Tag Archives: guest blogger

Vanessa de Sade Reclaims the Fairy Tale In The Forests of the Night

Vanessa de Sade cover9781909181366I’ve always been in love with fairy tales.  From my earliest childhood they have fascinated me, not so much all those sweet Disney-happy-ending-books that well-meaning aunts bought for my birthdays, but the old tooled-leather volumes that my mother kept on her highest shelf, with browned pages that smelt of mouse droppings.  I used to love to sit on rainy Saturday afternoons with those rare tomes on my knee, their crackly old pages brittle as dead leaves, and immerse myself in the dark worlds that they opened up for me.

I liked Grimm’s stories the best, then Perrault, and though I found some of Andersen twee there were others of his tales that were just so heart-breakingly sad.  But it was the German stories with their dense black forests and nasty old witches that really got to me, and I loved that slate grey October country with all those woodcutters’ cottages buried so deep in the woods that the sunlight never penetrated; a land where evil often went unpunished and, it always seemed to be hinted, maidens lost their innocence behind the cover of spreading oaks.  The Famous Five were OK, but they didn’t come close to Wilhelm and Jacob.

And as childhood passed I never lost my love for this art form, and even when I went to university and discovered intriguing people like Kafka I could always find time to go back to Grimm.  And then one day I walked into a musty old bookshop in a back street and my life changed.  I never had much money in those halcyon student days, and, though I often salivated over the Victorian rare editions with their gold embossing and decorated spines, my purchases were always from the big cardboard boxes of cheap paperbacks that lurked moodily at the back of the store.

I bought two anthologies that day.  One, an old 1960s collection of “German Folk Tales” from the Olympia Press in its distinctive saffron yellow livery and obligatory “adults only” warning; the other a scruffy paperback by somebody called Angela Carter with the intriguing title of “The Bloody Chamber”.

And after that nothing was ever the same.

The German tales were badly printed and poorly translated but nothing could dampen their brilliance as I suddenly came face-to-face with pure untampered with peasant fantasy.  English busybodies like John Ruskin had already been snipping and expurgating away at fairy tales to make them child friendly, long before Unca Walt ever got his hands on them, and even the dear old Brothers Grimm had toned down the content of their own stories to make them acceptable to the publishing mores of their day.

So imagine, then, my surprise and delight when the Olympia Press book was packed with stories of woodcutters’ daughters who got pregnant to fathers and uncles; of old dames who lured young men into their woodland cottages and robbed them of their purity; or the maiden with the hairiest cunt in all the land who was relentlessly pursued by suitors until she set them all tasks to win her heart – and body!

This was the missing ingredient that I suspected had been bubbling away as an undercurrent all this time, the raw earthy sensuality of Victorian magic and the salty barbs of peasant wit, all missing from so many of the stories that I had pored over, but now suddenly restored.  It almost made these German tales exactly what I had been looking for, but with their poor and hastily compiled translations there was still something lacking in them.

Poetry

And in that battered copy of “The Bloody Chamber” I discovered the true power of the real fairy tale, dark, magical, potent, poetic, mysterious and, most of all, breath-takingly erotic.  It’s safe to say that I grew up on Angela Carter and the magic realist writers, though none of the others in the genre ever quite matched her skilful blending of the lyrical with the sexual, or her ability to paint word pictures that so perfectly resembled the insane canvases of Victorian painters like Richard Dadd.  I adored every story in “The Bloody Chamber” and read and reread them over and over again.  I delighted in other books like “The Magic Toy Shop”, I fell in love with “Wise Children”, and I totally went to pieces when the movie of “The Company of Wolves” was released.

No-one had ever heard of either Angela Carter or Neil Jordan in those far off days, and I queued alone to see “Company of Wolves” amongst hoards of spotty splatter-geeks and bespectacled Fangoria readers who eulogised endlessly about the transformation scenes and the prosthetic wolf effects; whole cinemas full of people blind to sheer fucking ART that was being projected onto that screen, while I sat quite overwhelmed – in between swooning at David Warner and having my knees turn to water when Terrence Stamp played his cameo, looking so suave in his white Rolls Royce.  I grew up lusting at Terrence, by the way – BBC 2 played a season of his films late at night when I was about thirteen and I devoured classics like “The Collector” and “Billy Budd” with my hands wedged firmly between my legs, I can tell you, darlings!

So, many years later, when I read Nancy Friday and decided to start writing my own sexy stories that featured woman who looked like me, it should be no surprise to anyone that I’ve come up with a collection of highly explicit erotic fairy tales of my own.

Vanessa de Sade imageForest-1a_600x722In the “Forests of the Night” is a modern urban reimagining of some of those classic Grimm tales that so turned me on in my youth.  I haven’t simply retold the originals to incorporate sex scenes, but, instead, I’ve written new urban fables that evoke all those dark woods and even darker deeds, transposing them to the cement jungles and weltering neons of my own city life.

Thumbelina takes place in a midget’s strip club in a seedy costal town in the north west of England; a vampiric Hansel and Gretel plays out in a Manhattan Penthouse; Cinderella fights for her place to appear nude in a TV-reality show; while Little Red Riding Hood is reenacted in a decaying Hollywood hacienda, the overall tone of the entire collection being Angela Carter meets Hustler magazine, rich in imagery and peopled by weird and eccentric characters.

It’s all being published by the wonderful Sweetmeats Press and comes in a handy ebook edition if you need a quicke (that’s a quick reading break, what did you think I meant, Smutburger?) or as a lavishly illustrated paperback in October.  I’m quite over the moon since this is easily my finest collection to date, and I’m absolutely thrilled that it’s seeing print in such a great edition.

So, here’s a little excerpt to whet your appetite:

Excerpt from Rapunzel:

He should have known about the coming storm, everybody else did, but Edward read no newspapers and listened to no radios, so his first inkling of the downpour was when thunder rumbled and the blazing August sky suddenly clouded and turned a sickly green and then yellow and eventually black like a ripe bruise and the rain began to fall.  Edward’s crops were secure, well banked in and staked against the possibility of inclement weather, but the girl’s were not, her greenery lying thick and abundant in the loose soil, ripe for the slaughter.

And the rain, when it came, was like a biblical torrent, great sheets of water thundering down from the heavens and washing away everything that stood in its path.  Edward had not even known that she was there until he saw her from inside his shed, the rain water slewing down the  window pane like a fishmonger’s display, making her form undulate like a warped film as she ran through the wet trying to keep her crop from being uprooted and washed away by the waters of Noah.

He hadn’t thought about what he was doing, but he found himself out in the unrelenting wet with her, the two of them working as one, staking down great sheets of black plastic that billowed like ghost ship sales in the storm as they hammered stakes into the splunging-wet soil to cover the crop which, he suddenly realised, was what would keep her family fed over the coming winter.  The girl worked like a field slave, her body a sinewy machine in the pouring rain, the faded dress soaked through and clinging to her, her only care the saving of her crop, and she did not rest until they had it secure, tucked in against the elements like a favourite child in its cot.

*****

Outside the rain was still hammering on the asphalt roof of the shed and through the tiny window the world outside looked like a greenish aquarium, eerie in the storm light and everything undulating to the pulse of the tempest.  Inside, though, the little hut was still warm from the heat of the day, and Edward lit the hissing gas ring to boil a kettle and dry their clothes.

He worked soundlessly, methodically, not speaking, and was shocked when the girl broke the silence.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, and her voice was soft and well-modulated, not the coarse accent of the tower blocks.   “Is there something I can do to repay you?”

Edward shook his head.  He had everything he wanted right he here.  He needed no more.

The girl shivered, her wet clothing clinging to her, her long chestnut hair, worn in a single braid, hanging sodden to her back.

“Come closer to the stove,” Edward chided, “dry yourself off.”

She did, and he suddenly became aware of her scent.  Cheap shampoo, wet clothing, supermarket deodorant.  Nothing extraordinary, but in the confines of the little shed with its comforting smells of resin and new wood, she was heady and potent.

The girl sighed and drew nearer, lifting her arms behind her head to undo the band that held her wet hair in it plait, and he saw that her limbs were silky and white and her armpits were covered with thick jungles of soft brown hair, slowly undulating like bracken in a spring breeze and awakening in him all the long buried desires that he thought his wife and the old paper-cut-out judge had burned out of him for ever.

He looked at the girl, fixing her long brown hair, saw the thick down in the white of her armpits and visualised her cunt, and the girl, seeing him and seeing what he was seeing, read his mind and smiled.  “So there is something,” she said quietly, and Edward Edwards nodded.

*****

There was only one chair in the shed, a steel frame and gaudy canvas folding deckchair, and she pushed him into it and unzipped him, taking his cock out with great and meticulous care, like an antique dealer carefully unwrapping the tissue paper from an intricately carved ivory tusk.  He was already huge, his member like an engorged monolith, the red and purple head already inflamed beyond the confines of his foreskin and poking out insistently.

She smiled and took him gently in her hand and pulled the soft chamois leather skin first up and then down, exposing the full proud head of his uncircumcised cock and marvelling at its size and scent, noting how the gaping snake’s eye hole was already weeping clear come, and slipping her hand below his clothing to feel his warmth and run her fingers thorough his thick pubic hair.

“You thought about my cunt, didn’t you,” she said, running her fingers up and down his veiny shaft, “you visualised me naked and this is what grew up from your dirty thoughts.”

He nodded.

“And now there’s something you need after all, isn’t there?”

He nodded again.

“Then ask for it,” she whispered.

Edward Edwards blushed scarlet but found his voice nevertheless.  “Show me,” was all he said.

About Vanessa:

Vanessa de Sade is a passionate lady in her early forties who likes exploring the darker sides of sexual desire.  An obsessive lover of old movies, operatic theatre and authors like Angela Carter, Vanessa likes to fill her own stories with lush imagery and people them with bizarre characters, misfits in search of love.

She is  a contributor to many anthologies, including Naked Delirium, and her solo story collections include Nude Shots and Tales from a Tangled Bush.

Find Vanessa here: www.taboo-quickies.com

Buy In the Forests of the Night Here:

Amazon UK – £3.99 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00F3K08VS/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00F3K08VS&linkCode=as2&tag=sweetmeatspre-21)

Amazon US – $5.99 (http://www.amazon.com/Forests-Night-ebook/dp/B00F3K08VS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378997910&sr=1-1&keywords=9781909181373)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story Behind the Story- Another Cup of Coffee by Jenny Kane

The Story Behind The Story

 

A big thank you to Grace for letting me come and visit today to share with you a little of the background to Another Cup of Coffee, my very first contemporary romance novel.

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about the arrival of this novel into the world- for although it’s my very first dip into the world of romance, it was a long time in the making!

 

Another Cup of CoffeeThirteen years ago Amy Crane ran away from everyone and everything she knew, ending up in an unfamiliar city with no obvious past and no idea of her future. Now, though, that past has just arrived on her doorstep, in the shape of an old music cassette that Amy hasn’t seen since she was at university.

Digging out her long-neglected Walkman, Amy listens to the lyrics that soundtracked her student days. As long-buried memories are wrenched from the places in her mind where she’s kept them safely locked away for over a decade, Amy is suddenly tired of hiding.

It’s time to confront everything about her life. Time to find all the friends she left behind in England, when her heart got broken and the life she was building for herself was shattered. Time to make sense of all the feelings she’s been bottling up for all this time. And most of all, it’s time to discover why Jack has sent her tape back to her now, after all these years…

With her mantra, ‘New life, New job, New home’, playing on a continuous loop in her head, Amy gears herself up with yet another bucket-sized cup of coffee, as she goes forth to lay the ghost of first love to rest…

 

As the blurb says, it took Amy thirteen years to come to her senses and sort her life out – it took me thirteen years to write how she did just that! Not that I’ve been sat puzzling at the pages everyday in all that time- far from it.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin the story of my story…

The idea for Another Cup of Coffee came to me all that time ago, but was originally only intended to be a short story for a competition. I had never written a story before beyond the requirements of school homework, although I had written poetry, some of which I’d been lucky enough to have published. The story, Getting It Back, was all about a quiet girl, who’s cut herself off from her old life after her heart had been broken, and told of how, out of the blue, a package had arrived through the post that made her look at her life afresh. That package was an old fashioned cassette tape, which had a variety of different songs recorded onto it- as was the craze in the 1980’s and early 90’s.

That short story was not well written, and quite rightly got nowhere at all. I gave up writing after that. I’d only entered the competition so that I had a project to do that would occupy my mind and keep me awake. I had a one year old at the time- and she never slept and was a pain to feed- totally the opposite of now bless her!!

So the story was shelved, and I didn’t go back to it for two years went, you guessed it- I had another child- and I remembered the story I’d written. Being the type of person who never throws anything away, I dug it back out, and in fits and bursts I turned it into a novel based on my experiences as a student, my time as an archaeologist, and a friends music obsession.

I’ll be honest- it was not a good read. So again, I shelved it.

Then, a few years later my children went to school- and as is fairly well documented, I had an idea for a very different type of story- an erotic story which I simply had to write down. The result was a persona I called Kay Jaybee- readers of Kd Grace and Grace Marshall may have heard of her…

Such was the unexpected success of Kay Jaybee that I had no time to look at my first early attempt at a novel. I also had no confidence in it. I had become Kay, and Kay was good at stories that oozed kink- I wasn’t at all sure I could do a story that kept the pages turning without it.

Now, I love writing as Kay- she has had one hell of a ride over the years, and has a fair handful of novels, novellas and short stories under her belt- but last year I decided that the time had come to prove to myself that I could do more- and so I rewrote Another Cup of Coffee– and to my surprise it was snapped up…

So- if you fancy discovering my softer side and delving into the story of Amy, her ex boyfriend Jack, and his best friend, erotica writer and Mum, Kit (sound familiar at all????), then why not give Another Cup of Coffee a sip?

Many thanks again for letting me visit today!

Jenny (a.k.a Kay)

You can buy Another Cup of Coffee as either a paperback or an eBook from-

Amazon UK
Amazon US

 

Bio-

Jenny Kane is the author of the contemporary romance Another Cup of Coffee (Accent Press, 2013). This is Jenny’s first novel, but more are in the pipeline…

Keep your eye on her blog at www.jennykane.co.uk

You can also follow Jenny-

Twitter @JennyKaneAuthor https://twitter.com/JennyKaneAuthor

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/JennyKaneRomance?ref=hl

 

Jenny also writes as the erotica author Kay Jaybee.

As Kay she has written several novels, novella’s and short stories, including,  The Retreat, (Xcite 2013), The Voyeur, (Xcite 2012), Making Him Wait (Sweetmeats, 2012), The Perfect Submissive (Xcite, 2012)Digging DeepA Sticky Situation (Xcite 2012), and The Collector (Austin & Macauley, 2012).

Details of all Kay’s work can be found at www.kayjaybee.me.uk

Life in the Land by Rebecca Cohen

Life in the LandBlurb

The magic of the Sawyer family’s extremely green thumbs comes straight from the land. But Bobby Sawyer’s expected superpowers don’t become a reality until he kisses his best friend, Mike Flint. That kiss moves the earth—literally.

When Bobby moves to the city, leaving Mike behind, Bobby keeps his green thumb nimble by working in a garden center and uses his superpowers to help fight crime. He’s on a mission when a bomb explodes, leaving him seriously injured, forcing him to return to the family farm—the source of his strength—to recuperate.

While attempting to recover, Bobby realizes Mike is still the love of his life. But Mike is leery: Bobby left him once before. What if all Bobby needs is one more magical kiss?

 

Short Excerpt from Life in the Land

The distant hum of a tractor’s engine and a few notes of birdsong were the only noises, and once again Bobby’s chest filled with heart-clenching disappointment. His eyes prickled, and he tried to hold back the tears, but he couldn’t. Large, wet tracks raced down his cheeks, and he leaned forward and rested his head and arms on his knees as he sobbed, pent-up disappointment and salty worries splashing into the soil.

“Please don’t cry, Bobby.”

Mike’s eyes were large and imploring, and Bobby was so miserable at his lack of progress that he just wanted something to hold on to. He leaned forward and tentatively brushed his lips to Mike’s in the gentlest of kisses. With a soft sigh, Mike kissed back in the same chaste way.

There was a tremor beneath him, a mild shake that made his whole body vibrate. They sprang apart, both staring wide-eyed at the dirt as they tried to work out what could be causing the disturbance.

Bobby’s jaw dropped. Before his eyes two of the large roots pulled themselves free of the ground, clods of soil falling from the delicate rootlets as they reached out to him.

With an undignified yelp, Bobby fell backward and scrambled away, but a soft rumble from the oak made him stop. It was reassurance, a call for calm, and he knew then everything was okay.

Buy links:

Dreamspinner Press
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
All Romance eBooks

 

Author Bio:

Rebecca Cohen is a Brit abroad. Having swapped the Thames for the Rhine, she has left London behind and now lives with her husband and baby son in Basel, Switzerland. She can often be found with a pen in one hand and a cup of Darjeeling in the other.

Blog: http://rebeccacohenwrites.wordpress.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/R_Cohen_writes

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.cohen.710

Guest Blogger: Kacey Hammell

WMS_blogtourSetting goals are always important. Here’s the top 5 that I am shooting for the most…

  1. Own my own Mustang one day – okay so this has nothing to do with writing exactly, but in a way it does. I’ve been inspired by Mustangs to write the Revved & Ready series! *g*
  2. Meet 3 of the most inspiring authors I’ve read since I was in my teens, whose work has always given me a place to turn to and escape the world. Those 3 authors are – Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Sandra Brown & Suzanne Brockmann (I have the chance to meet Suz at RT Convention in New Orleans next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me!)
  3. Win an award for my writing. Perhaps someday I can add “award winning author” to my taglines. *g*
  4. Publish with another author. I’m always in awe of writers who can pen a story together. I’d love to accomplish this one day.
  5. Visit Ireland and write a story/series set in such a gorgeous place.

’69 MUSTANG

By Kacey Hammell

Book 1: Revved and Ready Series

Contemporary Erotic Romance

ISBN: 9780987799319

Word Count: 4,415 Short Story

Only $0.99 cents!!!

69 MustangRevved and Ready for passion, heat sizzles between two friends…

For Hayley Fitzgibbon, the heat wave blanketing her small town is nothing compared to the inferno inside her whenever she looks at her best friend, Rory. On the night of his parents’ anniversary party, she no longer resists her burning desire and makes it known how much she wants him. Secluded under a willow tree, down a lover’s lane, she’s revved and ready to claim her man on the top of his ’69 Mustang.

 

Excerpt © Kacey Hammell, 2013:

“The party was fantastic, Rory. Your parents looked so happy.” Hayley Fitzgibbon shifted in the front seat of the black ’69 Ford Mustang her long-time best friend owned since he turned twenty-one. She’d come to love it as much as he did, how it handled. It still hummed like it had when brand new. No car was sexier to her. Mustangs, especially the classic ’69 had lines that were slick, masculine and just screamed fast and hardcore. The vibration from the engine tingled through the back of her thighs and buttocks causing a delicious thrill through her body. “Thanks for driving me home. It was a great celebration. I can’t believe your parents have been married fifty years.”

“Yeah. It’s practically unheard of these days.” Rory clicked on his blinker then turned right. “They really seemed to like the gift Max and I got them. You think so?”

She nodded and brushed the white shrug off her shoulders. The heat wave spreading through Belleville, Ontario had reached staggering levels in the last couple of days. The air conditioning in the car barely cooled her skin. Plus being such an enclosed space alone with him after hours of dancing, soft touches as they mingled and were less than five feet away from one another all night had her on edge. “Of course they did. Who wouldn’t want to take a three-week cruise around the Caribbean? I’ll be sure to remind you and your brother of your generosity for my next birthday.”

He laughed and winked. “You’d have to be a very, very good girl.”

I’ll show you just how good I can be. Hayley pushed the thought away. For weeks she’d been having the same dream over and over. The erotic fantasies starring herself and Rory had left her breathless every time she woke, sweating and panting. It was all she thought about anymore. Images of the two of them having hot, sweaty sex—anywhere and everywhere—consumed her day and night. She trembled, flashes of heat zinging along her spine. Heart racing, she drew in a deep breath.

He captivated her in so many new ways these days. His kindness had always been there, but lately, she’d smile if mentioned helping an elderly lady get her groceries to the car. And the way he talked about himself, she got upset and angry. He complained about being a ginger, especially in the summer when he burned easily, but she loved his unique looks. Kind of geeky and studious mixed with sexiness and cute buoyancy he didn’t realize he possessed. She disliked hearing him put himself down.

How were any of her new reactions possible? They’d been best friends forever, and had shared all their secrets with one another.

Maybe the intense and potent way he looked at her now. At times when she’d glance at him, she’d catch darkness and smoldering heat in his eyes that made it difficult to breathe. Was it because she’d slimmed down over the last eight or nine months. She didn’t want to think about him like that, knew deep down that he wasn’t that shallow. But he had been giving her the eye lately, passion-filled stolen glances. Since then, the air around them had shifted.

He hadn’t hidden his reaction to her tonight when he’d picked her up for his parents’ anniversary party either.  Rory’s normally soft hazel eyes had turned a golden rich hue, and when she walked out of her bedroom, he’d let his gaze roam over her body. She knew she looked great in the bright blue satin, off-one-shoulder, mid-thigh gown that really made the azure in her eyes pop. Perhaps he agreed. His breath had hitched, his hands shook as he’d helped her with her shrug. His touch had lingered on her shoulders longer than needed. The warmth from his palms scalded against her already hot skin. He’d stood inches behind her, smoothing his hands down her back, and electricity tingled through her body, filling her with sudden fervor and desperation to feel his embrace. And make some of those naughty dreams she’d been having come true.

“You’ll be what, thirty-seven in a couple months, Hales? Maybe we should plan a cruise or something awesome for your fortieth? You’d look amazing in a skimpy bikini you know. Maybe a nude beach?”

The sound of Rory’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. She gulped and cleared her dry throat. “Um, yeah. Sure.” The air in the vehicle was nearly smothering.

“Hey.” He laid a hand on her thigh. Hayley gasped. Heat shot along the skin, hitting her straight to her pussy. Her pulse raced. “It’s like you’re in another world. You okay?”

“Of course,” Trying to mask her nerves, she laughed away his concern. “Fine. Just warm in here.” And I want you. So bad.

 

BUY LINKS:
Book Page

 

Kacey HammellAvid Reader. Romance Author. Redhead…

Canadian-born author, Kacey Hammell is definitely a book-a-holic, who began reading romances at a young age and became easily addicted.  These days, as a multi-published erotic romance author, she enjoys adding a lot of heat, sass and emotion to the Contemporary Romances she writes.

A mom of three, Kacey has made certain each of her children know the value of the written word and the adventures they could escape on by becoming book-a-holics in their own right. She lives her own happily ever after with her perfect hero in Ontario, Canada, and is a true romantic at heart.

Connect with Kacey…

Website / Facebook / Facebook Author Page / Twitter / Amazon / Goodreads / Pinterest / Instagram

 

Giveaway:

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L.C. Wilkinson’s Hot New Novel, All of Me, is A Part of Her

The Story Behind The Story

It’s a question a lot of authors get asked: How did you come to write the story; what was your inspiration? For me, the interesting thing is that whatever the inspiration, once the story has been set in motion it more often than not takes on a life of its own and the finished narrative can be quite different to the original idea. The roots are there, if you dig deep enough, but the tree itself has a different canopy to one first imagined. Here’s my attempt to unearth the seeds of All of Me.

In the late 1990s, when I worked as an actress, I did a tour of Italy. While it wasn’t the high point of my acting career (though career makes it sound grander than it actually was) it was a fantastic and magical experience. Later, when children came along and I’d moved into writing words for a living rather than saying them on stage, friends and colleagues often said I should write about my time in Italy. It would make a great story, they said. I wasn’t convinced. Location has always been important in my work – it affects tone, pace, rhythm, language – but in itself it doesn’t a story make. But showbiz people are interesting; they tend towards the dramatic (unsurprisingly), so whilst I didn’t water this narrative seed, I didn’t dig it up either, to continue the metaphor.

I wrote other stuff: short stories, flash fiction, novels. Alongside fiction, raising my boys and a part-time job in education, I work as an editor, freelance and for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy. Last year, I edited some MSs described as erotic romance and thought that I’d like to have a go at writing in the genre myself. A female character, an actress – one who would go on to become Flick Burrows – had been rattling around my imagination for some time. She was successful – a soap opera star – and driven. An unconventional beauty from a difficult, disadvantaged childhood, she owed her success to hard work and determination. And she was no ingénue.

Because of my background, I understand how tough it can be for actresses facing 40 and I started wondering how challenging it might be if a younger, much younger, man was interested in Flick. On the one hand, the industry is telling her she’s past it; her leading lady days are numbered and there’s a wilderness period before one is old enough to play the ‘hag’; on the other hand, a young man – a rich, clever, sexy man – is telling her she is hot, fascinating and utterly irresistible. Putting my leading lady in a glass house, via her career, would exacerbate the sense of fading desirability that many women feel approaching middle age. The sense that they need to carve out a new role for themselves. It was at this point the Italian backdrop appeared on the stage that was becoming All of Me. In another country – Flick is a Londoner – she is free to reinvent herself, behave atypically and the glamour, beauty, and let’s face it, sheer sexiness of Italy was perfect.

All of MeThe theatrical tour provides the structure of the novel; the different locations and theatres marking the progression of the tour and of Flick and Orlando’s relationship. And because of my own life experience I needed to do little research on the world of the theatre and many areas of Italy, though I had to do some, of course, because of the passage of time. The real life tour did begin in Milan, before moving south to Sicily and working its way up the boot of Italy before finishing in Sardinia. However, because fiction is life without the dull bits (the quote is attributed to legendary film maker Alfred Hitchcock [replacing fiction with drama], or Clive James depending on where you look) the tour in All of Me visits many more glamorous locations than I did – Venice, Verona, Florence, for example – and takes place principally in the summertime (as opposed to the grimmer winter months). And the characters and their dilemmas are far removed from my own.

Flick’s dark past was inspired by so many people’s stories. Sadly, we hear similar tales almost every day on the news and in the papers. Similarly Orlando’s, though perhaps to a lesser degree than Flick’s. And once I knew Flick’s desires and demons, and I’d set the stage, the story near enough wrote itself. The origins date back 15 years, but All of Me was written quickly; at least by my standards. It took 11 weeks. Other works have taken two years. It is perhaps unfashionable to say this, but it is the truth. I had such fun writing Flick and Orlando’s story that for a while I thought it couldn’t be any good. I only hope that readers enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Excerpt for All of Me:

 Mr Hot led me through to a brightly lit room, the light scorching my eyes after near darkness. He pulled up a wooden stool and gestured for me to sit. I did as I was instructed. Row upon row of bottles of oil, condiments, herbs and spices lined shelves that covered an entire wall. It was a store cupboard, and the strip lighting was harsh; every fine line, blemish and open pore would be visible. Inwardly, I cursed my lack of foundation once more. I felt exposed, stripped right down, and vulnerable. I shielded my eyes, allowing my hand to drop low enough to conceal most of my face.

‘Better here, fewer people. Can I get you a drink? Cup of tea?’ he said.

‘Something stronger might be better.’ I attempted to cover my embarrassment with humour. He did not laugh, or even smile. ‘Water would be great. Wouldn’t do to be seen drunk. Imagine what they’d make of that,’ I added quickly.

Through a gap in my fingers I watched him push open swing doors with considerable force and sashay out, revealing the bustle of a hectic lunchtime kitchen; he barked out an instruction in a language I couldn’t quite place. Italian probably, possibly Spanish. This was no ordinary waiter in more ways than one. He returned moments later.

Despite his blistering good looks, or maybe because of them, I wanted to get the hell out of there; I gulped down the water. ‘Thank you. Can you show me the other way out now please?’

‘It’s not too soon?’

‘I have to be somewhere.’

At the exit, he paused and looked into my eyes, the hazel fading to black as his pupils dilated. He ran his tongue over those sensual lips. I couldn’t breathe and for a moment I thought I might pass out. The attraction I’d felt was mutual; he was devouring me with his gaze; his desire was palpable. Had it been a movie, or an episode of the cheap drama I’d been in, we’d have thrown ourselves at each other, kissed passionately, before being interrupted by an angry chef brandishing a meat knife. I coughed; it broke the spell.

He leant forward to grab the door handle, the bouquet of his aftershave mingling with a distinct, very masculine aroma. I was soooo tempted, but this was real life, and my personal life was enough of a mess. He opened the door, leant forward to look up and down the street before turning back to me and nodding that it was clear. Neither of us knew what to say. I had no idea if he knew, understood, or even cared why the press were hounding me, and I wasn’t inclined to explain.

I held out my hand. ‘Thank you. You saved my life.’

He took my hand, but rather than shaking it, as I had intended, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the back. A charge raced up my arm, exploding in my mouth and groin. ‘It was nothing. Anyone would have done the same.’

‘Thanks anyway,’ I gasped. I had to get out of there, and quick. My internal red light was flashing: danger, danger, danger.

I stepped into the street and, unsure which direction to take, turned right and walked; the skin on my hand still thrumming from the touch of his lips. I wanted to look back, and tried desperately to resist the urge. After a few metres, I gave up and turned my head. There was no sign of him.

Blurb: Actress Flick Burrow’s career is in the doldrums. Dumped by long-term boyfriend at the altar and nudging forty she escapes to Italy touring with a theatrical company.

Orlando Locatelli is a successful businessman. He’s rich, clever and drop-dead gorgeous.

When the two meet, the attraction is instant. But Orlando is 15 years Flick’s junior; he’s the controlling director’s son; his stepmother is possessive and destructive. He’s trouble and he’s determined to have her.

Sparks fly when a tour romance turns into something altogether more dangerous, threatening to reveal pasts, and desires, both lovers are keen to bury.

All of Me is published by Xcite in paperback and e-book formats.

You can buy All of Me here:

Amazon.co.uk

Ebook

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Amazon.com

eBook

Print

Xcite Books

eBook

Print

Laura L C Wlikinsonone eyeAbout L.C.:

L.C. grew up in north Wales and now she lives by the sea in Brighton with three fellas (her ginger sons and her husband) and a cat called Sheila. After many years working as a journalist, copywriter and editor of hagsharlotsheroines.com, she writes fiction and works part-time as an editor for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy. All of Me is her first romance for Xcite. She hopes that it is the first of many.

To find out more about L. C. visit her site – www.lcwilkinson.com – for news and freebies. Or follow her on Twitter: @ScorpioScribble You’ll also find her GoodReads, and she loves to hear from readers and other writers so do get in touch.