Janine Ashbless

Irresistible Offer

2012-01-27T10:21:00.000Z

Here's an irresistible offer for those of you who live in the USA. Irresistible: erotic romance for couples, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, is now in stock at Amazon (it's officially launched on Feb 14th). And it includes my sweet and loving (yes! be amazed!) story Repaint the Night among many others.

Now Rachel is doing an AMAZING Buy One Get One offer! If you order or pre-order Irresistible as a paperback or ebook, she will send you a FREE SIGNED COPY OF ANY ONE OF HER IN-PRINT CLEIS PRESS BOOKS! All you have to do is forward her your receipt or a photo of it to irresistibleantho [at] gmail [dot] com with "BOGO" in the subject line, and your choice of book (if you want it autographed to someone else, just say it in the email). She'll send those books out by February 8th.

Full details, including anthology line-up, available freebees and the book foreword, here.

This frankly awesome offer is only open until JANUARY 31st, so get your skates on! And, due to postage costs, it's sadly only open within the USA.

Little excerpts from each story can be read here too!

Burns Night Eyecandy

2012-01-25T11:31:00.000Z

I know, I know, it's not a Monday - but it's Burns Night and I couldn't resist the guys in kilts.

I've had a wee thing for kilts since I saw Rob Roy shagging in his, many years back:

Fine scenery they have up there...

Anyway, the thing about kilts is that they combine a theatrical majestic vibe with tease. Therefore ... popular with romance readers and gay men.

They come in leather...

They come in practical canvas...

They come a bit too long ...

They come with big burly Scotsmen in them ...

They come with long-haired Ashbless-magnets in them...

But hell, as long as they come ...!
So lift a dram of Scotch to the "wee, sleekit, cowering, timorous beasty" hiding behind the kilt, and maybe he'll come out to play...
;-)

Eyecandy Monday - Tansy

2012-01-23T12:38:00.001Z

You know me and hair. The first thing I picture about any new character is their hair. So when my protagonist, Tansy, in my just-sold fairy novel Named and Shamed, describes herself this way:

"Most men get no further than some reference to Amazons, because at six foot tall and with a rack like this I can't help but invite the comparison. Add to that my red hair—not an insipid ginger but ferociously bright metallic waves—and pale skin that explodes into freckles all over my shoulders and arms at the first touch of summer ..."

... I had to go looking for a visual model.

It was way harder than I imagined to find the right look. Here are some of the redheads I found...

The body is right!

And this is pretty good for the hair and freckles. I like this face a lot!

Hello Tansy!

Goodness, research ... It's such hard work ... maybe I should apply for a grant ;-)

The Joy of Books

2012-01-22T08:49:00.000Z

This is just the most amazing thing I've seen on YouTube. It's incredible what you can do with enough coffee in your bloodstream...
;-)

Book review: Immoral Views

2012-01-20T01:33:00.002Z

I have seen the future of erotica. Or at least, what I hope is the future of my erotica... and it is ILLUSTRATED!

Sweetmeats Press, a relative newcomer to the scene, first pinged onto my radar screen with The Candy Box, which is part fiction (two novellas) and part fascinating memoir. What makes Sweetmeats stand out from other erotica imprints is that the texts are illustrated. Really well illustrated. Scorching hot pictures, XXX-rated, that take the story to a whole new dimension of heat. [See pics at bottom of post]

I love that. I'm a really visual person. My own stories are always played out as movies in my head before I translated them into words. I love graphic novels too. So hell yes, I want to see pictures with my smut!

Now Sweetmeats have published Immoral Views, a new collection of short stories on the theme of exhibitionism and voyeurism, with a great line-up of author names.

The Circus by Kay Jaybee - When Carrie is bought a ticket for a circus-themed BDSM show, she finds that the line between audience and participant is somewhat blurred...
Lots of fun with female exposure and submission.

Inside Looking Out by Lexie Bay - Izzy becomes fixated on watching her sister's handsome boyfriend fuck, and throughout her sexual encounters over the years, she's always trying to recapture that special feeling. Over a decade later and on another continent, she meets him again...
A mixture of intensely romantic and dead kinky!

Alloted Views by K D Grace - Rose discovers night-time intruders in the next door vegetable allotment, having a good hard go at some fertility magic...
Earthy, evocative, well-written and a great story for gardening fans :-)

Painted Pussycat by Rebecca Bond - Innocent Poppy starts with one little tattoo and then is initiated into the Circle of Ink where she discovers her true self...
A fairytale (ordinary girl becomes beautiful princess) with tattoos and threesomes.

Caught in the Act by Lucy Felthouse - A young policeman becomes obsessed with the practice of Dogging, and eventually tries it out for himself...
Hot, dirty, and funny. The only story in the collection with a male protagonist, and interestingly the one requiring least suspension of disbelief.

It's quite noticable, I think, that the collection has a real UK vibe to it - not just in language but in setting. The stories are upbeat, warm-hearted and - except for the last one, which has no romantic element - what I'd describe as written for a female readership. "Alloted Views" stood out for me as the most unexpected because of the magical realism elements, but for sheer horniness I particularly enjoyed "Caught in the Act."

But if you're in London this weekend, you don't have to take my word for it. Come and hear the authors reading extracts from their stories instead! It's all going on at the wonderful Sh! emporium on Portobello Road, on Saturday.

And finally, full disclosure: This week I signed a contract for Named and Shamed with Sweetmeats Press. I couldn't resist - I just so want to see my fairies, witches, trolls and illustrated in glorious black-and-white!
Brace yourselves for the filthiest fairy book ever...

Glow

2012-01-18T10:46:00.000Z

So this is what I was doing on New Year's Eve :-) UV rocks!

(This photo put up to memorialise the only time in my entire life that I've worn a minidress in public.)

Eyecandy Monday

2012-01-16T09:22:00.000Z

I'm a big fan of National Geographic magazine, and this is a fine picture of of a cougar resting after a hunt ;-)

There's not much rest for this writer though, however tired. Having finished and subbed fairy novel Named and Shamed, I am back on the short stories. I've got three already promised to anthologies, and plan to complete my new collection of fantasy shorts this year. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines...

THE BIG NEWS!!! Vampire erotica novel Red Grow the Roses is OUT ON KINDLE IN FEBRUARY!

I'll put links up when the cover art is available, and when someone has managed to fish the cover-copy out of Amazon's shredder. Careful with those fingers...

The blog tours are over, prizes are being dished out to competition winners, but Heart of Flame is not forgotten yet. Sizzling Hot Books has given it 4 stars and says: "it’s a fantastic read for any genre lover. Heart of Flame gets better and better as the tension builds page after page."

Full review here

And a HUGE thank you to Jeremy Edwards, Justine Elyot, Kate Pearce, Shanna Germain, Charlotte Stein and Adrian Tchaikovsky for supporting me on my Red Letter blog tour, despite all the Internet gremlins. And a big shout-out to Goddess Fish Promotions who put in such brilliant work organising the other blog tour.

But oh am I glad to be back to writing fiction!

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 12

2012-01-14T14:15:00.000Z

Eugene-Alexis Girardet (1853-1907): The Almeh

Dance dance! The Heart of Flame Blog Tour comes to an end today, with a bonus post I wasn't expecting - the first chapter is up to read (it's very short) at Renee Bigby Presents First Chapters.

Back to normal service on Monday! I have so much to tell you!

P.S: what's an almeh? Well, according to Wikipedia:

Almeh (Arabic عالمة `ālma, plural awālim, from علم "to know, be learned") was the name of a class of courtesans or female entertainers in Arab Egypt, women educated to sing and recite classical poetry and to discourse wittily. They were educated girls of good social standing, trained in dancing, singing and poetry, present at festivals and entertainments, and hired as mourners at funerals.

and according to the extremely snotty American Cyclopaedia of 1873:

Almeh (properly alimeh, pi. avalim.) an Arabic name given to the better class of public singers and dancers in Egypt, and sometimes erroneously applied also to the lower prostitutes and dancers, the ghawazi. The almehs form a separate social class, live together in companies, and often earn very large sums by their songs, dances, and improvisations, which are almost always of a lascivious character. Their services are generally called into requisition at banquets, marriages, and other festivals. - The ghawazi are a much lower class, including both male and female dancers, who travel from place to place, and exhibit in the public streets their dances, which, like those of the almehs, consist of lascivious movements of the body. The female ghawazi are prostitutes of the lowest class; yet a respectable Arab may without disgrace marry one of them who has abandoned her profession. Though the two classes are alike in the licentiousness of their lives and occupations, a sharp distinction exists between the almehs and the ghawazi, the former pandering to the higher orders of society, while the latter (considered by many actually a distinct race of gypsies) address themselves to the populace.

I love finding out this sort of stuff!

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 11

2012-01-13T09:57:00.000Z

Elihu Vedder (1836-1923) : The Roc's Egg

[click to enlarge]

Whee - I found an Orientalist picture with a fantasy theme! (Orientalists are usually staunch realists. Although, technically, Vedder is counted as a Symbolist rather than an Orientalist. *sigh* Don'tcha love these neat genre boxes we have to put people in?)

Today I'm over at Reader Girls talking about the allure of fantasy :-)

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 10

2012-01-12T11:48:00.000Z

Jean-Leon Gerome: Arnaut Blowing Smoke at the Nose of his Dog (1882)

Look - a greyhound! :-D

What would you ask for, if a djinni gave you three wishes? My answers are over at Basia's Bookshelf today. And - surprisingly - they don't actually include "another greyhound."

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 9

2012-01-11T09:49:00.000Z

Dudley Hardy (1867-1922) : The Caravan

Today I'm over at Asian Cocoa's Secret Garden, talking about the setting for Heart of Flame. Which, coincidentally, I'm returning to as I write a short story today...

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 8

2012-01-10T11:05:00.000Z

Charles Bargue (1825-1883): An Eastern Coffee House

Today I'm over at Anita Philmar's blog. She asked me "Where did you get the idea for Heart of Flame?" and I tried desperately to remember. Man, I need more coffee in my life!

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 7

2012-01-09T10:19:00.001Z

Antonio Garguillo (C19th - no dates listed) : The Message

I chose a picture of someone saying something that causes terrible trouble, because today I'm over at We Fancy Books ... and they asked me to write about the not entirely uncontentious topic of negative reviews. I did my best not to come across as a bunny-boiler, I swear!

But I probably failed.

*sigh*

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 6 - COMPETITION!

2012-01-07T13:35:00.002Z

Gustav Bauernfeind: The Gate of the Great Umayyad Mosque, Damascus (1890)

The Red Letter Blog Tour draws to a close, with a BIG interview over at the blog of Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the gripping Shadows of the Apt fantasy series. He dared ask me about the politics of setting Heart of Flame in the Middle East!

Okay - competition time!
Do you want to win a book? Not one of my books! This one in fact:

Beautifully illustrated by Jan Pienkowski, this is contains 6 of the Arabian Nights tales and the framing story of clever Shahrazade. It is suitable for children! (In as far as the 1001 Nights can be - there's a certain amount of adultery and murder in the stories.) And it can be yours for free!

Okay ... to win it, you need to check out each of the posts in the Red Letter Blog Tour in order and find the red letter in the text.

Jeremy Edwards
Justine Elyot
Kate Pearce's blog is still down - I'm sure she's even more frustrated than I am - so the letter is this one.
Shanna Germain
Charlotte Stein
Adrian Tchaikovsky (Sorry, you'll need to look in the comments for the answer to that one)

Got the 6 letters? They spell the first name of the librarian who asks my hero and heroine a fiendish riddle, in Heart of Flame.
E-mail me at janine [dot] ashbless [at] yahoo [dot] com with this name. I'll draw the winner randomly.
You've got until Friday 13th - good luck!

And me? I'm going to finish my next novel and send it off today.

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 5

2012-01-06T10:33:00.001Z

Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932): The Manicure

I'm late ... I was up until 2.15am spell-checking, and slept through my alarm! So ZOOOOOM to -

Charlotte Stein's blog for the Red Letter Tour - and try a lurid but lovely drink. Why is a ba-na'na' not a banana?
Books Read 'n' Makeup Done - and discover my New Years Resolutions. My sanity does not appear to be bearing up well, it must be said...

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 4

2012-01-05T19:22:00.001Z

Jean Leon Gerome: Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard (1894)

[click to enlarge]

Oh, I just love Gerome's work! His paintings make me feel like I could walk straight into them and be there.

Today ...

I tell a very bad genie joke over at Shanna Germain's blog.
I answer some difficult questions over at Novel Reflections.

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 3

2012-01-04T10:27:00.000Z

Rudolph Swoboda: The Carpet Seller (1885)

*sigh* We have hacker problems, I'm afraid. There have been a slew of hits on romance sites this week (WHY?!), including some I'm due to be guest blogging on. But we soldier on!

Today the Heart of Flame blog tour has me guesting at Words of Wisdom from the Scarf Princess. She asked me to say what I thought made for a good erotic read. Well, maybe it's not the answer anyone was expecting! Again, leave a comment over there if you want to be included in a prize draw for an e-copy of The King's Viper.

The Red Letter Blog tour should see me over at Kate Pearce's blog, but she's been having website problems. I'll link to this once everything's sorted.

And backing up my own website has suddenly shot to the top of the insane list of Things To Do This Week...

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 2

2012-01-03T11:24:00.000Z

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902): Arabian Nights

Look - I can do magic ;-) Today I'm in two places at once!

I'm over at Justine Elyot's blog for the Red Letter Blog Tour, talking about writer's serendipity and a spooky coincidence.
I'm also guesting at Shelley Munro's blog for a short interview ... Leave a comment there to be put in for a prize draw.
And Shelley's reviewed Heart of Flame. Yay - She likes it! She says:

"For those aspiring writers who want to learn about escalating tension, definitely check out this book. With each passing chapter, the situation seems to become more dire for our hero and heroine. Will they succeed or will they give up, accepting failure?

Heart of Flame is a story of bravery, of djinni, gods, ghosts and magic and the search for love. I enjoyed this book, and if you’re a fan of fantasy with a good dose of romance then I think you’ll like it too."

Heart of Flame blog tour - Day 1

2012-01-02T10:13:00.002Z

Frederick Arthur Bridgeman: The Siesta (1878)

Oh my goodness, it’s January 2012 already! The partying has finished and we’re all probably feeling hungover, literally or emotionally - and here I am to bang on about my Arabian Nights novel Heart of Flame. Don’t worry: I’m going to be gentle with you – at least to start with, heh heh...

First, let me tempt you to come on over to Jeremy Edwards’ blog for a little lie down on the Sofa of Pleasure.

That post over at Jeremy’s is the first in my Red Letter Blog Tour. Follow that tour this week and look for the Red Letter buried in each post. Note them down, and at the end of this week you’ll have a chance to win a mystery prize!

Feeling invigorated now? Concurrently with the Red Letter Blog Tour, I’m going to be touring all over the place on the Heart of Flame blog tour, which has been arranged by Goddess Fish – starting today over at Carrie Ann Ryan’s, where I’m talking about balancing strong heroes and heroines. Follow that tour, post a comment on any one of those blogs in the next two weeks, and you’ll be entered into a draw for a different prize – in this case, a free e-copy of The King’s Viper.

Good luck! See you around, I hope!
More tour links tomorrow!

Heart of Flame on sale from Samhain

Take a deep breath...

2012-01-01T08:48:00.007Z

... because my two blog tours for Heart of Flame kick off tomorrow. Yes, two.

So, for the next couple of weeks I can promise Victorian Orientalist art, prize giveaways, and me wandering all over t'Internet talking about subjects that may (or may not) have anything to do with my novel, and slowly going more and more bonkers...
;-)

Pop by this blog each day to find out my next stop!

"I am just going outside. I may be some time." - Captain Oates

2011 in the rearview mirror

2011-12-30T10:03:00.000Z

My fave Eyecandy of 2011. Probably.

Blimey, I don't know about you, but 2011 seems to have shot past for me. No word of a lie, I still have a Xmas card from 2010 by the phone, which says "We must meet up again in 2011: ring this number and we'll sort out dinner sometime." And no, I never did get round to it. Bad Janine! :-(

Anyway, here's the annual roundup...

Best movie? Not a bad year for the cinema at all - I saw 31 films and though there were a couple of disappointments, the quality of entertainment was pretty good overall. The ones I enjoyed most were...

127 Hours (I loved this film!)

Troll Hunter

Sucker Punch (which wins the prize for making me think most)

True Grit

Best Music? I have to confess that the CD I listened to most all year was The best of Simple Minds. And I like them more now than I did back in the '80s!
The new song that had me dancing in the (supermarket) aisles was this, rather bizarrely:

Best book?

Tales of Wonder by Jane Yolen. Somehow I managed to miss this completely when it first appeared in the 1980s, and now it's out of print. Found in a charity bookshop, and oh - what a find! I think her short story skills are incredible.

Best TV?

It has to be Spartacus - first Blood and Sand, then Gods of the Arena, which was even better. Loved it to bits. How could it be possible to have more fun in front of a television, eh?

2011 was also the Year of Fruit. Thanks to an incredibly early Spring here, and a summer of sun and showers, I managed to harvest wild plums, chequers, raspberries, blackberries and cob-nuts. An amazing bounty :-)

Here's hoping for a fruitful 2012 for all of us!
Happy New Year!

He knows the score

2011-12-28T10:19:00.003Z

I went to see Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People again this year - and LOOK! IT'S ALAN MOORE!

I had a nerdgasm :-)

Eyecandy Monday

2011-12-26T09:30:00.001Z

"Ooh, I could just do with a bit of Xmas pudding now."

How are you, peeps? Survived Xmas okay then? We ate way past the limits of sanity, I'm afraid. Mango & nut roast, and asparagus loaf and all the trimmings ... followed by two puds.

Here's the recipe for Mr Ashbless' Annual Xmas Lime Pie, made on special request for Lucilla, who doesn't do other desserts. It is simple, yet wonderful:

Ingredients

200g packet of ginger biscuits (ginger snaps?)
50g butter
500g marscapone cheese
40g icing sugar
2 limes

Method:

Crush the ginger biscuits, using either a food processor, or extreme violence and a rolling pin.
Melt the butter and mix with the ginger crumbs, then press into the bottom of a flan dish to make a base. Mr Ashbless goes for a 24cm dish but you may prefer your pie deeper and narrower.
Zest and juice the limes.
Beat together lime zest and juice with the cheese and sifted icing sugar. Spread over the ginger biscuit base.
Chill for 30 mins.
Decorate with grated chocolate. Or sugared white grapes. Or don't bother, just eat :-)

This is the only thing that the dogs never get to taste at Xmas, because there's never any left over.

:-)

Merry Xmas!

2011-12-24T10:19:00.000Z

Careful with those hot bulbs...!

Here's wishing every one of you a happy holiday period, with warmth and joy and peace, and a whole New Year to look forward to.

I'll leave you with that rarest of things - an Xmas song that's actually really good. It's by Chris Squire and Alan White of Yes and it's twenty years old - so how come I never heard it until yesterday?

Sinbad

2011-12-22T08:35:00.000Z

In Heart of Flame my hero, Rafiq, is based on the archetype character Sinbad, so I thought I'd post some eyecandy Sinbad pics from various movies. In the original stories from The One Thousand and One Nights, he's a merchant with a habit of getting shipwrecked and not making it home for years. In the film and TV interpretations he's rather more heroic and less incompetent. And he always gets the girl :-)

This picture shows Douglas Fairbanks Junior from the 1947 Sinbad the Sailor, in seriously dodgy technicolor. Hot Hero Rating: Ugh. Why did heroes in those days look so old? (He was 38 when this was made. He just looks like a bank manager in his fifties.) Monster rating: there aren't any in the movie.

Dale Robertson in 1955 movie Son of Sinbad (also called Sinbad, ahem). Hot Hero Rating: Um ...okay. Monster rating: none, still, and much of the content of this movie can be surmised by this shot of sidekick hero Vincent Price trying to free this young lady from her pointy-breasted harem outfit and even more unlikely shoes.

Woohooo! Sinbad leaves home! Ray Harryhausen hoves into view!

Kerwin Matthews in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). Hot Hero Rating: Um ... okay. Monsters: Yes! Giant two-headed rocs, an animated skeleton, a dragon and a cyclops!

The dragon and the cyclops fight! Oh, I'm in stop-motion heaven.

John Philip Law in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974). Hot Hero Rating: Yeah, pretty hot actually, although the medallions are getting insanely big by this point. Monsters: a cyclops/centaur, a giant animated statue of Kali, some other stuff but nobody remembers what, because we were all staring at CAROLINE MUNRO'S COSTUME:

Holy cow. My eyeballs have melted. Let's just sit here for a few moments...

Patrick Wayne in the 1977 Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Hot Hero Rating: Oh good grief no, not with that hair. He's not even as hot as the Minoton, and he's only mechanical:

Phwor. Another nail in the coffin of my sexual conformity.
Monsters: under-used.

Zen Gesner in The Adventures of Sinbad (1996-8). Hot Hero Rating: Please, bring back Xena: warrior princess.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003). Hot Hero Rating: Hell yes - despite the peculiar lack of underarm hair. And he's got Brad Pitt's voice! Monsters: Didn't notice anything but the Sirens, because I was too busy grousing that SINBAD IS SUDDENLY NOT ARABIC ANYMORE, IS HE? HE'S GREEK, EH? WHAT, WE'VE DECIDED TO PRETEND THE MIDDLE EAST NEVER EXISTED, JUST BECAUSE WE'VE INCONVENIENTLY GONE TO WAR THERE?

Manu Bennett in Sinbad and the Minotaur (2010). Hot Hero Rating: Look, it's Crixus from Spartacus! I've seen his willy! Monsters: It's not a minotaur, it's a bull. And I haven't watched this DVD because I saw the trailer and it looks crap.

Elliot Knight in this, due out from Sky TV in 2012, I believe. Hot Hero Rating: Looks interesting ... but why does he look so young?
;-)

Heart of Flame - excerpt

2011-12-20T09:58:00.000Z

Yes, it's out today! Heart of Flame is now available in a range of electronic formats (including Adobe and Mobipocket/Kindle) from Samhain Publishing, for $3.85.

Am I happy? Yes I am! This is my first publication through Samhain, and it's also my first adventure-romance novel. Yes, that's right: it's not erotica. Which means, for those of you who are familiar with my other work, it's not wall-to-wall sex scenes. I mean, there is still quite a bit of sex, and that sex is hot, but there's also much more room for plot. And frantic running around the Middle East, trying to stay alive and get to the next bit of the plot. And monsters.

There are many monsters. That makes me happy.

I wrote this book imagining how it would look if it were filmed in a good old-fashioned Thief of Baghdad style, with awesome Technicolor matte scenery, and stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen :-D

And yes, because it's one of my romances, the heroes and heroines get the stuffing kicked out of them on a regular basis. But it's rather more upbeat than The King's Viper, in case you were worrying!

So here's an excerpt from near the beginning of the book. Taqla the Sorceress has just fallen in with handsome merchant-traveller Rafiq, whilst wandering through the bazaar in Damascus. They get into a brawl with some of Rafiq's rivals and she helps him, before they flee together over the rooftops. The thing is, Taqla is in magical disguise as a man. Rafiq doesn't know who she really is, and can't be allowed to find out.

Nobody can ever be allowed to find out...

“Where—where now?” A glance told her that this was a big building they were on, square in form but hollowed around a central courtyard. There was no obvious stair down. And their pursuers had not given up. The head of their leader bobbed into view over the first roof.

Rafiq didn’t answer. He just went to the edge overlooking the central courtyard, squinted down, then turned and dropped to his belly and slid his legs over into the void. He hung there for a moment, lurched down until he was hanging by his hands, then disappeared from sight.

What? Taqla mouthed, aghast. Is this normal? she wanted to demand—Did every Dimashqan man take to scrambling over the rooftops like an ape at the slightest provocation? Was she just supposed to follow him?

She didn’t have much choice. Gritting her teeth, she did as Rafiq had done—and found, below the roofline, complex decorative piercework in wood, which allowed her to swing down onto the upper-storey balcony below. She nearly pulled her arms from their sockets doing it, and she cursed her sheltered upbringing.

“Quick.” Rafiq signalled her into a doorway and they plunged into the building’s interior. The shuttered rooms were in darkness and filled with sagging baskets and dusty bales, the finely tiled walls not making up for the reek of rat urine. Taqla knew what was going on—there were many grand old houses like this in the city nowadays. When the seat of the caliphate was moved from Dimashq to Baghdad, many of the wealthiest families had abandoned the city, locking up their houses and leaving them to decay under the care of a lone watchman. Squatters had moved into some buildings, others were used as storage spaces or stables. This one looked and smelled like it was full of sheep’s fleeces all quietly rotting away in the gloom.

Voices and scuffling suggested their pursuers were not far behind. Rafiq drew his scimitar.

“No!” breathed Taqla warningly.

“No witnesses here,” he whispered. But he relented with a shrug and pushed her into the angle behind a cupboard door in a dark corner, backing in after her as the voices grew louder. It was almost pitch black, to Taqla’s discomfort, and a shelf dug into her spine. Worse, it was an extremely confined space. As Rafiq squeezed in after her with his scimitar held at the ready, his back pressed up against her chest, radiating heat. She could smell his skin and his sweat over the general miasma of dry rot, and it smelled good in a way she was not ready for—hauntingly, disconcertingly good. She could feel the movement of his muscles through his clothes and it made her own muscles quiver and clench. She shrank away desperately, trying to minimise contact, but it was too late, her panicked mental efforts were not enough. Even as they both held their breath and as footfalls echoed in the chamber outside, the spell of shaping cracked into a thousand pieces and the form of Zahir abd-Umar dissolved into her own. The pain in her ear vanished. Bones shortened. Male muscle softened to feminine curves. Her bare nipples pressed against his shirt and she felt them pucker and harden at the contact.

Taqla prayed that Rafiq wouldn't notice.

Copyright © 2011 Janine Ashbless

Another excerpt is available on the Samhain site too.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-12-19T09:41:00.001Z

Ludwig Deutsch: A Palace Guard (1892)

Heart of Flame is published TOMORROW!

I'm ...scared ... but happy. Oh so happy! I want to give this book a big proud hug :-)

There will be a blog tour - two blog tours, in fact - but not yet. I'm not cluttering up your Xmas internet/headspace with my wittering on. That all kicks off in January once everyone is fed up of snow and turkey and gin, and they might be in the mood for sand and Turks and djinn.

In the meantime, there's the book itself ... and an excerpt on this blog tomorrow.
:-)

Hitch

2011-12-18T09:02:00.000Z

Will be missed.

Sale! - Red Grow the Roses

2011-12-16T09:01:00.000Z

Finally, finally, finally - I have signed the contract for my erotic vampire novel Red Grow the Roses. It's going to be published in 2012! I am so pleased I could bite someone!
(And no, I still can't tell you who with...)

Vampire PARTAAAAAY!!

Also this week - I finished the first draft of erotic fairy novel Named and Shamed. Woooohoooo!
I've got paranormals coming out my ears at the mo :-)

When I was 44...

2011-12-14T11:45:00.004Z

Heh heh.

Belated, of course, but I still wanted to do my traditional birthday round-up post. This is where I log all the things I did for the first time in the previous year, just to make sure I'm not sitting in a daze on my midde-aged arse.

So, when I was 44, for the first time...

I went to the Alps, and climbed about in the snow on really really high mountaintops, and walked inside a glacier.
I found out what snowblindness is like.
I bought a laundry basket. (My lack of a laundry basket was regarded by my mother as a sign of my wild bohemian eccentricity.)
One of my books featured in a porn clip and I got a mention on the Maxim website, lol! ... thank you Jenny!
I smoked a clay pipe, and chewed coca leaves.
I rode in a red sports car with the top down (BMW Z4, I believe). (I'm no car-slut, but it's a pretty cool car. Sadly I disgraced myself by screaming "OH FUCK NO!!" as we overtook into oncoming traffic...)
I pogoed! It was at my first Big Country gig. I also saw Simple Minds and Hayseed Dixie, live, for the first time.
I met a whole slew of wonderful smutwriters at a public reading at Sh!

I went canyoning. Okay, so it was a small, English, canyon, but we did have to leap into icy rockpools.
I harvested chequers. Yum.
I went to Maelstrom, the LARP fest.
I played Call of Cthulhu via Skype. Go technology!
I had my official photo taken as part of a professional portfolio.
I went on a romance writing course, and it was excellent.
I got caught short on the motorway, and had to pull in on the hard shoulder and dive over the barrier and down a bank to pee. (This is not such a good sign.)
I got over my kissing phobia. With help ;-D
I went to Bologna in Italy - where I was also subject to my first attempted pickpocketing.
My first Ellora's Cave romantic novel, The King's Viper, came out.
I sold my romantic Arabian Nights adventure, Heart of Flame, to Samhain.
I tried a Hollywood wax. (It was the shock of my life when it grew back black, instead of ginger.)
I wrote an e-signature. (I'm left-handed. Weirdly, I have to fake my own signature with my right hand, when using a mouse to write.)
I filed an American tax form.
I had champagne (and only champagne) for lunch. (Result: terrible sunburn.)
I went to Peru! Where I went sand-boarding, walked in the Amazon jungle, and fed piranha. I saw wild condors and sea lions :-)

And I sold 5 short stories - down on last year, because I've been writing and editing novels instead. But not bad.
All other Firsts this year are filed under "Classified - restricted personnel only."
;-)
Looking forward to being 45!

Eyecandy Monday

2011-12-12T08:59:00.000Z

I am too good at procrastination. Give me an internet connection and a long enough period of time, and I will move ... absolutely nothing.
Grrr.
I want to go back to my isolation cell :-(

Card-carrying Samhain writer

2011-12-11T09:27:00.001Z

Look - Samhain Publishing actually sent me a birthday card!

That is how you cultivate writer loyalty, you other publishers - not by planting horrendous tie-in clauses in your contracts.
Just saying.

Away with the fairies

2011-12-09T17:17:00.001Z

8pm, and there I was still in pyjamas...
Note my cheery "Piss off, I'm writing" expression :-)

In 7 days I did 19,000 words. The longer it went on the easier it got, and the weaker grew my grip on reality. On my best day I managed 5,000 words!
Also, I broke my record on Tetris ;-)

So, basically, I have one chapter left to go on Named and Shamed. Wheeeeeee!

In retreat

2011-11-30T08:33:00.008Z

For my birthday treat, I'm getting a week in solitary confinement :-)

Well, not quite solitary (Mr Ashbless is allowed conjugal visits, at his own risk). But, a rented apartment far far from home. No dogs, no housework, no visitors, no shopping, and almost no Internet. If I can't get this novel nailed down in that time, there's something wrong with me.

I'll be back on the 9th December, assuming it's not actually possible to die from writing sex scenes.
:-)

Eyecandy Monday

2011-11-28T10:28:00.001Z

I'm taking forever to wake up this morning. I could probably do with some coffee...

A shower would help...

Or perhaps a nice bracing walk...

But really, I just need to pull my finger out and write.
;-)

Ol' Man River

2011-11-26T09:34:00.001Z

It's a beautiful song, but you sure shouldn't listen to it if you're feeling down, because it's really bleak. Existential despair for the musical-going audience.

Luckily for me, I'm having a happy week, so I can listen all I like :-)

Wielding the sword on Heart of Flame

2011-11-24T11:35:00.000Z

It doesn't mean anything. It's not an official review, and it'll never appear on any public romance site. But my editor at Samhain passed on this note from the Final Line Editor, about Heart of Flame, during prep for publication:

"Fantastic storyline. The world-building and mythos were extremely well done. The pattern of the writing was flowing and in keeping with the storyline. One of the most unique ebooks I’ve had the privilege to not only work with but read."

Which made me happy!

In case you're interested in the nitty-gritty of the editing process...
At each stage I have to read through and okay the changes. We've been through 4 stages in the last month, speeding up as we went along, until it's been a gallop over the last week:

1st edit: Switching UK punctuation to USA (' to "). Dedicated editor checks word choice and continuity, suggests clarifications for meaning or plot. A million semicolons die a bloody death. Commas disappear from before "then" and reappear before "and". Much muttering from the author about "crazy American punctuation."
2nd edit: Same again, but more stringent. Second round of spelling conversion - I had a lot of "honour"s and "colour"s that needed their "U"s culling."Caliph" and "Amir" lose their capitals.
Final Line Edit: New, specialist editor, mostly checking punctuation and fiddly technical stuff like margins and spacing, I think. Lots of "try ands" converted to "try to"s.
ARC edit: This is to check that the text, which has now been re-formatted into an e-version, hasn't had any lines deleted or transposed by digital formatting. No, I don't know what "ARC" means! At this stage you can correct typos and mistakes, but no further tweaks of the text.

I'm knocked out by the high standards demanded by this e-publisher. The book has been polished to within an inch of its life ;-) And yes - I now have the final PDF version in my (virtual) hands!

Oh - and what did my lovely and incredibly hard-working editor think of the novel?

"You must be so incredibly proud of this story – the world building, the characters, two love stories running simultaneously, and not a single flat spot in 93K. It is quite simply amazing!"

Yeah .. I think I am proud. Exhausted and a bit shell-shocked too, but happy. Samhain rocks.

Heart of Flame out 20th December 2011 from Samhain as an e-book

6th November 2012 in paperback

USA Today

2011-11-22T09:07:00.001Z

HOLY COW!! I couldn't wait untill Wednesday to post this!
My e-novel The King's Viper has had a great big mention (with picture!) in USA Today!

Raelene Gorlinsky, publisher at Ellora's Cave, says:
"The first and last chapters, which frame the story, sold me on the whole book when the author submitted it. It's a dark, angsty story. The hero starts out not very likable or admirable, but the reader comes to learn about him and his life as the heroine does so, and by the last chapter you'll love this tortured, honorable, loyal man."

Eyecandy Monday

2011-11-21T08:47:00.000Z

I'm in a stockings mood :-)

TftD: Strong

2011-11-20T10:18:00.002Z

I've just written a (future) post snippet on balancing strong female and male characters, and I was reminded of this. Go Joss!

Homework crisis

2011-11-18T09:21:00.000Z

Heart of Flame is out on the 20th December, and Samhain prodded me till I squealed and agreed to do a blog tour for publicity purposes. In fact I'm doing two, in parallel. But not starting on 20th December - who the heck is on t'internet trawling for books over the holiday period? It all kicks off in the New Year.

This one is being organised by Goddess Fish, who - thank goodness - know what they're doing far better than I.

Of course I have to write all the posts (topics set by the hosts) well in advance and get them in ASAP. Which leaves me in the peculiar position of writing a post about my New Year Resolutions in November! It's like being back at school again and trying to get my homework in for all these subjects at once...
:-D

Witch Wednesday ... part 2

2011-11-16T10:53:00.003Z

John William Waterhouse: Jason and Medea (1907)

So here we are for a second week with Victorian and Edwardian witch paintings.
Having paid our respects to Circe, we're still with Greek mythology for the moment, but looking at an even scarier witch. Medea was actually Circe's niece, a priestess of the underworld/witchcraft goddess Hecate, and daughter of the king of Colchis (now Georgia). When Jason and the Argonauts arrived at her father's palace in search of the Golden Fleece, Medea fell in love and agreed to help him.

Anthony Frederick Sandys: Medea (1868)

She brewed up a sleeping potion to defeat the dragon that guarded the Fleece. What I like about this particular picture (which has some great magical detail, like the toad with the stone in its forehead, and the circle of red thread) is the sense of premonition - the look on Medea's face suggesting she sees the dark events ahead. The bright necklace suggesting blood.

Herbert Draper: The Golden Fleece (1904)

Fleeing with the stolen Fleece, the Argonauts are pursued by Medea's father. To slow him down, she kills her younger brother - in some versions she hacks him to pieces as they will take longer to retrieve - and dumps the body overboard, knowing that the king will have to stop and give the corpse a proper funeral.

Medea is brick-hard. To the Victorian artist she epitomises woman as terrifying, psychotic and ruthlessly possessive,

Alphonse Mucha: Medee (1898)

This is an episode from nearer the end of Medea's story, as depicted on a theatrical poster. It's Art Nouveau style rather than Pre-Raphaelite. Medea finds that Jason has deserted her for an advantageous marriage to a princess. So she kills both their children as an act of revenge, and flies off in a chariot drawn by dragons. I've got a full-sized repro of this poster on my stairs at home!

Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898): The Beguiling of Merlin

Moving on from Greek myth to Arthurian legend, the witch Nimue comes a bit of light relief, relatively speaking. She seduces the wizard Merlin, learns his magic, and uses his own spells to bind him forever into a tree. I used to love this picture (I think Merlin looks hot!) until I realised how distorted are the proportions of Nimue's body. Sadly, I can't stop noticing that now and I find it just too irritating to look at :-(

I used this legend as a central plot device in my novel Wildwood.

Anthony Frederick Sandys: Morgan le Fay (1864)

This is Morgan le Fay, another Arthurian witch: Arthur's antagonistic half-sister and the mother of Mordred, who kills him. Blimey, standards of behaviour in the Good Old Days...

Take a look at the embroidery on her overdress. Those are genuine Pictish symbols copied from standing stones in Scotland. I presume the artist used antiquarian travel-books as his source, but it's still a splendid piece of research.

John Collier: The Oracle or The Priestess of Delphi (1891)

The Pythia - the priestess of Delphi - wasn't really a witch, more a shaman-type. She would sit on the tripod chair as depicted, breathing in the poisonous fumes from a fissure in the earth (supplemented by the burning of laurel leaves sacred to Apollo, also poisonous) and - completely stoned - she would prophesy in ecstatic gibberish which was interpreted by priests, to enquirers, in exchange for cash.

John William Godward: The Delphic Oracle (1899)

I think Godward has pretty much abandoned all pretence that the interest in these depictions lies in mysticism and ancient history.

George Wilson: The Spring Witch (1880)

Ditto Wilson. Interesting that the background is almost medieval in style - reminiscent of Bruegel.The witch is depicted as a semi-divine figure bringing Spring to a wintery world.

Arthur Wardle: The Enchantress (1901)

Whereas this is most reminiscent of a Sunlight Soap advert. I think her flushed face would probably have been considered rosy and attractive at the time.

John William Waterhouse: The Crystal Ball (1902)

Of course Waterhouse would have to make an appearance in this post somewhere! In fact, twice. The subject of the painting above is definitely a witch and, judging by her accoutrements, not necessarily a very nice one either ... just the way Waterhouse likes them. Actually, it may have been a a bit too menacing for some tastes - in the 1950s a purchaser of this picture had the skull painted out! This was discovered by use of X-ray in 1994 and it's been restored since.

John William Waterhouse: The Magic Circle (1886)

But oh, this is my favourite witch painting. The realism, the detail - note the ancient Greek style figures embroidered on her robe, and the wild herbs she's gathered - the grim Mediterranean setting among the tombs and discarded bones, the sense that she really means what she's doing. See how the magic circle burns as she inscribes it! Just a brilliant picture. And she doesn't even have the usual Waterhouse Face.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-11-14T08:45:00.000Z

If you've a fondness for edgy BDSM romance then you may be looking forward to the Bound by Lust anthology, out in April next year (edited by Shanna Germain and including my story Being His Bitch among many other wickedly naughty contributions). Well, the cover has been changed!

Old cover here.
Here's the spiffy new version:

Still the same lucious contents!

TftD: Nemi

2011-11-13T08:16:00.000Z

If I had a daughter, I'd make her read Nemi.

Movie review: Machine Gun Preacher

2011-11-11T07:58:00.009Z

What?! What are the evil fiends of Hollywood trying to do to me? A new Gerard Butler movie? - yes! With him punching people and shooting them, not just some shite rom-com? - YES!
Playing a Born Again Christian missionary????
AIIIEEEEEEAAAAAARRRGH!

You understand my sense of conflict here, I hope.

Stop talking about the Baby Jesus and get your kit off

What actually swung it was the fact that it's a true story, about a real guy called Sam Childers, who sounds ... interesting. And pretty conflicted himself.

The real Sam Childers

The movie is an action biopic, covering several years of Childers' life. He starts out emerging from prison. He's a career criminal, a junkie, and a violent piece of trailer-trash with no apparent redeeming features at all. He undergoes a conversion experience, cleans his life up, sets up a successful construction company and pops out to East Africa to do some charity work for a couple of weeks - where he discovers the awful mess going on on the Uganda/South Sudan border, and in particular the plight of children coming under nightly attack from the LRA rebel militia. Horrified, Childers starts an orphange out there. Protecting the children involves taking up arms against their oppressors - something Childers is strikingly good at. A violent man, he just needs the right cause to fight for. Unfortunately the enemy in this instance is way too big for him to handle. He becomes increasingly obsessed and angry at the situation and how little people in the outside world are doing to help, and eventually undergoes a crisis of faith and abandons his wife and child in the USA in order to carry on his humanitarian work. However a small child reminds him of the good side of human nature, he is reconciled with his family, and the movie ends with them carrying on the good work. Which, in real life, Childers is still doing.

The controversial (and interesting) bit about Childers' mission is that it involves leading armed rescue missions into LRA-held territory. With extreme prejudice. Hence his "machine-gun preacher" sobriquet.

Well, frankly I found this fascinating - but frustrating too. The movie covers quite a long period in Childers' life, so is inevitably episodic. The director also seems wedded to the idea of "show not tell," which means that nobody explains anything. So it's really hard to get under the skin of the main character - you don't hear him talk about how he feels, except in the content-free Christian jargon of "fighting the Devil." And the successive scenes can feel really disconnected from one another. For example, the film leaves it terribly ambiguous as to whether Childers falls off the wagon and goes back to shooting up heroin at one point. It doesn't give him space to explain how he feels about the death of his best friend, or how that affects his beliefs, or how that crisis affects his congregation. It doesn't even tell you whether he recovers his faith in God by the end.

Most frustrating of all, there is no background or context given for the actions of the LRA, who are the villains of the piece and by anyone's standards a bunch of utter bastards. They abduct children and turn them into child soldiers and sex slaves. They kill indiscriminately. But why were they founded? What are their aims? Who are they? Criminally, the movie even gives the (inadvertant) impression that the LRA are Muslims, which is just SO wrong - the Lord's Resistance Army originated as a Christian militia of exactly the sort of muscular, charismatic stripe that Childers espouses. (And a secular aid worker points out to Childers just how much in danger he is of looking just like the LRA leader.)

So as a narrative this movie had me tearing my hair out. As a window into a physical and moral battleground, it was gripping and humbling. The themes in Machine Gun Preacher should be a challenge to everyone. To cynical atheists who sneer that all Christians are just complacent hypocrites. To Christians who believe that all that you have to do is have faith, and that God will intervene to fix everything. To anyone who holds that violence is never the answer. To anyone with any humanity at all, as we sit in our peaceful Western countries, and all this goes on, and we do nothing.

Sam Childers website
Sam Childers talks about the movie

P.S: The Catholic News Service described this film as "morally offensive."

P.P.S: Eloise has pointed out that this review makes it sound like I didn't like the movie. On the contrary, I give it 5 stars. I'm just frustrated I couldn't give it the max 6.

Witch Wednesday

2011-11-09T09:50:00.004Z

John William Waterhouse: Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses (1891)

Well, I rather missed my cue for Hallowe'en, but a day with a "W" in it is as much excuse as anyone should need for posting beautiful Victorian paintings of Witches. Those Pre-Raphaelites love their witches! Mysterious, powerful, sexually independent, threatening ... they play into all sorts of male fantasies. Especially as - in the example above - they seem to have a tendency to under-dress in public. I love the transparent muslin in that picture, and the sneaky depiction of her nipples .. as well as the fantastic use of the mirror. Naughty and gorgeous.

John William Waterhouse: Circe Invidiosa (1892)

Circe is the one of the oldest witches in literature, though technically she's a minor goddess. Here she is using a magical potion to turn her love-rival Scylla into a hideous man-eating monster. This painting is particularly striking for the palpable malevolence, and the use of colour.

John Melhuish Strudwick: Circe and Scylla (1886)

A gentler version of that poison-in-the-bath scene.

Wright Barker (1864-1941): Circe

But her most famous appearance is in the Odyssey, where she is found holding court on the island of Aeaea with an entourage of lions and wild beasts, and transforms Odyssus' exhausted sailors into swine (insert your own metaphorical interpretation here).

Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898): The Wine of Circe

I love the fawning great cats in these pictures. In dog circles the action below is known as "counter-surfing." You look away for a moment, distracted by contemplation of the Black Arts, and they're straight in there lapping up the magic potion.

John William Waterhouse (yes, again - obsessed or what?): Circe or The Sorceress

Okay, moving on from Circe...
No, actually I think I'll do the other witches next Wednesday. Circe is a jealous sort and I don't want to start a fight ...

Damn, I'm going to have to write a Circe story sometime, aren't I?

Eyecandy Monday

2011-11-07T10:17:00.000Z

Time for some guy-on-guy eyecandy, by my reckoning :-)

TftD: It happens

2011-11-06T10:06:00.001Z

So, are we in the mood for a little comparative theology?

The "Shit Happens" list has a been round for a long time, in different incarnations and variations (I swear I've seen it on a tea-towel), but it still makes me smile. At its best it is a wry look at the way different philosophies and religions have attempted to deal with the age-old Problem of Evil:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

(Epicurus, 341-270 BCE)

So here's the version I like best:

Atheism:                    Shit happens.
"New" Atheism:        Look - shit just happens. Why is that so hard to grasp, dimwits?
Agnosticism:             Shit probably just happens, but if there’s more to it than that we aren’t qualified to comment.
Confucianism:           Confucius says, "If shit has to happen, let it happen PROPERLY."
Buddhism:                 Shit happens, but try not to care.
Zen Buddhism:          Shit is, and is not.
Taoism:               Shit happens, so flow with it.
Catholicism:               Shit happens because it’s good for you. Anyway, you deserve it.
Protestantism:           Let shit happen to someone else!
Islam:                    Shit happens if it is the will of Allah.
Hinduism:                   All this shit has happened before.
Moonies:                    Only really happy shit happens.
Televangelism:           Shit happens because you aren’t Born Again. If shit is still happening, it’s because you haven’t sent me enough money.
Darwinism:                 Survival of the shittiest.
Unitarianism:              Shit happens. Have coffee and biscuits.
Church of England:   Shit happens. Have a cup of tea.
Quaker:                       Please, let's not fight over this shit…
New Age:                    Visualise shit not happening. That’ll be $300, thanks.
Christian Science:     Shit is all in your mind.
Scientology:               Shit happens if you're on our shit-list.
Judaism:                     Why does shit always happen to us?

and, of course..

Writer:                       My head is full of shit – let me share.

This is totally NOT the reason I enjoy LARP so much

2011-11-04T07:20:00.001Z

No no no no no...
Honest.
LMAO!

Peru: the Dead

2011-11-02T09:22:00.000Z

[Human corpse picture warning. Possibly a bit late.]

One of the really fascinating things about visiting Peru, as far as I'm concerned, is that it has the world's longest tradition of deliberate mummification. They're all over the place.

Peruvian cultures had a tendency to mummification because of the climate. They have miles of hot dry desert and miles of cold dry mountain-tops, both of which will naturally desiccate a body. Unlike among the ancient Egyptians, the corpse was generally not disembowelled but remained intact. They were almost always set in a foetal postion too, as that represents a return to the womb of life.

This is the cemetery of Chauchilla (AD 1000-1400). Most of the grave pits were robbed out this century for their gold and textiles. The remaining bodies have been reassembled by archaeologists, put back in the tombs and left visible but under shelter. Each mummy-bundle consists of a crouched, wrapped, body with an exposed head.

During Inca times, mummies of kings and ancestors were kept in the palaces and temples in special niches. They were dressed, "fed," taken out for a look round at festivals, "consulted" on important matters, and generally treated as revered relatives who still had a lot to contibute to the family. Like OAPs, just quieter.

This is a local guide with an Incan mummy-niche, probably used in the preparation stage - it is noticably colder inside than the surrounding area.

Sadly the Spanish invaders burned most of these Incan mummies as they found the practice offensive. (Which, given the Catholic habit of keeping dead saints on display in churches, is just a tad hypocritical.)

Which means that most of the extant mummies in Peru are pre-Incan, from the Nazca Culture (AD 100-800) for example.

This skull is an example of cranial deformation caused by binding the head from a very young age. (Pictures like this are occasionally hocked around the internet as "alien skulls" but that's rubbish). It was done to mark ethnic identity and social caste. Rather surprisingly, there's no evidence it caused brain damage. Nowadays, tribes that used to bind skulls just use distinctive hats.

Cool wig.

We also saw the very famous Juanita the Ice-Maiden in a museum in Arequipa. She's not actually a true mummy, just deep-frozen. Great museum, but no photography allowed there.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-10-31T09:24:00.000Z

Gah - the clocks have gone back. I need something happy to see me through the long darkness...

Cover art: Heart of Flame

2011-10-29T10:21:00.000+01:00

Yes - here it is! The cover for my romantic Arabian Nights fantasy, Heart of Flame. It's due out as a Samhain e-book on

December 20th 2011

and is scheduled to appear in paperback on November 6th 2012.

I hope you like the cover! - this is about the 4th version we went through.
Personally I think the model for my hero Rafiq is steaming HOT and I'm bloody delighted.
(And yes, they do go to Bukhara, in the story, for those who recognise the cityscape...)

Stepping up a gear

2011-10-28T11:23:00.001+01:00

I've been working my ass off this week (sorry, should have looked for a picture of an ass, shouldn't I?). I've subbed a short story, plus done all the edits on Heart of Flame (cover to be revealed SOON, I promise!), and today I've got backcover copy to do for, ahem, "another novel," which I can't tell you about YET but I'm expecting the edits for that to land on my desk any day too. And hopefully there will then be a big announcement with balloons and champagne and everything, as a whole new imprint is born...

Thank the gods for Change Manager. The days of covering galley prints with post-it notes and scrawl in different coloured inks have gone forever.

It rather looks like I'm going to have to keep this up, though. I've got one more short story to sub by December, but thankfully that's already written. The big task is, I promised Named and Shamed to a publisher by the end of the year and I'm only halfway through. It's going well, but holidays and various friends (you know who you are!) have been leading me astray down the primrose path and I've fallen behind schedule.

40K in two months? Eeeeeeek.

So if I'm not around commenting on your blogs or answering mail it's because I'm trying to work. Sorry! And if I am around, give me a smack and send me back to my laptop :-)

Peru : the Living

2011-10-26T09:51:00.000+01:00

[CREEPY-CRAWLY WARNING! Don't look down!!]

So I thought I'd share some pictures of cute and fuzzy animals that I took on holiday in Peru.

See? Cute and fuzzy!
It's a Chicken Tarantula ... so called because they kill chickens. It lives in rodent holes in the Amazon forest. The rain forest has an appalling number of arthropods, many of which take it in turns to be VERY LOUD right round the clock. We saw lots of Army Ants - the trick is never to stand still without checking the ground at your feet - but the really scary one is the Bullet Ant, which is a fast lone ant less than an inch long. It has that name because being bitten by one hurts like being shot. We were scared of those...

This is a Spectacled Cayman. They live in rivers and aren't dangerous.

Capybara - they are always attended by cow-birds.

This the Stinky Bird - the Hoatzin. It's about the size of a chicken and is just amazing. Its chicks are born with claws on their wing-joints, like dinosaurs. If threatened they jump into the river, swim away underwater and use their claws to climb back up low-hanging branches.

Away from the jungle and up in the Andes, this is one of the Condors we saw. They come up out of the Colca Canyon, where they nest, at about 8am, riding thermals and gradually getting higher until they can fly off to go scavenging on the high sierra. We were very very lucky with condor-watching and saw at least seven that morning. They were happy to come within a few yards of us.

There are several members of the camel family in Peru. These are Vicunas, the wild version. They live at high altitudes.

Alpaca are bigger with cute snub noses. They're domesticated animals used for meat and fleece and come in lots of different colours.

Llamas (which are tall with roman noses) are used for meat (tough), carrying stuff and luring tourists. I think it's a Black-Chested Buzzard Eagle she has on her head.

For fans of small fuzzy mammals - the wild Vizcacha, which looks like a rabbit but has a long fluffy tail. They climb all over the ruins at Machu Picchu :-)

And I had to include some tree pictures in this post. This is the Walking Palm, which shuffles ent-like across the landscape at about 10cm a year.

And for all you fans of dodgy-looking vegetables out there ... the Erotic Palm. I don't make this stuff up! Considered an aphrodisiac by the people of the Amazon, who clearly still hold with the doctrine of signatures.

Coming up - Peru: the Dead ... a mummies post :-)

Eyecandy Monday

2011-10-24T08:05:00.001+01:00

I just love her tattoos and blue hair. I think Alt Girls are wonderful :-)

Onward

2011-10-23T08:42:00.001+01:00

Today I shall mostly be On a Quest to Overcome the Powers of Evil.

I have 2 hitpoints and can't wear my glasses. This'll work...

Romance for Men

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

This is interesting: Ellora's Cave have opened a new line in romance novels - aimed at male readers. How about that?

Of course, men have been covertly sneaking reads of female-oriented romance books since the beginning of fiction (and quite a few have written for the genre), but I'd be very interested to see if it's viable way of marketing. Will men own up to buying romances? I can't begin to guess what the covers will look like, for a start!

Full details are here, but there are two statements in the guidelines that raised my eyebrows. Authors apparently need to change the standard style to concentrate on:

More of what men want or need from women: sex, love, acceptance, admiration, dirty talk; less of what they don't need (judgment, drama, expectation of anticipating woman's needs).

And to

Remember that sex is largely visual and verbal for men (for women, it is mainly mental and emotional).

Well, I'm shocked. According to this measure I am, yet again, proved to be a man.

Darkest Peru

2011-10-19T00:17:00.001+01:00

Tastes like Vimto

Peru: it's really big. Not just across, but up-and-down, and then-and-now. You can visit islands where wars were fought over who got to own the birdshit:

You can drive across arid desert for hours, were no rain has fallen in a thousand years to wash away the giant prehistoric graffiti,

or go up (and up and up) and inside an hour switch from blistering heat to glacier country.

You can visit islands made of reeds, floating on a chilly lake on the roof of the world,

and then drop back down again into Amazonian rain forest that is just indescribably hot and muggy. And heaving with bugs.

And Peru is full of Stuff. Lots of this Stuff is actually left over from the ancient Incans, who - as well as inventing yellow cola - were famous for their astonishing stonework. They littered the place with fabulous citadels like this:

This wall, still standing despite 500 years of earthquakes, was carved without iron tools and laid without mortar. Every one of those huge stone fits the next to within a milimeter.

That much focus is only possible if you are on coca - which is still perfectly legal there. We drank a lot of coca tea to combat altitude sickness. Well, that was our excuse.

Tastes just like green tea

This is me sandboarding on my belly down a desert dune. That was SO much fun! Yet another failure to act my age...

Tastes like grit

And of course, here I am at Machu Picchu - yes, I had to get the classic photo. See that sheer hill behind the ruins?

I climbed that! :-)

Eyecandy Monday

2011-10-17T10:03:00.000+01:00

I don't seem to be able to get off this "back" theme!
Well, back and bum, let's be honest.

Peru photos on Wednesday, I promise :-)

Seasick Steve

2011-10-16T08:12:00.001+01:00

Happy thoughts, to a blues accompaniment :-)

My brief modelling career

2011-10-14T11:33:00.002+01:00

So ... a complete stranger e-mails you and says, Hi, I'm a photographer and I'm doing a project taking pictures of women writers of erotica. Want to take part? Where shall we meet?

What would you do? Well, if you're me you scratched your head and thought, Hmmm. Wonder if he's on the level. Dodgy lot, photographers.

Then you arranged a chaperone.

And it turned out that David Woolfall wasn't dodgy at all but really nice and decent and he sat me up a tree outside Pizza Hut and took photos for nearly an hour. It was fun - surprisingly exhausting too - and I've got some pics of me I'm truly proud of. Very happy!
I'm also slightly ashamed for having as many bad preconceptions about photographers as most people do of erotica writers. Eeeh, you've got to laugh.

If you want to see his portraits of Jacqueline Applebee and Kay Jaybee and K D Grace and a bunch of others including me, the portfolio is up on David Woolfall's website under "images" and and then "current projects", or there's a direct link here.

:-)

Scribble

2011-10-12T12:51:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, I'm late. I woke up and thought I felt like re-reading one of my stories from Dark Enchantment. Just one. Hah. Lost in my own book ... how embarrassing ;-)

Anyway, I thought I'd give you a peek at the story I wrote while I was on holiday, so that you can comprehend the horror and madness that arises out of not having a word processor. Everything on the left page is the actual story, everything on the right page is later corrections and additions.

Then I had to type it up. Yeurgh.

Eyecandy Monday - get back

2011-10-10T10:23:00.002+01:00

Well, she said: I'm back ... with a thousand photos to sift (be patient, my sweetlings), a head full of Foreign Stuff, and a gut full of unco-operative bacteria. Heh. Another successful holiday. Although I never got to see any of the Moche erotic pottery, curses.

I did however manage to write a short story while I was away. Longhand. On PAPER. Who could believe it?

Here are some more rather attractive backs:

And here's the new cover for Bound By Lust, the forthcoming Shanna Germain BDSM anthology that includes my story Being His Bitch:

(Full author lineup here.) Woohoo! Back soon!

I'm gone already

2011-09-17T08:18:00.003+01:00

That's it, I'm off on holiday. Back on October 10th ... with pictures of this sort of thing, hopefully!

That's Kindle of them

2011-09-15T09:18:00.002+01:00

So, The King's Viper is available on Kindle now! Here it is:
Amazon US : Amazon UK

Wooohooo! Another platform, a bigger market, easier to find on the internet, and all my novels are together on Amazon, which is lovely for me. (I'm one of those people who likes to have their DVDs arranged in thematic order, sorry.)

But (*whispers*) it's still cheaper direct from the publisher.

Red Velvet and Absinthe - Out now!

2011-09-13T10:27:00.000+01:00

Today is the official release date for Red Velvet and Absinthe: paranormal erotic romance, edited by Mitzi Szereto. I haven't received my contributor copy yet, which is immensely frustrating because this is an anthology I SO want to read!

"Red Velvet and Absinthe offers readers a collection of unique and original stories that conjure up the atmospheric and romantic spirit of the Gothic masters (and mistresses) but take things a bit further by adding to the brew a generous dosage of eroticism. Lie back and listen to the wind howling outside your window as you read these stories in the flickering light of a candle. . ."

So if you buy it today you'll be able to read my story before me - how about that? ;-)

My story? It's called Cover Him With Darkness and I just love it; I'm so pleased it was chosen for this anthology! It's pretty creepy, and the ending is a real knife-edge. It's set in Albania, where Milja - daughter of an Orthodox priest - grows up with the family secret: a prisoner whom she must guard, as all her family have done for centuries. Is he Prometheus? Or perhaps Loki? Or something worse? Nobody knows. But he must never be released ... not even by a young woman who falls in love.

I'm going to break with my usual practice and give you an excerpt from the start of the story, because I don't want to give away what happens:

Cover Him With Darkness

The first time I saw him fettered there in the dark, I wept.

I was seven years old. My father led me by the hand down the steps behind the church altar, through a passage hewn into the mountainside. I’d never been permitted through that door before. Inside, there were niches cut into the rock walls, and near the church they were filled with painted and gilded icons of the saints and of Our Lord, but further back those gave way to statuettes of blank-eyed pagan gods, growing cruder in execution and less human in appearance as we walked on. I clung to Father’s hand and cringed from the darkness. Finally we came out into a roofless chamber, where the walls leaned inward a hundred feet over our heads and the floor was nothing but a mass of loosely tumbled boulders. I looked up, blinking at the light that seemed blinding, though in fact this was a dim and shadowed place. I could see a wisp of cloud against the seam of blue, and the black speck of a mountain eagle soaring across the gap.

There he lay upon a great tilted slab of limestone, his wrists and ankles bound by twisted leather ropes whose further ends seemed to be set into the rock itself. It was hard to say whether the slab had been always been underground or had fallen long ago from the mountain above; our country is, after all, much prone to earthquakes. Dirt washed down with the rain had stained him grey, but I could make out the muscled lines of his bare arms and legs and the bars of his ribs. There was an old altar cloth draped across his lower torso; only much later did I realize that Father had done that, to spare his small daughter the man’s nakedness.

"Here, Milja,” said my father, pushing me forward. “It is time you knew. This is the charge of our family. This is what we guard day and night. It is our holy duty never to let him be found, or to escape.”

I was only little: he looked huge to me. Huge and filthy and all but naked. I stared at the thongs, as thick as my skinny wrist, knotted cruelly tight about his broader ones. They stretched his arms above his head so that one hand could not touch the other, and others held his ankles apart. I felt a terrible ache gather in my chest. I pressed backward, into Father’s black robes.

“Who is he?” I whispered.

“He is a very bad man.”

That was when the prisoner moved for the first time. He rolled his head and turned his face toward us. I saw the whites of his eyes gleam in his grey face. Even at seven, I could read the suffering and the despair burning there. I squirmed in Father’s grip.

“I think he is hurt,” I whimpered. “The ropes are hurting him.”

“Milja,” said Father, dropping to his knees and putting his arm around me. “Don’t be fooled - this is not a human being. It just looks like one. Our family have guarded him here since the first people came to these mountains. Before the Communists. Before the Turks. Before the Romans, even. He has always been here. He is a prisoner of God.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know, little chick.”

That was when I began to cry.

Buy at Amazon US : Amazon UK

Red Velvet and Absinthe Blog

Eyecandy Monday - rugby world cup

2011-09-12T08:28:00.001+01:00

I honestly don't know whether this makes me want to fight, fuck or flee.
:-)

Where did I put those Yellow Fever cards?

2011-09-11T08:14:00.000+01:00

We've started on our malaria tablets. Ah ... the vile, vile taste of holiday anticipation ...

Just Good Friends

2011-09-09T09:59:00.002+01:00

Well, I feel like a proud Grandmother! Or maybe the carrier of a virulent disease, depending on how you look at it ...

A few months ago a reader called Jennifer Denys wrote to me saying she'd been so keen to get her hands on my In Appreciation of Their Cox that she'd done her first ever download ... and that after that things had snowballed. She'd found a load of erotic romance she loved, and now she'd written one of her own. So I encouraged her and pointed her in the direction of the ERWA submissions page (Seriously, if you want to publish erotica or erotic romance, that is the webpage you need to start at) and wished her luck.

And this week, Jennifer Denys' first novella, Just Good Friends, has been e-published by Siren! She sent me a copy! Here's the blurb:

When Sam accidentally discovers Jessie’s secret stash of erotic romances, he is astounded but fascinated, so he pretends to be interested in this genre to persuade his shy best friend to start discussing her favorite erotic romances instead of their usual sci-fi.
Then, at one of their discussions, Sam stuns Jessie by suggesting they try out for real a scenario they are reading. Not having had a lover for fifteen years but intrigued to see where this will go, she agrees. So they begin to investigate various aspects that appear in the books, such as bondage, spanking, sex toys, etc.—not always with the same effect the author intended. Some laughs ensue, some tears, and lots of improvisation.
As they continue their explorations, Sam relishes his role as the dominant sexual while Jessie gains confidence in her sexuality. Soon, they realize they are more than just good friends.

This is a light-hearted, sweet, romantic story about a couple of book-loving friends with a mutual love of Sci-Fi (yay! nerdsex!). Jessie's buttoned-down in some ways, but their openness to exploration and to each other is heartwarming. The characters come across as really likeable people well suited to each other. A whole bunch of real books are used as inspiration for their games and I spotted In Appreciation of their Cox at the end of Chapter Five :-D

I'm just delighted and honoured to have helped inspire a new author. So go on - buy a copy. But be careful, you may catch the bug and end up writing one of your own :-)

Jennifer's author webpage : Just Good friends

Line up, line up!

2011-09-07T12:26:00.001+01:00

So, despite this being the year I swore to write a novel and leave the short stories alone, I'm not doing at all badly on the anthology front. My dirty dirty petplay story Being His Bitch has just been accepted for Bound by Lust, a collection of BDSM love stories edited by the unbelievably talented Shanna Germain, to be published by Cleis Press. I am SO proud to have my story chosen by Shanna!

Here's the full line-up:

Reclaiming Spring - Sommer Marsden
Being His Bitch - Janine Ashbless
Spring Training - Donna George Storey
A Preference for Deference - Allison Wonderland
The Heart of Chaos - Rachel Kramer Bussel
Under the Clock - Justine Elyot
Steps - Evan Mora
Brush Strokes - Kristina Wright
No Sleep - Kristina Lloyd
Crossing the Line - Dominic Santi
A Few Things to Pick Up on Your Way Home - Andrea Dale
Life Lines - Nikki Magennis
Marcelle - Alana Noël Voth
Whippoorwill - Teresa Noelle Roberts
Slave Sister - Vida Bailey
A Beautiful Corpse - Craig Sorensen
Eine Klein Spanking - Clarice Clique
Defining the Terms - Sharazade
Devil’s Night - Veronica Wilde

And here's the full line-up for Irresistible, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, which features my sweet sex-in-the-great-outdoors story Repaint the Night:

Twice Shy - Heidi Champa
Safe for Work - A.M. Hartnett
Repaint the Night - Janine Ashbless
Same As It Ever Was - Cole Riley
Out of Control - Karenna Colcroft
Warrior - Kate Pearce
Hypocrites - Alyssa Turner
The Pact - Elizabeth Coldwell
Exposing Calvin - Rachel Kramer Bussel
Six Eyes, Two Ears - Kris Adams
Renewal - Delilah Night
The Netherlands - Justine Elyot (Fancy meeting you here, Justine!)
Predatory Tree - Craig J. Sorensen (Ooh, he's got a J this time!)
The Mitzvah - Tiffany Reisz
After The Massage - Kay Jaybee
Pink Satin Purse - Donna George Storey

That's two stories about loving couples in a row. People will start to say I'm going soft!

... Until they find out what I'm writing at the moment, that is, heh heh heh.
After a break of about a month I'm back on with Named and Shamed, which is all about fairies and is NOT NICE AT ALL. It is getting filthier and more insane by the page. I am loving loving loving writing this book.

But I'm a bit scared of it.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-09-05T09:46:00.000+01:00

Bondage pic for Jo :-)

Troll Hunter

2011-09-04T08:48:00.001+01:00

(Ignore the ad for Priest if it shows up first ...)

I am just childishly excited about this one!

Wax on ... wax off ... werewolf

2011-09-02T11:04:00.001+01:00

Yes, I know it's hardly cutting edge, but I've been taking my boxed DVD set of True Blood Season 3 round to a friend's so we can catch up together and wallow in the eyecandy and the madness. (She's a Bill fan, don't ask me why.)

Episode 3 and in walks a new character: Alcide the werewolf. Wow. I think my eyeballs nearly fell out. He has, no denying, one of those everybody-in-the-room-stops-what-they're-doing-and-stares bodies. It feel churlish to raise even the faintest complaint.

But ... where's his body-hair? I mean, he's not a kid. He should have chest hair. And this is totally setting aside any issues about him being a werewolf and therefore (arguably) displaying appropriate animalistic features. Real men get hairier with age. I didn't know that at twenty, but I know it now. If you're an eighteen-year-old guy, having a chest like a freshly-moulded Ken doll looks fine.

But, unless you're Scandinavian -

- if you're bald across the pecs by thirty-plus it looks bloody odd. Or at the very least, clearly and obviously artificial. Our werewolf must make regular visits to his sister's beauty salon.

Ah ... I sense my lurking cultural conditioning. Men shouldn't preen is my underlying prejudice. It may be one that's getting more and more old fashioned. In February this year I was sitting in a jacuzzi with two Dutch guys rather younger than me, one a representative of Her Majesty's Navy and the other an armed motorcycle cop (I'm not boasting here ... Oh hell yes, I am. Heh heh.). Now, they were both heavily in favour of manscaping. Men should lose their body-hair, they agreed.

I wondered if my preference for guys who looked more natural was because I was British, not Continental.

"Yes, maybe," came the answer. "But also, your age."

*sigh*

Brought to (Face)book

2011-08-31T09:17:00.001+01:00

Buggery buggery, blast and arsebiscuits.

*sighs* Okay, I've joined Facebook.

I know: I've resisted for years. Vituperatively. Because what I really don't need is another addictive platform for my ego that demands maintenance and steals writing time. But ... I'm supposed to be raising my internet profile for the sake of book promotion. I am being nudged, with pointy sticks, in the direction of the Communication Age.

So if you are on FB you can now find the fledgling Janine Ashbless page. Whooohoo! You can't Friend me because it's a professional/author-artist page, but you can Like me, which I gather is a similar if unrequited thing. I have no idea what I'm doing, btw. You may have worked that one out. I will post ... er, stuff.

Inside a week I will be loving it: I know my weaknesses.

And No, I am NOT joining bloody Twitter!

Eyecandy Monday

2011-08-29T12:02:00.000+01:00

It's either soft focus, or I'm going blind from looking at it too long ...

Hayseed Dixie

2011-08-28T09:50:00.001+01:00

I saw Hayseed Dixie a couple of weeks ago at the Cropredy festival and they rock. Or whatever the equivalent bluegrass verb is. I'm not sure I'd ever want to buy a CD, but as a live band they are just the best - funny, charismatic, jaw-droppingly talented. Go see them if you ever get the chance! They show no mercy to the audience either ...

Only, not pretty. Never mind. They still won over our "black English hearts," heh.

In action with some more trad material:

Book review: Bonk

2011-08-26T11:50:00.003+01:00

A couple of years ago I watched this TED talk, online, by Mary Roach, and I was moved to go and buy her book. It took me a while to get round to reading it (I have too many books in that queue!) but Oh, it was well worth it.

Bonk: the curious coupling of sex and science is just the cuddliest, funniest book you'll read about sexual physiology in your life. Concentrating on the hard science rather than social history or gender politics, Roach takes a wry (sometimes flippant) look at the history of scientific study of that physiology, carried out by some very eccentric, obsessive people and often in conditions of secrecy, peer opprobrium and public outrage.
She has chapters on the clitoris, penis, orgasm, erection and surgical enhancement (monkey glands, anyone?) but keeps getting swept off into strange diversions covering sex toys and penis cameras, MRI scanners (she did it in a tube, for science) and sewing machines.

I learned a lot in the midst of my giggles. The book is just littered with weird facts you'd love to bring up at dinner parties. Like...

Foetuses masturbate in the womb.
Allowing for age, social class etc, the risk of death among men who have two or more orgasms a week is 50% lower than for men who orgasm less than once a month: Catholics priests die younger than Protestant ones.
Women get nocturnal erections during sleep in the same pattern that men do.
Not only are there penile, clitoral, vaginal and anal orgasms - there is such a thing as a non-genital orgasm. Orgasms during sleep are often non-genital. So are the orgasms of people with spinal injuries. Some people can do it by brushing their teeth, or sneezing, or just thinking about it.

Or - and this is a particularly good one for an uptight maiden aunt tucking into a bacon sandwich - pigs, unlike cows and horses, don't take well to artificial extraction of semen for AI purposes, so boars have to masturbated by human hand "hard and without let-up - for the entire duration of the ejaculation: from ten to fifteen minutes. You should see the size of their hands."

And sex with animals is not limited to agricultrual workers, on or off the clock. You will not believe what scientists get up to in the lab...

I totally recommend Bonk - for anyone into sex, or popular science, or both - so long as they have an open mind and a sense of humour.

Sale: Repaint the Night

2011-08-24T10:57:00.003+01:00

I'm (in) Irresistible! This anthology is edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and is aimed at women and men who want to share stories about couples. It's out in February 2012, on Valentine's Day no less ... though knowing Amazon it'll sneak out a couple of weeks early.

Blurb:
In this new collection of erotica, Rachel Kramer Bussel has gathered couples' most popular fantasies and created a sizzling, no-holds-barred series of explicit encounters in which couples turn their deepest desires into reality. These powerfully written stories meld the nasty and the sweet to fill 24 hours of sex—fom early morning wake-up calls, through mid-afternoon quickies, to late evening romps, Irresistible is filled with sex around the clock.

My story, Repaint the Night, is a sweet, positive one (Yes! I know you're shocked!) about a married couple who use outdoor sex in a daring act of sexual healing.

Goodness knows how long I can go on playing nice, so grab this rare example while you can ;-)

Pre-order at Amazon US : Amazon UK

Eyecandy Monday

2011-08-22T12:17:00.000+01:00

Something a little less in-your-face this week. I can do subtle ;-)

This is Russian marine scientist Natalia Avseenko, swimming with Beluga whales in the White Sea. Apparently she can cope with Arctic waters for up to 10 minutes.

Note that her fellow-scientists are not nearly as hardy...

What ... you want a picture of an underdressed man doing something amazing in lethally cold condtions too?

Okay:

This is Aussie Michael Kemeter, wirewalking 150ft between two peaks in the Alps. He went topless "to reduce wind-resistence," but kept his trousers on - honestly, what a wimp!

After the storm

2011-08-21T09:00:00.000+01:00

If you have bought a copy of my new novel The King's Viper, you may be interested in the notes I've put up about the book on my website - on the main page, find the "Author's Notes" button just under the cover pic.

Written well into the wee small hours over several nights, they include a ghastly writer's confession but are, I hope, not entirely incoherent.

Btw, this is what Severin looks like in my head:

Villain material :-)

The King's Viper - OUT TODAY!

2011-08-19T18:17:00.003+01:00

I'm so so pleased to be able to bring you my new baby - my erotic romance e-novel The King's Viper. A tale of forbidden but overwhelming passion, sexual frustration, and suffering for love, it's now available as a download from Ellora's Cave - in four wonderful formats, each more lovely than the last. And it only costs $5.95!

You know the set-up:

When Lady Eloise of the Isle of Venn becomes betrothed to the King of Ystria, she looks forward to a life of luxury and status at the royal court. She certainly doesn’t anticipate being shipwrecked on the way to her wedding, escorted by the King’s assassin, Severin de Meynard, the most hated man in the kingdom. Nor does she anticipate them having to make their way back home to Ystria on foot, through hundreds of miles of enemy territory. Above all, she doesn’t expect to fall in love with the cynical, ruthless Severin.

Eloise and Severin struggle to control their growing attraction to each other because if they do not—if she returns to the King no longer a virgin—then they will both be executed. Yet their passion threatens to be far stronger than their self-control. Severin and Eloise are torn between duty and their burning need for one another, and both will face bitter sacrifice before the end.

Well here's an excerpt. Eloise and Severin are about to make a break across the border back to their homeland, and on their last night they stay in an inn, pretending to be a married couple.

She hadn’t locked the door. Foolish, Severin thought to himself. What if he’d wandered away and another man had tried the latch? He slipped back into the room. Small oil-lamps had been lit and set at the head of the bed. Eloise was by the fire, wrapped in a sheet to dry. It covered all of her but her bare arms and shoulders and the graceful dip of her neck, as she knelt to let the fire’s warmth dry her long hair.

Oh God, he thought, dizzy with the pleasure of that sight.

“There’s hot water left if you want to wash. I didn’t use it all.”

“Oh? Are you saying I smell bad?” He felt so much happier in here with the woman he could not swive, than outside with one he could, that he was almost jocular.

“Like a whole pen of cattle,” she answered cheerfully.

“And where will you wait while I bathe?”

“I won’t look. I promise.” Her fingers stroked through her locks, picking out the tangles.

“Can I trust you though?” he asked with a smile.

She widened her eyes, pretending outrage. “Do you think I went to the trouble to wash, only to sleep next to something that stinks of cow?”

“Your delicate sensibilities are my first priority, wife.” The moment the word was out of his mouth he regretted it, but Eloise laughed.

“Then see you’re clean enough for me, husband.”

Severin bit his lip. Getting naked in the same room as Eloise was a bad idea, even if she had sworn not to look. He knew he shouldn’t. Yet the boundaries of propriety between them were so eroded now—by nights together, by fierce embraces, by exhaustion and cold and danger—that it was hard to see where the line was to be drawn any more. “Fair enough then,” he answered.

He stripped to his waist and poured water into the basin to wash himself. The soap wasn’t of the quality they were used to in Court, but it worked well enough to strip off the gray scum of dirt from flesh and hair. He didn’t hurry. His shadow cast by the firelight danced on the wall. He managed an awkward scrubbing between his shoulder blades with the washcloth and wished there was someone to do his back for him.

He cast a wary glance round at Eloise.

She was still bent forward over the fire, running her fingers through her damp hair to clear the tats. The tresses were steaming a little. She was absolutely silent, her face averted from him.

Of course she would keep her word.

Carefully, he stripped off his boots and trousers, wrinkled his nose at the smell of his socks and kicked them away. He placed the bucket on the floor and stepped into it to wash his lower body. The water wasn’t much more than lukewarm, but the sensation of cleanliness was luxurious. He scrubbed his legs and soaped his genitals, sliding slippery hands through his pubic hair. His cock was turgid with the thrill of illicit exposure, with the proximity of Eloise. Ignoring it as best he could, he bent to scour his feet one at a time. When he was thoroughly clean he stepped out of the bucket and reached for the linen towel.

He was busy buffing his wet hair dry when he felt the soft touch on the small of his back.

Fingertips.

A hot flash of shock ran across every inch of his skin, like the strike of lightning, and his spine arched. The fingertips shifted with his movement, an infinitesimal caress, and he felt the blood surge to his groin in response. He turned, and as he turned he forced himself to take a step back. Eloise clasped her hands to her throat. He met her eyes, and read in them shame and fear—and need.

So, said the small cold part of his mind that stayed that way even when he was cutting a man’s throat, you were not imagining things. And how are you going to get out of this one, Severin?

“My lady,” he croaked. He hadn’t called her that since the shipwreck.

She had her lower lip trapped in her teeth. She took a wobbly step toward him. He opened his mouth to tell her No, and at that moment she dropped the arm holding the sheet about her, and let the fabric slip to the floor. And then she was naked, and he had no words anymore.

The body he’d come to know by night and through clothing and by partial glimpses was every bit as sweet and slender as he’d sculpted it in his mind, but so very much paler, and scattered with flat brown moles like dark stars on a cream sky. Each mark invited the touch of a fingertip, the reverence of a kiss. Her pubic fluff was the color of sand, a shade lighter than her hair. She looked frighteningly vulnerable. His cock surged, filling with the blood that was draining from his head so fast he could hear the roar in his ears.

All that had been so complicated was, suddenly, very very simple.

Her eyes flicked to that heave of his flesh, widening. Scared but determined, he thought. That was how she’d always been, since the beginning. His heart was slamming against his breastbone. He hadn’t been this excited by a woman in years. And still he couldn’t speak, and could not move.

She closed on him and laid the fingertips of one hand over his hip. She didn’t seem to know where to look; not at his face, not at his rising shaft. She focused somewhere about his chest, even as her fingers trailed blindly to the hot column of his flesh, their coolness soothing, their hesitant touch inflaming.

No! He shaped the word in his head even as he reached out and pulled her against him.

”This is high treason,” he said raggedly. Then he kissed her.

Download from Ellora's Cave

"It is just so ... perverse"

2011-08-17T09:09:00.003+01:00

That's what Fangs, Wands and Fairy Dust said about my story, Forsaking all Others, in With This Ring. In fact this is the quote:

I enjoyed most stories—here are a few standouts: Janine Ashbless' 'Foresaking All Others' struck a nerve, it is just so, and I mean this in the best way, perverse.

Heheheheheheheheh. Isn't that just fabulous?
:-D

Other things in my life are, if not perverse, certainly bizarre. I mean, I'm braced for a certain number of odd e-mails from strangers, in my line of work. But the other week I was contacted by a professor from an Australian university - he'd found my picture of Galli's glass uterus on my blog, and he wanted permission to use it in his research paper on Simulators in Medical Education. (I said Yes, of course.)

So - I have, in a small way, made medical history ;-)

Other pervy news, in brief(s) ...

I've (almost certainly) found a publisher for my downright filthy vampire novel Red Grow the Roses! Yayyyyyyy!!! I will tell more when it's no longer classified as Top Secret!

Steampunk antho Carnal Machines (including my story, The Servant Question) has been garnering praise from, among others, Eden Fantasys, Kisses and Kinks, Erotica Revealed, Getting Naughty Between the Stacks, Night Owl Reviews, and Erotica For All. It seems to be a book that makes people very happy!

And last but certainly not least, Oh No -

My erotic romance e-novel The King's Viper is out THIS WEEK. Did you hear that? ON FRIDAY 19th AUGUST!!

Squeeeeeeeee!

Eyecandy Monday

2011-08-15T08:10:00.000+01:00

After last week's sticky eyecandy - not to mention a weekend in a tent - I think a good hot shower is in order...

Meet on the Ledge

2011-08-12T09:35:00.002+01:00

I'm away at Fairport Convention's annual reunion in Cropredy - which is a weeny weeny little village that hosts this one festival every year, and turns into a morass of ambling, amiable, aging folk-rockers. I may even end up watching some morris dancing, if I'm not careful.
Every year they finish with this song and we all hug each other and blub. It never fails to remind me how much I love my friends. I think I want it played at my funeral...

Back on Monday!

This is for Shanna!

2011-08-10T05:41:00.002+01:00

The New York Times, bless 'em, ran an article this week suggesting that writers of erotica are pasty-faced, furtive, compulsive masturbators. This has caused Shanna Germain to wax wroth and call us smut-pedlars to arms. So my contribution is a picture of me outdoors, with a healthy - nay, ruddy - glow, looking directly to camera. (If I'm squinting slightly it's because of all the light bouncing off the feckin' glacier.)

And what's more I'm not actually masturbating in this photo. No, not even a little bit.
See, I can stop any time.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-08-08T09:03:00.000+01:00

Chocolate sauce ...

... or honey?

(Oh, those forbidden carbs!)

TftD: Geometry

2011-08-07T09:56:00.000+01:00

I love the word "infinigon."

I'd like to Phone A Friend, please

2011-08-05T08:40:00.002+01:00

I'm so thankful for my circle of friends, for many reasons ... but one of them is to do with research. When I'm writing I look stuff up in books and online of course, and I draw on my own experience, but sometimes there's no substitute for asking someone else. Like this week, when I'm writing a story which references MMORPG World of Warcraft. How much research would I have to do on my own before I could answer the question "Okay, if you've got a maxed-out longterm player who's off on his own somewhere killing monsters in a repetitive manner; where might he be, what's he killing and what's the reward? Oh, and what titles might he have earned?"

In fact, as I glance over my ~~ego-shelf~~ back-catalogue I can see a slew of stories and novels where I've gone to various friends on a wierd and wonderful range of subjects. Just in erotica I've asked about

They're called "Pteruges"

And that's off the top of my head - I'm sure I've missed some.

What's next? Well, I've got this character, see, and he's very old fashioned. I need someone who can translate into Old English and get the cases right...

And what's more I'm sure I know someone who can help!

The King's Viper - release date

2011-08-03T09:36:00.002+01:00

Boy, when e-publishing moves it moves fast! The official release date for my Ellora's Cave novel The King's Viper is 19th August!

Download price: $5.95

When Lady Eloise of the Isle of Venn becomes betrothed to the King of Ystria, she looks forward to a life of luxury and status at the royal court. She certainly doesn’t anticipate being shipwrecked on the way to her wedding, escorted by the King’s assassin, Severin de Meynard, the most hated man in the kingdom. Nor does she anticipate them having to make their way back home to Ystria on foot, through hundreds of miles of enemy territory. Above all, she doesn’t expect to fall in love with the cynical, ruthless Severin.

Eloise and Severin struggle to control their growing attraction to each other because if they do not—if she returns to the King no longer a virgin—then they will both be executed. Yet their passion threatens to be far stronger than their self-control. Severin and Eloise are torn between duty and their burning need for one another, and both will face bitter sacrifice before the end.

Readers beware: this is me writing erotic ROMANCE. There is plenty of sex, but also lots of my idiosyncratic take on love. Let's just say, its course ne'er did run smooth...

Find The King's Viper here in all its agonising romantic yumminess.
And there's a link to a taster excerpt too!

Eyecandy Monday

2011-08-01T08:33:00.001+01:00

Mm. ... This is what I want. Anything more energetic is beyond me at the moment, I'm afraid.

A weekend of LARP and alcohol and I'm practically a zombie...

I'm at Maelstrom

2011-07-31T07:58:00.002+01:00

And since it's a Sunday I'm probably hungover by this point :-)

But I got my edits done first!

Sale: Heart of Flame

2011-07-29T08:10:00.001+01:00

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I've just received in my grubby electronic hands the countersigned contract for my Arabian Nights novel, Heart of Flame - now to be published by Samhain!

Brace yourselves for djinn and passionate romance, lost temples in the desert, horrible monsters, hot sexual negotiations, people getting mad at each other, ghouls (I love ghouls!) and swashbuckling and magic.

Colour me happy!

Guess what I did...

2011-07-27T10:56:00.002+01:00

Actually it was sort of a joke. I was going to a friend's birthday party and she'd picked an "Inca" theme. Fancy dress was mildly encouraged, though not mandatory. I thought about it, rejected wearing a stripey blanket, then decided that if I couldn't manage Peruvian, I could at least go for a Brazilian :-D

Hm. Do you think a weakness for puns could actually be a dangerous character flaw?

And for the record, yes it hurt. But nothing - and I mean nothing - like as much as when I had my eyebrows threaded that time. Man, NOBODY is ever going near my eyebrows again.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-07-25T09:26:00.000+01:00

So I get home after a week and a half to find that my Amazon order is being held hostage in a depot 2 hours up the motorway, my guttering is overflowing into the neighbours' garden, my drains need rodding, and the appointment I rushed home for has been cancelled.

The proofs for The King's Viper have been delivered and need doing NOW.

I also need to get the car serviced, persuade the doctor that my left elbow needs x-raying, and officially tell my brother that I'm not going to his wedding. All in the next 4 days before I'm off again.

Sadly, instead of wanting to step up to the plate, I just want to play Spider solitaire ... until everything goes away...

Yesterday...

2011-07-24T11:50:00.002+01:00

... we went to the ancient Roman baths in, er, Bath. At this rate I'll be back in the 21st Century by the middle of the week.

And if you look very carefully, you can see the ghost of a naked Romano-British bather captured on camera:

;-)

Hypatia

2011-07-22T11:27:00.004+01:00

Charles William Mitchell (1854-1903): Hypatia

The story behind this Victorian painting is pure tragedy. Hypatia lived in the city of Alexandria in the late 4th-early 5th centuries AD. At this time Christianity was on the rise and grabbing power from the old pagan institutions. Hypatia was a Neoplatonist pagan and a reknowned philosopher, teacher, astronomer and mathematician with tremendous status in the city and influence with its Governor. Being a pagan and a woman this earned her the hatred of Bishop Cyril (later sainted) and during Lent in 415 AD a mob of Christians waylaid her, stripped her naked, dragged her through the streets to a church and butchered her there, using tiles torn from the floor to cut her to pieces.

Mitchell's painting of course shows a romanticised and sexualised version of the moment just before her murder - beauty, nudity but no blood. Only if you know the backstory can you, the viewer, share in the sadism of the occasion.

I recently watched the 2009 movie Agora, which is all about Hypatia (though why they didn't call it Hypatia, I have no idea), who is played by Rachel Weisz as an obsessed geek.

It's a beautiful film, visually speaking - the depiction of ancient Alexandria with its decayed grandeur and the last remnants of its irreplaceable library is just enthralling. The Christians are terrifying - fanatical yet cunning, their appeal to slaves and the poor is clear because they bring hope, like all fundamentalist cults. It's the flipside of those old films like The Robe and Quo Vadis they show on TV at Easter, where the persecution all runs the other way, because it's set just those few years later when the boot is on the other foot. Power corrupts, of course. Agora is a salutory reminder that a religion we tend to see as respectable, sensible and gentle started out as no such thing.

So yes, a good film; not cheerful, either in its plot or its general view of human nature, but absorbing.

Where Agora and Mitchell's painting converge is in their romanticisation of Hypatia's death. The director can't bring himself to show her being skinned alive, so he has her - while the monks are looking in the other direction - smothered in a mercy-killing by an ex-slave who loved her from afar, and then just stoned a bit while already beyond pain. I do get that we don't actually want to see the murder, but once more it feels like a cop-out to me, lessening the sheer brutal mysogyny of the event.

btw: Historian's Notebook has an excellent post on Hypatia here
and discusses the Agora movie in depth here

Mega

2011-07-20T11:42:00.000+01:00

Yay! I've seen the White Horse of Uffington! I'm just delighted - in many many years of nosing around the historical sights of Britain, somehow I've never managed to get to Uffington by daylight, until yesterday. And it's beautiful. For those who don't know, the White Horse is an abstract figure cut into the chalk hillside. It's 110 metres long and is reckoned to be up to 3000 years old. There's a better (aerial) shot here.

From close up the "horse's" head looks like this:

We actually did a whole fantastic day of touring prehistoric sites.

Silbury Hill, constructed 2400 BCE, 40 metres high, took 18 million man-hours. Nobody has the faintest idea what it was for.

West Kennet Long Barrow, 3600 BCE. This was a tomb.

(Interior)

You may recognise this place:

Stonehenge, 3500 - 1500 BCE

The facilities at Stonehenge are pitiful. I mean, actually embarrassing - it's possibly the single most iconic sight in the country, receives thousands of visitors a day, and yet the visitor centre is the worst in the country: a tiny muddy carpark, portaloos, and a gift shop in a fecking tent.

I say, go to Avebury instead:

Avebury is a chocolate-box-pretty village that just happens to have been built inside a huge prehistoric henge and stone circle. It's a World Heritage Site and so attractive it makes your teeth ache. (Heh. Anyone remember Children of the Stones?)

Built 2600 BCE. Posted on a smutblog 4600 years later.

Eyecandy Monday

2011-07-18T08:14:00.000+01:00

Hairy :-)

TftD: public health message

2011-07-17T09:37:00.000+01:00

The shallow end

2011-07-15T10:46:00.000+01:00

I don't know about where you're at, but here it's scorchio today - too hot to walk dogs!

Fancy a dip in a pool? Fancy something short, frivolous and featuring a bouncing bikini-clad babe? I've got a new story up on my website - just go onto the main page and look in the left-hand column for the Free Story button :-)