Tag Archives: Traded Innocence

Toni Sands Shares the Story Behind Traded Innocence

As promised, another fabulous post from the nasty authors of Xcite Book’s new Secret Library series. Today’s nasty author is in between those sexy velvet covers with me and Elizabeth Coldwell in the Traded Innocence anthology. Please welcome the yummy Toni Sands  here to get sexily historical with the title story from this sizzling anthology, Traded Innocence. Welcome Toni! 

It’s thrilling to have my story snuggling alongside those of KD Grace and Liz Coldwell in the Traded Innocence collection. These are two very talented ladies and I can’t wait to curl up with this trio of novellas.

When Xcite Books asked me to write something for their new imprint, a tingle ran down my spine. The Secret Library is a fabulous, evocative title and when I read the criteria for authors, I knew I must embrace the challenge. Powerful – passionate -provocative: three words to encapsulate an alpha male hero, a feisty heroine to fall for him and a tempting setting. I’d like to explain how my novella emerged.

I’ve written on and off for years but back in the 1990s, began submitting stories. From memory, my first effort was about as effective as a dish of strawberries and cream left out in the rain but I got my act together to write and broadcast two stories for BBC Wiltshire Sound. After I became suddenly single, concentrating upon writing a novel (still in the drawer) helped me hugely. After a move to Wales and several short story successes, I joined a writers’ group and that creativity bug had its way with me at last. I enrolled on a degree course and when the word ‘dissertation’ dropped into the mix I kept seeing smugglers and a heroine who needed rescuing from a scheming male. I’d never written a historical before so for inspiration I took Wales’ awesome Gower Peninsula as background. Research included visiting some alleged smugglers’ coves, of course.

I gained my degree and drifted away from writing ‘nice’ to writing ‘raunchy’ but those characters hung around my hard drive until last year when I knew Rebecca and Jac, my hero and heroine, must seize their moment. Here’s the first sighting of my bad boy smuggler and the lovely young woman who captures his heart …

Excerpt:

On the golden crescent visible at high tide, a horseman cantered towards the headland. An emerald green bandanna tied back glossy black hair from his face. His white shirt ballooned as he rode, muscular thighs gripping the horse’s flanks.

Fingers laced, two young women giggled their way across the dunes above, to scramble into a sandy bowl, sheltered by swaying grass and sea thrift.

‘She’ll never catch us now,’ said Rebecca, fingers raking her copper curls. ‘I won’t let her spoil our fun.’

‘Biddy’s only following your father’s orders,’ said Catrin. ‘He wants you to make a good marriage.’

‘It’s not fair! Marrying me off to someone who’s a hundred years old.’

Catrin frowned. ‘He’s a wealthy lord.’

‘Born back in the last century. You do the sums!

When Rebecca spots Jac, she begins to dream, not just about being in his arms but calculating whether he can save her body and soul from her sleazebag of a bridegroom. She engineers a meeting with Jac …

The weather was changing. There was a distant growl of thunder. Jac gestured to some nearby rocks forming a natural sitting place and Rebecca noticed something that had slipped her attention before. The tip of Jac’s forefinger was missing. Instead of sitting down, she reached for his left hand and took it in hers.

She saw the uncertainty in his eyes and recognised his vulnerability. She felt a torrent of tenderness. He was beautiful, this twenty-one-year-old Irishman. She didn’t care about his chaotic lifestyle. All that mattered was the man. Slowly she raised his hand to her mouth. Her lips closed around the damaged forefinger and she began to suck. Gently and rhythmically her tongue licked Jac’s fingertip.

Blurb:

Sea, sky and smugglers’ coves – paradise for some – despair for beautiful Rebecca. Her father plans to marry her off to a tyrant. Intrigued by a soothsayer’s words, she tumbles at the feet of bad boy Jac, an apprentice smuggler, good with women and horses. Desire burns as powerfully as Rebecca’s determination to rewrite her destiny. Local witch Morwenna is Jac’s ex-lover. Can she be trusted? Midnight at Half Moon Cove sees scavengers and power-hungry barons struggling for supremacy. The lovers must face greater danger before innocence is traded for passion in the sandy cove where they first met.

My website is www.tonisands.co.uk

My Twitter account is https://twitter.com/#!/tonisands

Toni Sands is on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003739178570

 I very much hope you’ll enjoy reading Traded Innocence and its companions in the just-released collection. Thank you, KD, for inviting me along at this exciting time. Hold out your glass, everyone, and let’s break open the bubbly!

Elizabeth Coldwell is Cooking Up Trouble for The Secret Library

As I promised, more fabulous posts from the nasty authors of Xcite Book’s new Secret Library series. Today’s nasty author is in between those sexy velvet covers with me and Toni Sands in the Traded Innocence anthology. Please welcome the lucious Elizabeth Coldwell here to tell you a bit about her sizzling story, Cooking Up Trouble. Welcome Liz!

If there was one thing I’d put on my list, should I ever decide to compile what makes the perfect man, it would be an ability to cook. Much as I love demonstrating my own culinary skills, there’s something incredibly attractive about a man who knows his way round an omelette pan. And if he can do that flash style of chopping that reduces an onion to tiny dice within seconds, so much the better.

A man who loves food is a man who loves sex, or so it’s been claimed. That’s why I decided to set Cooking Up Trouble, my story in The Secret Library’s Traded Innocence collection, in the world of the TV cookery show. There have never been more chefs demonstrating their skills on our TV channels, whether that’s Heston Blumenthal doing something complicated with Gruyere cheese and dry ice, or the Hairy Bikers trading wisecracks while whipping up a soufflé on a tiny camping stove. Chefs have huge egos – at least the best ones do – which makes them perfect alpha male hero material, just waiting to meet their match in a feisty heroine who won’t sit back and meekly adore them, however gorgeous and talented they might be.

Scott Harley, who takes centre stage in Cooking Up Trouble, isn’t based on any one particular chef, though I did base his restaurant, the Ludgate Chop House, in Clerkenwell, a part of London I know quite well, and one where I’ve had my share of memorable meals over the years. He’s the kind of man who’ll pose naked to promote himself (while aiming to raise awareness of a charitable cause at the same time), and he won’t hesitate to insult any or all of his fellow chefs in the process (sound like anyone you’ve heard of?). Which is where Morgan Jones comes in.

Morgan is the new kid on the TV chefs block, a Rubenesque girl from the Welsh valleys who’s been on the end of Harley’s whiplash tongue before now. And that makes her more than a little wary of working with him when they’re chosen as the new presenting team on the long-running Saturday morning TV show, Cook’s Treat. She’s the queen of gooey desserts and sumptuous baked goods, the vice to Scott’s virtuous style. What neither she nor Scott expects is that when they finally meet in the flesh, their attraction will be instant and too hot to ignore, try as they might. The show’s ratings soar, propelled by their obvious chemistry together. But what will happen if their on-screen relationship moves to the bedroom – will they be able to stand the heat?

You can find out by reading Cooking Up Trouble, part of a tantalising triple bill alongside Toni Sands’ Traded Innocence and KD Grace’s Migrations. Bon appetit!

Blurb:
The good news is that Morgan Jones has landed her dream job, co-presenting the Saturday morning TV cookery show, Cook’s Treat. The bad news is she’ll be working alongside the hottest celebrity chef in London, Scott Harley. Voluptuous Morgan has never forgiven Scott for trashing her cooking style and physical appearance in a magazine article, but when she meets him in the flesh for the first time her reaction is very different. The attraction between the two of them is mutual and undeniable, but she’s determined not to fall for his obvious charms. Their chemistry on the show disguises the tension behind the scenes – a tension that grows more sexual by the day. Can she stand the growing heat – or should Morgan get out of the kitchen?

Excerpt:

This can’t be happening, Morgan told herself. Of all the people to find herself so instantly, powerfully attracted to, why did it have to be him? Biting hard on the end of her ballpoint pen, she fought to keep the feeling buried. But as Lucinda began to outline the innovations she intended to bring to the Cook’s Treats format, hoping to gain an even bigger share of the Saturday morning audience than the show already attracted, Morgan found her thoughts wandering.

She pictured again the image of Scott naked but for the concealing saucepan, his magnificent body revealed for everyone to see. In her mind’s eye, he stood in exactly that same pose. Only this time, he moved the pan away from his groin, exposing a long, hard cock that almost invited her to touch it. She pictured herself unfastening the wrap dress she’d bought for the show. Her fantasy self wore no underwear, and, beneath the dress, Morgan’s body was a symphony of soft curves. Scott’s lips curved in a lustful smile at the sight of her full breasts, their nipples suckable peaks, and the fluff of dark hair on her mound, pussy peeking out between her rounded thighs.

Time seemed to stand still as they each eyed the other’s glorious nakedness, waiting to see who would make the next move. Then Scott took a pace forward, hand moving along his cock, pushing its velvety foreskin back so the head popped out from beneath it.

Morgan saw herself sinking to her knees before him, reaching out to take his thick shaft in her hand so she could feed the tip between her lips. His breath hissed out at the sensation of being enveloped in Morgan’s warm, wet mouth. Clutching him at the base, bobbing her head up and down so he almost, but not quite, fell from her lips with every pass, she licked and sucked till he couldn’t take any more. His warning cry gave her the opportunity to pull her mouth away. Instead, she held steady, gulping down every drop of his hot, salty …

‘So what do you think, Morgan?’

Swept away by her fantasy, it took Morgan a moment to realise the question was being addressed to her.

Find Elizabeth Coldwell here:

http://elizabethcoldwell.wordpress.com/

Traded Innocence is available from

www.thesecretlibrary.co.uk

Amazon UK
Amazon US
Waterstones
Xcite Books

Spring Forward! Fun, Filth, and Fiction!

Every once in a while I get out of my cave for a little fun and entertainment, and Wednesday last was one of those times. The delectable Rubyyy Jones was able to secure tickets for the Erotic Meet folks to see a performance of the critically acclaimed show, Burlexe. I love burlesque! I love the costumes, I love the women, I love the glitz, I love the music and I love the delicious, saucy bawdiness of it all. I especially love that burlesque is very much a woman’s world. Women make the rules. Women run the show.

Burlexe is unique in that it isn’t just an amazing burlesque show, but it’s also a series of short vignettes between the performances in which women tell their stories of how they got into burlesque. The stories are diverse, and in some cases very surprising. They range from the story of a banker by day, burlesque performer by night who gets outed, to a young widowed mother who needs to support her children, to a woman with bi-polar disorder who discovers burlesque balances her. The performances were bawdy funny glitzy burlesque at its best, and the monologues were gritty, moving and often disturbing. If you’ve not seen this fabulous performance yet, then get thee to the Shadow Lounge in Soho and do so!

Filthy Mouths and Evil Tongues

Friday night brought another trip into London for my first reading with the talented, amazing and sexy women of Filthy Mouths and Evil Tongues. I don’t mind telling you I was a little bit nervous sharing the floor at Sh! Hoxton with the likes of Elizabeth N. Spire, Molly Moor, Lady Grinning Soul, Mia Lee, Annie Player, Sarah Berry, The Dragon King’s Daughter and the incomparable Mel Jones. Oh, the evening was so naughty! The place was heaving, fizz was flowing, many choccie cupcakes were eaten. As always, the Sh! Ladiez were fantastic, and the shopping was as yummy and filthy as the performances.

Novellas

Next month I’ll have my first ever novella released. In fact I’ll have two novellas released almost at the same time. I’d never written a novella before, and I was intrigued and excited to try my hand at writing something in the 20-40 thousand word range. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the paciness the shorter length provided, and yet the space to explore characters and plot more thoroughly than I would have been able to in a short story. Novellas are a happy medium, indeed, and a lovely change. I hope I have the opportunity to do it again. In the meantime, I’m getting very excited as the release dates draw near.

The Secret Library

I’m very proud to be included in the debut volume of Xcite Books ground-breaking new collection of books called The Secret Library. Each volume has a gorgeous, very discrete, velvet cover. Inside each cover are three very naughty novellas. I’m very honoured to have my very nasty road-trip story, Migrations, included in The Secret Library volume called Traded Innocence. Also included is Toni Sands’s title story, Traded Innocence and Elizabeth Coldwell’s story, Cooking Up Trouble. Deliciously sexy stories in gorgeous, discrete covers written by some of the hottest erotica writers in the field are bound to be a big hit. I’ll be talking more about The Secret Library, Traded Innocence and Migrations very soon.

Mischief

I’m also very pleased to have my novella, Surrogates, included in Harper Collins’s brand new eBook line of erotica, Mischief. And very aptly named now that the cat is out of the bag, and the list of writers creating Mischief are among the nastiest and the best in the business. I’m very pleased to be in such filthy company. As for my novella, Surrogates, well it’s a garden porn ménage at its nastiest, and just in time for spring.

My Other Babies

With Body Temperature and Rising being my first paranormal erotic novel, in many ways it feels like The Pet Shop and Body Temperature and Rising are contemporaries in my writing timeline. While Body Temperature and Rising keeps getting great reviews and is the main topic of my guest posts on other sites at the moment, The Pet Shop continues to get fab reviews and grow in popularity alongside Body Temperature and Rising. Of course I’m very glad to see this, as I love all my babies and the release time was short between The Pet Shop and Body Temperature and Rising.

In writing news, I’ve finished the first draft of the second Lakeland Heatwave novel, Riding the Ether, and have begun book three, Elemental Fire, which is stalled at the moment due to a much-needed catch-up on PR and admin. I hope to return to my efforts next week. As the two novels are set only a few months apart in the timeline, I have decided to write them pretty much as though they were one continuous narrative, which will give me a good sense of continuity with the two and also, maybe even more important, keep me from feeling too much empty nest syndrome in between the finishing of one and the beginning of the next.

That’s the week in a nutshell. And a busy week it’s been. Here’s wishing you all a fabulous Spring Forward!