Showing posts with label Wildwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wildwood. Show all posts

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Dream a little dream

Kacziány Aladár (1887-1978): A Dream

Back in the Olden Days, when I first started writing for Black Lace, they had a set of instructions for novels that specifically told you not to use dream sequences because erotica was already a fantasy, and they didn't want a fantasy-within-a-fantasy.

Naturally I ignored this rule.

In fact, if anyone ever does a college course on The Writings of Janine Ashbless, at some point in the utopian future, there's probably a whole essay in unraveling my use of dreams.

From the get-go I have used dreams in my novels, for many different reasons - as an inciting incident, to establish character, to foreshadow events, to reveal psychological truths, and (within supernatural fiction) as a sort of alternative reality that allows the characters to interact with each other.


In my very first novel, Divine Torment, our warrior-hero General Veraine has a dirty dream about the high priestess after meeting her for the first time (and being intrigued, but not overly so). That dream sparks a sexual obsession that drives the whole book, and then its sequel.


My novel Wildwood opens with a dream-sequence, because the editor asked for prologue which throws the reader into the thick of the action. I gave him a bonkers Arthur-Rackhamesque scene of fairies and woodland sex, during which lovers Avril and Ash are attacked by the malevolent Michael. Then Avril wakes up in Michael's bed - next to him and his fairy lover - and stares out of the window wondering where Ash is. That scene, which is actually a flash-forward to a pivotal episode later in the book, establishes the supernatural/fairy/woodland theme and the bitter love-triangle. All before the first chapter.

In The King's Viper (which is a non-supernatural romance) there is only one brief dream-sequence, but it is the first time that virginal Ella is shown to have some truly wild fantasies about the man she has a secret crush on. This is not just an innocent love!


I've already blogged about how the whole Lovers' Wheel Quartet was inspired by a dream I had years ago. Interspersed with the main narrative and its sexual and supernatural shenanigans, Liz is also carrying on a strange (and seemingly disconnected) affair in her dreams with a mysterious red-headed man who seems to be caught between life and death. In these books the dream-thread is a vital part of the plot and will have far-reaching, tragic consequences.


And in the Book of the Watchers trilogy, Milja has been at the mercy of demon-inspired sex-dreams throughout her life. Later on she finds that her developing powers as a witch allow her to create dreams which she can drag both angels and humans into at her whim - usually for sex with her Fallen Angel lover Azazel, but sometimes for more practical (and occasionally ruthless) purposes.

These dreams are not entirely under her control though. Sometimes they are prescient, offering clues to situations that are yet to arise, or places she has yet to visit. Sometimes she comes back from these "dreams" with mud on her feet. Dreamspace acts as an ambiguous spiritual world with its own rules and masters, and is never quite predictable.


Why am I so interested in dreams? I think it's because its the most powerful way we actually have, in this life, of escaping into fantasy realms just as we imagine doing in fiction. We take it for granted because we all do it all our lives, but when you stop to think about it, dreaming is REALLY REALLY WEIRD. It is conscious existence beyond the material realm, and that is just freaky.

Do I have naughty dreams myself? Of course I do - though not as often as I'd like ;-)

Monday, 16 November 2015

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment!


For personal reasons (of which, more at a later date), today's excerpt is from my novel Wildwood, which is about two modern day mages fighting over a wood with a huge secret, and over the female tree-surgeon who works there.

In this excerpt aborist Avril is doing some extra-curricular night-time tree-climbing:





With one last look around, I pulled off my top and dropped it on the grass, relishing the whisper of the breeze across my skin. My nipples tightened as if in anticipation. I stretched my arms up and jiggled my boobs, bathing them in starlight, intoxicated with my own daring. I dropped my trousers next, leaving them where they lay, creating a trail across the lawn from my back door toward my goal. Grass stubble scratched my ankles.  I shook my behind playfully at the moon. Scents of flowering woodbine and cow parsley and elderflower flowed over me, washing from an area of longer grass and shrubs beyond the tree: a perfume of early summer that I adored.

    My knickers were the last item of clothing to go and then I strode forward naked but for my shoes. I kicked even those off when I got under the canopy of the beech, feeling the husks of last year’s mast prickly beneath my bare soles. I cinched on my harness more by touch than sight and tossed the rope-end over a branch. Climbing naked, I then discovered, wasn’t nearly so comfortable as in padded trousers. Luckily it was a well-furnished tree and after the first scramble I didn’t need the ropes. I kept the harness on though; I liked the feel of the tight belt about my waist and the leg-straps that fitted snugly about my arse-cheeks and between my thighs. The torch I had hanging from a side-loop slapped against my right cheek as if in appreciation of the way the straps framed my backside.

    By the time I got right into the high crown I admit I wasn’t just flushed from the exertion, I was feeling wickedly horny too, adding the thrill of vertigo to the dizzy surge of sexual arousal. Adding to the scents of the night was the perfume of my own body. I found a place where I could plant my feet wide apart on two radiating limbs and hook one arm over a branch near my head. My back was to the trunk and my legs were spread wide, beneath them nothing but a drop of fifty foot to the ground and the cool air that licked at the inside of my thighs. It was as if I were inviting the whole of the night into my open sex.

    Go on, touch me.

  I let my free hand drift down to my clit, stirring the wet itch there to further torment. My lips needed little coaxing to part; I was a night-flowering blossom, heavy with nectar. Shudders of pleasure mounted quickly through my body.  I imagined what would happen if I should let go and slip; how they would find my body in the morning stark naked and legs spread. How shameful that would be, I told myself teasingly. Perhaps Michael Deverick would be the one to find me. I imagined his face stooping over mine, his eyes blazing with dismay and frustration. I imagined what it would be like to be working in the shrubbery alone one day, and then to turn and see him watching me with that lancing gaze. How he’d step forward and peel the tight lycra up my breasts and bend to bite my salty, grateful nipples. How he’d wrench my jeans down and slam me up against a tree-trunk and fuck me long and hard. Sex with him, I was sure, would be deliberate and prolonged; he was a control-freak. My bare arse brushed the bark. Maybe he’d make me get down and lick his cock clean when he’d come. Maybe he’d tie me to the tree with my own ropes and screw me as I strained against my bonds. Maybe he’d bend me over a fallen trunk and fuck my splayed pussy while my hands clawed at the leaf-mould and I screamed for more until the woods rang and everybody on the whole estate knew I was finally getting it, getting it, getting it.

    I came then, riding the storm-surge of chaotic imagery. ‘Woah,’ I breathed, blinking. An owl hooted its wavering call from the wood edge.

    Glowing with pleasure, I worked my way back down to a larger branch and settled myself comfortably. The smooth beech-bark felt cool against my hot pussy. I flicked away a spider that had the cheek to run across my thigh. My feet dangled in space and I swung them idly.

    From here I could see through a broad gap between the leaves, down onto the long weeds that had once been a lawn. The moon had turned it silver, but the shadows beneath the shrubby elders and the far tree line were jet black. When someone came into sight wading through the grass he was clearly visible, and left a dark furrow of bent grasses in his wake.

    I held my breath. For a brief moment – my head addled with moonlight and sensuality - I thought that I’d somehow summoned Michael Deverick. Then I recognised my ginger tree-hugger from Grange Wood. His dreadlocks were unmistakable. He was shirtless, and under that moonlight so pale that he seemed to glimmer, except on his left shoulder where there was a big dark patch.

   ‘What are you up to?’ I muttered under my breath, leaning forward to get a better look. His hands trailed through the flower-heads caressingly. Then my eyes widened as I realised that he wasn’t just shirtless; the waist-high foliage had been hiding the fact that he was naked. At this distance I couldn’t make out any details, but a momentary glimpse of the unbroken line of flank and hip made me certain.

    Bloody hippie, I thought with tolerant disdain. Of course: it was Midsummer’s Eve, wasn’t it? No doubt he was indulging in a bit of pagan nudity for the occasion. If I kept him in sight then I might spy on a bit of sky-clad Morris dancing or whatever it was these people did.    Of course the fact that I was butt-naked myself made it difficult to feel really superior. Then I caught sight of his companions, and I forgot to feel superior at all. My spine crawled.

Hilde Hechle, Moonlight Phantasy (1930)


    They came through the grass as he did, many of them, on either side, but they left no tracks behind them. Some danced, some skulked, and some slithered along barely cresting the grass. They were the same colour as the moonlight on the dappled foliage and it was hard to make them out; my peripheral vision caught the flicker of their movements easily enough but the poor light made them difficult to focus on if I looked directly. I thought some were doglike, some hunched and muscular as buffalo, some slender as gibbons. My eyes itched as I strained to pick them out against the silvery froth of the meadow and through the gaps between the clumps of beech leaves. I could only be certain of glimpses; the scimitar curve of a horn, the flick of an angled ear, the green glint of a pupilless eye. Only Swampy himself seemed to be truly solid. They were absolutely silent, not even the grass whispering as they passed.

    I’m dreaming this, I told myself.

    As they reached the edge of the long weeds and slipped out onto the shorter grass I lost sight of most of them behind the banks of beech leaves, though I was certain that one was a bear with a ruff of grizzled fur. It lifted its blunt muzzle to the air and sniffed and grunted before lumbering onward, out of sight.

    There’ve been no bears in England for centuries.

    The man with the red ’locks seemed in less of a rush than his companions, or perhaps it was only his own crude materiality than caused him to lag behind. One shadowy form dawdled to stay with him, dancing around him in circles that left no trail of bruised grass. She was easier to see as she came close to him, as if he loaned her some focus; a naked girl, whip-thin, with wild hair down to her shoulders and something twiggy protruding from that hair over her temples. I thought it might be a tiara until I realised it was branched horns she wore on her head, like the horns of a roebuck. He laughed and brushed her face with his fingertips. She twirled for him, head thrown back, blocking his progress with her slim body, twining her arms about his neck then turning her back to bump her arse against his groin. The invitation was unmistakable and he put his hands about her waist. She wriggled up against him, arching her back and grinding her bum into his crotch, writhing her head back against his shoulder. What man could resist that sort of offer?

  I felt warmth flicker into renewed life in my own sex. They were up to their hips in grass and I couldn’t see any detail, but from the set of their bodies it was clear enough what was going on. He braced his thighs and took what was being offered to him, hoisting her hips so that he could sheathe himself in her from behind. I squirmed on my branch. She arched forward and he had to lean back to balance her, his hands gripping hard on her hips, his thighs working with deliberation. She made a noise like the yawn of a cat and writhed her bum in ecstatic circles. I drank in the sight with furtive, guilty fascination: the shimmy of her tiny breasts, the gape of her lips, the smooth hollow between his hip and thigh, the hunch of his strong shoulders as he pumped into her.

  Bereft of those baggy clothes he was a lot more toned than I’d given him credit for. Good, strong arms, I thought. He was almost beautiful.

She was bent right forward now, nearly double, her arse thrust high under the moon. I’d never hope to be so lithe myself. It gave me a good view of his naked torso though, and the sheen on his taut belly as he thrust. He shifted one hand from her hip to clap it against her bum-cheek, clearly relishing the sound of skin on skin.

  Dirty boy, I breathed. My pubic mound was pressed against the unyielding branch and leaking onto the bark. This voyeurism was entirely new to me, and the fact that spying on them was making me hot filled me with delicious shame. I could actually hear both of them panting. I watched each thrust and imagined what it might feel like as he quickened toward his goal, his movements jagged and frantic until he groaned and lurched, grabbing her tight, his muscles locked.

  He was one of those blokes who really show it when they come. I like that so much in a man.

  Then she changed. I didn’t see the moment of transformation; I only know that when she lifted her head next there was nothing human about it. It was the head of a hind on the long neck of a deer, her fur as white as her skin had seemed only a moment before. Her velvet-tipped antlers tossed skittishly. For a moment he froze – as shocked, I assumed, as me. I forgot how to breathe. She kicked and bucked and danced out of his grasp so that he staggered and nearly keeled over, skipping around him in ever-widening circles, and from one spring to another I couldn’t tell if it was a deer or a woman tossing her antlered head and laughing at him in great silvery peals.

  I shut my eyes and pressed my forehead to the tree, clinging to its solidity.


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Monday, 13 April 2015

Blue Monday

Every Monday I post a naughty excerpt for your entertainment!

This week's post is inspired by this long and fascinating article on The Eeriness of the English Countryside which appeared in The Guardian. It cites several of my favourite and most deeply influential authors - MR James, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner. Thanks to them I have ALL MY LIFE found the countryside "eerie", and that's one of things I love about it: that subtle sense of creeping unease, of there being something unseen lurking behind the scenes - as the article writer says, it's about "the English landscape – as constituted by uncanny forces, part-buried sufferings and contested ownerships".

I've tried several times in my own books to evoke that feeling. Here's an excerpt from my most blatant attempt to write erotic Garner (!) - Wildwood



Avril Shearing is a landscape gardener brought in to reclaim an overgrown woodland for the handsome and manipulative Michael Deverick. But among the trees lurks a tribe of environmental activists determined to stop anyone getting in, led by the enigmatic Ash who regards Michael as his mortal enemy. Avril soon discovers that on the Kester Estate nothing is as it seems. Creatures that belong in dreams or in nightmares emerge after dark to prowl the grounds, and hidden in the heart of the wood is something so important that people will kill, or die, for it. Ash and Michael become locked in a deadly battle for the Wildwood - and for Avril herself.



By the time I got right into the high crown of the tree I admit I wasn’t just flushed from the exertion, I was feeling wickedly horny too, adding the thrill of vertigo to the dizzy surge of sexual arousal. Adding to the scents of the night was the perfume of my own body. I found a place where I could plant my feet wide apart on two radiating limbs and hook one arm over a branch near my head. My back was to the trunk and my legs were spread wide, beneath them nothing but a drop of fifty foot to the ground and the cool air that licked at the inside of my thighs. It was as if I were inviting the whole of the night into my open sex.

    Go on, touch me.
 
  From here I could see through a broad gap between the leaves, down onto the grassy wasteland that had once been a lawn. The moon had turned the long weeds and the lacy heads of the cow parsley to silver froth, but the shadows beneath the shrubby elders and the far tree line were jet black. When someone came into sight wading through the grass he was clearly visible, and left a dark furrow of bent grasses in his wake.

    I held my breath. Then I recognised my army-surplus tree-hugger from Grange Wood. His dreadlocks were unmistakable. He was shirtless, and under that moonlight so pale that he seemed to glimmer.

‘What are you up to?’ I muttered under my breath, leaning forward to get a better look. His hands trailed through the flower-heads caressingly. Then my eyes widened as I realised that he wasn’t just shirtless; the waist-high foliage had been hiding the fact that he was naked. At this distance I couldn’t make out any details, but a momentary glimpse of the unbroken line of flank and hip made me certain.

   Bloody hippie, I thought with tolerant disdain. Of course: it was Midsummer’s Eve, wasn’t it? No doubt he was indulging in a bit of pagan nudity for the occasion. If I kept him in sight then I might spy on a bit of sky-clad Morris dancing or whatever it was these people did.    He’d wrecked my quiet moment on my own though.

    Of course the fact that I was butt-naked myself made it difficult to feel really superior. Then I caught sight of his companions, and I forgot to feel superior at all. My spine crawled.
 
 They came through the grass as he did, many of them, on either side, but they left no tracks behind them. Some danced, some skulked, and some slithered along barely cresting the grass. They were the same colour as the moonlight on the dappled foliage and it was hard to make them out; my peripheral vision caught the flicker of their movements easily enough but the poor light made them difficult to focus on if I looked directly. They were absolutely silent, not even the grass whispering as they passed.
 
 I’m dreaming this, I told myself.
  
As they reached the edge of the long weeds and slipped out onto the shorter grass I lost sight of most of them behind the banks of beech leaves, though I was certain that one was a bear with a ruff of grizzled fur. It lifted its blunt muzzle to the air and sniffed and grunted before lumbering onward, out of sight.

    There’ve been no bears in England for centuries.
  
The man with the red ’locks seemed in less of a rush than his companions, or perhaps it was only his own crude materiality than caused him to lag behind. One shadowy form dawdled to stay with him, dancing around him in circles that left no trail of bruised grass. She was easier to see as she came close to him, as if he loaned her some focus; a naked girl, whip-thin, with wild hair down to her shoulders and something twiggy protruding from that hair over her temples. I thought it might be a tiara until I realised it was branched horns she wore on her head, like the horns of a roebuck. He laughed and brushed her face with his fingertips. She twirled for him, head thrown back, blocking his progress with her slim body, twining her arms about his neck then turning her back to bump her arse against his groin. The invitation was unmistakable and he put his hands about her waist. She wriggled up against him, arching her back and grinding her bum into his crotch, writhing her head back against his shoulder. What man could resist that sort of offer?
  
I felt warmth flicker into renewed life in my own sex. They were up to their hips in grass and I couldn’t see any detail, but from the set of their bodies it was clear enough what was going on. He braced his thighs and took what was being offered to him, hoisting her hips so that he could sheathe himself in her from behind. I squirmed on my branch. She arched forward and he had to lean back to balance her, his hands gripping hard on her hips, his thighs working with deliberation. She made a noise like the yawn of a cat and writhed her bum in ecstatic circles. I drank in the sight with furtive, guilty fascination: the shimmy of her tiny breasts, the gape of her lips, the smooth hollow between his hip and thigh, the hunch of his strong shoulders as he pumped into her.
  
Bereft of those baggy clothes he was a lot more toned than I’d given him credit for. Good, strong arms, I thought. He was almost beautiful.

She was bent right forward now, nearly double, her arse thrust high under the moon. I’d never hope to be so lithe myself. It gave me a good view of his naked torso though, and the sheen on his taut belly as he thrust. He shifted one hand from her hip to clap it against her bum-cheek, clearly relishing the sound of skin on skin.

Dirty boy, I breathed. My pubic mound was pressed against the unyielding branch and leaking onto the bark. This voyeurism was entirely new to me, and the fact that spying on them was making me hot filled me with delicious shame. I could actually hear both of them panting. I watched each thrust and imagined what it might feel like as he quickened toward his goal, his movements jagged and frantic until he groaned and lurched, grabbing her tight, his muscles locked.

He was one of those blokes who really show it when they come. I like that so much in a man.

Then she changed. I didn’t see the moment of transformation; I only know that when she lifted her head next there was nothing human about it. It was the head of a hind on the long neck of a deer, her fur as white as her skin had seemed only a moment before. Her velvet-tipped antlers tossed skittishly. For a moment he froze – as shocked, I assumed, as me. I forgot how to breathe. She kicked and bucked and danced out of his grasp so that he staggered and nearly keeled over, skipping around him in ever-widening circles, and from one spring to another I couldn’t tell if it was a deer or a woman tossing her antlered head and laughing at him in great silvery peals.

I shut my eyes and pressed my forehead to the tree, clinging to its solidity.


Amazon US : Amazon UK

Monday, 24 February 2014

My Writing Process blog-hop

There's no Eyecandy Monday today! That's because last week I was tagged by Kristina Lloyd for a literary blog-hop and I have to give my answers. So today - What I'm working on, How and Why:


 1) What am I working on?

I'm writing the first 30K novella of four in a series I'm calling The Wheel of the Year. I've got a hard deadline for submission by the end of March, which is going to be ... testing.
The main plot-arc is about a young woman who reluctantly goes off to live with her Great Aunt Moira in a really weird old house in the middle of the country. It's just like those fantasy adventures I used to read as a kid, isn't it?
Of course, the house is not just a house, Moira is not simply - or really - a batty old relative, and there's going to be a ton-load of sex in my heroine's future as she finds herself plunged into legend that will not die, myth that is live and kicking, and a destiny that will change the world.

This is going to be supernatural erotica with a slow build, but not romance, and the idea is to take my heroine on a sexual journey from vanilla to kink as her sexual horizons expand and her self-knowledge grows. It's very pagan. I've been reading up on astrology and tree-magic and Robert Graves and I've been tearing bloody chunks out of all of them as I mold them to my evil will.

Oh, and The Wheel of the Year has turned out to be linked to Wildwood too. It's almost a prequel. This may be a lifelong plot-arc spread over many publishers!



2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Most hardcore erotica writers don't do fantasy - they leave that to the romanticists.
Most paranormal fantasy writers write urban, American and kickass - I've lost track of the number of gun-toting bounty hunters with vampire buddies there are out there in Seattle/Boston/Baton Rouge/NYC/wherethefeckeverUSA - but my worlds and characters are more rural, British and smartass.

So I'm niche, you might say. I'm the nichiest niche writer ever. Watch me not give a crap. Write what you love! You have a hankering for blisteringly dirty troll-sex? Well, read Named and Shamed. You want a freaky trip into deep woodsy legend, Green Men and Camelot and the rites of nature? Hold on for The Wheel of the Year.


3) Why do I write what I do?

Oops, I've already answered that, I think. I write my folklore-fantasy-porn because practically no one else is doing it, and that's what I want to read. I write about sex because I think it's one of the primary motivators in human existence and the most incredible joys in life. I write to make the world look more magical.


4) How does my writing process work?

My successful routine (on a good day), is to grab a cup of tea when I wake up and go straight back to bed to write, until noon and hungry dogs drive me out. I get showered, which is when creative insight will creep up me - snippets of conversation, small details that need to inserted into what's already written, and of course the vital next scene. That gives me enough material to write for a few hours again in the afternoon or evening.
I use a lot of hot water.
I don't plan ahead: I start with mental pictures (I'm very visual), and let the plot evolve on the subconscious level to weave those critical moments together.
I used to read back every day over what I'd written, but I've found that slows me down too much - so unless I have a particular detail I need to change I'm now leaving the tweaking until the first draft is done.

So that's why my blogging is likely to be pretty terse for the next month!
xxx
Janine

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

When trainspotters go green


Snowdrops in my local churchyard

This year, I won't be able to just hide indoors and write! I've got to get outdoors and keep my eyes open. I'm writing a new book (more details next week) and, like Wildwood, it is very much rooted in the countryside. More than that, it's particularly concerned with the changes that take place in nature throughout the year.

January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.
 April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daises at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.

(from The Months, by Sara Coleridge)

Did you know there's a special name for that as a scientific study? Phenology is the discipline of recording periodic natural events (the first cuckoo-call, the last leaf-drop, the day the hawthorn blooms) over many years. The Japanese have been doing it from the 8th Century out of a fascination with cherry-blossom. In the West its invention is attributed to Robert Marsham, who kept records of the "Indications of Spring" on his Norfolk estate in the C18th for 62 years. It's a nerd thing, obviously.


Obviously, phenomena vary from place to place - up here in the North of the Land of Mud, we're at least a couple of weeks behind the balmy (if sodden) South for spring flowers of every type. But the more observations you can record, and the larger the area they are recorded over, the broader and better a picture you build up of the natural cycles. This is particularly important when it comes to Climate Change, because we can look back over decades and centuries and see the shifts.

As a writer, what I'm interested in is the detail. so I've started to keep an unscientific little database of my own, recording what I see this year.
Yesterday, for example, was the first day that I swear it felt like Spring :-)

Okay, so I love snowdrops.

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

Sticky books


There's a meme going round on Facebook at the moment where people list the ten books that have "stuck with them" - not necessarily their favourite books, or the ones they think are best written, but the ones that stuck in their heads and changed the way they saw the world.

So here's my list. I refuse to whittle it down to just ten though.

Seven Sticky Books from my Childhood:


  • The Hobbit, by J R R Tolkien - A primer in the concept that "friends don't always stick together, and good guys don't always survive." Anyone who describes this book as lighthearted fun for kids just hasn't read to the end.
  • The Silver Chair by C S Lewis - Out of all the Narnia books, this was my favourite. The landscapes seemed very real to me, and I liked the ballsy female lead Jill. It was also about this point that I realised that I just didn't like Aslan.
  • The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper - second book of the series of the same name, this novel was written when Cooper was living in America, out of an intense nostalgia for the England she'd left behind. As well as a tale of Ancient Dark Forces and a magical child coming into his power, it is also   an extraordinary mystical/mythical evocation of the British (middle-class) Christmas.
  • The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner - Another fantasy series rooted in the British landcape. Garner's books were the direct inspiration behind my novel Wildwood.
  • The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K LeGuin - the middle book of the Earthsea trilogy (as it was then), this is almost - but not quite - a romance. The direct inspiration behind my novel Divine Torment.
  • Bless the Beasts and Children by Glendon Swarthout - a rather brutal American tale of outcast teenage boys who make it their mission to save a bunch of buffalo from the cull. I think this was pivotal in solidifying my pro-animal-rights attitude.
  • Slave of the Huns by Geza Gardonyi - sounds like a romance title , but is actually a historical with an Unrequited Lurv plot-driver. Fantastic scenes of battle, including prep and ghastly aftermath. 

  Six from my Teenaged Years:


  • The Lord of the Rings, by J R R Tolkien - of course. I actually started the first volume when I was 10, but it kept me company throughout my teens.
  • Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake - this fantasy novel is the nearest thing to something "literary" on this list. What I learned from it was the importance of world-building.
  • The Ghost Stories of M R James - read in an upstairs alcove in my local library, one at a time ... looking repeatedly over my shoulder in terror. This book made me start writing supernatural horror stories. See the MRJ in my story Cold Hands, Warm Heart.
  • At the Mountains of Madness by H P Lovecraft - read at 18, the start of a literary love-affair that has lasted all my life. Above all others, the Lovecraftian fantasy worldview has an ability to infect real life with a sense of pleasurable awe and dread and paranoia.  
  • Till We Have Faces by C S Lewis - A re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth in harsh bronze-age terms. Totally unlike anything else he wrote, with a fabulous female narrator, it influenced my own writing enormously - you can see it clearly in my story The Red Thread.
  • The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter - oh my goodness, how much of my work depends on my seventeen-year-old-self's discovery of this incredible, lyrical collection of fairy stories?! See it very obviously in ... Gold, On Snow.

Five that stuck with me as an Adult:


  • Avalon Nights by Sophie Danson - This is the book that started me writing erotica!
  • Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore - one of the very few writers I read for the joy of his prose, regardless of  the subject matter. This linked-story collection spanning only a few square miles but thousands of years (most of them pretty grim) is just haunting. The "mosaic novel" is a structure I adopted for Red Grow the Roses.
  • Angels of Darkness by Gav Thorpe - This is a left-fielder. It's actually a Warhammer 40,000 novel tie-in, and I have zero interest in that sub-genre. I only picked the book up to have something to read in the loo before going to bed. By 2 a.m, as I finished the last lines, I was almost physically shaken. I have no idea whether it would stand re-reading in the cold light of day; all I know is that in the middle of the night the bleak conclusion hit me like a ton of bricks. I want to write an ending that powerful! Just, not for a romance...!
  • Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis -  a fantasy time-travel tale about the Black Death. I wept buckets.
  • Into Thin Air by John Krakauer - yes, I know it's not fiction. The true account of a particularly lethal week on Everest. I'm not a mountaineer and I have no desire to be one. But this book is about human nature at the absolute edge of survival. Extreme tenacity, courage, stupidity, selfishness, altruism, individuality, self-sacrifice - all the moral questions are here. Jaw-dropping.

So yeah, nothing "literary" or Grown Up. And many a bit on the dark side.
I'm fine with that :-)

Friday, 11 October 2013

Have I made a terrible mistake?


This is an excerpt from a 2-star review for Red Grow the Roses on Amazon.com:
"It hurts me to say I didn't care for this book. At all.
I have read a couple of this author's other books [Heart of Flame, The King's Viper ] and REALLY LOVED them, but so much of this just wasn't for me. I like erotica, but I'm just not into shame, and rape, and whatever like that. I like sexy sex between two people who WANT it with each other. Sadly, that is only present here a small portion of the time. So the rest just made my skin crawl."

Ouch. Poor reader. I mean it - what a disappointment for her! - and I'm not in the business of trying to disappoint my readers.

Actually, I feel this is my fault entirely. The reader has started with two of my American publications - for Samhain and for Ellora's Cave - and she's really enjoyed them (AND written enthusiastic reviews online, which makes me feel worse). Coincidentally, they're the two novels I've written which are not straightforward erotica. They've got plenty of sex in them, oh sure, but the focus is on the growing love relationships, so they're technically romance despite the copious bloodshed and anal sex, and both have Happy Ever After endings.

Then the poor reader has (Yay!) tried one of my other books. And she's found out that my other novels just aren't genre romance. There is a HFN ending for trying-to-be-good-guys Reynauld and Amanda in Red Grow the Roses, I suppose ... but only after they've been horribly morally compromised and it's been made clear that they're inevitably going to get worse. We're talking about vampires here, guys.

So, the thing is ... should I have written the more optimistic and romantic stuff on my spectrum under a different name? Is it fair to lure innocent romance fans into the murkier depths of my erotic imagination?

Certainly other authors have made this distinction. KD Grace writes her genre romance as "Grace Marshall". Kay Jaybee is branching out into the sweet stuff as "Jenny Kane".

Should I have done the same?  Should I have had a "Janet Ashey" pseudonym?

And yet ... where do I draw the line between erotica and romance? I write what appeals to me at the time, and sometimes it's heavy on the emotion and sometimes it's heavy on the kink, and sometimes it's heavy on both. If anything, my romance is more likely to be angsty and doom-laden than my erotica. Wildwood has a blossoming romance relationship, but I'd definitely call it erotica. I'd put The King's Viper in sort of the same category, even though it's a lot more monogamous and the heroine's a virgin. Argh, does virginity change everything?

I'm all torn and confused!

Future publication Cover Him With Darkness is intended to be a non-erotica trilogy, by the way. It has kinky sex and domination, but it's all about the characters and how they relate (and  how they are trying not to get killed by each other). I may be getting deeper into the mire of confusion here.

I have to be philosophical about this, I guess. I tell myself:
1) It's too late now.
and
2) At least she didn't pick up Named and Shamed...


And BTW, at the World Fantasy Convention this year, I'm going to be on a panel that discusses precisely this topic.
SUN 11:00 am–Noon
By Any Other Name: What Makes an Author Change Their Byline?
These days even J.K. Rowling is doing it with a pseudonymous crime novel! Is it always a good idea when an author publishes their work under a different name? Is this solely a creative or marketing decision, or are there other reasons—and repercussions—when writers allow their work to appear under an alias?



Friday, 5 April 2013

Briterotica


Today I'm doing my bit for the fabulous Justine Elyot's "Briterotica" blog-post series, where she asks British authors to talk specifically about how living in this country has influenced their writing. In that context, the obvious book for me to highlight is Wildwood, my contemporary earth-magic novel of rival sorcerers and tree surgery ;-) It's set in deepest rural England (and a bit in London) and is just full of Weather.

(I so wanted the strapline to be "He's Got Wood"... it didn't fly, sadly!)

Here's the post

Book available at:
Amazon UK
Amazon US

Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Wild Enchantments preview

New Improved Shakespeare, with better sex! (Miranda, The Tempest by John William Waterhouse, 1916)
Since I have surrendered my manuscript of Wild Enchantments to the fickle arms of Fate, and can no longer change my darling, I thought I'd give you a sneaky glimpse of the stories therein:


1) Too Much of Water
A bittersweet fairy tale with a historical Russian setting, Ivan the Terrible and a nasty supernatural Thing.
 2)  Bolt Hole
My zombie apocalypse story! Features dirty desperate shaven-headed people and lots of sweat.
3) The King in the Wood
A historical set in ancient Rome. Escaped slaves and weird religious rituals. Desperate dirty long-haired guy...
4) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
A contemporary setting (I had to do one): modern London, but in the same universe as Wildwood and Named and Shamed: magic has come back. This is a scary hardcore piece with an unsympathetic narrator. He gets what's coming to him though, when he tries to make use of the succubus his boss holds captive. Bad, bad idea.
5) Sycorax
My riff on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Miranda wasn't as innocent as Shakespeare made out, you know.
6) Knight Takes Queen
A King Arthur tale, with spanking. Lots of spanking.
7) At Usher’s Well
A melancholy ghost story with a historical setting – early 16th century Scotland. Yes, undead sex. And I went a bit crazy with the Scots dialect.
8) The Military Mind
SF – future war - with aliens and guns and stuff. Also two gangbangs. There may be some sweaty shaven-haired guys too ... I've been channelling Kristina Lloyd, clearly.
9) A Man’s Best Friend
Look! Some erotic ROMANCE!! Water Margin-esque faux-Ancient-China fantasy setting; a warrior travels thousands of miles to tell a widow some bad news ... (That she is a widow, basically).
10) The Merry Maid
A nice happy fairy tale. You'll need it after that lot! There were these three brothers and a magic porridge spoon...

And that's All She Wrote.
:-)

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Oh - Kay!


Heh. That's a well-placed rose!

Today I'm over at Kay Jaybee's blog, talking about Named and Shamed and how it links to my previous novel Wildwood.

Wildwood, btw, got the nuclear bomb-blast of all reviews some years back, when a deeply traumatised lady reviewer on some romance website described it with apoplectic outrage as "The worst book I've read this year, and one of the five worst books I've ever read in my life."

I think she may have been a little offended by all the sex. It's a good job she's never going to read Named and Shamed, because I think that would probably kill her stone dead.

Wildwood at Amazon US : Amazon UK

Thursday, 12 April 2012

Coffee and Porn guest post


Ooh - I'm the Thursday Thing over at Coffee and Porn in the Morning* today!

My Thing is minotaurs. That's "Taurens", if you're under 30. Cue snippets from my beastly writings...

Coffee & Porn is a great site - every day it gifts the world with assorted postings of eyecandy (male, female, m/f, m/m, f/f, includes naughty bits, but always pretty and arty), plus coffee cups, and random musings by different people. Lots of perky caffeinated fun to keep you going through the day, and the NSFW bits are neatly hidden behind the folds.


* wine and sex in the afternoon

Monday, 19 March 2012

Eyecandy Monday - well hung


A few weeks back I was invited to the Naked Muse photography exhibition - a night of naked men (all poets), wine and cake. Clearly, they knew all my weaknesses. In a fit of giddiness I bid at auction for one of the pictures ... so now I've got my very own Naked Muse up on my living room wall!

He's gorgeous! Also, he suits my house perfectly. I could not be happier. And I'm sure visitors will cope fine ... won't you, Mum?

Personally I'm very strongly reminded of my hero Ash in my nature-magic novel Wildwood. That hair, that shamanic vibe...

It was taken by photographer Tamara Peel and the poet who agreed to bare all is Dreadlockalien, a.k.a. Richard Grant.

The poem that goes with it is called Love, the Blackmailer, by Penelope Shuttle:

All Love's demands are final
All Love's threats are carried out,

Love The Blackmailer with his ledger of secrets,
his I know where you live...

What he knows will wreck a career
or a marriage, start a war.


You can still buy the Naked Muse calendar (price £12.99) at Wild Women Press, with pics and poems. Dreadlockalien is Mr February, though it's not the same pic as the one I got :-) All proceeds go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Thank you to the lovely Vik and Adam (and the very sweet Django) for my beautiful Muse!

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Witch Wednesday ... part 2

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.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

News (in briefs)


My livebox wouldn't work this morning and Blogger is arsing around - but Mr Ashbless fixed it! So here's a quick roundup before it all goes horribly wrong on me again...
  • The Grief of the Bond-Maid is going solo: My Viking/shamanic quest/threesome story is, along with the other stories in Tarot-themed anthology Cast the Cards, soon to be available as a download on its own, at a dinky little price. Details in due course!
Anna Meadows
Ashley Lister
Bonnie Dee
Carrie Williams
Claire Buckingham
Eliszabeth Daniels
Evan Mora
Giselle Renarde
Janine Ashbless (with my story Cover Him With Darkness)
Mitzi Szereto
Rose de Fer
Sharon Bidwell
Tahira Iqbal
Zander Vyne

More details at the spanking new Red Velvet blog

  • Secret Project! I've been asked to write a paranormal erotic novel for a new publisher. I don't know if it's going to happen yet, but if it does, it'll be the novel that links Wildwood and Bear Skin. And it'll be illustrated. I've got my fingers crossed!
  • Porn for Women: If the subject interests you, do check out Erobintica's blog, where she has an interview with porn director Erika Lust and a review of her book. 
Now I'm crossing my fingers and hitting the Publish button ...

    Wednesday, 12 January 2011

    I bet J K Rowling gets this all the time


    Well, it's a landmark of sorts! We were shopping for second hand books in the many charity shops in town last week, when I found one of mine. First time ever! It was Wildwood, in fact. I felt it was sort of a pity that whoever originally bought it had not treasured it close to her heart for the rest of her life ... but every real author ends up in Oxfam sooner or later, lol.

    And yes, I bought it. Always good to have a spare.

    Then we moved on to the next charity shop and I randomly picked up a volume called Howl. "Loose Id?" I thought. "I know that imprint. It's on my online resources list."  Flicking through, I found a werewolf threesome. I turned to the elderly volunteer assistant. "This book should so NOT be in the children's section," said I.

    "But it's for teenagers, isn't it?"

    "Er, no. No it's not. It's all about sex."

    "Oh!"

    "I'll buy it though."

    "Oh thank you! I wouldn't know what to do with it!" At that point the assistant went off on a flustered rant about how she didn't know how some people dared drop off the books they did - seemingly oblivious to the fact that I dared buy it and she was really grateful that I was taking it off her hands.

    People, eh?

    Friday, 6 August 2010

    Tough Love


    I want to riff off a post of Danielle's today - not just because he paid me a huge compliment, but because it really got me thinking. Danielle was talking about his fear of romance (fictional and otherwise) and one of the things he said - Danielle's blogging style always makes me feel like I've walked into a cloud of butterflies! - was:


    i recognise the things what others think is romantic..but i m not always sure what people conect to the word...for me romantic is going and hunt a huge animal and lay it in front of my sweethearts door..there..look..i killed it just for you..its still warm!

    And anyway, my personal reaction to that thing that epitomises romance for him is that it's something that I wouldn't find remotely romantic. (Not just because I'm a vegetarian!) I've never really got the gift-giving and receiving part of romance, which I know most people do get. I mean, I like gifts as much as the next person, but even a hugely expensive pressie like a diamond doesn't strike me as more romantic than a kiss. Hey, I'm a cheap date.

    Nor am I impressed by carefully arranged surprise trysts in perfect locations with violinists hiding around the corner ready to spring out as he suddenly drops to his knees to propose. (Public marriage proposals on TV actually strike me as uber-manipulative and creepy.) The Big Gesture does not touch my heart.

    Yet I do write erotic romance. And what defines that romance for me?


    Pain.

    It's a theme that runs through practically every erotic romance story I write: true love is characterised by a willingness to suffer and die for the beloved. Blame my Christian upbringing, I guess. If you're someone in one of my straight erotica stories, it might be a bit scary but you can be usually be guaranteed to have a fine old time. But, oh boy, you don't want to be a lead in my romantic fiction, because there you will be in for a whole world of pain.

    My very first romantic story, White as any Milk: Black as any Silk features a wizard who falls for a hostile witch, and she puts him through hell:
    Then the wave recedes at last, with a terrible hissing undertow that threatens to drag me into utter blackness. I am left broken in its wake. I can't see. My eyes are full of blood.


    In Divine Torment Veraine gets captured, tied up, kicked in the nuts, bitten, threatened with castration and torture, left to die of thirst on a clifftop. Oh, and he loses his job ...
    In Burning Bright Veraine is smashed over the head so hard it induces months of hallucinations, put through a horrible fever, starved, assaulted by ghosts, captured and tied up, raped (but only in the first draft before it got censored...) then made to fight for his life against a superhuman opponent. Myrna is enslaved, pierced, tattooed all over, nearly drowned, and lives in constant danger of being slaughtered out of hand.
    In Wildwood Ash surrenders to his worst enemy and has his blood drained for a magical ritual.
    In The House of Dust the broken-hearted Ishara has to open a gate into the Land of the Dead to retrieve her lover: she's there subjected to all sorts of rough sex and humiliation.
    In Bear Skin Hazel is punished for betraying Arailt by being exiled, then having to run a gauntlet of sexual challenges to get him back.
    In Bound in Skin Cassandra is left penniless in central Europe, has to beg for shelter and a job from a shit-scary nobleman, then gets shot in the stomach and finally transformed into a werewolf.
    In Heart of Flame the two romantic leads get variously drowned, fatally wounded (yep), tied up and threatened, nearly eaten by ghouls, betrayed, beaten up and buried in an avalanche.

    Life is tough for a romantic hero or heroine of mine. And what's more none of them gets the person they really want till the HEA right at the end of the book!



    Oh yeah ... did I mention the sexual frustration theme too? Very romantic.
    Okay, I might be a bit worried now.

    Which is all to say that at the moment I'm currently writing an erotic romance novella. I'm having a wonderful time: it is safe to say that my characters are not. Starvation, exhaustion, a shipwreck, icy rivers, torn feet, attempted rape, imprisonment, torture, massive sexual self-denial and heartbreak - See how they suffer for my pleasure!

    Now that's love.