Short Intermission

Nothing kinky this time, though both these beautiful beautiful pictures are by Victorian naughty-boy Jean-Leon Gerome. I couldn't choose between them: both are wonderfully evocative. Looking at them I can smell the dust and the diesel fumes, hear the honk of horns in the street below and the call to prayer echoing from crackling tannoys. While not being a Muslim (or indeed a fan of any organised religion) I love the sound of the call to prayer. Particularly the one that wakes me at 6am and reminds me that I am a traveller abroad.

For the last week I've not done any writing, and that is partly due to the fact that I've been preparing to go away on a research tour for Heart of Flame - or as the pesky taxman will insist on calling it, a holiday. Syria and Jordan. I am so excited about this!

I won't be blogging for a couple of weeks, but will be back in the first week of November with - hopefully - photos of ruined cities, rock-hewn necropoli, majestic mosques, Roman amphitheatres and desert palaces.

Salaam aleykum.

Liaisons cover - and maybe news

Publishing is a funny old business. Not everything happens in the order you'd think.

Eagle-eyed Portia Da Costa, for example, spotted the new cover for the Black Lace anthology Liaisons this week: already up on Amazon, it's due out in May next year.

There's a very interesting bit in the publishers' blurb too:

"Indulgent and sensual, outrageous and taboo, but always highly erotic, this new collection of "Black Lace" stories takes the theme of the illicit and daring rendezvous with a lover (or lovers) as its theme. Popular "Black Lace" authors like Portia Da Costa and Janine Ashbless contribute saucy tales, as do a number of brand new passionate and edgy voices from the US. It is packed with a broad and thrilling range of women's sexual fantasies."

Really? Goodness me. That's the first inkling I've heard that my story Roadside Rescue has made the cut for this book. It's hardly official, but it's certainly good news if it proves true, and I'm not complaining!

Dostana

Okay, so I was reading The Times of India - as one does* - and I came across an advert for the forthcoming bollywood film Dostana, starring my 2 fave actors John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan. Set in Miami, it's about these two guys who pretend to be a gay couple so that they are allowed to flatshare with a girl with a very protective auntie landlady. Cue both guys falling in love with the girl while pretending to be into each other...

There is a sexy and highly amusing trailer here.

I'm not sure I should ever see this film. I mean, this is a Bollywood comedy. It's never going to be a match for the movie running through my head RIGHT NOW: Oh ... Abhishek oiling John's muscles ... Priyanka asking to watch as Abhishek makes John get down and suck his huge...
O?ops%can'&t $Ty)pe£ strai3gh^t...

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*Mr Ashbless tries to bring me home a free newspaper whenever he goes to work. It just so happened that last week he was working in Bangalore.

Coffee Time Romance reviews

The reviewers at Coffee Time Romance have been busy. In fact there are now reviews up on their site for Enchanted, Magic & Desire and Wildwood - all 3 of which get a rating of 4 Cups (out of 5) - "Outstanding Great Read"!!

Thank you CTR! The lattes are on me!

And in other news - Wildwood (currently out as a paperback in the UK and from next week in the US) is now available as an e-book downloadable from All Romance eBooks, for those of you who (like me) are running out of shelf-space, or have one of those new Sony or Kindle thingies or, like, a computer.

Welcome to this century, Janine...

Drona Envy

Drona - touted as a cross between Indiana Jones and Harry Potter with an Indian storyline - opened this week in cinemas worldwide. Not that I'll get to see it on the big screen, goddamnit. Bollywood films frequently make it into the UK top ten movies, but actually only play at particular cinemas in particular cities - and certainly not in my lily-white neck of the woods.

Will have to wait for the DVD.

*Gnashing of teeth*

T is for...

And here, slightly out of left-field, is my inspirational picture for the main heroine* of my work-in-progress.

She is of course the Afghan refugee girl who appeared on perhaps the most famous National Geographic cover ever. She was 13 when this picture was taken - it should go without saying that my fictional character is about a decade older.

God, look at those eyes. That GLARE. It's the glare that first gets my hero's attention. Since it's a story with an Arabian Nights setting, she spends some of her time wearing a veil, and eyes are important if the rest of the face is covered (right). But it's also the lips, the stubborn chin, the whole defiant attitude. That's my woman!

And yes, I know she's not classically pretty in a normal romance style, and probably won't look anything like this when the cover art appears, but what the hell: I think she's beautiful. I could look at her picture all day.

If you're interested in the real woman behind the image, Sharbat Gula, you can find the full story here. Just don't expect anything terribly cheerful.

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* "heroine" is a word I have a particular dislike for, and I normally try not to use it. But in a Romance context "hero" just means "male love-interest" and "heroine" just means "female love-interest," so that's okay.

** My secondary heroine is really pretty, btw. But she only gets secondary billing, ha ha, and doesn't get the hero.