Kate Hill Launches Fangs & Fists 3: Victor with a Giveaway

 

♥♥ GiveAway ♥♥

Kate is giving away a $10 Amazon GCduring the tour. Please use the Rafflecopter below to enter. Remember there is a chance to enter everyday so be sure to follow the Blog Tour. You may find the tour schedule and locations here https://bit.ly/2G1mPye

 

 

About Fangs and Fists 3: Victor:

 

Werewolf gladiator Victor vows to escape captivity by demons or die trying–which nearly happens when his latest opponent takes him by surprise.

 

Jolanda is a member of a secret pack of wolf witches who want to free their kin from the dreaded demon tower. Strengthened by the power of her pack, she defeats Victor in the arena and demands that he be given to her as a mate.

 

Alone, they surrender to their overwhelming lust for each other, but Jolanda needs him for more than sex. She’s been sent to rescue the captive wolves and Victor is the Alpha she needs to help her. Together he and Jolanda plan a mass escape from the tower, hoping to strike a blow the demon masters will never forget.

 

Genres: Dark Fantasy, Futuristic, Paranormal, Romance

 

Buy Fangs & Fists 3: Victor Here:

 

 

*♥*♥*♥*15% off any order when you shop Kate Hill *♥*♥*♥*

Code: Fangs-and-Fists

Will work on the entire cart, as long as there’s one Kate Hill book in the cart.

Only at Changeling Press

 

 

Fangs & Fists 3: Victor Excerpt:

Two demon guards clad in black body armor entered the barracks. Their red eyes glowed behind dark face shields. They approached Victor and one guard said, “Get up and come with us.”

 

All the guards sounded and looked alike. They were even the same height and body structure.

 

Victor knew better than to refuse. There would be no point in fighting, even if he was so inclined.

 

He guessed he would be going to one of two possible places. It would either be the punishment chamber because he’d killed Slate too quickly or — and this was more likely — to the demon masters who had bargained with him to kill for their entertainment.

 

The guards brought Victor out of the barracks and down a steel corridor to an elevator at the end. They boarded it. Except for the soft whir of the elevator descending, there was silence.

 

It stopped with an almost imperceptible lurch. The door opened and Victor, accompanied by the guards, stepped into a spacious room with an enormous glass ball in the center of it. Several couches surrounded it. While the upholstery resembled leather, Victor’s sense of smell told him the couches were covered with material that hadn’t come from any four-legged animal.

 

He’d been in this room before. Here, the demons had bargained with him for the lives of his fellow gladiators, their mates, and their cubs. Here, he’d traded his integrity and his soul for their lives.

 

The guards disappeared into dark corners of the room.

 

Since he had no intention of sitting on the foul furniture, Victor stood near the glass ball and waited.

 

The ball glowed faintly at first. Then it brightened. From within, two demon masters — one male and one female — stared at him. He knew they weren’t actually there. The ball was similar to television. He could see and hear them, but they were far away.

 

The male had ink-black, elbow-length hair. Tall and slim, he was dressed from head to foot in red. The female had short white hair. Her skin was nearly as pale as her form-fitting white dress. Both demons stared at him with black eyes.

 

“Your game has improved, Victor,” said the male, “but I’m afraid you still haven’t mastered the art of performing. Your kills aren’t entertaining enough, but for now that’s beside the point. We haven’t called you here to critique your style, but for another reason.”

 

“We have something special planned for you,” the female continued. “There’s a new contender in the tower — one who has seen you fight and wishes to face you in the arena.”

 

 

Other Books in the Fangs and Fists Series:

 

 

 

Fangs and Fists 1: Bolt Buy Links:

 

 

 

 

 

Fangs and Fists 2: Grit Buy Links:

 

 

 

About Kate:

The child of a painter and a psychic dreamer, Kate Hill feels spirituality and storytelling go hand-in-hand. She loves the scent of gardenia, the sound of wind chimes and the taste of honey. By listening to what isn’t said, she creates works based on unspoken desires. Kate prefers blurred gender lines and many varieties of romance. In a world where passion must at times be restrained, she believes erotica is a pleasure to be shared. With her stories she would like to make her fantasies yours and hopes you enjoy the ride. She also writes under the name Saloni Quinby. Please visit her online at:

 

 

 

Stuck and What Comes After

Like most writers, my first thought of being stuck is always in relation to my work, though I seldom get writers’ block. While I do have a lot of unfinished stories, most have been tucked away because I had other more pressing projects, or the energy just wasn’t there for them at the time. Some get finished, some don’t. Others have evolved into something else entirely or have been cannibalized by still other stories. Even if I am stuck in some part of a story with a plot logjam, almost always a good long walk will help me figure out what to do to move forward.

 

But being stuck in story is another animal entirely. Stuck is the starting place for a lot of great novels. When I got to thinking about it, it seems to me that stuck is the starting place for most archetypal stories. It certainly is the starting place of the hero’s journey, which is the ultimate story plot, because stuck is quite possibly the scariest place of all — standing on a cliff with toes curled over the edge oblivious to the peril.

 

Stuck often takes the form of the perfect life, the ideal happy-ever-after being lived out day to day. While in the real world, that may be what we dream of and hope for, in fiction, there’s the reason why the happy ending is, in fact, the end of the story. What comes after the happy ending, from a reader’s perspective, is boring.

 

The subtext of happy ever after beginnings is “hold on to your hats, shit’s about to get real.” Our hero or heroine is stuck, and they are about to get unstuck in a really brutal, horrible way. In happy at the beginning stories, spouses die, are murdered, run off with someone else, kids are kidnapped or killed, great wealth is suddenly lost, in fact everything that matters is lost. That shattering point of becoming unstuck is where the story really begins. It is the being kicked out of Eden that we readers have been waiting for. Living the good life does not make for interesting reading unless maybe in a how-to book.

 

The second kind of stuck in story happens when the main character is truly stuck in a rut, same old same old, bored now, want out. This kind of stuck involves the hero or heroine of the story wishing something would change, wishing they were anywhere or anyone else. They are waiting, desperately waiting, for their life to begin. The story starts when they get their wish, and it turns out to be way more of a challenge than they bargained for. They are well on the path to discovery and adventure that will change them forever, if it doesn’t kill them first. It’s only at that point we readers have a story worth reading. And that’s the point at which we writers strive to make readers willing and happy to take that leap with our characters.

 

Whether the character is happy with his life and then loses everything or is bored with his life and then has change thrust upon him, the story can now begin. Enter chaos!

 

While stuck is the jumping-off place from which the real story begins, once that happens, it’s chaos that rules the day. Nothing is easy, nothing is orderly, nothing is safe. The driving force of the story is the mess that keeps getting messier and messier until the hero or heroine muddles their way through and out on the other side to their happy ever after, or at least their happy for now. At that point, there are two choices for the writer. Either consider the tale finished and write THE END, or make a sequel that tears away the stuckness of a happy ever after and cast the poor hapless character back into chaos for round two.

I wonder sometimes if, for the “bored now” characters, stuck is hard to endure because stuck isn’t the natural state of things.  For those characters basking in their happy lives, there’s always a neurotic dose of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Either way, stuck doesn’t last because life is in flux, and everything about it is in
motion. Nothing stands still for very long. The journey is cyclical, not static, and moving from stillness into chaos and back again is as much the shape of our natural journey as it is the shape of an interesting story. That being the case, it’s not surprising that readers love to live that journey vicariously, magnified, larger than life. And we writers love to write it for the very same reason. We see ourselves in that cycle, and on some level, even from the safe distance of story, we feel right at home.

Kay Jaybee Launches The Perfect Submissive Box Set

Now you can get the whole Perfect Submissive saga in a box set! Classic Kay Jaybee at her filthy best. 

 

Readers, hold on… it’s a crazy ride. If you like your erotica dark and dirty, then this is the book for you.” –The Romance Reviews

 

 

 

 

The Fifth Floor

Hidden on the fifth floor of the Fables Hotel’s respectable facade, five specially adapted rooms wait; ready to cater for the kinky requirements of its select guests.
When Mrs Peters, the mistress of the hotel’s exclusive entertainment facility, meets the new booking clerk, Jess Sanders, she recognises the young woman’s potential as a deliciously meek addition to her specialist staff. All it will take is a little education.
Under the tutelage of the dominatrix, Miss Sarah, Jess learns to cope with her unexpected training schedule, the increasingly erotic chill she experiences each time she survives a new level of correction, and a truly sexy exercise routine…

 

It was one of the better ones [BDSM novels] that I have read… overall, The Perfect Submissive is a great read. The plot is excellent and it leaves you wondering what is going to happen next?”– Sizzling Hot Books


The Retreat

No sooner has Jess Sanders embraced her role as submissive, when Mrs Peters, informs her that she and Miss Sarah have been loaned to The Retreat; an adult establishment in the remote glens of Scotland. Suddenly, Jess
finds herself caught in a mind-bendingly erotic fairytale experience at the hands of the unyielding David Proctor, and his staff.

Desperate to return to her submissive life on the fifth floor, Jess finds herself trapped. David Proctor wants to keep her for himself…

“…The characters are fascinating with a depth that you don’t get often. They each have various facets to their personalities that make them unique and realistic. They are compelling and one moment you will love them and the next moment hate the same character.  This is true throughout both books as we are introduced to new characters in The Retreat…Kay Jaybee does a great job of involving us in the plight of various characters  especially the  main character, Jess…”  Illustrious Illusions.

 

Knowing Her Place

Desperate to see Mrs Peters, Miss Sarah, and the Fables Hotel again, Jess discovers she can win her freedom is she agrees to go on a specialised quest.

With a list of five unknown addresses in her hand, the submissive is driven from The Retreat in Scotland towards England.

With no idea of what or who awaits her at each stop, all Miss Jess Sanders can do is hope that her journey will eventually take her back to the fifth floor, where she truly knows her place…

 

“If you like your BDSM dark and full of tension, then this is the book for you. Overall, a fab read. Absorbing from beginning to end with lots of delicious twists and turns, it left me wondering when the sequel is coming out!”– Erotica For All

 

Buy The Perfect Submissive trilogy Box Set Here:

Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon AU
Amazon CA
Barnes & Noble
iBooks UK
iBooks US
Kobo
Smashwords

 

About Kay Jaybee

Kay Jaybee was named Best Erotica Writer of 2015 by the ETO

Kay received an honouree mention at the NLA Awards 2015 for excellence in BDSM writing.

Kay Jaybee has over 180 erotica publications including, The Perfect Submissive Trilogy; The Fifth Floor, The Retreat and Knowing Her Place(KJBooks, 2018), Making Him Wait (Sinful Press, 2018), Wednesday on Thursday, (KDP, 2017), The Collector(KDP, 2016), A Sticky Situation(Xcite, 2013), Digging Deep, (Xcite 2013), Take Control, (1001 NightsPress, 2014), and Not Her Type(1001 NightsPress), 2013.

Details of all her short stories and other publications can be found at www.kayjaybee.me.uk

You can follow Kay on –

Twitter- https://twitter.com/kay_jaybee

Facebook -http://www.facebook.com/KayJaybeeAuthor

Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3541958-kay-jaybee

Amazon Author Page- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kay-Jaybee/e/B004O0S9GO/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1534155776&sr=1-1

BookBub- https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kay-jaybee

 

When the Parts are Greater than the Whole

 

 

That the parts of a piece of music, a work of art, a novel or poem can inspire more than the whole won’t likely come as a surprise for those of us who see a story in everything. I was lucky enough to catch two exhibitions in London recently. While they were completely different in nature, what they had in common was that they were prime examples of the parts being greater than the whole.

 

The first exhibition was Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greeceat the British Museum. Presently some of Rodin’s most famous works are being exhibited side-by-side with a selection of the Elgin Marbles. Though Rodin never made it to Athens, his work was profoundly inspired by the art from the pediments that had once adorned the Parthenon.

 

“No artist will ever surpass Pheidias … The greatest of sculptors, who appeared at the time when the entire human dream could be contained in the pediment of a temple, will never be equalled.” Auguste Rodin

 

“The entire human dream … contained in the pediment of a temple.” Has there ever been a better description of what we as writers, as storytellers try to do in the pages of our work? And after seeing a photography exhibition at the Museum of Londoncalled London Nights, I couldn’t keep from noticing that theme played out over and over again.

 

Rodin’s temple with its pediment of the human dream is his Gates of Hell, a work I knew nothing about before the exhibition. The Gates of Hell, was to be a representation of Dante’s Inferno. Sadly only a small clay replica of that masterpiece was on display. For a better view and more details about Rodin’s Gates of Hell check out the YouTube link.

 

The sculpture was commissioned in 1880 for a museum that was never built. But Rodin was so pulled into the effort, so inspired by it, that he continue to work on it on and off until his death in 1917. Many of his most famous sculptures, including The Kiss and The Thinker (who originally represented Dante sitting in the tympanum of the sculpture) were inspired by and taken from his original work.

 

“None of the drama of Life remained unexplored by this earnest, concentrated worker … Here (in The Gates of Hell) was life, a thousand-fold in every moment, in longing and sorrow, in madness and fear, in loss and gain. Here was desire immeasurable, thirst so great that all the water of the world dried up in it like a single drop.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (Briefly Rodin’s secretary)

 

The following weekend I found myself at the Museum of London standing before two images that, like Rodin’s Gates of Hell, invited me to dwell on the intriguing details and secrets of the parts, rather than the whole. Since there was no photography allowed, I ended up frantically taking notes on my phone. The images were both temples, of a sort, both attempting to contain the human dream in their “pediments.” One was a photograph from Rut Blees Luxemburg’sLondon: A Modern Project. The image, taken in 1999, is of a London high-rise apartment building in what looks to be a lower middle class neighbourhood. I was pulled in because I could see into people’s windows, into their lives. I wondered about their stories; the bicycle sitting on the balcony of the top floor, the Christmas lights visible in several windows, the dark flat with “shadow monsters” from childhood dreams pressing to the balcony windows seeking entrance. At the center of the photo is a stairwell illuminated in garish florescence, bisecting the building from top to bottom. It’s the only apparent connection to the stories in the apartment framework. This building is a container for the human dream played out in a thousand different ways with a thousand different outcomes.

 

The counter to Blees Luxemburg’s high-rise of flats is Lewis Bush’s high-rise office building. The particular photo that drew me was taken at night when the offices should have been deserted. The image itself is slightly distorted in perspective, a view from below, but not from the ground. The glare of light reflected at certain angles obscures the view in some of the floor to ceiling windows. When I looked closer, I realized there were a few people still inside. And none of them looked particularly happy – though that could have been my imagination, because to me, this was a story waiting to be told. This “pediment” was a perversion of the human dream. There was nothing personal about it and very little human. Perhaps that’s why I was so drawn to the few people who were there. What was written on every face, at least to my observation, was the terrible cost of living that dream. Here are a few of my frenetic notes.

 

Soul captured in a photo. People still in the high-rise office at night? Why? What are their stories? What’s the guy at the bottom looking at? The one looking out the window, does he see the photographer? Would anyone stuck in the building believe him if he told them?

 

The one with hair hanging in his face — what’s he looking at on his screen? He looks frazzled. Woman with head down on desk? Why? And is there a man sitting in the reception area? Why’s he there? What’s he waiting for? 

 

Is there a guy in a priest collar???

 

Is that a gym?

 

Reflecting on the two photographs now, it seems interesting to me that there were no people visible in any of the windows of the flats, as though they might be able to hide in their private world. But there is nothing private about the office high-rise. The photo seems all about being exposed in the darkness.

 

The enclosures, the containers that hold the stories we long to tell, are high rises, homes, tunnels and caves underground, spaceships, battles being fought, beds being fucked in, and long roads travelled. We write them voyeuristically, as we look into the windows of our experiences and beyond. The stories we pen are the pediments for human dreams. They contain our Gates of Hell, our gods and goddesses and their epic toying with humanity. They contain our monsters in the dark and our unexplored lives. They will remain always only in the pediments where we can see them, and take them out, and explore them, and be uncomfortable with them, or aroused by them, or frightened by them, or totally pulled in to their tale. Their tale is always our own retold, and yet never quite like we’d planned it, certainly not the way we lived it out. What holds us within the framework are the once upon a times and the happily ever afters, the what ifs and the whys. What keeps us coming back for yet another look is the hope inspired by a dream kept alive when death looms ever larger.

 

 

It’s an overwhelming task we take on as writers, as artists. How could we endure it or
explore it if all we ever saw was the high-rise or the temple? It’s too much to take in.
It’s the secrets in the pediments, in the office at night, in the curtains not quite completely drawn that keep us telling our stories. In our imagination, in our urge to create, we’re drawn to the pediments for the dreams, the vignettes. We’re pulled in
by the questions that reveal themselves and startle us into realizing what they might mean. But we linger there because of how they surprise us when they’re suddenly the center of our focus — those things we didn’t notice before.

 

Beverley Oakley Launches Wicked Wager with Tour & Giveaway

 

♥♥ GiveAway ♥♥

Beverley is giving away a signed print copy of The Duchess and the Highwayman during the tour. Please use the Rafflecopter below to enter. Remember there is a chance to enter everyday so be sure to follow the Blog Tour. You may find the tour schedule and locations here https://goo.gl/XTRwwr

 

 

About Wicked Wager:

Can innocence survive the machinations of a malevolent society beauty
and a charismatic rake?

 

Two weeks before her nuptials to her cold, harsh cousin, virtuous Celeste Rosington finds herself in the arms of notorious libertine, Lord Peregrine.

 

The unexpected encounter is, at first, shocking, but as Peregrine’s charm weaves its magic, becomes a welcome distraction from Celeste’s troubles. Isn’t she already the subject of whispers due to her involvement in the mysterious disappearance of a wealthy plantation magnate? It was a role orchestrated by her demanding husband-to-be in which Celeste had failed spectacularly.

 

Nevertheless, Celeste has no intention of sacrificing all of her scruples for a man she knows is only toying with her. One kiss from handsome, charismatic Viscount Peregrine will surely be enough to give her the strength to fulfil her marital obligations?

 

But what if one kiss is not enough?

 

With her reputation in the balance, Celeste must navigate the treacherous waters of envy, intrigue and deadly secrets, unaware she’s the unwitting pawn in a wicked wager between a ruthless society beauty and delicious, dissolute Lord Peregrine.

 

Could Peregrine really be a party to such perfidious plans? Will his reckless charm be the final undoing of a young woman once respected for her virtue and piety?

 

Or will Peregrine discover that true love is more powerful than greed and ambition in time to save Celeste from the terrible fate that otherwise awaits her?

 

Genre: Georgian Historical Romance

 

Buy Links for Wicked Wager:

 

 

 

Wicked Wager Excerpt:

 

The last of the applause drifted away and for a few seconds the shrill cries of the orange sellers held sway. Rising from his ironic bow for the benefit of his companion, Lord Peregrine held back the red velvet curtain that had afforded them privacy so that Xenia could pass through and join the throng of theatregoers descending the sweeping staircase.

 

He saw that she had fallen into conversation with a club-footed general whose more than interested eye swept appraisingly over Xenia’s abundant assets, and once again Perry felt again the familiar heating of his loins that only Xenia could inspire with a mere incendiary glance.

The contours of her sack-back gown, adorned with a row of bows the length of her stomacher, recalled the more lascivious of those thoughts he’d entertained for the past decade: what it would be like to undress her, layer by layer by layer. He could only imagine how many layers there might be, but the prize would be worth the exquisite torture of restraint. He’d not revealed quite how much her proposition tonight had taken him by surprise, and the fact he’d agreed fuelled him with an odd combination of conflicting sensations: raging lust tempered by the knowledge that he’d just sunk to depths of moral depravity that might make even his uncle squirm in his grave: seduce an innocent on the eve of her nuptials.

 

Except that Xenia maintained the young woman’s ingenuousness was a ploy. Still, Miss Rosington retained her standing in society as a paragon of virtue. What right had he to assume otherwise, just because it was convenient?

 

He was diverted by a squeal to his left. Xenia was moving ahead, caught up by the crowd, her head bent to absorb the admiration of her club-footed general. Peregrine meanwhile found himself unable to continue, due to the fact the young woman in front of him had snagged her skirts on what appeared to be a nail or splinter protruding from one of the supporting beams. No one could move until she’d freed herself, and as Peregrine was directly behind her it was incumbent upon him to act the gentlemen and so enable the rest of the pulsing crowd to forge ahead.

 

‘Please be careful, sir, it’ll tear and it’s the first time I’ve worn it,’ the young woman warned as he took a handful of stiff silk in one hand. ‘It’s my finest.’ She twisted her head round to address him.

As her lips parted, revealing a set of near perfect small white teeth, and her worried blue eyes bored into his, Peregrine felt a jolt of something unidentifiable plummet like a stone to the pit of his stomach. No, further than that, for without a doubt his groin was reacting with something akin to roiling hunger. And, surprisingly, with an intensity that exceeded the dull throb of ten years of wanting Xenia like a frustrated schoolboy.

 

Close to, Miss Rosington was exquisite, her pale white and rose-blushed skin far more lustrous than when seen from a distance through opera glasses. Her powdered coiffure, dressed to fashionable heights, accentuated high, rounded cheekbones; and with growing excitement he followed the sweep of her graceful neck to a bosom that was rising and falling with surely greater rapidity than fear of what peril her gown might face. He liked to think that was so, as her candid look met his and the connection between them seemed like the sharp tug of some inner cord, forcing him forward, his hand brushing hers, nestled beneath a froth of silken furbelows, as they both reached for the undamaged silk petticoat, now released.

 

‘No harm done,’ he murmured as she drew herself up, her companion, the black-eyed viscount to whom she was affianced, returning to claim her, drawing her away with the barest of thanks.

 

All over in a matter of seconds, and at what cost? For while silk skirts and dignity had escaped with minimal damage, Peregrine was the first to concede, as he watched her graceful back with pounding heart and aching groin, that a great deal of harm had indeed been done.

 

 

 

About Beverley Oakley:

 

Beverley Oakley is an Australian author who grew up in the African mountain
kingdom of Lesotho, married a Norwegian bush pilot she met in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, and started writing historical romances to amuse herself in the 12 countries she’s lived as a ‘trailing spouse’ (in between working as an airborne geophysical survey operator, a teacher of English as a Second Language, and writing for her former newspaper).

 

Her Scandalous Miss Brightwell series was nominated Best Historical Romance by the Australian Romance Readers Association. She is also the author of the popular Daughters of Sin series, a Regency-era ‘Dynasty-style’ family saga laced with intrigue and espionage.

 

Under her real name Beverley Eikli, she writes Africa-set romantic suspense, and psychological historical romances. The Reluctant Bride won Choc-Lit’s Search for an Australian Star competition and her Regency tale of redemption The Maid of Milan was shortlisted in the Top Ten Reads of 2014 at the UK Festival of Romance.

 

Beverley lives north of Melbourne (overlooking a fabulous Gothic lunatic asylum) with the same gorgeous Norwegian husband, two daughters and a rambunctious Rhodesian Ridgeback.

 

You can read more at beverleyoakley.com