librarian’s Big Book of Erotica

*****

JA-colorBio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure – and that’s “fantasy” in the sense of swords ‘n’ sandals, contemporary paranormal, fairytale, and stories based on mythology and folklore.  She likes to write about magic and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000, and her novels and single-author collections now run into double figures. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology Geek Love.

Her work has been described as: “hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.”   (Portia Da Costa)

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

Goodreads

Janine Ashbless Facebook

*****

GIVEAWAY!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Special Smut by the Sea offer for Valentine’s Day and beyond!

News, , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s recently been Valentine’s day and we all looked for something special to give to our loved ones. Sometimes though Valentine’s gifts last for no time at all, flowers wilt, chocolates get eaten, champagne drank. How about treating your other half to a great day out by the sea with extra added smutty fun?

Well, we’re offering Smut by the Sea tickets for £7.50 from now until  25st February 2013. This is a 25% off the usual price. This ticket will get you in to the Smut by the Sea Book launch with free nibbles and a glass of something bubbly plus readings that will get you in the mood for some seaside good loving.

Smut by the Sea takes place on the 22nd June at Scarborough Library. The event runs all day with readings and an erotic marketplace during the day (10am-4pm), featuring top authors like KD Grace, Janine Ashbless, Victoria Blisse, Lucy Felthouse, Tabitha Rayne, Lexie Bay, Slave Nano and Ruby Kiddell.  And then the evening will showcase Smut by the Sea volumes 1&2 between 6-9 pm.

Pick up tickets for your beloved today and give a gift that will keep on giving! For more details check http://smutbythesea.co.uk and buy your tickets here http://smutbythesea.eventbrite.co.uk/