Tag Archives: Mischief

Launch, Lust and Self-Love

Blog, New Releases, News, Work in Progress, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lots of Lakeland Heatwave News!

Body Temperature and Rising has been out in paperback and eBook in the UK since October and in eBook in the US as well, but tomorrow is the official print launch day of Body Temperature and Rising in the US! I love book launches! And I LOVE the chance to celebrate. I’m very pleased with the positive response BTR is getting, and the closer I get to the completion of all three novels in the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy, the more excited I get.

In more Lakeland Heatwave news, Body Temperature and Rising is being discussed all this month over at Coffee Time Romance. I’ll be talking paranormal erotic romance, what makes it work and what makes it hot. I’ll also be sharing some juicy excerpts, talking about what inspired me to write it, talking about sex magic, sharing a few snap shots of the glorious English Lake District, where the story is set, and just generally chatting about witches, demons, ghosts and all things paranormal and sexy. Do stop by and chat. Leave a comment for a chance to win your choice of either of my novels, The Initiation of Ms Holly, or The Pet Shop.

Even MORE Lakeland Heatwave News

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve just finished the first draft of book three of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy, Elemental Fire. You may have remembered that I had just finished the first draft of book two, Riding the Ether, in February. I decided to write the last two books back to back so I could get the best overall view of the powerful events that lead to the grand finale. Plus, I had less chance of suffering from empty nest syndrome that way. I have to admit there were a few twist and turns that even I didn’t expect, and I can hardly wait to make all three novels available to my readers! Riding the Ether will be published in October, and there’ll be much partying and dancing in the streets.

Novellas                                                                              

Last month I was all excited about the release of my two new novellas, Surrogates, published with Harper Collin’s new erotica eBook imprint, Mischief, and Migrations,  which included in the brand new Xcite Books line of anthologies, The Secret Library, in the Traded Innocence anthology. I’m happy to announce that both are doing well and enjoying good press. I’m doing my best to have as many of the authors from the new Secret Library line as guest on my blog as possible, so please check in to see what hot, romantic offerings are deliciously hidden inside those very elegant velvet covers. I’ll also have some exciting guest authors stopping by from the new Mischief line as well, so do make sure to check out A Hopeful Romantic for all the latest heat.

Garden Porn

Any of you who have read much of my work know that I’ve got a reputation for writing garden porn. Surrogates is a very hot romp through the veg patch, and some pretty stunning formal gardens as well. My short story, Vegging is packed full of veggie naughtiness, and my story, Allotted Views is a voyeuristic romp through the allotments.  I’ve always found working in the veg patch inspiring, and it has just got a whole lot more inspiring for me, as my husband and I just got an allotment after three long years on the waiting list. I think our patch alone is big enough to feed half of Surrey. And that means, of course, LOTS more inspiration for writing hot garden porn.

The Merry Month of May…er National Masturbation Month!

Okay, how could I possibly NOT end this little update with a happy, touchy-feely mention of National Masturbation Month? The celebration of May as National Masturbation Month started in 1995 in San Francisco as a response to the forced resignation of then U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, for remarks she made that masturbation should be taught as a healthy part of human sexuality.

The comment ended Elders’ career. National Masturbation Month came about as an act of protest against Elders’ ouster and a celebration of the safest sex of all. I’m definitely planning to do my part to celebrate in solidarity! And I intend to start by giving you a few very hot excerpts of the self-loving kind throughout the rest of the month – my contribution to the celebration of solo-sex. I hope you find them inspiringJ

Since all the latest news is Lakeland Heatwave, I’m going to start the self-love lit with a hands-on scene from Body Temperature and Rising. Enjoy!

Excerpt:

(in which much naughtiness ensues. Not for the delicate of disposition)

Marie woke to the awareness of a man sitting on the bed next to her, a man who, from the looks of his clothing, must have been at the same costume party as Anderson. His fly was open and he was stroking a substantial hard-on. Instead of being frightened, as would have been the normal response to a stranger rubbing one off on her bed, she simply admired his pale hair and the way his large hand moved over heavy equipment. She liked it when she conjured sexy men to visit her in her dream world. Better yet she had conjured one obviously ready to play.

She watched through half closed eyes as he shoved his trousers open further and worried distended balls free from the press of his underpants. With one hand, he caressed the length of his cock, with the other he cupped himself and stroked with his thumb.

‘I heard them talking about you.’ The man said. ‘They didn’t say how strong you are.’ He groaned out loud and shifted to slide his trousers down so that his pale ass settled onto the duvet, allowing easier access to himself. ‘Even if they had, I would not have believed them.’ His voice was a harsh whispered. ‘I long to know what you look like beneath the duvet, beneath the nightdress. Please let me look at you.’

So far this dream was shaping up well. She was happy to play I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours. Strangely Dream Guy sounded like he’d studied the same romantics Anderson had. Who’d have thought antiquated poet-speak could be so damned hot? She eased herself into a sitting position against the head board and pushed back the bedding. The night shirt lay high against her thighs, barely covering her cunt.

She was amazed at how well she could see in the moonlight drifting through her window. She could see the shape of him, the anxious rise and fall of his chest, the parting of his lips. She could feel his gaze on the hem of her night shirt. She scrunched and raked at it until her hand rested against her pubic mound obscuring his view, and he groaned his frustration. Slowly, carefully she raised her bottom and shifted until the night shirt was out of the way and her bare buttocks pressed against the smooth cotton of the sheet.

His gaze on her felt almost physical, as though with his eyes alone he could gently nudge her open. ‘Please let me see,’ he whispered.

She had played the voyeur with Anderson and Tara earlier. Now it felt wonderfully wicked to play the exhibitionist, as she shifted her ass again and slowly, teasingly opened her thighs, still nestling her hand in her curls, stroking and caressing, making herself wait until that magical moment when her fingers first slipped between the swell of her lips.

‘I can smell you,’ he said. ‘The scent of your sex is intoxicating, please, please let me look at you.’

This time, she moved her fingers down over the hard rise of her clitoris and in between the pout of her lips, her breath catching, her hips jerking with that first electrical touch. Then she spread her labia as wide as she could manage with two fingers and opened her legs still further until she was certain Dream Guy could see every detail of her dilating pussy, every fold of her slippery landscape.

He gasped at the sight, and she could see his balls tighten and jerk with the intake of breath. He shifted a fisted hand down the length of his penis, lingering for his thumb to caress and circle the head, its slit opening and closing with each stroke. She could feel the gentle rocking of the mattress and wasn’t sure if it was from her dream lover, who was now grinding his ass against the bed with each stroke, or if it was from her own bearing down.

‘Touch yourself for me,’ the man said. ‘I want to watch you pleasure your lovely womanhood.’

There was a strange man sitting on the foot of her bed watching her masturbate. The very thought made her juices run thick and hot.

*****

Wishing you all a very merry, touchy-feely month of May! And here’s a lucious link to The Center for the Intimate Arts and some fab visual stimulation.

Janine Ashbless Tells the Story Behind Red Grow the Roses

Blog, Guest Blogger, New Releases, , , , , ,

It’s my pleasure to welcome the amazing Janine Ashbless to my site today to share with us the story behind her sizzling, intense new vampire novel, Red Grow the Roses. Welcome, Janine. Do tell!

Hi KD – how great is it to be here on your blog!

You asked me for the story-behind-the-story of Red Grow the Roses, my new vampire-erotica novel. So here goes…

I wrote Red Grow the Roses because I was asked to. I was working for Black Lace at the time, and I was just happily starting on a new book of short stories, when the editor mentioned to me that he wanted only one paranormal title for 2010, that it “has to be vamps,” and did I want to write it?

My first thought, to be honest, was, “Me? You’ve got the wrong person!” I had written one vampire short for BL, but I’m actually on record telling the world I didn’t like vampires (This was in the days before True Blood, you have to remember. I’m now a huge fan of True Blood. I am not a huge fan of Twilight):

“Vampires do nothing for me. I mean – I am happy with them as predators, or as vehicles for introducing dominance and/or a little necrophilia to an erotic story; it’s when the author wants to use them as characters that my eyes glaze over. Why? It’s epitomised by a montage scene in Interview with a Vampire where the years pass over New Orleans. In these centuries human beings with their pitiful short lives have created beautiful art and architecture, established complex societies and communities, turned swampland into a thriving city. What have the vampires, with their eternal youth and their physical superiority and their accumulated experience, achieved? Well, they’ve killed some people and drunk absinthe. And one of them plays the piano a bit. Boring, boring bastards.” (From the Lust Bites blog)

But I said “Yes”. And then I sat down and thought about how I could do it. How to get a handle on vampire characters. How to write this from the heart and the head and the groin.

• I didn’t want to do a Laurell K Hamilton rehash.

• I didn’t want to write “human-girl-falls-for-immortal-vampire-Dom-and-gets-turned”. That’s been done too often before. (And, it turns out, after.)

• In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there’s a real sense of spiritual horror about the vampire. He’s genuinely uncanny and disturbing. He’s dead. He’s cut off not just from human society, but from the grace of God. He has charisma, but the prospect of being turned by him is terrible. How could I recapture that sense of disquiet, for a readership that no longer automatically believes in God, and thinks that being immortal and super-powered sounds pretty cool, really?

• What I really wanted to write was short stories. I think erotica (though not romance) works best, for me, in short story form. That way you can have variety of characters and situations and kinks. And the poor reader doesn’t have to read the book at one sitting, and end up with wrist-cramp, just to get to the next bit of plot.

So, I thought, I’d write a book of short stories. Each would stand alone. Each would have a different protagonist and a different writing style. Each would feature a vampire, and together they’d add up to a single overarching storyline. They’d almost all be written from the point of view of the human beings whose lives are touched (and sometimes wrecked) by something both horrific and seductive. And I’d make it really bad to become a vampire, because yes they’re powerful and immortal – but as they get older, not only do they become more magical, but they lose their minds and their resemblance to humanity. The oldest vampire in RGtR is nearly incorporeal; she drifts about in mirror glass and other reflective surfaces, and is more like a predatory ghost than anything else.

How to tie the different stories together? Well, I’d do what I’d wanted for many years and structure it around the enigmatic folk song Green Grow the Rushes. That song creeps me out even before I start imagining what it references. You know the one:

I’ll sing you Ten-O,
Green grow the rushes-O!
What is your Ten-O?
Ten for the Ten Commandments:
Nine for the Nine Bright Shiners:
Eight for the April Rainers:
Seven for the Seven Stars in the Sky:
Six for the Six Proud Walkers:
Five for the Symbols at your Door:
Four for the Gospel Makers:
Three, Three the Rivals:
Two, Two the Lily-White Boys, clothed all in green-O.
One is One and all alone
And ever more shall be so.

Each line would get a relevant story. That’d make it a real challenge to write! And I’d call it “Red Grow the Roses.”

The whole concept came to me in a feverish rush. After that it was just a case of filling in the blanks (like: how many vampires, what would make each one stand out from the rest, what sexual themes did I want to cover?).

So that’s what it is. Eleven different short stories, with points of view ranging across male and female, innocent to knowing to bitter; written in first second or third person; each narrative shedding light upon the others. One is a fairy tale. One is a romance. One is hardcore female humiliation. One is brutal male-sub. One is all Victorian Gothic corporal punishment. One is themed entirely around the names of rose cultivars.

Black Lace stopped publishing just before I finished writing this book. It would have been too long and too offbeat for them anyway, I suspect! (I turned down another publisher later because I was told to cut out the backstory between sex scenes). But now Red Grow the Roses has found a home with new publisher Mischief – and hopefully on many a Kindle.

It’s my scary, bloody, dangerous pride-and-joy.

xxx
Janine Ashbless

Blurb:

Maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe he’s not human. He’ll take you in his arms and you’ll feel his strength – a strength that makes it impossible to fight him. But you’ve already lost the will to resist, that moment he looked into your eyes and showed you all his hunger and his promise. You knew then. You knew that this is what you are for – what we are all for – with our warm beating hearts and our aching sexual needs.

We are for them.

There are six vampires in the city. Ageless, terrifyingly beautiful and always hungry – not just for blood but for the other pleasures the human body offers. Sadistic chanteuse Estelle; feckless Ben; Roisin, the mirror-ghost; Wakefield, haunted by his own damnation; Naylor, the most feral of them all.

And Reynauld is the Good Shepherd, the one who holds them all in check. But his grip on his own humanity is fading, and when Wakefield accidentally kills a woman and Naylor gets the blame, a power-struggle erupts between the city’s immortal undead.

Red Grow the Roses tells of bloodlust and sexual desire; for vampires the two are indistinguishable. These transgressive, startling stories draw the reader down the darkest and most seductive paths of pleasure – to where the monsters are waiting.

Excerpt:

‘Oh, Doug. Is that how you ended up in the Church?’

‘I thought that if anyone knew about these things, if anyone had the answers, it had to be them.’

Unable to comfort him, she leaned in and kissed his lips softly. She was surprised and gratified when he took her hand and guided it to his groin, back to his erect cock.

‘Cerri,’ he mumbled, kissing her deeper. His hard-on jumped under her fingers, giving no sign of flagging, no sign that he’d already emptied all chambers. Uneasiness stirred in the back of her mind even as she ached to pull him into her. He’d stayed stiff as a pole all the way through his story.

The nasty suspicion, once formed, grew to monstrous proportions. Pushing him back, Cerri bent for a closer look. And there it was: yes. On the underside of his cock, near the base: two dints in the flesh, one a little higher than the other. Puncture-marks. ‘Fuck,’ she said hoarsely: ‘You’ve been bitten.’

‘What? No, I -’

‘You’ve been bitten already.’ She stared into Doug’s uncomprehending eyes, her voice rising. ‘He’s already had a piece of you!’

‘But I haven’t – I don’t – When?’

‘This afternoon,’ said a silky voice behind them. ‘Funnily enough, I don’t usually feel hungry during the day, but you were just so fucking sweet and irresistible. And the look on your face…’ Cerri scrambled round and saw the speaker, the vampire Naylor: beautiful, glittering and jagged as razor-wire. He was nested in the angle of the landing ceiling, arms spread like a blasphemous crucifix, clinging to the plaster by a network of dark tendrils that emerged from his flesh like cobweb, melding him with the shadows. ‘Rather like that look now,’ he finished with a ghastly smirk.

She knew she hadn’t seen him until that moment. She knew they’d been through every room of the house and if he’d been there he couldn’t have remained hidden. Not if he were human, anyway. ‘You were in the house all the time,’ she said, feeling sick. ‘We didn’t seal you out. You were already here.’

‘Uhuh. I’ve been here since last night. Not as clever as you think, are you girly?’ He slithered down from his impossible perch and landing on the carpet lightly, the shadow-tendrils hissing as they dissolved. Doug scrambled to his feet, yanking up his trousers and holding them with one hand. The other one sketched a cross in the air.

‘In Jesus’ name -’

‘Didn’t work last time, won’t work this. You’ve too many doubts, little God-botherer. Plus,’ he added acidly, ‘I think the fact you’ve just hosed your scuzz all over your witch girlfriend’s tits might count against you. Pretty impressive, by the way – the spunk-show, I mean. And,’ he admitted with a long hard glance at Cerri, ‘the tits. I’d like to bite them off.’

‘Don’t you touch her!’ Doug barked. Cerri came up behind him and put her hand on the small of his back.

‘You should go, Naylor. You’ll only be making trouble for yourself.’

He tilted his head, an odd smile dancing in his eyes. ‘I should be angry with you, witch-bitch. You get in my way. You’ve gone and spoiled my dinner.’ His eyes, green as poison, narrowed as they flicked back to Doug. ‘But you know what? I’m not angry. You two just went and told me a lovely story. The most interesting story I’ve heard in years. And that’s why I’m going to play Mr Nice.’

Buy links:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Grow-the-Roses-ebook/dp/B006PW46O8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1328179252&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Grow-the-Roses-ebook/dp/B006PW46O8/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328098712&sr=1-10

Personal links:

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

www.janineashbless.com