Spooky Hallowe'en reading

I thought, since it's Hallowe'en, that I'd list some of my all-time-favourite supernatural spook tales. These are absolute classics, so if you haven't read them yet, this is a good way to catch up! Oh, and all the authors are dead, so I don't feel bad linking to Project Gutenberg or whatever.

Pictures are (mostly) of Japanese ghost art - just because I love the Edo period style and find the subjects deliciously creepy.  Happy Hallowe'en!

1) The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (Edgar Allan Poe). Come on, I had to start with a Poe, because he's really the first great horror writer whose work still stands up on its own merits today. Many of his stories centre on protagonists who are emotionally overwrought, to say the least, but this little tale is a stone-cold recounting of a scientific experiment with horrible results.

2) The Statement of Randolph Carter (H. P. Lovecraft). Perhaps my favourite horror author of all, and this is his tale that most nearly approaches a ghost story ... perhaps. His style is idiosyncratic (nay, notorious) so the best approach is not to resist but to suspend disbelief and let it sweep you along - the cumulative effect of all that hyperbole is a dizzying existential vertigo.

3) Wailing Well (M.R. James). James is THE Edwardian master of the English ghost story, conjuring a world of stuffy bachelor academics who are plunged into the most dreadful hauntings. Practically everything he wrote is a little masterpiece of the genre, but I've picked Wailing Well (I almost picked The Mezzotint, or Rats) because it starts off as a humorous boarding-school skit and then sucker-punches you with terror. This story messed me up for years.

4) The Monkey's Paw (W.W. Jacobs). If you polled every ghost-story lover in the world for their favourite, this story would feature in the top three, I reckon. Its power hinges on what you don't see, and that is the most terrifying thing of all.

5) The Upper Berth (F. Marion Crawford). Again, it's the sudden juxtaposition of complacent middle-class comfort with the chaos and foulness of death that offers the glimpse into the abyss.

6) The White People (Arthur Machen). Not a ghost story, and in fact the Horror is uncategorizable and utterly unique (an extraordinary achievement within the genre!), but I couldn't leave it out because I just adore it. This story of a precocious girl-child who delves into ancient mysteries is unsettling because it only hints and suggests at the mental and physical corruption she is so gleefully undergoing. Chilling stuff. This might be the hardest to read of Machen's wonderful supernatural tales, but it's the most rewarding, I think.

7) A Woman Seldom Found (William Sansom). Short and shocking! And a rare (and successful) attempt to mix sex with scares.

8) Thurnley Abbey (Percival Landon). Well this kept me awake a few nights, I can tell you! It brings fear right into the place you want it least - the sanctuary of your own warm bed. "I remember still how my sweat-dripping pyjamas clung to me..." Also memorable for the way the protagonist doesn't maintain a stiff upper lip or faint decorously, as protagonists in ghost stories are supposed to: he wigs-out and completely loses his temper in a passion of hysterical rage.

9) The Entrance (Gerald Durrell). Yes, the zoo guy! The last hurrah, perhaps, of the ghost-story trope of cosy upper-middle-class gentlemen in peril, before it all got overtaken by urban squalor and social realism. This story managed to induce in me a decades-long nervousness of mirrors. I'm over it now. Honest.

At least by daylight.

Well, that lot should keep you going! Have a spooky and shiversome Hallowe'en!

Frog in my throat

On Monday I posted an excerpt from Too Much of Water. It's the classic Frog Prince fairy-story: girl has golden ball, girl loses golden ball in the water, frog prince promises to get golden ball back in exchange for spending the night in her bed...

Of course, I gave it an Ashbless twist or two.  There's nothing sexy about frogs, so I made him a water spirit, which instantly gave it a Russian setting. (And then that turned out, upon doing some research, to fit in with the reign of Ivan the Terrible, and in fact I pinned my heroine Zorya/Anna down to his fifth wife, not that it matters to anyone but me.)

Russian folklore is incredibly specific about the kinds of spirits that hang out around people. There's a house spirit, a yard-spirit, a barn-spirit, a bathhouse-spirit (oh yes) ... and the dangerous spirit of the millpond is the Vodyanoi.

This is what they usually look like:

Vodyanoy by Ivan Bilibin, 1934

That's not sexy either! Fortunately they are shapeshifters that can take human form and my vodyanoi is very much more based on these illustrations by John Bauer (1882-1918) of the Swedish fairytale Agneta and the Sea King:

The story-writing process started, as all my stories do, with a visual image: the vodyanoi rising slowly and menacingly out of the water:

First the green water bulged, and then it broke around the peaks of his dark head and his pale shoulders. He lifted his face from the pool and smiled, showing her his outstretched hands cupped about the golden orb. Then he waded out of the pool, each step revealing more of his body. She feared at first that he would be naked, but there seemed to be something heavy wrapped about his lower half. As he mounted the bank, streaming water, she saw that it was a leathern sheet, secured by a knot of thong and all slick with water and algae, hanging low from his hips and so long that it brushed the tops of his feet. With every step his left leg flashed pale through the gap in the wrapped hide.

And I thought I'd kick the collection off with a story that has a very uneasy ending indeed...

---

 Fierce Enchantments at  Amazon UK (only £ 2.39 on Kindle!) : Amazon US (only $3.84!)

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment.

This is the start of a very special Blue Monday series! Between now (because it's out in e-format) and December (when it hits the stands as a paperback) I will be running excerpts from the ten short stories in Fierce Enchantments, my brand-new collection published by Sweetmeats.

We start with the opening fairytale Too Much of Water, which - as my foreword states - "is based on Ivan the Terrible, Russian folklore and the fairy-story The Frog Prince, told in the coldest voice I could muster." 

---

He put his hand on her head and pulled away the sheer white veil that covered her hair. “Well, you owe me now.” His hand brushed the stiff head-dress from off her scalp; the strings of pearls that had hung from it and framed her face fell suddenly apart. Pearls pattered and bounced upon the floor like hailstones. “My mercy is limited, as I’m sure you understand.”

Zorya shivered, as he drew his finger down the tiny buttons that closed the front of her thickly embroidered robe. The loops broke and the dress split open, revealing the low-cut lawn shift beneath. “What will you do?”

“Guess.”

“Will you drown me?”

His smile was cruel. “What do you think?” He took the front of her shift in both hands and it rotted at his touch like cloth that had been immersed in a pond for years, falling apart to grey shreds and then to nothing. The great weight of her robe fell from her as the warp and weft disintegrated; Zorya took a sharp breath and could not help looking down. Only the golden threads embroidered into the fabric were left, quite uncorroded; a fragile net that lay now against her goose-fleshed skin. The Vodyanoi chuckled. Then he stooped to kiss her throat, and his long wet hair hung upon the orbs of her breasts and clung to her puckering nipples, dragging at her when he raised his head. Zorya stifled a gasp.

“Please … What good will I be to you dead?” she asked.

“Oh, I think you will look very fair, down among the pebbles and the rippling half-light.” His tongue lapped at her ear, his voice low and husky as his fingers explored her exposed breasts, playing amid the softness with the tightening halos of her pinkly-pale nipples. “Your hair will wave with the long weed, and minnows will chase around your pretty bones, and your soul will shine in the palace of my green dreams.”

Zorya was unable to stop herself arching her spine, lifting herself to his hands.

“Just think how peaceful it will be,” he murmured. “And how beautiful.”

“But,” she said, reaching down to the gap in his skirt and sliding her hand beneath the slimy leather, “while I’m alive, I can do this.” She found his member. Substantial in girth and length, it was already all but erect, only the weight of his garment keeping it from standing—and though it was cold when she first grasped it, beneath the skin a warmth burned. She ran her fingers up its rippled length, and it jerked in response.

“Ah,” said he.

Frog Prince by P J Lynch

Zorya raised her gaze to look him in the face. She read appetite there and a kind of twisted grudging fascination, and wondered if he could read the emotion in her own face. Wordlessly she sank to her knees and kissed his pale skin, the bruised flesh of his torso. She pulled at the wet thonging that held up his strange garment and it slopped to the floor in heavy folds.
 
What she did then not even the whores of Kiev will do. Such a thing is reserved for a husband alone, for the intimacy of the marriage bond. She took his pale length, already oozing at the slitted tip with eager moisture, into her hot mouth. The Vodyanoi groaned at that just like a real man. She used tongue and lips to explore his girth and his strange contours and then worked him deep into her throat, sucking warmth into that chill staff. It gave her satisfaction in unexpected places to suck him like this, and she felt her own sex flutter as her fingertips weighed the heavy pouch of his stones, finding water still dripping from the black ringlets of hair at his groin.

Shifting his weight forward, he leaned into her. His legs were tense, almost as hard as the iron of his pike. His hips jerked as her head rose and fell in supplication, and he pressed his cock so far to the back of her throat that she gagged and tears welled in her eyes.

I could choke here, she thought, snatching her breath in the backstroke. It wasn’t a new idea though—her husband had similarly used her. The Tsar was an older man and would sometimes take so long that she’d weep for the ache in her jaw—but that wasn’t to be the case this time. She felt the Vodyanoi’s rhythm grow fiercer, then become a stutter, and suddenly her mouth was awash with his slippery flood. Instantly—so copious was the flow—her fear of choking became a fear of drowning, and she jerked her head back with a gasp. His cock shuddered upon her tongue as the liquid, as cold and clear as mill water, overflowed her mouth and ran down over her chin.

He tasted of nothing at all: just like water.

---

 Amazon UK (only £ 2.39 on Kindle!) : Amazon US (only $3.84!)

"Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, only much better written and with much more sexiness involved"

I am so doing the Happy Dance!
That incredible quote in the title comes from a review of Cover Him with Darkness over at  Clitical.
Thank you so much, guys! I can honestly say it's the review line I've been hoping for from the moment I typed "The End." It's almost exactly what I was aiming to write :-D
The review also adds:

"This is a roller coaster of a story, and one that will have you routing for the very different and strong characters that choose to fight either good or evil, and there are times when it’s hard to tell whose side anyone is on. Is the Fallen Angel really a demon? Is he a threat to mankind as the church would have everyone believe?
The story is also a visual treat thanks to Ms Ashbless’s carefully constructed words. At times the reader will find themselves in rural Yugoslavia, at others Boston, and there is even a visit to The Burning Man. I’ve always wanted to visit the Burning Man and thanks to this story I feel like I almost have. The imagery was so clear in my head as I read, and this was true for all of the scenes in the book."

Clitical are hosting a giveaway of the paperback too. But I'll  let you into a secret and tell you that that your odds of winning a copy are much better at Live and Let Love. Hurry - only a few days left!

There have been other blog posts in the Cleis tour too:

• An excerpt over at Slave Nano
• A (different) excerpt at Natasja's Book Blog
• And a quickie at Jennifer Denys

Death's day off

Willian Mortensen (1897-1965): The Death of Hypatia

It's Hallowe'en soon, and the nights are closing in. Thoughts turn - especially if you have been following K D Grace's blog this month - to bones and ghoulies and things that go hump bump in the night.

But it doesn't have to be grim! Even Death himself, when he's not on the job ... sorry, when he's not working, likes to indulge in lighthearted social intercourse. He's quite the party animal!

The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut

In fact he's famous for his love of dancing -

... both country-style:

... and the waltz:

In fact he is very fond of music of all kinds and is an accomplished violinist himself:

... but can be found playing a wide variety of instruments:

A visit to the theatre or opera is a favourite way of spending an evening:

But he's no snob and he enjoys a good drink and lively company:

He's fond of outdoor pursuits too, whether tree-climbing:

... wrestling wildlife:

Hundetroskab (1900) by Louis Moe

... or simply a long ramble in the countryside:

But above all he enjoys the company of under-dressed women:

In fact he's a bit of a player ...

... though he has been known to swing both ways quite happily and is always up for a threesome.

Hans Sebald Beham (1500–1550 ): Death and the Indecent Pair

So if you see him, say "Hi" from me!

SH! Book Launch in progress!

So, last Saturday evening Kristina Lloyd and I got our books on for a reading at Sh! Women's Sex Shop in London.

Sparkling wine and devil Haribo. It's what the smart set are having for tea :-)

 It certainly started well!

Yummy cakes by Angelic Cupcakes (no coincidence)

I mean look at me, being all demure and holy and stuff:

But the bubbly (courtesy of Black Lace)  kept on coming...

Renee is a lethal hostess...

photo by Exhibit A

And as you can see, by the end of the evening my halo had slipped off entirely and I had definitely  Fallen:

But I do remember my delight at seeing the first copies of Cover Him with Darkness in its final print form :-)
And I did Convert a reader! (To trying fantasy, ahem...)

Huge thanks go to Renee and Holly and all the staff at Sh! for their kindness and enthusiasm (and patience as we hung around late talking!). They are wonderful people, and if you are in London you should go buy lube from them RIGHT NOW.

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment.

Woohooo! It's out on e-sale - the first novella in my Lovers' Wheel quartet! So here's a never-seen before snippet from Summer Seduction, a contemporary story of mystery and magic and increasingly kinky sex. My heroine Liz has been taken out, against her better judgment, to the village Midsummer Dance by the reckless Shane:

---

“Where’s the green guy?”

“The what?” He looked around, confused. “Them?—they’re back by the fire, I think.” He grinned suddenly. “It’s just you and me here.”

It took a moment for Liz to catch up with his meaning. Trying to control her pounding heart and her heaving lungs, she put her hand on his chest, feeling him warm and solid and real. Everything else—the Green Knight and the fire and the cattle and the village hall and the rest of her life—seemed flimsy and translucent in comparison. It was all too much to think about. So much easier to see only what was before her, within the grasp of her hands. She reached up to touch his warm throat, feeling the thrum of his blood.

“Liz,” he whispered.

She’d never known anyone like him. A man so full of life. It couldn’t be constrained; it flowed out of him like light, like fire. It burned.

“Liz,” he whispered again, leaning in so that his forehead rested gently against hers. His lips sought her own, soft and sweet and full of dangerous longing. She could taste the question on them. At the same time she could feel his hands on her hips. She could feel the hardness of the length that pressed against her through his jeans.

Do I want this? she asked herself. “Yes,” she whispered in answer. Yes—oh hell YES!

Gently he backed her up to the verge of the road, and then he stooped and slid his big hands around her ass and lifted her—light as a feather—to sit her down on a stone wall. It put them almost nose-to-nose, height-wise. He opened her legs and stepped between her knees so that he could kiss her again, this time deeper. Tongues met.

He tasted of cider and fire.

His hands were on her spread knees. His hands were under her skirt. His hands were up, up, all the way, fingertips to her hips, thumbs brushing and then stroking the silky cloth of her panties. The itch of need flared out from her clit until it seemed to set her whole body alight. She bit his lower lip, softly, panting.

Touch me. Touch me like that oh yes oh god a bit farther down oh please please PLEASE!

“Oh chrissakes Liz,” he groaned. “You know I want you, don’t you?

“Uh huh,” she groaned as his hands moved on her, his knuckles pressed and rubbed, his fingers probed.

“Really, really want you. You’re like… I want every bit of you—I want to get all over you…those gorgeous sweet tits of yours—your beautiful big arse—I could just…oh fuck you’re driving me crazy, Liz!”

It wasn’t exactly poetry and it wasn’t romantic, but it was entirely sincere, and Liz loved every hoarse and heartfelt syllable. She wound her arms around his neck and bit at his ear.

“Say yes, Liz, my sweet, my lovely.”

“Yes.”

“Oh hell yes…”

“Where?”
“Here.” He started to tug at her panties. “Oh fuck. I can’t wait any longer.”

They were up a side street, on a wall, in the dark—so maybe they’d go unseen, though she could hear music and shouting still from the village green. At the moment it didn’t seem to matter much. There was a raging wet ache of need in her sex that didn’t want to wait either, and that knew it needed Shane to fill it. The whole reckless crazy night demanded culmination. “Have you brought protection?” she hissed.

“Huh?” Shane paused in his quest, her knickers already halfway down her thighs. “No…”

"Oh no,” she keened. And she forced herself to say it; “Then it’s not happening.” She wanted to scream with frustration. “Oh no, this is so not fair!”

“Wait. Wait.” He kissed her lips fervently. “It’s all right, my lovely, it’s all right.”

“No it’s not—when am I ever—?” When am I ever going to get a chance like this again?

“Shhh!” He gripped the back of her neck with one hand, pulling her mouth against his so that they panted together. His other hand, hidden beneath her bunched-up skirts, cupped her open pussy like an answer to prayer. Fingertips traced the wet slot, danced a circle about the slick nub of her clit, and set wildfire burning to light the midsummer night.

“Oh!” she whimpered, shocked.

“That’s sweet,” he whispered. “That’s good.”

She clasped his face like she was drowning and trying to cling to him, but her sight was glazing over already. The all-too-knowing, relentless tease of his fingers on her sex was more than she could bear. The waves of pleasure slithered over each other, rose, crashed, and rose again building higher.

“Oh god, Shane!”

“Give it up, my lovely, that’s right,” he urged her, low and thick in his throat. “Give it up to me.”
She knew she should say No. She knew she should be ashamed of being played with right here in the street, too turned-on to stop, her knees spread and jerking. She knew she should be ashamed that it wasn’t his bullish, boyish need that was overwhelming them both; he it wasn’t the one who couldn’t hold back; he wasn’t the one witless with arousal. It was her. She needed this.

She was the one who was wet.

She was the one swollen and slippery and shuddering with lust.

She was the one moaning into his mouth, making helpless animal noises that cascaded out of her open throat.

And then she was the one coming, shamelessly.

When the last of the tension had ebbed from her quivering frame, Shane kissed her again. “That’s right,” he told her.

“Oh god, Shane!” He’d robbed her of her senses. He’d made her do something she’d never dreamt of doing in public. Her whole body pulsed with the afterwash of her climax, and her dress clung to her damp skin.

His lips brushed the whorl of her ear. “Touch me, Liz,” he breathed, squeezing her juicy sex.

“Huh?”

“Please, touch me.” There was dew on his upper lip. “I’m fucking begging you, my lovely.”

“This?” Liz dropped her hand to his groin, groping the thick length that pressed up against the denim. Shane groaned.

“Take it out. Go on. Touch it.”

Like an earth shock following a major quake, a spasm flickered through her, deep inside, just at the thought. She wanted to see the beastie that had been bruising her all night. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to strip him naked and run her hands over his lanky, wonderful body before it was too late and she lost her chance forever.

“Please,” he whispered, lost in his need.

---

Summer Seduction is available as an e-book download from Ellora's Cave

It's all about that bass

This video sent my eyeballs into shock, first time.



Remember the days when a woman would be horrified at the thought of looking like she had a big ass?



Well, I do - but it seems like a lifetime ago, in another world. There has been a seismic shift in popular culture.
And I say hooray!

Halo there!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Out THIS WEEK: Fierce Enchantments and Summer Seduction

Writing is like waiting for a bus. You spend three years writing three books, submit them to three publishers in turn, and then due to the unfathomable variation in lead-in processes and scheduling between companies - ALL THREE GET PUBLISHED WITHIN A FEW WEEKS OF EACH OTHER.

At which point you either go mad trying to publicize them all, or throw your hands in the air and laugh hysterically.

Yes, hot on the heels of Cover Him in Darkness, I have two surprise e-book releases this week, which leaves me feeling like three buses have run me over arrived at once.

Fierce Enchantments: ten erotic tales of myth, magic and desire is available as a Kindle download right now! - and at £3.43 / $5.51 it's a bargain, no? (The paperback will be out in December for all us book-sniffers out there who love the beautiful Sweetmeats tomes so much, so you can pre-order too).

Against the darkest and most perilous backgrounds, the blaze of desire burns even brighter. Ten tales of magic and lust. 

Inside the covers of this, Janine Ashbless’ third collection of erotic short stories, you will find delight and terror and lust - and perhaps even unexpected tenderness.

The wayward daughter of Shakespeare’s sorcerer Prospero; a runaway slave who becomes king only for as long as he can stay awake; a servant girl whose three dead lovers return for one last tryst; vampire-hunters haunted to the point of madness by what they have been through; warriors in a desperate future war for the survival of humankind – and one very dangerous frog prince – all appear in this collection of erotic stories that will take you to the edge and then pull you over into the glittering darkness beyond. 

Weaving worlds of fantasy, Janine Ashbless draws from fairy stories, history, myth and the darkest depths of her imagination to bring you tales of passion and desire that will enchant, shock and dazzle you.

Amazon UK : Amazon US

And Summer Seduction, the first volume of my Lovers' Wheel quartet, is listed on Ellora's Cave for release this Friday!

 Shy and self-conscious librarian Liz Haven has lost her job and home, and is desperately grateful when a long-forgotten relative invites her to come live at her eerie old house in rural England. Liz hasn’t been there since childhood, and her memories of the place are strangely blurred. When she does return to Enniswitrin House she finds herself the focus for the attentions of a series of handsome but strange men, yet she also realizes that great-aunt Moira is far from the harmless old lady she seems. Moira has plans for Liz that she is not telling, and there is magic at work here. Real magic—dark and thrilling and primal as desire itself. Each of her would-be lovers needs something from Liz that goes deeper than just the hot and increasingly transgressive sex. Liz is being seduced into a role she could not imagine, at the center of a web of ancient legend and mystery that will change everything.

I am a bit dazed and confused right now. But you can look forward to excerpts here over the next couple of months as I find my feet again and dust off the road grit!

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a rude excerpt for your entertainment.

Today there's an interview with me up at Justine Elyot's blog. Oh dear - she asked some questions that made me say a little more than I should have, perhaps ... 

Since I may have insulted the hell out of every Shifter fan out there, here in recompense is an excerpt from my own medieval werewolf story Renaissance. It appeared in my very first short story collection, Cruel Enchantment.

---

Annette spun in the night; luminous, beautiful. She was a goddess, the idol of countless prayers, her supplicants kneeling in turn to worship her. Her flesh was the recipient of a thousand kisses, a thousand heartfelt groans, a thousand caresses. Oblations were poured out before her and upon her, the scent of their liquid offerings perfuming the temple of her body. She shone. She received them all, turning none away.

They filled her, in every orifice. They soaked her in semen and sex-juices, pouring themselves one after another into and onto her. Her cunt was so filled with jusm that it ran down her thighs and arse in silvery streams and her pubic hair was wringing wet, twisting into little curls. Her mouth grew bruised and slack with accepting their rigid cocks. Her breasts and belly were coated with a sheen of drying semen. One man wrapped her long hair around his penis and jerked off, clotting her scalp with pale droplets.

She came, over and over. she thought she would grow numb or start to hurt, but instead waxed drunk upon pleasure and shuddered into climax after climax.

Gaspard was one of the first to mount her, crushing her buttocks flat against the rough blankets, biting at her lips and moulding her breasts in his greedy hands. He was unsubtle and unimaginative, but he was huge and he rode her as if he wanted to break her. She screamed, clawed and struck at him, took everything he had to give and sobbed in frustration when he left. The Chatelaine silenced her tears by sinking down on her face, smothering her cries. Annette had never tasted a woman before, and drank in her wetness with desperation, her tongue lost amongst formless folds of smooth flesh and wiry hair, almost choking on the sweet, musky juices that flowed as Marguerite bounched and wriggled into ecstacy. And Annette learned the taste of another dozen women before the hour was past.

When they had finished with her, the participants turned to each other for further play, rutting and writhing at the edge of her limited field of view. It seemed to Annette at one point that there were more wolves now than there had been to start with, but she was distracted by a human couple who straddled her head and fucked like dogs an inch from her face. Annette could see the thick root of the man's cock sliding in and out of the impossibly stretched hole of the woman, her juices coating his shaft, his balls hanging down like ripe fruit and brushing her own forehead and nose. She stretched her head up to lick the woman's exposed clitoris, felt her start to spasm, kissed and licked her way from that burning point up along the slithering ridge of the penis and to the wrinkled, tight pouch of the bollocks and back again. The woman climaxed loudly and the man followed in an instant, slamming into her split lips and then withdrawing to let the last jets of his come splatter down on Annette's face. The woman finished by sitting back on Annette, anointing her with a heady mixture of her and her lover's fluids. Annette drank it like wine.

As soon as she was released this time, Michel rolled her onto her front. Someone took her from behind, quick and slippery and panting, his balls slapping audibly against her pussy, and after he had finished another mounted her. Her first thought was that this man had an extraordinarily hairy chest and thighs - and then her second thought was a white streak of incredulity, but Michel held her down hard so that she couldn't wriggle round and look behind her. She buried her face in his thigh, half laughing and half sobbing, and pure shock wrenched another orgasm from her.

It was not enough. She kept climaxing, but each peak left her unsatisfied. Something knotted in her chest, a fist of frustration. If, she thought, if only she could come hard enough...

---

Amazon UK : Amazon US

Cover Reveal: Summer Seduction

The first in the Lovers' Wheel quartet!

 

Shy and self-conscious librarian Liz Haven has lost her job and home, and is desperately grateful when a long-forgotten relative invites her to come live at her eerie old house in rural England. Liz hasn’t been there since childhood, and her memories of the place are strangely blurred. When she does return to Enniswitrin House she finds herself the focus for the attentions of a series of handsome but strange men, yet she also realizes that great-aunt Moira is far from the harmless old lady she seems. Moira has plans for Liz that she is not telling, and there is magic at work here. Real magic—dark and thrilling and primal as desire itself. Each of her would-be lovers needs something from Liz that goes deeper than just the hot and increasingly transgressive sex. Liz is being seduced into a role she could not imagine, at the center of a web of ancient legend and mystery that will change everything.

Out soon... and OH I like this cover!
:-D

Bermuda Triangle!

Well, the island of Bermuda was the reason I disappeared off the internet for a couple of weeks recently. You can't get connectivity there - at any rate that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;-)

I mean, how could this compete with Facebook for my time?

Yes,  I was off abroad again. Why Bermuda? Because of this:

And this:

And this:

So many shipwrecks!

Also, I have a friend who lives out there and I wanted to play Call of Cthulhu with him :-)

The shipwrecks explained

Bermuda is lovely:

Yeah, it pretty much all looks like this

Just beautiful:

Yay - weird phallic rocks!

And charming:

The whistling frogs sing loudly all night and the local people are the politest on the planet - you say "Good morning, how are you?" to everyone you meet. I mean everyone - I even had it lobbed at me by people getting off the bus as I was getting on. (Being British I went "Er, um, fine ... thank you," which was the wrong response.) I dread to think of the misery that awaits anyone born Bermudan who then goes out into the cold, ugly, unfriendly world the rest of the human race inhabits. On the other hand .... it is a little strange. It doesn't feel quite real.

Some of their socially conservative values need working on

Never mind. In the meantime it is paradise for tourists who like sun, sea and rum, in any combination. At eye-watering prices.

There were crystal caves:

There was a sea-cave in our hotel grounds you could swim in! A CAVE YOU COULD SWIM IN!!!

There were amazing exotic plants:

Banyan

There's a lot of fascinating and rather unpleasant history involving convict ships, slavery, yellow fever epidemics, concentration camps and miscellaneous suffering that just goes to show that a beautiful view isn't everything:

St Catherine's Fort - one of NINETY on a twenty-mile-long island

Though it sure does count for something:

So blue! My eyes! My eyes!

And I had a wonderful time :-)

"Well hello sailor..."

But yes, I did have the Barry Manilow earworm in my head for two weeks...