Janine Ashbless's Blog, page 145

Just Good Friends

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!

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 MarsdenBeing His Bitch  - Janine AshblessSpring Training  - Donna George StoreyA Preference for Deference -  Allison WonderlandThe Heart of Chaos -  Rachel Kramer BusselUnder the Clock -  Justine ElyotSteps - Evan MoraBrush Strokes - Kristina WrightNo Sleep -  Kristina LloydCrossing the Line - Dominic SantiA Few Things to Pick Up on Your Way Home - Andrea DaleLife Lines - Nikki MagennisMarcelle - Alana Noël VothWhippoorwill -  Teresa Noelle RobertsSlave Sister  - Vida BaileyA Beautiful Corpse -  Craig SorensenEine Klein Spanking  - Clarice CliqueDefining the Terms - SharazadeDevil'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

Bondage pic for Jo :-)

Troll Hunter

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

I am just childishly excited about this one!

Wax on ... wax off ... werewolf

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

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

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

Hayseed Dixie

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

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

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