Portia Da Costa's Blog, page 14
June 27, 2012
More covers!
This beauty is for the mainstream reprint of IN TOO DEEP. Yes, with any luck, Portia Da Costa will hit the supermarket shelves soon, hopefully some time after the 2nd of August!
IN TOO DEEP - excerpt
CHANCE OF A LIFETIME was first published back in 2008, and is now part of Mills & Boon's new 12 Shades of Surrender series, which has its début in July. More details to follow.
CHANCE OF A LIFETIME - excerpt
This one's the latest in a series of updated covers I'm doing for my self published titles. I'm gradually doing them all over with this new look. Maybe not quite as 'discreet' as the other covers, but I'm very pleased with it. :)
AN APPOINTMENT WITH HER MASTER - excerpt
June 17, 2012
Fire and Ice - I'm at it again!
As part of my programme to design new, matching covers for all my self published titles, here's my latest effort, the redesigned FIRE AND ICE. Hope you like it...
To celebrate this new look, I'm offering FIRE AND ICE at a new low price for a limited period of time. It's currently 99 cents/77 pence at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for Kindle format, with epub and pdf formats available at All Romance Ebooks and Smashwords.
FIRE AND ICE is a winter story, but given the pathetic state of the British summer weather this year, I think it's also a timely read for June too. 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?
You can read an excerpt of FIRE AND ICE here.
June 14, 2012
Latest happenings and bits...
Another in my series of bitty disorganised blog posts. I guess it's better than my usual silence though, isn't it?
First up, THE ACCIDENTAL CALL GIRL. I'm trundling along nicely with this one, the story of Lizzie who starts masquerading as an escort in order to pull a gorgeous man in a bar, and ends up maintaining the charade for far longer than she'd anticipated... because she's fallen head over heels for him!
Here's how I picture "John Smith", pretty much looking how he does when she first spots him, although YMMV, of course, when you eventually read the book.
Actually, it's an evening encounter, and John's drinking gin, but the vibe of this pic is spot on. And to give you a flavour of that first meeting, I've posted a short 'first draft' excerpt of THE ACCIDENTAL CALL girl at my web site. Check it out!
The Accidental Call Girl - opening of Chapter One
In other news...
I've been indulging in one of my favourite vices of the moment again... ie. redesigning the covers of my self published titles! The latest is for FORBIDDEN TREASURES, my "married couple discover their shared love of spanking" story, part of my Delicious Masters series.
When Alice Porter finds a chest full of vintage curiosa at an antique market, she little realizes how her discovery of the forgotten treasures of an Edwardian disciplinarian will change her life. The sexy hoard includes a punishment ledger and a well used rattan cane, and the bygone items intrigue her husband Julian too. Sharing and experimenting with the writings and the wicked implement, the lovers begin a voyage of forbidden sensuality that shocks and thrills them both, revealing dark secrets from Julian's past and bringing the two of them closer together than they've ever been before.
FORBIDDEN TREASURES is available with this sexier new cover from Amazon Kindle US and Amazon Kindle UK, and you can find links to other outlets and read an excerpt here.
I'm working through all my self published titles, given them this new 'treatment', complete with the little black lacy trim that's a celebration of the return of my beloved Black Lace to publication in September!
First up, THE ACCIDENTAL CALL GIRL. I'm trundling along nicely with this one, the story of Lizzie who starts masquerading as an escort in order to pull a gorgeous man in a bar, and ends up maintaining the charade for far longer than she'd anticipated... because she's fallen head over heels for him!
Here's how I picture "John Smith", pretty much looking how he does when she first spots him, although YMMV, of course, when you eventually read the book.
Actually, it's an evening encounter, and John's drinking gin, but the vibe of this pic is spot on. And to give you a flavour of that first meeting, I've posted a short 'first draft' excerpt of THE ACCIDENTAL CALL girl at my web site. Check it out!
The Accidental Call Girl - opening of Chapter One
In other news...
I've been indulging in one of my favourite vices of the moment again... ie. redesigning the covers of my self published titles! The latest is for FORBIDDEN TREASURES, my "married couple discover their shared love of spanking" story, part of my Delicious Masters series.
When Alice Porter finds a chest full of vintage curiosa at an antique market, she little realizes how her discovery of the forgotten treasures of an Edwardian disciplinarian will change her life. The sexy hoard includes a punishment ledger and a well used rattan cane, and the bygone items intrigue her husband Julian too. Sharing and experimenting with the writings and the wicked implement, the lovers begin a voyage of forbidden sensuality that shocks and thrills them both, revealing dark secrets from Julian's past and bringing the two of them closer together than they've ever been before.
FORBIDDEN TREASURES is available with this sexier new cover from Amazon Kindle US and Amazon Kindle UK, and you can find links to other outlets and read an excerpt here.
I'm working through all my self published titles, given them this new 'treatment', complete with the little black lacy trim that's a celebration of the return of my beloved Black Lace to publication in September!
June 5, 2012
I've been at it again - new covers!
I love designing covers! I love messing about with graphics bits and pieces and combining images and text to create something that evokes the mood of a book and appeals to readers... and here are the latest fruits of my artistic efforts.
If these two creations from my Delicious Masters series have piqued your interest, you can find info about the books themselves here:
Delicious Pain
In Sebastian's Hands
June 3, 2012
Tempted by Two winners
And the winners of my TEMPTED BY TWO draw are...
EVERYBODY!
As I'm feeling in frivolous mood, and I hate leaving anybody out of a good time, I've decided to give everybody who commented a copy of TEMPTED BY TWO!
I have email addies for most commenters, but I do need addresses for:
Jen
Sleepytiggerboo
Drop me a line at portiadacosta [at] gmail [dot] com and let me know what format you prefer from mobi, epub or pdf
And anybody who reads TEMPTED BY TWO and feels moved to write a review... well, your time would be very much appreciated! :)
June 1, 2012
A new release from Saskia!
My buddy Saskia Walker has a new release today! It's FORBIDDEN RITUAL, a Spice Brief and it's now available direct from Harlequin for $2.39.
High-powered executive Imogen prides herself on being an independent woman who doesn't need a man. She only yields when she's with Giles, a younger colleague who shares her taste for domination and submission. He revels in watching her lose control, while she enjoys his powerful nature and an edge of pain to heighten her pleasure.
Imogen is satisfied with their secret arrangement until Giles asks her try shibari, a form of rope bondage--the ultimate ritual in submission and display of trust. His request pushes Imogen beyond her comfort zone, forcing her to explore her boundaries and her relationship with Giles. He's already her master in the bedroom, when she allows it. But can she let herself take their bond to the next level?
Go here to find out more and download the story
Why not race over there and check out this delicious goodie? Doesn't it sound absolutely divine?
High-powered executive Imogen prides herself on being an independent woman who doesn't need a man. She only yields when she's with Giles, a younger colleague who shares her taste for domination and submission. He revels in watching her lose control, while she enjoys his powerful nature and an edge of pain to heighten her pleasure. Imogen is satisfied with their secret arrangement until Giles asks her try shibari, a form of rope bondage--the ultimate ritual in submission and display of trust. His request pushes Imogen beyond her comfort zone, forcing her to explore her boundaries and her relationship with Giles. He's already her master in the bedroom, when she allows it. But can she let herself take their bond to the next level?
Go here to find out more and download the story
Why not race over there and check out this delicious goodie? Doesn't it sound absolutely divine?
May 27, 2012
TEMPTED BY TWO and a giveaway!
Here's my latest self published title TEMPTED BY TWO, a steamy hot menage erotic romance set a sleepy, old world English village. On holiday, heroine Katie meets Marcus Dane, a handsome artist who she's admired for a long time, and quickly becomes involved in an intense three way affair with him, and with his equally gorgeous lover, Owen.
This is a brand new, never before published novella and it's been huge fun to write. I had such a great time writing my first menage novella, POWER OF THREE, and I was keen to do another threesome story. I also wanted to write something set in the sort of traditional village setting that I love from watching my favourite Miss Marple stories on the telly. It's a nod to the famous and very clever detecting old lady that the village Katie visits is called Little Marplethorpe... I also indulged myself hugely with the 'hero templates' I used. My two big crushes at the moment are Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock, and Simon Baker as The Mentalist, Patrick Jane, so these two yummy actors 'play' Marcus Dane and Owen Foster respectively.
Anyway here's the official blurb:
When executive woman Katie Warren arrives in the picturesque village of Little Marplethorpe for a country holiday, to reassess her life and her future, she doesn't bargain on ending up in a hot three way love affair with a man she's admired from afar... and his gorgeously handsome male partner.
Marcus Dane and Owen Foster are lovers, committed for a lifetime, but they both enjoy the company of women as friends and bedmates too. Encountering Katie at an exhibition of his work, Marcus knows she's just the kind of bold, daring, imaginative woman who'll relish sharing erotic games with Owen and himself.
But what none of the trio expect is that their intense, steamy threesome will quickly deepen into a bond that's a lot more than just simply fabulous sex.
TEMPTED BY TWO is a fairly chunky novella of 33,600 words, and if you haven't yet tried POWER OF THREE, you'll find a 600 word taster of that included too.
There's a hot excerpt of TEMPTED BY TWO here, and you can buy it from All Romance eBooks, Smashwords, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk with more outlets to follow.
Finally, to celebrate the publication of TEMPTED BY TWO, I'm offering a free copy of the book to each of three randomly chosen commenters on this post. I'll draw the three lucky names a week from today on Sunday, 3rd June at 12 noon GMT.
May 23, 2012
A change of cover...
I've made a new cover for my erotic BDSM short, NAUGHTY THOUGHTS. I very much liked my old cover for this title, but after listening to the thoughts and advice of a bunch of smart self publishers, all of whom are far bigger sellers than I am, I realized I ought to try something a bit more eye-catching...
So, what do you think? I think it's fun and saucy and does suggest the 'naughty thoughts' that the heroine Vickie has, the BDSM fantasies she indulges in when she's making love with her man, Terrence. Luckily for her, Terrence is a perceptive fellow... and a dominant... so pretty soon he's making her dreams into reality.
You can buy Naughty Thoughts from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and there's a sexy sample here.
Naughty Thoughts is part of my Delicious Masters series.
Delicious Masters ~ when women meet the Doms of their dreams ~
Here's the previous cover for comparison. More dreamy and mysterious, I think.
NB. If you've bought my anthology DARING INTERLUDES, please don't buy NAUGHTY THOUGHTS, as it's included in that collection.
So, what do you think? I think it's fun and saucy and does suggest the 'naughty thoughts' that the heroine Vickie has, the BDSM fantasies she indulges in when she's making love with her man, Terrence. Luckily for her, Terrence is a perceptive fellow... and a dominant... so pretty soon he's making her dreams into reality.
You can buy Naughty Thoughts from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk and there's a sexy sample here.
Naughty Thoughts is part of my Delicious Masters series.
Delicious Masters ~ when women meet the Doms of their dreams ~
Here's the previous cover for comparison. More dreamy and mysterious, I think.
NB. If you've bought my anthology DARING INTERLUDES, please don't buy NAUGHTY THOUGHTS, as it's included in that collection.
May 19, 2012
What's new with me...
First of all, many apologies for the very sporadic blogging. I'm getting more and more hopeless at keeping up with my blog in my old age...
So, what's been happening?
My main news is that I'm writing again for my most long standing and best loved publisher, Black Lace. Perhaps in the light of recent publishing developments [50 Shades, what else?] this iconic line of erotica for women and erotic romance is relaunching in September, and as well as writing something new for the line, I have a couple, thus far, of Black Lace Classic reprints scheduled. THE STRANGER will be out this September and THE DEVIL INSIDE, next September [the latter was going to be out in Jan '13, but that's been changed]. Black Lace will have a new cover 'look', which I know is going to be utterly fabulous and the cover image guy for THE STRANGER is absolutely scrumptious. Not quite as gorgeous as the wonderful Paul McGann, on whom my Paul was modelled, but definitely easy on the eye. I'll be revealing covers as soon as I receive the final versions. In the meantime here's a lovely piccie of *my* Paul... ;)
Yum! And he even wears the outfit too.
There's also another very exciting Black Lace 'thing' that I'm waiting for a few more details of before I start plugging it. Won't be too long though... definitely by August.
But it's not just reprints. I'm working on a new title, even as we speak. This one's called THE ACCIDENTAL CALL GIRL, and in it, as you might gather from the title, the heroine Lizzie Aitchison gets mistaken for an escort in the bar of a posh hotel, and decides to play a long with the misconception because the 'punter', one John Smith [yes, really] is an absolute dish. Initially only intending to play 'the game' for one delicious interlude, Lizzie, masquerading as 'Bettie', finds herself mesmerised by the handsome and dominant Mr Smith, and as he only seems to want a temporary companion, she continues with her masquerade as a high class hooker. For just the one very special and extremely kinky client.
Needless to say, I'm having enormous fun with this one, and have already written about 20K words so far.
I've also recently been working on an erotic romance novella called TEMPTED BY TWO. This one's a ménage a trois story, about Katie, who's taking a country holiday in order to reassess her life, and who becomes involved with famous and charismatic artist Marcus Dane, and his handsome manager, muse and lover, Owen. I'm hoping this story might be available in a couple of weeks or so.
There's a load of other stuff going on, but lastly, here are two important snippets of news for right now!
If you fancy a rather dotty but fun erotic horror story, free, gratis and for nothing, you can download WESLEY AND THE SEX ZOMBIES from a variety of outlets. There's a taster of it here, along with the links. For the moment, while Wesley is free at Amazon.com, I'm still waiting for it to go free at Amazon.co.uk, but I'm hoping that'll happen soon, and I'll post here, and tweet and Facebook it when it does!
Finally, if you're looking for some BDSM romance reading after you've finished the infamous Fifty Shades, my buddy Lucy Felthouse has assembled a hot half dozen titles, by various authors, that you might like to try. Check it out here:
Fed up of Fifty Shades? Six Saucy Suggestions
Quite by chance... yeah right... my title IN SEBASTIAN'S HANDS is amongst the selections! ;)
So, what's been happening?
My main news is that I'm writing again for my most long standing and best loved publisher, Black Lace. Perhaps in the light of recent publishing developments [50 Shades, what else?] this iconic line of erotica for women and erotic romance is relaunching in September, and as well as writing something new for the line, I have a couple, thus far, of Black Lace Classic reprints scheduled. THE STRANGER will be out this September and THE DEVIL INSIDE, next September [the latter was going to be out in Jan '13, but that's been changed]. Black Lace will have a new cover 'look', which I know is going to be utterly fabulous and the cover image guy for THE STRANGER is absolutely scrumptious. Not quite as gorgeous as the wonderful Paul McGann, on whom my Paul was modelled, but definitely easy on the eye. I'll be revealing covers as soon as I receive the final versions. In the meantime here's a lovely piccie of *my* Paul... ;)
Yum! And he even wears the outfit too.
There's also another very exciting Black Lace 'thing' that I'm waiting for a few more details of before I start plugging it. Won't be too long though... definitely by August.
But it's not just reprints. I'm working on a new title, even as we speak. This one's called THE ACCIDENTAL CALL GIRL, and in it, as you might gather from the title, the heroine Lizzie Aitchison gets mistaken for an escort in the bar of a posh hotel, and decides to play a long with the misconception because the 'punter', one John Smith [yes, really] is an absolute dish. Initially only intending to play 'the game' for one delicious interlude, Lizzie, masquerading as 'Bettie', finds herself mesmerised by the handsome and dominant Mr Smith, and as he only seems to want a temporary companion, she continues with her masquerade as a high class hooker. For just the one very special and extremely kinky client.
Needless to say, I'm having enormous fun with this one, and have already written about 20K words so far.
I've also recently been working on an erotic romance novella called TEMPTED BY TWO. This one's a ménage a trois story, about Katie, who's taking a country holiday in order to reassess her life, and who becomes involved with famous and charismatic artist Marcus Dane, and his handsome manager, muse and lover, Owen. I'm hoping this story might be available in a couple of weeks or so.
There's a load of other stuff going on, but lastly, here are two important snippets of news for right now!
If you fancy a rather dotty but fun erotic horror story, free, gratis and for nothing, you can download WESLEY AND THE SEX ZOMBIES from a variety of outlets. There's a taster of it here, along with the links. For the moment, while Wesley is free at Amazon.com, I'm still waiting for it to go free at Amazon.co.uk, but I'm hoping that'll happen soon, and I'll post here, and tweet and Facebook it when it does!
Finally, if you're looking for some BDSM romance reading after you've finished the infamous Fifty Shades, my buddy Lucy Felthouse has assembled a hot half dozen titles, by various authors, that you might like to try. Check it out here:
Fed up of Fifty Shades? Six Saucy Suggestions
Quite by chance... yeah right... my title IN SEBASTIAN'S HANDS is amongst the selections! ;)
May 9, 2012
BDSM-apalooza is now on!
NOW ON - CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FUN!
Here's an exciting blog event to check out, being held at the home of my buddies the Smutketeers.
BDSMapalooza is a celebration of all your favourite erotic punishment fiction, with interview contributions from a stellar roster of authors, including yours truly, and selection of fantastic giveaways.
Don't forget to head on over there now, the event spans both 9th and 10th of May!
And while you're in the mood for BDSM flavoured fiction, why not check out my latest offering?
Naughty Thoughts is also part of my Daring Interludes anthology, but I thought I would pull it out and offer it separately for those who love a short 'n' saucy spanking treat. I've gathered this and my other BDSM stories together as a sort of semi series, called Delicious Masters.
~ Delicious Masters - when women meet the Doms of their dreams ~
Vickie and Terrence both have sexual secrets, and neither one quite knows what's going on in the other's head when they're making love. But one day, Vickie reveals her "Naughty Thoughts", her dark and dangerous fantasies about being punished and dominated... and discovers a brand new, thrilling side to Terrence, and a powerful man who likes to play spanking games. The Dom of Vickie's dreams is the familiar lover who's already in her bed.
You can find an excerpt and buy links for Naughty Thoughts here!
Delicious Masters - get them here!
