Examining Tansy

Today I'm over at K D Grace's blog, and I'm looking at the (uncomfortable) truth about Tansy, the heroine of my novel Named and Shamed. Who has, I quote, "magnificent knockers," just like that.

Eyecandy Monday

I have discovered Pinterest.  This was the very frst picture I repinned from someone else's board!

This is bad. It appeals so deeply to the anal streak in me - I am using it as a backup file for my eyecandy. All those pretty faces. All those tattoos. Minotaurs. Book covers soon. Then smartarse wisdom quotes swiped off the Internet. Story inspiration. Places I want to go on holiday ... And they can be organised and filed and refiled and reboxed  until ... Argh!

The only restriction is that Pinterest has a "no nudity" policy (I'm assuming that means no cocks, no pussy), so I'm being slightly more careful about the pics I pop up there.

I'm trying to take it slowly. Otherwise I may very well disappear up my own arse.
 :-)


Visit me here:
http://pinterest.com/janineashbless/

TftD: Truth

Yes.
 So, so often in my life.

Because we all hate having our certainties challenged.
But how else do we grow?

Getting snapped

I was featured (with pic) in the Daily Express national newspaper last week, so I thought I'd show you the process involved. The actual interview took 25 minutes on the phone. The photography took a good 2 hours, on a sunny Sunday.

A small selection of the makeup that Helen, the hair-and-makeup person, brought. She had a full-sized "I'm going away for a month" suitcase full of the stuff. All pics on this post - except the last - by Mr Ashbless, btw.

Paint on, then hair straightened . . .

There is NOTHING spontaneous or candid about newspaper photography. The Express had given Gabriel the photographer a theme: he had to show me trying to do various domestic everyday tasks, but being distracted by my writing. This involved quite a lot of getting the dogs to pose.

 "I am feeding the dogs and proof-reading on my laptop simultaneously. Honestly."

Which in turned involved quite a lot of boiled ham :-)

"Ham, monkey! Give me more ham!"

 
This one was "I'm taking the eager and lively dogs for a walk but I have been struck by a naughty idea and must write it down before I forget it!"

"No more ham . . . *sigh.* Let us back in so we can have nice lie down, then."

We tried some "posing with books in the garden" shots:

"I am helping. Have you got ham?"

And then the Cooking Scene, which involved Gabriel wedging himself backward inside the microwave to get the angle right. And me using his Macbook because it was a better colour.

"Excuse me. Do you have any idea how much grief I will get off my friends for pretending to be an Apple user?"

Don't worry - he only smacked his head on the cupboards once. No actual blood.

I had a ball - this was fun and interesting for me. For Gabriel and Helen (who were both a pleasure to work with), it was their job. The paper must have paid them a fair bit to turn out on a Sunday, I'd have thought.

And after all that work, this was the published result, in this article:

 
It just makes me realise how heartbreaking it must be to be a professional photographer. All that training and effort for a 6cm B&W insert. Writers have it easy, after all!

Stories I've stolen

Today I'm over at Sommer Marsden's blog, talking about the poor innocent fairytales I co-opted into Named and Shamed.  

Heh. I am so bad.

Update: 

You can now buy the e-version of Named and Shamed for kindle - but these versions come WITHOUT interior illustrations by John LaChatte, I'm afraid.

Amazon US : Amazon UK

The uncensored, illustrated e-version is however available from
1eroticaebooks
1placeforomance
and will soon be available via Waterstones.

Eyecandy Monday: Named and Shamed

Today's eyecandy comes with an excerpt from Named and Shamed, my utterly filthy fairy novel, which is out NOW!

Context: Tansy has come under a fairy curse. It's a proper, traditional curse: having spent one night of passion with a fairy, she is supposed to pine to death out of unfulfillable desire for him. Hah - Tansy isn't the sort of woman who pines passively for anything. She's going to find satisfaction if it kills her. And she's also not the type to fixate on one guy.

But this is the moment when Tansy first starts to realise that there's something weird going on and she's not quite feeling herself, as it were ...

---

Hell. I shook myself out of my reverie, confused. What was I doing, fantasising about Vince and Gavin in almost the same breath? I looked down and saw that my hand was pressed hard against my pubic mound, grinding my swollen clit. My body had recovered from last night’s hammering and — obviously over-stimulated — was now ready for more.

I really needed to cum. Again. Okay, another wank, then.

No, I realised with a sickening lurch, as at that moment the bathroom door slammed shut. What I really needed was to get out of the house before I had to face Gail.

Throwing on my T-shirt and skirt and a pair of sandals, I was out of the front door before she emerged from the shower. My plan was to go fetch my impounded car from Croydon, and on a Saturday morning that meant taking the Underground, so I set out walking to the station.

It was just a bit unfortunate that I’d headed off before I had any chance to cool down. Even as I walked, I was uncomfortably aware of the heat and emptiness of my sex, and the way my panties felt as if they were rubbing in all the wrong places. I suppose everyone gets that sensation sometime – the random hard-on, the crazy gotta-frig-now itch. Well, I had it bad that morning. It made nearly every man I passed a sudden source of interest. Furtively I eyed them up — the delivery guy dropping off crates of tinned food at the corner store, the two youths smoking on the bench outside the Tube entrance, the busker at the bottom of the escalator — wondering what they looked like naked, how big their tools were, what they’d feel like fucking me good and hard.

God, every man had a cock. It sounds stupid, but it was like the revelation of a great secret. Every one of them was capable of fucking me. Think of the potential.

My feet felt clumsy, tripping me up. An unfocused excitement made my blood run quickly. I shook my head at myself, bemused and irritated  . . . yet enjoying it too.

Then the next Northern Line train arrived, and things got worse.

It was a Saturday in the middle of summer so of course the ventilation had broken down. And a big chunk of the Underground wasn’t operating because of weekend maintenance work and a breakthrough of aggressive duergar into the Circle Line tunnel, so by the time I got to the middle of town every train, platform and stairwell was packed out. It was sweaty and hot, and inside the carriages we were pressed together, standing room only. I stared into space, pretending not to notice the hot young Spanish student-types I was crammed in against, my breasts bumping softly against the back of the taller one as the train swayed. The stuffy air in here was making me feel a bit dizzy. I hung my weight from the hand-strap overhead, feeling the tick of my pulse in my engorged clit and wishing I could touch it just to get some relief. Wishing I could lick that student’s beautiful neck and feel the stir of his nape hair under my tongue.

That’s when it happened. Someone behind me – unseen and anonymous - cupped my ass briefly with one hand.

Hey, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been groped on public transport. Normally I make damn sure I protest and embarrass the hell out of them. But this time, I just stood there. The weight of my own churning appetite seemed to pin me in place. When I didn’t react, the hand took the opportunity for another pass, squeezing the full curve of my bum-cheek a little more boldly.

A hot bubble of arousal burst in my sex, releasing a trickle that flooded my knicker gusset.

Tansy, I admonished myself. You dirty cow. Stop this now. But my body wasn’t listening.

Surreptitiously, moving with the sway of the train, my unseen admirer shifted in a tiny bit closer. It was definitely a man: I could smell his aftershave and his skin, and feel his bulk at my back. But I had no idea what he looked like. I licked my dry lips and blinked at the advert over the door, aware now that my nipples, despite the heat of the day, had hardened to points that were poking the Spanish guy quite insistently. I wondered how he didn’t notice, but he was deep in conversation with his friend. I wondered what was happening to me, that I should respond to this molestation so submissively. It wasn’t like me to be shy or fearful.

But then this wasn’t shyness or fear. It was dirty, thrilling pleasure.

The hand moved, sliding all over my right cheek. The flower-print skirt I was wearing was really quite short and those fingers found the edge easily. I wasn’t wearing tights. Warm fingertips brushed my bare skin. Oh God . . . . that felt good.

Involuntarily, I let out a tiny moan, and the eyes of Spanish guy’s friend flicked to me. I flushed, then switched to gazing at the shadowy pipework flashing past the window. My ass was being bumped now, quite gently, by a hard knot of trouser-clad flesh. Shit, thought I. He has a hard-on.

The train gave a sudden lurch around a curve and everyone staggered a little. The man behind me took the opportunity to grasp my hip and pull my ass into his crotch. I didn’t resist. I could feel his erection fighting against his clothes, pressing against my bum.

A stranger’s rubbing his dick against me. And I’m letting him.

---

And if you want to find out what sort of trouble Tansy gets into after this (and believe me, it gets wild), you need to read Named and Shamed.

Download from 1Erotica e-books : Buy paperback at

Named and Shamed - and Published!

Hot off the press! I received this photo from my publisher Sweetmeats Press, on  Friday, so Named and Shamed has made it into this reality!

Goodness me - isn't it thick?

E-book from 1eroticaebooks
Amazon UK

Amuse-Bouche - an excerpt

Vampire anthology The Visitor is available for download NOW!

The sexy allure of the vampire remains as strong and fresh as blood. They’re just too handsome and charming to resist, though a tussle with a prince or daughter of darkness can be deadly. This collection of erotica explores the lusts of the vampire with considerably less restraint than paranormal romance.

Amuse-Bouche - Janine Ashbless
A Girl's Got To Eat - Aishling Morgan
Crystal - Primula Bond
Mist - Noelle Keely
Wolf in the Fold - Monica Belle
Rent - Angela Caperton
A Strigoi in Rome - Morwenna Drake
V-Positive - Theresa Noelle-Roberts
Death by V - Chrissie Bentley


 Amuse-Bouche is a tie-in to my mosaic novel Red Grow the Roses, and features two of the main characters, Amanda and Reynauld. Here's an excerpt - they've picked up a student hitchhiker, Rose, and taken her to a hotel outside Paris, promising her a hot shower and dinner:

---

She was combing out her wet hair when Amanda walked in

'There,' she said, coming up behind Rose in the mirror. 'That colour suits you better than it does me. I just look so washed-out these days.' Without asking permission she adjusted the straps at Rose's shoulders and smoothed the slip over her waist and hips. 

Rose was both flattered and irritated. She thought she looked better than Amanda too. Of course I do – I'm much younger for a start. And why was the woman resting her hands on her shoulders, like she owned Rose? After that hot shower, Amanda's fingers felt chilly.
 
'You and Reynauld,' she said, pouting her lips and looking with satisfaction at her reflection. 'Is he your boyfriend then?'
 
'My employer. And yes. We are lovers.'
 
Ugh. She's got to be at least forty. What does he see in her? And what a snotty way she has of talking, likes she thinks she's the Queen or something. 'Aren't you, like, a bit old for him?'
 
Amanda didn't answer for a moment and Rose, looking at her narrowed eyes, had time to wonder if maybe she'd been a bit rude, before the other woman said softly, 'He's older than he looks.'
 
'Is he French?' Rose decided not to dwell on her possible faux-pas. 'He looks French.'
 
'He's from Baghdad originally, I believe.'

'What, he's an Arab sheikh?' Rose was tickled and a bit alarmed by the prospect of such exoticism and wealth.
 
'Persian, not Arab. And not a sheikh.'
 
'What does he do, then?'
 
Amanda blinked and dropped her gaze. 'He used to work in the City. We're ... currently relocating.'
 
Banker, said Rose to herself: Boring. 'Are we going to eat, then?'
 
'Yes. We're going to eat. Come on through.'
 
Amanda held the door and Rose preceded her into the bedroom. Half-a-dozen steps in, the girl realised that Reynauld was there, sitting on the bed with his hands at his side, waiting for them. Rose stopped dead, shock rippling across her skin. Against the crimson bedspread he looked as dark as a clot of congealed blood. His black shirt was open down the front so she could see his bare chest, and there was a look of patient anticipation on his face.
 
As Amanda's hands descended on her shoulders once more, cold and implacable, Rose felt all the air leave her lungs and her brain solidify into a solid useless mass. She couldn’t stop looking at Reynauld's torso. He had black hair etched across his chest and his flat hard stomach – not at all like her own boyfriend, whose lithe body was smooth like polished wood, or like a girl's. There was nothing remotely feminine about this man, and Rose found herself appalled.
 
'Come here,' he said. His voice was soft and deep, like the voice of darkness itself. But not cool like Amanda's: warm with pleasure instead. His black eyes drank her in, as if he were sucking the light from her. Rose felt the hands at her shoulders push her forward. Her heart was rocketing with dread and with realisation: that this was what it had all been about, that this was what they had been planning since they stopped to give her lift in Calais. And though she felt sick with fear and raw with betrayal, at exactly the same time she knew a flush of wet and terrible heat between her legs, as if this was what she had been waiting for too.
 
'What do you think?' asked Amanda.
 
'Very nice,' he answered, and then dashed any thought that his approval might have been aimed at Rose herself by adding, 'Show me her breasts.'

---

Want to carry on reading this story? Go to the free sample on the Mischief web-page!

Download from Mischief : Amazon US : Amazon UK

Just visiting

Today I'm being interviewed over at Taryn Blackthorne's blog. This was set up a looooong time ago as part of my publicity for the Heart of Flame release, but it's more about making me go "Eeek! How do I answer that?" and not actually anything about the book. A fun interview - I wish they were all like that!

So, hence the Arabesque gentleman in the illustration here. But there's also a connection to another of my novels entirely. The Visitor is a vampire anthology released by Mischief tomorrow, and my contribution is a story called Amuse-Bouche, which is a tie-in to Red Grow the Roses.

You wouldn't have thought there'd be any common ground between my romantic Arabian Nights tale and my hardcore contemporary vampires, but .... one of the central characters in Roses is boss-vampire Reynauld :

And this is Reynauld, the Good Shepherd, whose authority over the other five is held by dint of careful planning and the minute application of brute force when necessary. He’s not the oldest of them, because that distinction belongs to Roisin, but he’s hardly young even by vampire standards. His name is French but he isn’t, although should he choose to speak the language his grasp of it is perfect, and - just as in English – he has an aristocratic accent. He speaks Spanish too and Portuguese –  Old World style, not American – as well as Arabic, Farsi, Old Syriac, Italian, Latin and Greek, all with equal fluency, along with many others on a less familiar basis. He always did have a facility with languages. He was thirty-four years old and a translator and scribe in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad when he died, in the year 218 after Hijra, which was the year 833 Anno Domini in the Roman reckoning. Both calendars were ones he was quite familiar with, being a man of sublime education.

 His name then was not Reynauld of course; it was Kerim ibn Zarad al-Razi, but he abandoned his Arabic name when he gave up his religion. There is no place in Islam for vampires, whose very sustenance is harram: forbidden.

And he looks a bit like that picture too :-)

There will be an excerpt from Amuse-Bouche later this week. Oh yes. There will be blood.

Eyecandy Monday

Some for him . . .

Some for her . . .

None for me, today :-(

Brains!

This week I finished an erotica story set in a Zombie Apocalypse.

There's a first time for everything :-)

The ordinary writer

Yesterday I had a telephone interview with a journalist from national newspaper. The thrust of the article is supposed to be "how ordinary erotica writers are in contrast to their work."

Heck. Am I ordinary? I don't hold down a proper job like most people. I just slob around the house all day talking to myself. I don't have kids, unlike most people (including erotica writers. How the HELL they look after children and then find the time and energy and inspiration to write I have no idea). I'm not even sure I count as a real writer, because I sure as hell would starve to death on the street if Mr Ashbless didn't support me.

Real writers knock out 10,000 words a day, every day, apparently.
(Personally I once managed 5,000  . . . and that was by dint of being locked in a hotel room with nothing except Italian on the TV, and not getting out of bed except to pee.)

So by 5.15pm I'm hovering near the phone feeling like THE WHOLE WORLD IS TRYING TO FALL OUT OF MY ASS.

The phone goes. It's the photography desk at the Express. Just to let me know they're sending a hair-and-makeup woman along with the photographer on Sunday, "if that's okay with you." I tell them I don't usually wear makeup and it might not give a realistic impression. They say it's just to make me look more defined for the picture.

Well, okay.

The phone goes again. It's somebody I really need to talk to - but NOT RIGHT NOW! I make grovelling apologies and promise to phone back.

30 seconds later the reporter rings. She sounds nice, but then it's a journo's job to sound nice. I yak for 25 minutes. I probably sound like a total asshole.

I don't know how the article's going to look in the final version. It's completely out of my hands now. If they do makeup it won't even look like me . . . Which, to be honest, is probably for the best.


This chart below, btw, is the most horribly accurate answer to her question "What is your day like, as a writer?"

Short stories making Mischief

Look look! I've got two more short stories signed up for forthcoming Mischief anthologies:

Amuse-Bouche appears in The Visitor: vampire erotica. It's a M/f/F tie-in to Red Grow the Roses, and features two of my more sympathetic characters being ... unsympathetic. The story I longed to write, but couldn't include in RGtR.

The Visitor: vampire erotica is out REAL SOON NOW - 17th  May, I believe.

---

AND my story Slave of the Lamp is to appear in Underworlds: paranormal erotica (no cover pic yet). Guess what that one's about, eh? Slave of the Lamp is actually malesub (very very reluctant malesub) and NOT a tie-in to any of my novels, though it may have similar sources of inspiration to a certain Arabian Nights adventure. Oh, and it's my first pegging story!

Underworlds: paranormal erotica is due out in July

---

By the way, many Mischief books are still being held at half price, including Red Grow the Roses, so it's a great time to buy:

Mischief on Amazon UK  (I can do a search by publisher there. Can't work it out on Amazon US) or direct

Eyecandy Monday

I've featured body-painting eyecandy before. but this is something else...

[click to enlarge]

For Richard the editor

... and everyone else who knows it matters.

:-D

Barcelona

Squeeee - I spent the weekend in Barcelona! A city that was on my bucket list before the term "bucket list" was invented . . .

Barcelona is famous for 1) pickpockets and 2) Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926). He was a "modernista" architect and artist - which means Art Nouveau in our terms - and one of my heroes just because he had his own individualistic and completely crazy vision, and didn't give the faintest crap about fashion or popularity. So now his work is all over Barcelona, counts as World Heritage Sites, and has become a huge tourist draw.

Where better to go and worship Gaudi than the Sagrada Famila, the enormous church he was working on until his death? It's still unfinished, but getting there . . .

This is the Nativity Facade, which Gaudi did, and gives a good idea of his bizarre style - flowing stone, excessive ornamentation, and a passion for reptiles.

 His buildings look like they were grown rather than constructed.

The interior, which was built post-Gaudi, is a more austere version of his style - but still perhaps the most beautiful building I've ever seen.

---

Then we went to the Casa Batlló, a townhouse Guadi decorated ... a place with a truly warped interior . . .
 

Hardly a straight surface anywhere!

---

And we also visited Casa Milà, a Gaudi-built appartment block:


This is the roof:

 
You know what Gaudi design reminds me of most? DR SEUSS!!!

---

The sun came out when we went to the Park Güell, and it was lovely - but way crowded.

The other Gaudi "thing" is using broken ceramics as decoration.

---

"But wait!" I hear you complain. "This is a Janine holiday! Where are the corpses and the boobies?" Well, sadly, despite the rampant Catholicism there were no corpses on display.

But I would like to present, for your spiritual edification, Saint Eulalia, patron saint of Barcelona, who was martyred topless, apparently. . .

Named and Shamed - full disclosure

Publication Date News! My deleriously dirty fairytale novel, Named and Shamed, is officially out on 15th May! And to celebrate, here are two of the unexpurgated interior illustrations by John LaChatte (the artist formerly known as FM) for you to feast your eyes upon . . . plus a little context:

---

Vince heard. He looked over his shoulder from the front seat and his eyes widened.

“I’m sorry!” I sobbed, but I didn’t stop. I was sitting in the back of the car frigging myself in public, and I couldn’t stop. I was red with shame — at my exhibitionism, at my helplessness, with the humiliation of what had happened — but my need was only made stronger by my shame. And Vince seemed unable to look away. He was in danger of twisting his neck off his shoulders, the way he was turning in his seat to stare. I spread my thighs and pulled my panties aside to give him a good view of my fingers at play in my glistening pink slit.

“Oh shit,” he said in a strangled voice.

The car slewed suddenly over to the left and shuddered to a halt. Without my seatbelt on I was tipped hard against the driver’s seat. I hardly had enough sense to care.

“You!” said Gail to Vince. “You’re driving!” Then she bundled herself right over the seats into the back with me.

“I’m sorry!” I repeated, hands out of my pants now and raised to beg mercy. “I’m really sorry, Gail!”

“Shush!” she scolded. She reached between my legs. “I said we’d take care of you, Tansy. I meant it.”

---

For a moment there was no response and I held my breath. Then came the bump of a cupboard door. I had the wit not to move. I held myself almost motionless, face down and ass up, my hands holding my cheeks open, my naked pussy splayed and pulsing with heat. I assumed the house-hob could see in the dark, after all. Gently I shifted my ass back and forth, hoping to entice it. The lino was chilly under my feet.

“Are you a good girl?” said a voice, as faint and whispery as dry leaves.

“Me? Yes, I’m a good girl.” My breath was condensing on the cold tabletop. “I swept the floor and made up the fire before bed. I washed up.” 

“Are you clean? Are you careful? Not lazy, not silly, not dishonest?” 

By most standards I reckoned I counted as deeply dirty and reckless, to be honest, but that wasn’t the answer the house-hob was looking for. And at least I don’t think I could be described as workshy.

“Yes,” I lied. “I’m a good girl. A good, sweet girl. Take a look.”

With the lightest of thumps it landed on the table next to me, and I tried not to flinch. Then it hopped onto the small of my back. I thought again of spider monkeys, as long, satiny limbs wrapped around my ass. Tiny hands spread my labia. The sigh of a long exhalation of breath reached my ears. Then the tongue. Wet and slick, slipping down my asscrack from hole to hole.

---

These are not the rudest pictures in the book, by the way. Some are dirtier. Some (like the ogress) are SCARIER. I only wish I could show you the illustration of Tansy and the Elder Witch's three sons, which I just love . . . But no: you'll have to buy the book for that!

Named and Shamed is my Badass Book. It's wicked, edgy, BDSM stuff, in parts - nothing remotely illegal, but I've dared go places in writing Named and Shamed that I've never been before. Here's the official author foreword I wrote:

"Named and Shamed is an adult fantasy, and demented even by my standards. It includes scenes of threat, unsafe sex, humiliation, abduction, forced orgasm, corporal punishment and doubtfully consensual BDSM. Throughout, I have employed specially-trained stunt characters who can deal with that sort of thing without sustaining physical or mental harm. Named and Shamed is fiction. In real life, sex should be safe, sane and consensual."

You won't find that foreword in the printed book. We had to take it out, in case the trigger words upset online censors. I know that makes NO SENSE, but that's the current climate.

So readers, you're on your own out there. Be careful. Don't look behind you. Yes, that's the sound of something huge and monstrous stalking at your heels. Whatever you do, don't run . . .

Sweetmeats Press : Amazon US (up soon, I hope) : Amazon UK