Lucy Felthouse's Blog, page 312

Totty Tuesday – Rik Makarem

As many of you know, I'm not much of a TV watcher (with the exception of series like Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Buffy, Angel, True Blood, etc…). However, one of my guilty pleasures is the UK soap Emmerdale. It's one of those things where if you stop watching for a while you don't miss it, but the more you watch, the more you're hooked. And this programme is normally on at the time we eat dinner in this house so that explains it!

More recently, they seem to have rather a lot of totty present in the soap, which makes viewing that  much more pleasant. You may remember my Totty Tuesday post a while ago with the lovely James Thornton (who inspired my story, Farm Hand in The Look of Lust). Well, another member of the cast who in my opinion is eye candy is the yummy Rik Makarem, who plays businessman Nikhil Sharma in the soap. He's also a bit of an arsehole in the show, but that doesn't stop him looking damn good in a suit. And those brown eyes… *swoon*. He doesn't smile nearly enough, but then you can't have it all, right?! Also, in my usual IMDB/Wikipedia scan for information, I discovered that this lush 29 year old was born in the very same town I was – Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. A Derbyshire lad – that makes him even better!

I thought this was a good pic to demonstrate the eyes. If you fancy seeing more pics, do a Google image search. You'll find photos of him in suits, skin tight running and cycling gear, and a rather fetching topless shot Don't say I don't spoil you!

Revisiting the Scene of the Crime – Paris

As most of you probably already know, I've just been to Paris on a research trip for the follow-up to my lesbian erotic romance short, Bite with Height. Naturally, as Paris is just so inspiring and beautiful, I have tons of ideas for my upcoming story, which is very likely to be novel length, eek!

Also, though, I took the opportunity to revisit the "scenes of the crime" from Bite with Height, i.e. places that appeared/were relevant in the story. So for those of you that have read it, I hope you'll enjoy seeing some of the places that you've read about in the flesh. If you haven't, then perhaps these will whet your appetite and send you scurrying to your preferred eBook retailer

Me posing with a Bite with Height postcard in front of the Sacre-Coeur basilica. This is where a great deal of the action takes place, mainly up inside that dome that you see right at the top. You know, the one you have to climb 300+ steps to reach. *phew*

A closer shot – not particularly flattering as it was a bit warm! The postcard is cute though, huh?

The view as you emerge from the first lot of steps. Though as it was a spiral staircase, my view was actually spinning a little, and I was gasping and pouring with sweat. Sexy, huh? No wonder Meg grabbed Grace and got her onto the roof the 'easy' way!

Finally up on the roof – the hat has been removed as it was uber-windy up there. Which is the only possible explanation for my insane hairstyle. I'm sitting on one of the stone benches inside the dome of the Sacre-Coeur – could this be where Meg and Grace got it on? Who knows…?

Plenty of room for two girls to get naughty there! They're only slight, after all

A rusty and somewhat mysterious-looking door. Could this be the entrance to Meg's lair? That's for me to know…

Sitting outside the Starbucks opposite the Moulin Rouge with a postcard. This is where Meg and Grace first met. It's not as busy as when they first met, mainly because it had been raining and no-one wanted to sit on the wet seats. I, however, in my infinite genius got some tissues out of my bag and wiped them down. Ta-da! Posing picture!

I'll probably do another post later in the week with some photos relating to the research for the follow-up to Bite with Height. In the meantime, if you haven't read it – check it out here.

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Home Sweet Home

After a lovely, lovely time away which went far too quickly – I'm home sweet home! I'm shattered and currently wading through my emails. I've had some goodies, too, including a story acceptance, a fab review (see below) and information on my appearances at Erotica, which I'll share when they're confirmed.

Once I have all my photos downloaded I'll be posting a couple of blog posts about my holiday/research trip. I had an awesome time, particularly when I revisited the settings of some of the scenes from Bite with Height. I am also jam packed with ideas for the follow up. So watch this space!

Anyway, here's a lovely review I had for my BDSM short, Naughty Delivery:

"Naughty Delivery is a quick but tantalizing read about a couple who try something new. The story is cute, sexy, and a very fun read. I enjoyed reading this novella, and I will be happy to read more by Lucy Felthouse in the future." 4 out of 5, Book Savvy Babe

You can see the review in its entirety here.

Bag yourself a copy of Naughty Delivery here.

 

Book Review: Bite Club by Rachel Caine

Article first published as Book Review: Bite Club by Rachel Caine on Blogcritics.

Bite Club is book ten in The Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine. I've read all the others and am still loving them, so was looking forward to reading this one. Happily, I wasn't disappointed.

I've got to be honest, if you haven't read the other titles, you're really going to struggle if you start here. Sure, Bite Club can sort of work as a standalone book, but you'll be missing so much background that you'll probably end up feeling quite confused at parts! So if it sounds like your sort of thing, I'd definitely recommend starting from the beginning of the series.

Bite Club starts in relative peace. The residents of Morganville are getting over the serious events which have taken place lately and are trying to return to normal, and get on with their lives. However, it seems like there's always someone around trying to disturb the peace, and it's working – big style.

There's a new sport in town. Bare-knuckle fights where vampires and pitted against one another, and humans. But this is no harmless sport, the organisers are out to earn as much money as they can, and they don't care who gets killed in the process. Unluckily for them, Claire Danvers does. And she won't stop until she's found out who's at the bottom of the scheme and puts a stop to it, before they drag Morganville into the chaos and carnage it's just escaped.

I thought Bite Club was a very good read. Rachel Caine's writing style is so easy to follow – even if there's lots going on in the book, you can still keep track and who's doing what. And in this book, the action never lets up. There's love, lust, betrayal, violence and redemption, all rolled into one rollercoaster ride of a book. So if you're looking for a new urban fantasy read and you haven't yet picked up The Morganville Vampires series, then I highly recommend you do so.

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Book Depository

Waterstone's

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Guest Blog: Laura Bickle

Seeding Dreams by Laura Bickle

Dreaming is a funny thing. Our subconscious uses its free time at night to be creative, solve problems, and just meander aimlessly. We often believe that we're at the mercy of our dreams, held hostage by the repressed portions of our psyches as they march us through odd landscapes and strange situations.

Often, that's true. The subconscious is determined to be heard, and we're stuck twiddling our thumbs, listening to it drone about our issues.

But it's much more productive to take one's subconscious by the scruff of the neck, give it a good shake, and put it to work. At least, that's the way I've always worked while writing.

Sometimes, I get stuck in the writing process. I get stuck on a character's motivations, stymied about a plot point, or vacillate on what should happen next in a story. I tend not to get much from brainstorming sessions. Sometimes, I pick up a random Tarot card or putter with my own perversion of bibliomancy – I open a book at random and see if I can find inspiration.

But, when all else fails, the only solution for me is to sleep on it. I keep a notebook beside the bed. Before I go to sleep, I write down what's bothering me about the story – I "seed" the dream with an idea or question. Usually, it's something like:

What's my antagonist's motivation?

Do I need an extra day in the timeline to smooth out my pacing?

What the hell does that fanged rabbit that keeps recurring in my story MEAN, dammit?

Before I go to sleep, I scribble my question down and leave it by my bedside. I set an alarm for a decently early hour of the morning, when I know I'll be interrupting my REM sleep cycle. I try to think of my problem as I'm going off to sleep.

And…more often than not, I wake up hip-deep in a dream that works out my problem. My subconscious has fiddled with the issue most of the night, and manages to spit out an answer about the rabbit, the motivation, or my missing day. I snatch up my notepad and write down whatever I recall about the dream.

Usually, I get pretty good results. Why waste waking time brainstorming when your brain is looking for something to do at night? Waking time is precious enough. Delegating to the subconscious can help. I used this a lot when I was testing software in my previous career. I'd awaken in the middle of the night, having conjured up a test scenario that I knew that the software was doomed to fail to address. I'd scribble it down and test it in the morning.

Seeding your dreams won't help, of course, if you don't often remember your dreams. You may have to time your REM cycles and set an artifical interruption, like an alarm, if you're a heavy sleeper. And it requires practice. But only you can pull your story from between your ears. May as well exploit all of the brain cells while doing it.

How about you? Have you had a dream that's helped you in your work (creative or not)?

*****

Laura Bickle has an MA in sociology-criminology (research interests: fear of crime and victimology) and a BA in criminology. She has worked in and around criminal justice since 1997. Although she does read Tarot cards, she's never used them in criminal profiling or to locate lost scientists. She recently took up astronomy, but for the most part her primary role in studying constellations and dark matter is to follow her amateur astronomer-husband around central Ohio toting the telescope tripod and various lenses.

Writing as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket – Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE.

More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: http://www.salamanderstales.com/

Laura/ Alayna's blogs

http://www.salamanderstales.blogspot.com and http://delphisdaughters.blogspot.com

She's a proud member of Word Whores.

She's at Facebook, and Fangs, Fur, and Fey.

eBook Review: Spiced Vanilla by Victoria Blisse

Article first published as eBook Review: Spiced Vanilla by Victoria Blisse on Blogcritics.

With a strapline like this, "Chocolate, cakes and domination, what more could a girl want?" – I couldn't resist dipping into Spiced Vanilla by Victoria Blisse.

This 15.5k tale tells the story of Emma, a Rubenesque young woman who suffered a tragedy so great that she hasn't been out of her flat in six months. When she eventually does venture out, she's enticed and encouraged by the smell of a nearby patisserie. Her financial situation means she can't even afford a bog standard supermarket cake, let alone the masterpieces in Jacques window. But each and every day she stands in the window and admires the cakes and their luscious tempting scents.

One day, she bumps into the owner, Jack. He's an incredibly attractive and dominant man and he quickly appeals to Emma's deeply buried submissive side. But can she let go and admit what she really wants, and start living her life again? Or will she resist the temptation and regret it forever?

Spiced Vanilla was a delicious read, in more ways than one! It caught me unawares when I realised the back story and how it was affecting Emma in the tale, but once it got going I was hooked. Ms. Blisse lures the reader in with a unique storyline, fascinating characters and richly described scenarios which have you drooling and reacting right along with the people in them.

There's yummy food-including a particularly sexy scene with some melted chocolate-sex, spanking and romance all sprinkled throughout this sensual, erotic and highly entertaining story, and it's one I'd highly recommend. This is tale I won't be forgetting in a hurry!

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

All Romance eBooks

Total-E-Bound

Myth Mondays: Behind the Scenes with Stones by K D Grace

Please welcome K D Grace to Myth Mondays for her post on Stones, which is featured in Seducing the Myth. Take it away, K D….

*****

My first fascination with Medusa was really a fascination with Perseus and Andromeda by way of studying the constellations in sixth grade science class. I was assigned the constellation, Andromeda, and though I didn't retain much of the cool astronomical stuff until much later, I never forgot the story, in fact it was my introduction to Greek Mythology, which I've loved ever since. In the story of Perseus and Andromeda, Perseus, with lots of help from the gods, saves Andromeda from a horrible sea monster by turning the sea monster to stone with the head of Medusa, which the gods also graciously helped him separate from Medusa's body. And of course he would have needed the help of the gods, as one look at Medusa would turn anyone to stone.

It was much later that I learned Medusa's side of the story, and it's very much a tragedy. Medusa was the beautiful daughter of two sea deities. She was so exquisite that Poseidon took a fancy to her, and Poseidon always got what he wanted, so he chased her into the temple of Athena, where she should have been safe. But he raped her there. Athena's response was not to punish Poseidon or even comfort poor Medusa, but instead, Athena punished the victim by making it so anyone who looked into Medusa's eyes would be turned to stone. The story of Medusa's rape by Poseidon probably represents the subjugation of the gods and goddesses of a civilization the Greeks conquered. Stories of rape were a common way of showing the subjugation of local deities to the deities of the conquerors.

In some versions of the story, Athena also makes Medusa ugly, and gives her snakes for hair. In other versions, it's Medusa's terrible beauty that is too much for the human eye to behold, but the end result is the same, anyone who looks into her eyes turns to stone.

In Seducing the Myth, my story, Stones, speculates on what might happen if Medusa had not been killed by Perseus, but is instead alive and well and living a secretive life in a decaying mansion in some suburb in the States. She might be calling herself Magda Gardener, but she's complete with all the psychological baggage from her past life as a myth. And now, she simply wants what every woman wants — a normal life with a chance at happiness and love.

She also wants an orderly garden, so she hires Paul Danson to restore the mansion's gardens to their former glory and to pay special care to the statuary, which has sentimental value to her. When Paul Danson finds himself drawn into a strange world of nightmares and lust he begins to suspect that there may be more to the reclusive Magda that meets the eye, and yet there is no denying the attraction.

I found it very difficult to stick to the 4K word limit on this story because Magda/Medusa's life in the modern world just became more and more intriguing as I wrote. It was almost like she was whispering in my ear. Fortunately, I didn't look her in the eye, but I'm pretty sure I'll be revisiting her and Paul Danson in something considerably longer when I get the chance.

Find out more about K D Grace on her website, http://kdgrace.co.uk. She's also on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Find out how to bag your copy of Seducing the Myth here.

I'm Partying with Goddess Fish Today!

How amazing – I'm in two places at once! I'm both en route to France, and partying with the lovely people over at the Goddess Fish Party Pavilion. And if you count here, too, well I'm just magic!

Anyway, the wonders of technology aside, come check out the Goddess Fish Party Pavilion blog today. Myself and lots of other cool authors are going to be blogging there throughout the day (from 9am – 9pm Eastern Time). I'm blogging about the usual stuff; hot guys, inspiration, erotic fiction, upcoming projects and more. Don't forget to comment on posts for the chance to win a $10 Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble gift card from the Goddess Fish peeps!

What are you waiting for? Come party with us!

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Gone Fishin'

OK, so I obviously haven't gone fishing. That's not my cup of tea. I have, however, gone on my holiday/research trip to France, where I'll be spending three days in Paris sightseeing and also researching the sequel for my paranormal erotic romance, Bite with Height. I'll be hanging out in graveyards, bookshops, churches, erotic museums and much more. I'll let you decide what's for fun, and what's research. You may well be surprised! All being well, I'll also be meeting the lovely Emma Hillman for lunch – erotic writers lunching in Paris, how very cosmopolitan!

There will be some posts appearing on the site (scheduling technology permitting) while I'm away, and I'll probably send the odd Tweet via text, or if I can find free WiFi (that actually works!). Otherwise, though, I'm out of contact *shock, horror* until the 10th when life returns to normal (until K D Grace and Maxim Jakubowski's book launch at Sh! Hoxton on the 14th October, of course!) and I'll start wading through my emails then.

In the meantime, don't do anything I wouldn't do!

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A Bit of Rough Needs Your Votes!

As you may know, the lovely peeps over at Miz Love Loves Books reviewed A Bit of Rough earlier in the month and liked it so much they gave it a 'top pick.' As a result of this, my erotic tale has also gone into voting for 'Book of the Month.'

Therefore, I'm asking for votes once again! I'm up against some seriously tough competition, so if you read and enjoyed A Bit of Rough, I'd really appreciate your votes.

The poll is on the top right hand side of the site:

http://www.mizlovelovesbooks.com/

 

Thanks so much, I appreciate it!

P.S. Not read it yet? Bag it here.

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