Jeremy

 Jeremy lyrics

So tell me how I managed to TOTALLY overlook the existence of Pearl Jam, heh?

Especially since they have a lead singer who looks like this . . .

Today the BBC, tomorrow the world

Mischief Press have officially announced to the world that they exist, and will be launching on March 27th (No, they haven't launched yet ... don't ask me what the difference is).

Which means that not only have I had my name (and Red Grow the Roses) mentioned in The Bookseller, but also on the BBC website! Whoooooo!

I will not let this massive international fame go to my head, I promise. I will keep it real. I'll still be the girl from the 'hood.

Applications are now warmly invited for the position of Ashbless Minion.
;-)

Prick up your ears

 

Protect your ears, people ... there's smut out there!  

Last week I was asked to provide a couple of snippets from Red Grow the Roses for recording by a voice actor. I'll let you know if they ever go up on Youtube as intended ... although to be frank there is nothing more embarrassing for me, as an author, than listening to someone else read my work out loud. I don't know why that is, but I just grit my teeth and cringe!

In the meantime, I recently discovered that there are several audio recordings already available from Audible that include my wicked words:

Cruel Enchantment  - my first short story collection
(sample listener review: "I was distubed by the images this author painted. Therapy might help.")

Alison's Wonderland (ed. Alison Tyler) - includes Gold, On Snow

Frenzy (ed. Alison Tyler) - includes Pirate Treasure 

Sweet Love (ed. Violet Blue) - includes Jump or Fall?

Best Women's Erotica 2011 (ed. Violet Blue) - includes Abigail's Ice Cream

The Handsome Prince (ed. Neil Plakcy) - includes Reckless

Happy listening!

Eyecandy Monday - al fresco special

 Swinger

We have sunshine here - so much so that yesterday we ate lunch in the garden :-)
All this Spring weather makes me long for the great outdoors ...

Bush

Deer oh dear

Triangles

If someone had told me this rule back when I was 18, it would have saved me years of angst.

Of course, the meme proliferates...

Goblin Market

The starting point for my forthcoming fairy novel Named and Shamed is the discovery of a very unusual manuscript copy of Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti. Which is, ostensibly, a narrative poem about two sisters - one who falls for the wiles of wicked goblins and eats their, *ahem*, poisonous fruits, after which she craves MORE AND MORE, and the other sister who rescues her.

She never tasted such before,

How should it cloy with length of use?

She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more

Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

She suck’d until her lips were sore;

Written in 1859 (when Rossetti was 28), Goblin Market is a most peculiar work - not least because although it was touted as a children's poem (and was hugely popular as such) it is full of sexually charged verbal imagery.

“Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,

Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Laura, make much of me"

Was this totally unconscious? Really?

And this is not just any old sex - it's incestuous lesbian sex! Which ultimately triumphs over the horrors of drug(/heterosexual sex) addiction!

Christina Rossetti was a very successful poet - she wrote the carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" - but she wrote nothing else like Goblin Market. Her interior life revolved around a particularly masochistic Christianity in which she strove to give up everything she enjoyed, for the betterment of her soul, and longed to be dead and safely in heaven. I think we can safely say her attitude to sex was not one of carefree indulgence:
 

Lizzie utter’d not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

But laugh’d in heart to feel the drip

Of juice that syrupp’d all her face,

And lodg’d in dimples of her chin,

And streak’d her neck which quaked like curd.

Goblin Market comes across to me as the last crazed firework display of her libido before she buried it forever. It's a moral fable, warning of how indulging in the "joys brides hope to have" leads to obsession, addiction and death.


But it's also a rollicking good read, full of brilliant rhymes and sumptuous temptations. The full text is here, among many other places - or you can read the poem and a lovely article on it over at Billierosie's blog

To enjoy as my protagonist Tansy does, read it out loud while someone gives you oral :-) But beware ... the themes of Goblin Market come back to haunt Tansy in a very personal and literal way...

“We must not look at goblin men,

We must not buy their fruits:

Who knows upon what soil they fed

Their hungry thirsty roots?” 

 

Named and Shamed - the cover!

This is it! - the cover for Named and Shamed. That's my awesome kick-ass Tansy with her red hair, and her dirty dirty smile, and her luscious bottom (which makes a guest appearance in almost every chapter). Florian has captured her personality beautifully. I am delighted. And I can't wait to see the interior illustrations!

I also believe it is my first book with an actual tentacle on the cover, so this is a very proud moment for me.

When's it going to be on the shelves? - well, according to the Sweetmeats website - THIS MONTH!!
WAAAH!!
 *faints*

Eyecandy Monday

 

I've promised to get the corrected proofs of Named and Shamed (including the extra 4K words) back to Sweetmeats Press TONIGHT.  Which means turning my back on the Interwebs today.

No Spider or Facebook until I finish.

Oh ... It hurts.

Issues and Returns - out now

I've been waiting years for the excuse to use this picture on my blog!

And now I have my chance, because my story Issues and Returns (see what I did there?) is available from Mischief press, in their e-anthology Exposure: those who love to watch and be watched. It's all about a library assistant in a university library (I wonder where I got that idea, ahem) who gets up to naughtiness among the stacks. Despite my pic, Kelly isn't actually a nymphomanic ... just bored out of her mind by her miserable bloody job.

(No actual resemblance to any of my past employment history intended. Honestly. You believe, me, don't you?)

"The highlight of my day was morning coffee, because if it was a staff member’s birthday she’d bring in packs of biscuits to share round. Seriously, that was the most exciting part of the working day."

I'm not going to post a proper excerpt on this blog because there's a great big one already over on the Mischief page for your reading pleasure. Enjoy - but remember to keep the noise down!

Buy at Mischief : Amazon US : Amazon UK

(NB: You do not need a Kindle to read Amazon e-books. Download the app to read on PC or phone)

Eroticon

Well, yeah, it's possibly a bit late to register now, as it's on tomorrow. So that's where I'm spending my weekend (Yes, driving up and down the M5 to Bristol). I'm excited!

Eroticon is a new workshop/networking/talking-ourselves-into-a-panic event for erotica writers and sex-bloggers ... which is an interesting combination really. In my (limited) experience the overlap between people who write fiction about red-hot sex, and people whose real lives are racy enough to sustain a regular blog about it, is ... not broad. We writers may have our moments. But if we had too many of them we'd be too tired (and too self-satisfied) to actually write, I suspect!

So, it's going to be interesting. There's going to be a TV crew there, I believe. And there will be wine and food and quite possibly a little bit of discussion about Paypal.

See you there, if you're coming!

Excerpt - The Auction

I'm actually quite shy and inept in social situations, and easy to embarrass. Maybe that's why I like writing about shame - the hot and helpless thrill of public exposure and humiliation. Fiction takes my worst fears and transmutes them into something not just bearable but actually filled with delight and power - which is one of the extraordinary magics of writing. Here's the science bit: we often write about stuff that we don't want to experience in real life. How hard is that to grasp? Apparently, for some people, pretty difficult:  if you've been unaware of the Paypal Censorship shitstorm going on ... well, here's a catch-up. It's stressing the hell out of erotica authors right now.

And as promised some time back, here's an excerpt from my short story The Auction, which appears in Mischief anthology Shameful Thrills: girls who should know better. It's a very, very dirty story even by my standards - and a really rough ride for the heroine. Enjoy it with her...

---

‘First time on the block,’ said the auctioneer, grinning. His skin gleamed with sweat. ‘Can you see that blush? She’s practically a virgin.’

She squirmed with shame as the catcalls and whistles rose to a new crescendo. She was wearing only tiny cut-off jeans and a deep-necked tee-shirt hacked off so short that it barely covered her breasts. There were big manga-style boots on her feet but they didn’t make her feel any less vulnerable, only clumsy and uncertain of her footing, like a newborn calf. Above the boots, hold-up stockings covered her to mid-thigh. They had been white to start with but they were stained with dust, and the lace was torn.

‘What do we call you, Red?’ he asked.

‘Antonia.’ The word seemed to burn on her lips. 

‘Sweet. You scared, Antonia?’

‘Please. . .’

‘You should be.’

Her legs nearly gave way under her and only his grip on her elbow kept her on her feet. The shift of her hips made the tight shorts press into her ass crack and she gasped with discomfort, but the sound was masked by the gales of laughter from their audience.  

‘D’you know what’s going to happen to you?’

She shook her head.

‘Of course you do. I’m going to sell you to the highest bidder, bitch.’ The insult was savored, and Antonia felt the heat run through her body like a shockwave. ‘Whoever wants your cunt the most tonight is going to get it. Of course, you’ll be lucky if he only wants your cunt—and not every other orifice. See anyone out there you like the look of, Antonia?’

She twisted her face away, shutting her eyes, but he transferred his grip to the nape of her neck and squeezed warningly.

‘Look at them. You’re here because you’re worth money to them. Look them in the eye—it’s the last chance you’ll get.’

She looked. There were—what?— maybe a couple of hundred people out there, men and women, standing near the front or sitting on the hoods of cars and lolling across parked motorbikes further back. Black clothing and leather predominated, where they had bothered to cover up against the night air. It looked like a scene from a Mad Max movie. There were a lot of grins, but not one of them reassuring.

‘One of those lucky people is going to be fucking you real soon. One of them’s going to own you, bitch. You know what that means? They can have anything they want from you.’

Antonia couldn’t help whimpering. She was shaking with tension and she knew he could feel it.

‘Shall we have a look at the goods then?’ he called out, and they answered with enthusiasm.  ‘Right.’ He parked the beer bottle between his belt buckle and his stomach—where it stuck up like a crude glass erection—and tugged a small piece of plastic from his pocket. It was a cable tie. Scooping up the smooth fall of coppery hair that Antonia was so proud of, he twisted it into a rope and secured it with the tie. His movements were swift and practiced. ‘I like to see a good handgrip on a slave,’ he informed her, wrapping the bright ponytail around his left fist and pulling her head up and back. Tears brimmed in Antonia’s eyes.

‘Now, I see we’ve got a good big pair of tits on this one,’ he remarked to the crowd. Retrieving his bottle, he took one last sip and then upended it over her breasts, dowsing both thoroughly. Shame burned through her body all the way to her core. The liquid was chilled and the smell of cheap beer made her head swim. She was aware of the sudden pull of her nipples as they tightened in response to the unexpected cold shower, poking out against the taut and now clinging cloth.

The auctioneer tossed the empty bottle back over his shoulder. She heard it smash.

‘Yeah, that’s nice,’ he purred, flicking her nipples with his nail to accentuate their jut and pinning her as she flinched. ‘Imagine getting your cock between these, gentlemen. Look at the size of them! And real too! But don’t take my word for it; see for yourselves.’

---

Buy Shameful Thrills at Mischief : Amazon US : Amazon UK
(You don't need a Kindle to read Amazon e-books - download the app to PC or phone)

Eyecandy Monday - and OOOOH! Look at this!!

I found this pic on Wikipedia, of all places. Education is a wonderful thing :-)

Another website of some interest to me: take a look at Mischief Press!  It's just gone live!

That means that you can buy Red Grow the Roses direct from the publisher, if you have some sort of aversion to doing it on Amazon (same price too!).  On the Mischief blog, this is what they said about me:

"This month we’re opening our account with one of the most original and thrilling vampire erotica novels in recent times – Red Grow the Roses by Janine Ashbless. Author of the now legendary Cruel Enchantment, Janine Ashbless injects freshness and originality and the most eye-watering erotica scenes into the ever popular vampire genre."

"Now legendary" : "eye-watering erotica"- now that made my cup of tea go up my nose the wrong way ;-)

Mischief launches officially to the press in March, so I'll say more about that later. But in the meantime, please do go ahead and look at their early lists, the blog and the preview snippets, and you can buy anthologies including my short stories too - here (Woohoo! - the page features a great big excerpt from my story Issues and Returns) and here.

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"Allow us to seduce you with Mischief, a new series of erotica and erotic romance ebook fiction. And our mischievous mission is to arouse your imaginations by featuring the broadest range of sexual and romantic fantasy fiction possible within one imprint. Four original ebooks will be published each month featuring contemporary stories written by leading authors across three formats, so you can dip in and out of our short story collections, turn the lights down low for a petite novel, or sit up all night with a novel.

Our storylines are about men and women, and men with men, and women with women, and women with lots of men. Mischief stories are forbidden pleasures and private thoughts and Mischief’s fiction is where hot explicit fantasies hit the ground running to discover a second life in your imagination. We’re available to all those women and men with a sense of adventure and an open mind. It’s our aim to be your literary harlot and your scarlet mistress.

BDSM, dirty vanilla, female domination, exotic locations, paranormal worlds, tireless lovers, wanton women, passion, the thrill of shame, kinky fetishes, illicit encounters, everyday and extraordinary adventures; we will deliver a broad spectrum of erotic fantasies and explicit romance every single month.

So read Mischief in bed, read Mischief on trains, read Mischief on planes, read Mischief on the beach ... wherever and whenever the mood takes you, and the tingle becomes an urge, it’s time to get mischievous."

I'm still proof-reading "Named and Shamed"...

... and yes, putting more naughtiness in. I'm surprised it doesn't burst at the seams!

Shorts coming down

I've barely recovered from a tipsy night at the Naked Muse preview and I'm off to take part in the More Bang Charity Reading Slam tonight, so I have to go practice my reading, but there's just time to catch up with story sale news.

I've sold three shorties (all around 1500 words) to Harlequin Spice: they're going to appear in a book edited by Alison Tyler but I don't have a title or a cover or a line-up or a publication date (given it's Harlequin ... probably not any time real soon). I believe there are going to be 69 short-short stories in the anthology. Mine are called Attic Moment;  Love, Honour and Obey; and Hare Coursing.

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I have an outrageous BDSM story called Teppanyaki in Anything For You: kinky couples erotica (ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel) and due out in August. Teppanyaki,  if you haven't tried it, is a Japanese style of hotplate cooking and my story is about a dinner party that would NOT feature on "Come Dine with Me."  Heh.

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And ALREADY OUT - but we've only just got permission to talk about the books -  are two stories in Mischief e-anthologies:

Issues and Returns, a exhibitionist story about a frustrated librarian (I've been there!) in Exposure: those who love to watch and be watched.

And The Auction, a hardcore fem-sub story in Shameful Thrills: girls who should know better.

More about brand new publisher Mischief and these stories next week, I promise :-)
Now going to shut myself in the bedroom and time myself, *snigger*.