New Year, new laptop

Well, it's a new year, so I thought I would treat myself to a new toy. Well, not exactly a toy, it's a bit of kit essential to my work, as my trusty HP Compaq is now showing its age quite seriously and I don't want it to conk out and leave me stranded. I've been fancying a new Lenovo for quite some time, so I finally took the plunge. This is my first widescreen laptop, and at first I was not sure I liked that, after being with 4:3 screens for so long... but now, I'm beginning to really enjoy the additional acreage and also get used to the new touchpad which seemed a bit odd to start with.

What am I doing with this nice bit of kit? Currently reviewing some rather old stories of mine, with a view to publishing them myself. Naturally, this involves a lot of revamping and polishing. They're not bad, but they were written at a time when I knew far less about my craft than I do now. I thought they were the bee's knees then, but now, I see faults and ways that I can make them shine and live anew for a new decade... well, new millennium in some cases.

So, look out for some new self published releases in the next month or so, when I've brought these stories right up to super shiny 2012 code!

ps. notice how Sherlock and John are keeping an eye on me while I work?

Two from Saskia!

My writing pal Saskia Walker has two great releases out at the moment that you really need to grab!

The first is a brand new Spice Brief, GOING DOWN 

"He was a confident man, subtly commanding, too. Would he be like that as a lover? Yes, I just knew he'd be masterful."

Jennifer hoped she'd meet someone during her six-month stay in Paris, but she didn't expect to find a captivating man like her neighbor Armand Lazare on her very first day. From their initial encounter in their building's antique elevator, he makes her feel wanton, excited and unexpectedly aroused by the way he takes control. But as much as this new desire unnerves Jennifer, she's even more eager to explore it—with Armand as her master....

More information here

The second is a hot free read, FORBIDDEN, exclusively available at Amazon.

Emmanuelle Forsythe is the daughter of a lord, but she's embarking on a secret, forbidden affair with her father's estate manager, Jacob Finch. Jacob is as much a slave to their mutual desire as she is, even though he has been warned off.

On the night of her twenty-first birthday party, while the banker who her parents want her to marry is ensconced with her father, Emmanuelle defies her family's expectations by escaping to make love with Jacob in the gardens. Her behavior is decadent and passionate, a brief taste of something magical that she believes she can never truly own. But Jacob wants more than one night and asks her to keep seeing him, whatever the consequences.

More information here

Why not treat yourself to these two and shake off the post Christmas blues?

FAR FROM PERFECT - print edition out today!

My contemporary romance FAR FROM PERFECT is released as a print book today! I've received my author copies and they are lovely and shiny and beautifully produced, so if you prefer the feel of a traditional paper book in your hands, now's the time to indulge yourself. :)

Here's the blurb:


Enduring passion, turbulent emotions, and an engagement of convenience…

Four years ago, Anna Felgate seduced Nick Lisitano, a family friend she’d known all her life and always had a crush on. It was only supposed to be a one night thing, and the chance to lose her virginity with an experienced older man and legendary lover… but one taste of passion with Nick branded her soul for all time.

Four years ago, Nick Lisitano had a single night of peerless lovemaking with the one beautiful young woman he’d told himself he could never, ever have. Scarred by his parents’ nightmare relationship, he’d sworn off commitment forever in favour of temporary liaisons, but he knew Anna deserved deep, enduring love.

A far from perfect match, the two agree to forget their ecstatic night and manage to maintain a cordial distance for four long years. Until a family crisis brings the two of them together again and Nick makes a daring proposition… that they enter into a temporary façade of an engagement, to lift the spirits of his dangerously ill father. Against her better judgement, Anna goes along with him, even in spite of the perilous emotional turmoil that she knows being close to Nick again will bring.

But with genuine feelings for each other, and a volcanic mutual attraction that’s just bursting to reignite, can Nick and Anna keep to the terms their pragmatic agreement? Or will the passion of past become a present affair… and maybe more?

Click here to read an excerpt of FAR FROM PERFECT and check out buying links at various outlets.

Of course, if you like a digital version better, there are also links to buy the ebook in various formats from various vendors.

A freebie for the New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Back to "to be paid for" status now, alas...

To celebrate the New Year, I'm offering AN APPOINTMENT WITH HER MASTER, a brand new to digital short story, FREE for two days via Amazon.

So follow the links below between 12:00 am Pacific Standard Time, 1st January and 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time, 2nd January to snag this edgy story of a young woman's initiation into the darkly delicious world of erotic domination and punishment.

Here's the blurb:

Shy, but secretly sexy and imaginative, Mary-Anne Green fantasizes about having her bottom spanked by a stern and powerful master, the beautiful, cultured hero of her wildest dreams. She longs to feel the hand of a dominant man upon her, punishing her flesh, then caressing it to the heights of exquisite pleasure.

It seems that these wild scenarios are destined to remain solely in her imagination, until one day Mary-Anne meets her dream master online. Their chemistry is electric from the very first moment, and their fantasies and desires a perfect, sizzling match. In email after email they share everything. Dark urges, wicked wishes... painted pictures of fiery, passionate punishment.

But what happens when Mary-Anne and her Master decide to meet each other? Will the delicious, painful magic survive the transition to reality? Will their intimate bond be all they hope for, and perhaps more?

Approximately 5,000 words/11 pages.

A much shorter version of this story has originally appeared in print under the title "It Had to Happen".

Download from Amazon.com

Download from Amazon.co.uk

An Appointment with her Master is also free to borrow from Amazon.com for the next 90 days, if you're a US Amazon Prime member. 

As part of the scheme for authors that allows us to make our titles free for a number of days, and allows free borrowing by Prime members, Amazon does ask that we sell those titles only via their web sites for 90 days. If you don't have a Kindle reader, you can still read them via the Kindle Desktop application here, and please be assured that after 90 days, An Appointment with her Master will be available at other ebook outlets and in formats suitable for all other readers.

All the very best for 2012! 

A new release from my writing buddy Saskia!

My wonderful writing pal, Saskia Walker has a naughty new release today, entitled WINNER TAKES ALL!

Check out all the details here at Saskia's blog. There's a sizzling excerpt there too, so rush on over to sample this delicious slice of superb erotic writing.

ps. you simply can't go wrong with WINNER TAKES ALL, because it's published at a super value price too. :)

A Gentlewoman's Dalliance - the cover

Here's my latest Spice Briefs cover. It's for the fourth - and sadly last - of my Ladies' Sewing Circle Briefs, A GENTLEWOMAN'S DALLIANCE.

Here's the blurb:

London, 1890

Mary Brigstock and her husband have no difficulty maintaining the passion in their marriage, but even the most ardent lovers crave new experiences. When Mary tells the Ladies’ Sewing Circle that she wants her husband to spank her, their worldly hostess arranges exactly what she desires: the services of an expert disciplinarian who can teach the Brigstocks how to make their wicked fantasy a reality….

Part of Portia Da Costa’s Ladies’ Sewing Circle series.

It's out in March 2012 and you can read a naughty excerpt here!

FIRE AND ICE - officially out today

A couple of years ago, himself installed a new central heating system in our home. He did a mighty good job, and since then, in winter, we've been toasty and warm, with a boiler and radiators that perform efficiently, economically and are much 'greener' than the old system. But, for the period he was doing the installation, it was very, very cold in here, because it was also the dead of winter when he did it!

I was frozen, bundled up in layers and layers, wearing a woolly hat in the house, even. But somehow, this chilly condition was inspirational, and I got the idea for a story where the hero and heroine too had to contend with no central heating in the dead of winter. In fact, it was actually Christmas, and naturally, it being an erotic story, they found other ways of keeping warm, even though the hero had a bout of 24 hour flu for the first part of the proceedings. LOL

The result of these endeavor was FIRE AND ICE, my winter/Christmas extravaganza that originally appeared in the Mammoth Book of Hot Romance. You could say the very anthology title *really* seeded the story line, as I just knew I had to play with the concept of heat - and its opposite - in the tale.

And now, I'm self publishing FIRE AND ICE as an individual long story, with a few tweaks and polishes along the line, because we writers can't bear not to keep tinkering. As well as a seasonal story, it's also a boss and secretary, or in this case, boss and P.A. story, because heroine Cally also works for the deliciously hunky hero, Innes, in between completely adoring him.

Here's the blurb:

Surrender to sexual healing...

Super efficient P.A. Cally Hobbes is head over heels in love with her handsome boss, the urbane and delicious Innes McKenzie. Day after day, beneath her cool, businesslike exterior, she's simmering hot for him, and she knows he's not entirely immune to her either, despite their perfect, above board working relationship.

Icy weather, a broken central heating system, and a dose of 24 hour flu suddenly change everything. With Innes alone and laid low in his frozen flat, Cally's golden chance to get close finally arrives. Innes is freezing, and she's burning for his touch, so what else can a girl do but climb into her boss's bed to warm up his chilly limbs with a dose of body heat?

An overnight recovery quickly leads to a very different kind of therapy... making all Cally's dreams of passion flame into life. Sex with her beloved Innes is everything she's fantasized about, and more. Much, much more.

But will their mutual desire and tender feelings survive a return to office propriety? Working together as P.A. and boss again, can Cally and Innes share the lasting glow of love?

FIRE AND ICE is self published via the Walk on the Wild Side Books authors' collective and if you'd like to read an excerpt, you'll find one here, along with links to buy it at various online outlets. 

And this is a picture of me in that woolly hat! :)

Ooh look, covers!

Isn't this gorgeous? It's my next Spice Brief, A GENTLEWOMAN'S PLEASURE, due out in February 2012, and the story of Lucy Dawson, bespectacled spinster, who has a delicious adventure when she falls off her bicycle. And almost straight into the arms of a hunky and mysterious woodsman called Ethan...

Read an excerpt here.

This one's my own creation, the cover for my soon to be released Christmas/Winter story, FIRE AND ICE. It's a self published version of a story that was previously in an anthology, and it's all about super efficient P.A. Cally, who's head over heels in love with her gorgeous boss, Innes. Christmas, a dose of 48 hour flu, and a broken central heating system all conspire to bring the two of them together... and their working relationship will never be the same again!

Read an excerpt here.

Neither of these two choice items are available quite yet, but check back here for the latest news, or follow me on Twitter for updates.

My Dear Holmes: A Study in Sherlock - Gavin Brend

My Dear Holmes: A Study in Sherlock by Gavin Brend

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a fantastic little book. Written decades and decades ago, it's a fascinating example of the author's love for Sherlock Holmes and his adventures; extreme and intense scholarly study of the canon; and a tour de force of brain thrashing and text/date/fact wrangling in pursuit of 'The Great Game' ie. treating Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as real historical figures, and presenting a coherent timeline of their cases.

That people play this game is a tribute the compelling and beloved characters that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created. They're so much larger than life, and fiction, that they seem real. But it does make me smile at, and at the same time deeply admire, the lengths to which Holmes scholars will go to 'make things fit'. Gavin Brend has done an outstanding and very readable job of assigning cases to years and filling in gaps between cases. It's a triumph of detective work in itself, picking through textual clues and cross referencing them. His own writing style is humorous and a little quaint in places, but this book is 60 years old, so his voice is bound to be different to that of someone approaching the topic now.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this small volume. But I'm left thinking how much easier life would have been - although far, far less challenging - for Holmes' students if Sir Arthur had worked with a rigorous content and continuity editor throughout the years he was writing about the Great Detective.

But maybe it's better this way, better that Sir Arthur often completely forgot what he'd written in an earlier story, and frequently perpetrated gaffes with dates, times, places... because playing The Great Game must have brought almost as much pleasure to people as reading the stories themselves does. :)

My Dearest Holmes - Rohase Piercy

My Dearest Holmes by Rohase Piercy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was intrigued by this item, a gay interpretation of the great friendship between Holmes and Watson, and I wasn't quite sure what I was going to make of it when I first started reading. I've always thought there was a deep and powerful bond between the two men, but I wasn't sure I liked the idea of it being more than that.

However, when I got into the story, I was very pleasantly surprised. The writing is excellent, and despite the obvious differences from the canonical, the voice is believable and very much in the Watson style. The period detail, and the nods to the original stories are also very well done, and with a light hand rather than ladled on.

It's very much a romance between the two men, dealing with Watson's unrequited feelings for his brilliant friend as much as his desire for him. It's not a work of erotica, and love scenes are 'off camera', with the focus on the angst and yearning of Watson, and the heartache of being in love with a man who doesn't show emotion and has difficulty even feeling it. The author does a really good job of conveying Watson's anguish, and the result makes for a sincere and moving read.

The House of Silk

The House of Silk: The New Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Enjoyed this very much. I've only read the Sherlock Holmes canon once, and I must admit that most of my perception of Holmes and Watson comes from watching the wonderful television series starring Jeremy Brett, but based on that, The House of Silk felt 'right' to me as a Holmes story. The voice of Watson rang true for me, and the style, characterisation and construction of the story seemed similar to the original stories. The plot rattled along nicely, and even though I sussed out some of what was going on fairly early in the proceedings, there were still things that surprised me about the final denouement[s].

I've seen some reviews where the author is taken to task for some inconsistencies between House of Silk and the original Sherlock Holmes stories and timeline, but Sir Arthur himself sometimes mixed things up a bit, and was inconsistent, so I do wonder if the 'slip ups' in this new story are perhaps an affectionate nod to the occasional oddities in the original canon.

WOMEN IN LUST - out now

WOMEN IN LUST - EDITED BY RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL

At its best, lust is intense, all-consuming, leaving you breathless, able only to focus on slaking that urgent need. The characters in Women in Lust give in to that pure, overpowering impulse for sex. Whether watching a lover playing guitar, using a webcam, going out for a smoke or simply embracing a chance encounter, these women seize the opportunities presented to them, and savor the lovers who teach them about themselves and help them open up to new sensual possibilities. These women embrace lust even when it makes them do things they might consider reckless. Sometimes the object of their lust is not the "right" person—a woman falls for her best friend's boyfriend, the ultimate taboo. Or desire itself may be maddening when it teases and taunts. Rachel Kramer Bussel has brought together top erotica authors who know exactly what to do with those burning desires.

With contributed stories by Portia Da Costa, Charlotte Stein, Aimee Pearl, Clancy Nacht, Elizabeth Coldwell, Lucy Hughes, Del Carmen, Jen Cross, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Brandy Fox, Amelia Thornton, Kin Fallon, Aimee Herman, Jacqueline Applebee, Kayar Silkenvoice, Olivia Archer, Justine Elyot, K.D. Grace, Shanna Germain, and Donna George Storey.

This saucy anthology is out now for your delectation, and includes my story NAUGHTY THOUGHTS, which seems to be gaining some favourable comments in some of the book's Amazon reviews.

You can read an excerpt from Naughty Thoughts here and check out the collection via Amazon links.