Cheyenne Blue's Blog, page 3

So Not the Perfect Wedding

[image error]Lesbian fiction author Erica Lee and I first connected on Instagram. She started a new blog, all about wedding mishaps (check it out, it’s great and funny and so very real!). It so happens that I had written a novella about a huge wedding mishap. And so Erica was kind enough to include an interview with me, mainly about Almost-Married Moni on her blog. Thanks, Erica!

I hope you’ll check out the interview for some insider information on Almost-Married Moni. (And check out Erica’s own stories while you’re at it!)

And hey, if you haven’t read any of my “Girl Meets Girl” series, of which Moni is the final part, Ylva Publishing are releasing then entire “Girl Meets Girl” series as a box set… out next week, 20 March, and you’ll save heaps!

 

Cover Reveal: A Heart This Big

[image error]I’m delighted to share the cover for my next book. A Heart This Big. I love this cover! Two gorgeous women and two very different landscapes.

Want to know who they are? That’s Leigh at the top. She’s a top lawyer, and her world is the concrete and glass world of Sydney. Nina’s at the bottom, and her world is a smallholding on the very edge of the metropolis.

here’s the blurb:

Australian country girl Nina Pellegrini runs a program for city kids to experience a taste of rural life at Banksia Farm. But when a child is hurt and a lawsuit threatens, Nina is determined to find the best legal assistance to help her save the farm.

Enter high-flying lawyer Leigh Willoughby, whose city world is far from the farm’s chaotic mix of kids and animals. She certainly doesn’t have time for small cases that don’t pay or farm visits that wreck her cool—and her clothes.

Still, the warm-hearted Nina and her challenging, twelve-year-old daughter, Phoebe, are awfully hard to say no to. What on earth has she gotten herself into?

A captivating opposites-attract lesbian romance about a city woman discovering her country heart.

A Heart This Big will be out from Ylva Publishing in June.

The Aussie Summer of Tennis

[image error] SAMSUNG

It’s one of my favourite times of year – the Aussie tennis season. During January, the WTA tour comes Down Under, and the tournaments cycle through Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Auckland, and of course the big one: the Australian Open in Melbourne.

I’m lucky in that I live close enough to Brisbane to attend the tournament there, and I go most years. As well the excitement of big name matches on Pat Rafter Arena, I love roaming the outside courts watching players practice with each other, run through their fitness and agility exercises,  and interact with fans. Those outside courts give a glimpse of life on tour that you’ll never get from TV coverage or show court matches.

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If you want a little extra to add to your tennis experience this year (or if you’re wondering what it is about tennis that gets people excited), my latest book Code of Conduct takes place over the Australian summer of tennis. Viva is a Queensland tennis star, fighting a persistent injury and battling to remain at the top of the game. Gabriela is an official, dedicated to her career–and is also the lineswoman whose questionable call send Viva crashing out of the US Open. Sparks fly when these two meet in rural Queensland–not least because officials and players are forbidden to socialise, let alone date.

You can follow along with Viva and Gabriela as they participate in the Australian tournaments at Brisbane and Sydney, with the climax at the action-packed Australian Open.

Code of Conduct is available from these places: Ylva Publishing Amazon.com  Amazon.co.uk  Amazon.de  Amazon.com.au Amazon.ca Smashwords Barnes and Noble Kobo

Want more Viva and Gabriela? Sign up for my mailing list before 12 January. Subscribers will receive a bonus previously unseen chapter of Viva and Gabriela’s story, a poignant interaction between the two that was cut from the final book. This will be included in the January newsletter. Here’s the sign up form below.

Too much tennis?

[image error]Too much tennis? No way. Wimbledon’s on the TV, there are short white skirts and tanned legs filling my TV screen and tennis is once again the focus of my life.

There’s also my new book, Code of Conduct, which is available everywhere today.

It’s the story of Viva Jones, ex-top ten tennis player, now battling injury in the latter part of her career. It’s also the story of Gabriela Mendaro, a silver badge umpire, whose ambition is to gain the elusive gold badge.

Players and officials cannot date. In fact, they can’t even have a friendly relationship. The officials’ code of conduct expressly forbids this. So when Viva and Gabriela forge a connection that transcends their respective roles in the game,  it’s not something easily overcome–not if Gabriela wants to follow her dream to gold badge level.

We look at the players when we watch tennis. That person high up in the chair? The linespeople with their upright stance, their implacable faces? Not as exciting as the players, with their glamour and effort, their high-flying lifestyle. But the umpires too follow the tour, often staying in the same hotels as the players.

It must be difficult to remain aloof.

If you want an exciting sports romance, if you want to keep that Wimbledon buzz going a while longer, then I hope you’ll check out Code of Conduct. It’s available from the following places:

Ylva Publishing

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.com.au

Amazon.ca

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

A Serve of Romance

[image error]It’s hard to avoid tennis puns when thinking of blog post titles for a tennis romance. Love match. An ace of a story! A new spin on the sports genre. So really, the one I’ve picked isn’t too bad.

Whatever slice I put on this post, Code of Conduct tells the story of Viva Jones, a top tennis player battling to remain at the top of the game, and Gabriela Mendaro, an umpire, striving to reach the pinnacle of her career: gold badge umpire. Trouble is, players and officials must keep their distance, a rule that is written in the officials’ code of conduct.

Whatever pun you choose,  Code of Conduct is available everywhere next Wednesday, 4 July.

Of course, if  you can’t wait that long, you can get it right now direct from Ylva Publishing.  And of course it’s on preorder everywhere else.

In the meantime though, and to distract myself from bad tennis puns, here’s the first chapter.

Code of Conduct

Chapter 1

Viva’s heart pounded in double time as she waited at the service line for the crowd to calm. If anything, the cacophony of applause and shouts grew louder.

“Quiet, please.” The umpire’s even tones cut through the din. “Tie breaker, 6-5, Jones. Genevieve Jones to serve.”

Viva drew a deep breath and let the tension drain from her shoulders. She twitched her toe into position a centimetre behind the service line. The crowd’s noise faded; there was nothing in her mind except the next point. She rocked back on her heel and flung the ball skywards.

“C’mon, Paige! Show us what you’ve got!”

The shouted encouragement for her opponent cut through Viva’s concentration. Laughter rippled around centre court. Abort. She lowered her racquet, caught the ball, and fought down her flash of anger as she waited once again for the crowd to settle.

“Please do not call out when play is in progress.” The umpire made a mark on the tablet in front of him.

Viva spun away from the service line and nodded to the ballkid for a towel. New York’s humidity made the racquet slip in her hand like butter on a hot pan. She wiped her face, hands, and the racquet handle. Staring down at the strings, she refocussed her concentration and willed away the butterflies cartwheeling in her stomach. This moment, this point. Set point. Nothing else mattered right now. Not her grand slam title defence, not the number one ranking she stood to gain if she succeeded. This point matters. Only this one. If she won this point, the match would go to three sets. She paced back to the service line, collecting and discarding balls from the ballkid.

She bounced the ball once, twice. A third time. Her grip tightened on the racquet. This point matters. Only this one. A fourth bounce and she prepared to swing.

“Time violation. Warning, Miss Jones.”

She swung around to face the umpire.

He stared back impassively, as if daring her to react.

She closed her eyes for a second, biting back the hot words she wanted to say. She was maybe a few seconds over time. To call a violation was massively unfair. With a deep breath, she bent and picked up her racquet.

A quick glance at her peppy blonde opponent, now taking pretend swings with the racquet. Paige had a poor three-set record, especially when she lost the second set. Viva knew she could win the match—if it went to a third set. And it was still set point to her. Viva wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wristband.

Two bounces, the ball toss, the swing. Ace! Viva whirled around with a jubilant fist pump.

“Second serve.”

What? Her eyes widened, and she turned to the umpire.

“Foot-fault.” The umpire leant forward and spoke into the microphone. “Miss Jones, a foot-fault was called.”

The buzz of white noise in her head built to a crescendo. Viva pressed her lips together tightly and swallowed hard. She jerked around to face the lineswoman, who stared straight ahead, no expression on her face.

Viva nodded, a jerky up-and-down, and walked back to the service line. Two bounces of the ball, the toss, the swing. The softer serve kicked wide, and Paige returned it hard down the centre. For a minute, they duelled back and forth before Paige sent a backhand winner down the line.

6-6. Viva now needed two straight points to win. She stalked back to her chair for the short break at the change of ends. A mouthful of sports drink, another of water. She wiped the handle of her racquet and tested the string tension. The little routines calmed her momentarily, stilled her jiggling knee. She focussed deep inside, trying in vain to block out the pounding music that played during the two-minute breaks.

Viva returned to the service line. Someone coughed in the crowd as she prepared to serve, and she paused, then bounced the ball one more time. A clean serve down the centre line. Paige pushed it back short. Viva raced in and scooped the ball. It hit the net cord and for an agonising moment seemed to hang there before it fell back on Viva’s side of the net. Damn. That was the worst luck. That was—No! She slammed a wall up against the negative thoughts.

“7-6, Westermeier.”

If Paige won this point, she would win the match. And she now had two serves.

Viva focussed on her feet as she returned to the baseline, this time to receive.

Paige took her time to serve, bouncing the ball many times, then a bad ball toss, which she caught and regrouped.

Viva bit her lip. The umpire should call a time violation. He should— She tamped that line of thought. Focus.

Paige’s serve was soft, almost tentative.

Viva was already in position, and her driving return clipped the baseline. 7-7. Yes! She jogged back to the baseline to receive and sent a cool glance at her opponent. Do your worst, Paige.

Paige’s next serve thundered down hard and fast and unexpected.

Viva lunged for it, and the ball glanced off the tip of her racquet. A streak of pain shot into her wrist from the force, and she gasped as the joint was forced back. The racquet fell to the ground. She bent to pick it up, gritting her teeth against her disappointment. Her wrist throbbed. It was now 8-7 and a second match point to Paige. But it was not over yet. After accepting a ball, she spun around to the service line and stared down the court as she drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

She twitched her foot into position, the toe of her fluoro shoe behind the line. Two bounces. A third for luck. Throw. Swing. And the serve was good; she was sure it was and—

“Foot-fault.”

“No!” The shout erupted from her tight throat. “Not again! No way!”

The racquet trembled in her hand, and she clenched her fingers on the handle. A glance at the umpire’s implacable face. No chance of an overrule. She swung to face the lineswoman, who sat stony-faced on the chair, her neat, brown hair as short and tightly controlled as the rest of her. She stared straight ahead, as if she were waiting for a bus.

Viva glared up at the umpire. “She’s wrong! You can’t let her get away with this. It’s match point!” A red haze built in her mind. She tightened her grip on the racquet, consumed by the urge to smash it onto the court until it was broken beyond repair.

“Second serve.”

Viva tightened her lips so much that her teeth ground together. She nodded once, tightly, to the umpire and stalked back to the service line. As she drew level with the lineswoman, she flicked her a contemptuous look. “I will not forget this.”

The woman didn’t flinch. Her sweat-damp hair clung limply to her forehead in the heat, but she stared straight ahead without reaction.

With a final venomous glare in her direction, Viva took her place at the service line. She heaved a breath, trying to compose herself. This point matters. Only this one. The hyped-up crowd, now all cheering for the American, the heat and humidity of the afternoon, Paige bouncing lightly on her toes—they all receded, pushed back into a place where they were unimportant. The lineswoman’s stony face intruded, and she, too, was dismissed from her mind. Focus.

She accepted three balls, rejected one. To lose the match on a penalty would be an unbearable indignity. Viva closed her eyes for a second, banishing the negative thoughts. Lose? No. She would win this. Her grip was firm on her racquet, and conviction surged in her mind. She rocked back on her heel. The silence of the crowd was absolute. The ballkids as still as lamp posts, the umpire poised in his chair. The lineswoman leant forward, hands on her knees, gaze locked on the service line.

Second service. Last chance.

Viva tossed, swung, and smashed the ball true in the centre of her racquet. It shot like a rocket, over the net.

“Out!” The call was loud and sure from the linesman at the far end of the court.

“No!” She couldn’t supress the cry, not the victory shout she had imagined, more a forlorn little sob of shattered dreams. She had lost. Lost in the quarterfinals, in the defence of her US Open title. Her legs were suddenly as weak as jelly, and she sank to her haunches on court, her head bowed over the handle of her racquet. Soon she would have to face her coach Deepak and the press, but for one private moment she let the misery consume her. Only for a second. Arranging her face into a wry smile of congratulation, she sprang to her feet and walked to the net.

Paige bounded up, elation scrawled over her face. Around them the crowd surged to their feet, and the stadium rang with their cheers and applause.

For Paige. Not for her.

“Well done, Paige. Very well-deserved.” She hugged her opponent around her sweaty shoulders before walking to her chair. A quick shake of the umpire’s hand, and she swiftly gathered her things and stuffed them into her bag. Get off court. The urge to flee was overwhelming. A long shower, that was what she wanted so that the streaming water would hide her tears.

She raised a hand to the crowd and trudged to the exit. The cacophony of cheers for the winner followed her out.

* * *

Later, much later, after she’d showered, talked with Deepak, and faced a barrage of questions from the press about her shock loss, Viva returned to her hotel room. She lay on the bed, phone clenched in her hand, staring at the ceiling. The things she needed to do marched through her head, but she ignored them. She blinked away the moisture in her eyes and focussed on the white ceiling, replaying the final tie breaker in her head. She had had the momentum, the edge. She was the better player, higher ranked than Paige, better able to deal with the pressure. Except she hadn’t. The final point rolled through her head like a horror movie. Her position behind the line, the toss, the serve. The foot-fault call. The mental playback stuttered and halted. That call had lost her the match.

Viva picked up the TV remote and flicked through the channels until she found a replay of the match. She skipped ahead to the final point. There she was, tension shimmering in her body, her face closed-in and intent. She replayed the foot-fault call again and again. Had her toe moved over the line before or after she hit the ball? She studied the footage. It was a bad call; she was sure of it.

Her phone rang, and a glance at the display showed it was her mum calling from Australia. She ignored it. Later, she would talk to her family, cry a little, wallow in the love and comfort offered, but not yet.

She let the replay move on. The camera cut to the lineswoman who’d made the call. Olive skin, chiselled cheekbones, aloof expression. Her name flashed along the bottom of the screen: Gabriela Mendaro. Viva paused the frame, committing her face and name to memory. Her lips twisted. This woman was responsible for bundling her out of the US Open. Now she was no longer Genevieve Jones, defending US Open champion, the number one ranking within reach; now she was just another player scrambling to remain in the top ten.

Her phone rang again, and she glanced at the caller ID. Her lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. If anyone could raise her spirits, Michi could.

“Hey, partner,” she said.

“Hey yourself. How are you?” Her doubles partner was usually the most ebullient of people, but her voice now held a soft, cautious quality.

“I’ve had better days,” Viva said wryly. “Like pretty much every day this year.”

Michi was silent for a moment. “It’s not the end. It’s just a match that you lost. You know that.”

“Yeah.” Viva gusted a sigh. “You’re right, of course, but at this moment, it’s the end of life as I know it.” In front of her, the TV screen was still frozen on Gabriela Mendaro’s face. She’d seen her before—players and officials were on nodding terms. “It was a bad call.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

“Maybe. It was certainly close.”

“The lineswoman should’ve let it go. It was match point. Match point!”

“That doesn’t make it different. If anything, on match point the calls should be tighter.”

“Any call should be accurate. And that one wasn’t.”

“Have you talked to Deepak?” Michi’s tone still had the wary hesitation of someone who wasn’t sure what to say.

“Yeah. And he said I should move on.”

“Of course he did. Brett tells me the same when I have a bad call. ‘Don’t dwell on anything,’ he always says.”

“I know. Deepak’s right. Brett’s right.”

“Am I right too?” Humour laced Michi’s voice. “Because if I am, that’s a first.”

Viva snorted. “You’re always right, partner. It’s what you do best.”

“I thought my sizzling forehands down the line were what I do best.”

“Those too.” Viva heaved a sigh. “You’re right, Michi. Of course you are. My head knows that even if my heart is yet to catch up.” She moved to sit cross-legged on the bed so that she could see out of the window. “What are you doing tonight? The whole of New York is out there. Want to have dinner? It’s either that or spend a dismal hour on the internet finding the cheapest flight to Montreal for the next tournament.”

“The United Airlines commuter flight. Always the cheapest because it leaves when most normal people are still in bed. But I’ve got a better idea. Instead of flying to Montreal, let’s hire a car and drive. Just you and me and the open road. Brett wants a couple of days to see his family, so now’s his chance. We’ve got four days to get to Montreal. We can take a tour of upstate New York, visit towns with weird names, see some fall leaves, eat way too much, drink weak beer, and share a room. It’ll be like old times.”

A smile tugged at Viva’s lips. It would be good, the two of them having fun, with no thought of tennis. Michi was a great friend. No doubt she was gesticulating at Brett right now that he needed to visit his family in Colorado.

“As long as you don’t stay up until two in the morning watching horror movies, as you did the last time we shared a room.”

“Promise. No horror. Well, except for my hair in the mornings.”

Viva chuckled. “It’s a deal. You book a car—something roomy—and we’ll plan our route over dinner tonight.”

“High five, partner! This’ll be awesome. The terrible two on the road again.”

“No Thelma and Louise jokes.”

“Not even a little one.” Michi’s enthusiasm bubbled down the line. “Brett and I will come by your room at six, and we’ll go eat.”

Viva ended the call and threw the phone on the bed. The paused TV screen was still frozen on the lineswoman, Gabriela Mendaro. For a last moment, she studied the woman’s impassive face, the smooth skin, the arched brows, and the keen gaze.

Michi’s words came back to her: Don’t dwell. She clicked off the TV and rose from the bed.

Enough.

Code of Conduct is available from the following places.

From 20 June 2018

Ylva Publishing

From 4 July 2018

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.de

Amazon.com.au

Amazon.ca

Smashwords

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

 

Blue Woman Stories Volume II

[image error] Want some spicy reading with a romantic edge? Or romantic reading with a spicy twist?

Sexy, short, sweet, spicy. The second volume of my short lesbian erotica, Blue Woman Stories Volume II, is now available to read on Kindle Unlimited.  Or you can purchase for $0.99

Here’s the blurb:

Love triumphs as opposites attract in the Colorado Rockies, an unwitting voyeur has an eye-opening encounter on an Irish ferry, and love takes a lifetime to arrive in the poignant Glory B.

Cheyenne Blue’s lesbian erotica has been a staple of many anthologies since 2000. This second volume of her collected work contains five more of her finely woven lesbian tales.

Here’s the Table of Contents:

Perspex Window

Wide White Sky

Glory B

Discovering Donnie

Flannel and Fleece

Here’s the links:

Amazon.com  Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com.au  Amazon.ca  Amazon.de  Amazon.fr

Amelia Earhart – found!

[image error]One of the most exciting news stories this week, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that they found Amelia Earhart. But it turns out, she was never really lost. Amelia’s disappearance is the stuff of legend and conspiracy theories. She and her navigator disappeared on their round the world flight in 1939 when they vanished over the Pacific.

Since then, along with the usual abducted-by-aliens stories, there’s been serious consideration given to them being captured and executed by the Japanese, running out of fuel and ending up at the bottom of the ocean, and one where she was secretly repatriated to New Jersey and lived under an assumed name.  That last one seems the wackiest to me.

In 1940, human bones were found on Nikumaroro Island, along with artifacts known to be used by her. However, the person who examined the bones concluded they were that of a male. Then someone went and lost the bones and that was that, until this week.

While the bones are gone, the measurements and notes taken of them survive, and a forensic pathologist has compared these measurements to Amelia’s known measurements and concluded with 99% certainty that they are Amelia’s. This means that she crash landed on Nikumaroro and died before she could be rescued.

I’ve written a story about Amelia with this scenario (except without her dying). In my version, she crashes, but lives out her life with a castaway islander woman.  You can read it (along with 14 other sensual lesbian stories) in First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings, edited by me.

Here’s an excerpt:

When the fuel finally runs out the engines splutter and fall into silence. Now there’s only the thud of her heart in her ears, the quiet sky and its heavy-bellied white clouds. The increasing panic that had consumed her as she’d tried and failed to contact the ship that was supposed to guide her in to land vanishes. Amelia is calm now, with a clear-headed detachment. She’s an experienced pilot and she knows how the Electra will glide, how it will swoop over the winds of the Pacific, descending, descending, until she bellies down in the ocean. Next to her, Fred, the navigator whispers “Oh my God, oh sweet Jesus, save our souls” over and over, and one part of her mind thinks how predictable he is, turning religious as the plane and the sky part company and the possibility of death arises.

“Stop that,” she snaps. “Look for land. Howland Island should be here, according to you.”

He stares at her with wide frantic eyes, and she thinks, not for the first time, that the two of them are mismatched as pilot and navigator. She doesn’t even like him much: his inane conversation irks her, as does his habit of releasing gas, blaming the altitude of flight. The thought flashes through her mind that if the Electra crashes into the ocean she might die next to this buffoon, instead of with her husband, or one of her lovers. She shuts that thought out and scans the water. Howland Island is small and flat to the ocean. They could be almost on top of it and not know.

Fred is now reciting the Lord’s Prayer. She flicks him an irritated glance. His eyes are closed. She shouts at him to open his goddamed eyes and look for land, and he might manage to put off meeting his maker for a while longer. He does as he’s told, and they both search the ocean as the plane sinks lower, floating though the layers of wind and air currents; the sea below and Fred’s heaven above.

They both see the island at the same moment. It’s small, a tiny droplet of land in the expanse of water. It’s dead ahead, and they are too high, it’s too close, and she has no hope of banking or circling back to it. She has to put the plane down sharply and hope there is somewhere forgiving for the plane’s resting place. Amelia adjusts the controls, the little plane shudders, responds, noses down at a steeper angle. Too sharp, she knows, but this is their only option. Her fingers sure on the wheel. She can do it, she knows that. She sees dense green vegetation, and a flock of birds that come bursting out, startled by the silver plane above them that must look like some giant bird of prey.

There is somewhere to land. A lagoon—softest blue, shimmering aquamarine—ringed by jungle, a narrow collar of land around this jewel. She can see the lagoon is shallow—there’s the lazy flap of a ray in the clear water—and she levels out the Electra so that its belly is nearly skimming the water. Fred is tight-knuckled beside her; no doubt he thinks he procured this miraculous island by the power of his prayer.

They are going to make it, she thinks. They’re going too fast, but the water will slow them. She puts the plane’s belly down. It hits the surface with a slap that jolts them in their seats. She sees white sand, and fish glimmering like precious stones. And just as she thinks it’s okay, they’ve made it, the plane wobbles, a wingtip catches, and the Electra cartwheels. It’s life in slow motion in the minutes before death. There is sky, water, sky, and things that she thought were stowed so securely in the cockpit come raining down around them. There is the flash of bright aluminum, a shower of ocean, the sound of Fred screaming, abruptly silenced. Then the plane is resting right side up, and they’re close enough to shore to see there are palm trees, dense vegetation, and a clatter of birds. She realizes her feet are wet—a side panel has been torn away and the Electra is sinking.

She’s dazed, her head is throbbing, and there’s blood on her thigh seeping through a gash in her flying suit. Amelia knows there’s something she should do, but she can’t get her mind to work and she can’t remember what it is. But then she smells shit and looks across at Fred, at the angle of his neck so abruptly tilted, and the wires uncross in her head, and she knows she has to get out of the plane. She must save herself because it’s too late for Fred.

Her body seems to work, although her left wrist hurts, and she has a headache that pounds like the big bass drum in the band that played her off in Miami on this around the world trip. She was to be the first woman to fly around the world, and the first person to take the longest equatorial route—those honors will go to someone new and fresh now. She unbuckles the lap strap awkwardly with her good hand, grabs the emergency kit stowed behind the seat, water bottles, her sextant, and her case of personal items. The water is up to her knees, coming in faster, and she doesn’t know whether the lagoon is deep enough that the plane will sink completely. She shoves the hatch with her shoulder, and the bloom of pain in the joint brings tears to her already salty eyes. Another fierce push, and her shoulder screams in protest but the hatch opens and she tumbles out into the water. She can’t feel the bottom underneath her feet and she starts swimming awkwardly with her good arm, holding the emergency kit above her head until it penetrates her fogged brain that it’s wrapped in oiled cloth and should be waterproof.

The shore isn’t far away, but time feels warped, fractured, distorted, and she could be swimming for minutes or an hour. She doesn’t look back at the plane until her feet catch on the sandy lagoon floor and she drags herself up the beach and turns. The plane is listing to one side, a wing and the top of the cockpit show above the water. She doesn’t mourn Fred, doesn’t know if she can, as it was his error, his insistence on this bearing for Howland Island that has brought her to this. But she sits on the sharp coral sand, clasps her knees, and stares out at the Electra. It doesn’t sink any lower, so she may be able to swim out another day and see what she can salvage. Fred’s body too. She owes him a burial, but that is all for later.

She’s thinking about later, she realizes, now that death is not so imminent, she’s thinking of survival. Food, water, fire. A signal fire. There will be search parties for she is Amelia Earhart: America’s greatest heroine, the dashing aviatrix, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, the first woman to fly above 18,000 feet, the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland. But not the first woman to fly around the world.

The dense humidity is making her headache worse. She rises to her feet and staggers in a weaving line to where the rainforest touches the sand. Before she sits, she checks herself over, running shaking hands over her body. A sore wrist (not broken), throbbing shoulder (not dislocated) a swollen knee. A pounding head and an overwhelming need to lie in the shade and sleep. She takes a careful scanty sip of water and succumbs, wondering as she does if she will wake again.

She wakes in the dark and lies still listening to the crack of branches and scuffling noises in the rainforest behind her. There are stars, great swathes of them, the same stars she’s seen a thousand times from the cockpit. Her mouth is dry and tastes of salt and her short hair feels stiff under the flying helmet.

She wonders if the search parties have found the Electra yet—although how could they? She doesn’t know where she is, just that it’s not Howland Island and they will surely be searching around there first. Tomorrow she will light a signal fire, find food, water… She sleeps again before she can finish the thought.

The morning is bright, and she wakes blinking and disorientated. Her body hurts, each joint as stiff as rheumatism. She remembers, and bows her head in memory of Fred, of the plane, of the failed around the world attempt.

When she raises her head again, she sees someone standing, straight and tall and slender as a young palm tree. She blinks, sure she must have imagined the person, but they are still there. It is a woman, young and naked, with dusky skin and long hair tangled in a snarl over her breasts.

She rises and stands still, her palms open, facing outward to show she means no harm. “Hello,” she says and her voice is a rusty croak, thick with sorrow and pain. She waits for the woman to come forward, but she remains in the same place, poised like a deer for flight.

“My name is Amelia,” she says, although she guesses she won’t be understood.

The other woman treads a cautious path forward. She carries a green coconut. She puts it down on the sand, and retreats step by step. Amelia sidles forward, takes the nut and steps back again. It’s a stately, wary dance. “Thank you,” she says.

She thinks of the coconut water inside and salivates. Her fingers fumble in the emergency kit for the knife she knows is there—surely she can slice her way through. But her wrist hurts and she drops the knife, cursing as it slips from her hand into the sand.

The other woman comes forward; there’s more confidence in her step, as if she’s assessed Amelia to be no threat, this fumbling person with strange clothes, and short hair like a man’s. She has her own knife, and in quick, deft strokes she slices into the coconut and offers it to Amelia. Amelia takes it and gulps, aware of her parched and salty mouth, of her shaking hands. She drinks it down and her stomach rebels and it comes straight back up, in a gush of stomach acid. She sinks to the ground again, defeat and pain the twin razors in her head. But she is Amelia Earhart, and she will not be broken or beaten. There must be people here on this island, and they do not mean to harm her, not if this woman is anything to go by. She can rest and then rescue will come.

But there are no others. When she is able to walk, the woman takes her to her camp. It’s at the edge of the rainforest, overlooking the lagoon. There’s a smoldering campfire, a rudimentary shelter of woven palm leaves, a pile of mollusks’ shells, split open and discarded, and a couple of sea turtle shells. There are some rudimentary spears, and a tattered net, oft repaired. It has the look of habitation, of a life spent here in the shade of trees, eking an existence.

Amelia looks around. “Are you alone?” she asks, although she already knows the answer. Her hand sweeps out. “Where are the others?”

The woman bows her head and kneels by the fire, coaxing it into life with a handful of dry leaf matter. Then she rises and goes to the remains of a canoe. It’s battered and starting to rot in places. The woman removes the palm leaves laid carefully over the top and Amelia sees that the canoe that once kept water out now keeps water in. The woman scoops a careful handful of water to her mouth and gestures for Amelia to do the same. She does so, careful not to drink so much that her stomach rebels again. She looks around the makeshift camp, and realizes that this woman has been alone here for a long time.

Sorrow overwhelms her. She who is so strong, so capable, so beloved by many, sinks to her knees in the damp and musty leaf litter, puts her face in her hands and cries. There are tears for Fred, for the Electra, for her husband no doubt frantic in America as news of her disappearance reaches him. There are tears too for her dream, cut short, cut down, the around the world flight that will not be hers to claim. But then she stops crying, and straightens her shoulders. She ignores the throbs of pain from around her body, and rises. There is no salvation yet. But rescue will come and she will return.

 

The days drift by in a silent dream. Amelia and her companion communicate by gestures, although they now have names. “Amelia,” she says, pointing to herself. “Amelia.” But the syllables are strange, and her companion manages “Meelie”, which Amelia likes as it sounds the same as her childhood nickname, and this strange and fractured interlude is like a childhood game of explorers, played with her sister. Likewise, Amelia cannot understand her companion’s name. She settles on “Lae”, because it sounds a bit like the port in New Guinea she’d last taken off from, and saying that name often in a day keeps her focused.

She learns by sign language that Lae had gone fishing one day from her island home, a long, long way away. She’d dropped her paddle when startled by a shark under the canoe, and had been unable to retrieve it. She had drifted for a long, long time, the canoe taken by the currents. Lae had nearly died, the sun hot, with no water. She’d managed to catch fish in her net—the same net that now hung tattered but usable in their camp—and this had sustained her until the canoe washed up here, many days—weeks?—later.

At first, Amelia keeps stubbornly to her flight clothes. Wearing them is who she is, and rescue will come any day now. Any day. But she watches Lae running naked and unashamed along the shores of the lagoon, fishing from the shore with her tattered net, gutting a sea turtle and then walking thigh deep into the lagoon to clean herself. She sees Lae’s menstrual blood running down her thighs, and the care with which she washes herself on those days. There are sharks in the lagoon; she sees their fins cleaving the water.

She learns that the lagoon has one opening to the sea. At low tide, she can walk across the bar and see the Electra sitting above the water. At high tide, the bar is submerged and the fish come into the warm and shallow lagoon from the sea. Then, only the cockpit and one wingtip of her plane are visible.

Amelia builds a signal fire on the western shore, figuring this is where help will come from. She goes there several times a day, standing in her stained and sweat-crusted flying suit, scanning the horizon for a ship. But none ever comes. At night, she plots her location by the stars and realizes that Fred had been wrong, so very wrong, and they are nowhere near Howland Island, but much further south, maybe three or four hundred miles. Rescue, when it comes, will be a while longer.

She learns which shellfish are good to eat, and which fish are toxic. She learns to cast the net, to gut a sea turtle, and how to catch rainwater in the infrequent rains that fall. She learns how to defend against the giant coconut crabs, and she learns too how delicious they are to eat. As the weeks wear on, she discards her flying suit, piece by piece, the helmet first, her shoes last, until she too is naked and brown on the island.

Excerpted from “Amelia” by Cheyenne Blue, from the anthology in First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings, edited by Cheyenne Blue.

Cover reveal: Code of Conduct

[image error] How fitting that I can show you the cover for my next novel right now, in the heart of the Australian tennis season, as athletes battle for a Grand Slam title in Melbourne’s stifling heat. And when I’m glued to my TV screen, watching the tennis.

I adore tennis, and so it was only a matter of time before I wrote a romance set in the world of professional tennis.

Code of Conduct will be out in June from Ylva Publishing. Why yes, that is when Wimbledon happens.

Blurb

Viva Jones was great once. A top ten tennis player with a grand slam trophy to her name, she had the world at her feet. Then an overzealous lineswoman’s bad call knocked her out of the US Open, and a persistent injury crushed her career. While battling to return to the game she loves, a chance meeting with the lineswoman, Gabriela, forces Viva to rethink the past…and the present.

Away from the court, Gabriela is sexy, athletic, and lives for her career as an umpire. She seems to be falling for Viva as hard and fast as Viva is for her. There’s just one problem: players and officials can’t date.

A lesbian romance about breaking all the rules.

2017: what happened in Cheyenne’s world

[image error] Strange how quickly a year can go past.

I’ve just looked back on the post I wrote this time last year (is it really a year since David Bowie died? And Leonard Cohen?). Must be. Is it really a year since American politics turned arseways? Must be. How about a year since the third book in my “Girl Meets Girl” series came out? That’s a bit better. Yes, Fenced-In Felix has been out for a bit over a year. Where HAS the time gone?

This time last year, I said that I could manage to write two full-length novels per year.

Have I managed that this year?

[image error]The short answer is no, but with a bit of a last minute squeeze, I managed to write two books this year, and have had two published this year.

Firstly, on the publication front, Party Wall came out in October from Ylva Publishing.  It’s part of a series from Ylva’s Window Shopping Collection, which has different writers putting their own spin on the same opening paragraph. If you like an enemies-to-lovers story, with a bit of drama, a bit of Aussie humour, two opposites attract  characters, and a supporting cast of female friends, then I hope you’ll give Party Wall a go.

As for the second book…In December 2017, Australia’s politicians finally, FINALLY stopped dragging their chain and passed marriage equality into law. This followed on from a contentious voluntary postal survey that cost us $22 million and in November returned the result that every poll in the last couple of years had already said: that a majority of Australians supported marriage equality. 61.6% of them to be exact.

[image error]In October, about the time I was supposed to be starting my next novel, I had the quite frankly bonkers idea of writing a short story  to celebrate marriage equality in Oz. When I put this to Astrid at Ylva, to my surprise, she was totally behind the idea. I gave myself two weeks to write it, and in that time my proposed 10K words grew to a bit over 21K. The good people at Ylva then rallied around in the next couple of weeks to edit, design a cover, proofread, schedule, format, promote, and finally publish the result the day after marriage equality passed into law. Almost-Married Moni is the fourth book in my “Girl Meets Girl” series, but like the others, it stands alone. You can check this one out for the bargain basement price of $0.99.

[image error]Finally, in 2017 on the publishing front, the first of my collections of short lesbian erotica, Blue Women Stories Volume 1: collected lesbian erotica of Cheyenne Blue  is now available on Kindle Unlimited, or you can buy that also for the cheapie price of $0.99.

As to what I’ve written in 2007, well, I was very derailed by Almost-Married Moni. It’s not enough just to write a book. The edits, proofs, decisions, emails, more proofs, checking stuff all take time. So my new novel is outlined, and sitting in Scrivener waiting for me to get back to it. I have about 2,000 words written, and the plan is that next week, I’ll once again put off doing my $@(%Y&@%&% taxes for another couple of months and have a first-draft marathon on my as yet untitled story.

I did however write one new novel, and there will be a cover reveal for that in the next week or so. All I’ll say right now, is that it’s a lesbian sports romance set in the world of professional tennis.

The rest of my life, well, that’s not so different. A day job (still), a life in rural Queensland, a huge deck with a view for coffee and wine, veggies to encourage to grow, a simple life of good food, wine, books, home-cooked food, laughter, a dear partner, and wonderful friends. A dog would be nice–a german shepherd or a jack russell terrier maybe, but not yet. There’s still so many places to go where dogs can’t come.

Various other projects have kept me grounded this year, but hopefully next year will include more travel. I’ll also follow the tactful suggestion of my doctor to move a little more and eat a little less. I guess that one is a hazard of the writing life.

I’ll end now with a snippet from a review of Almost-Married Moni. Tara Scott reviewed the story for LOTL Magazine.  The whole review put me on a fluffy white cloud of delight for days, simply because Tara totally got the book. She drilled down to its essence, and this nugget from her review perfectly captures the heart and soul of the book, and the reason I wrote it.

There is so much joy in this book, it’s impossible to describe. More than simply a love story, it flat out celebrates love—romantic love first and foremost, but also familial love and the love of friends who are like family.

Happy 2018 everyone.

Love is Love.

Cheyenne xo

Almost-Married Moni – free book this weekend!

FREE BOOK THIS WEEKEND!

Two things happened last week that were rather good. Or seriously awesome. Well, one is seriously awesome and the other is rather good. Either way, there’s a connection.

The first, of course, is that finally, finally, FINALLY, Australia passed marriage equality into law. On 7 December, parliament passed the law in a nearly unanimous vote.  LGBTQI+ couples in Oz can now register and in 30 days’ time, will be able to get married.

The second thing, not unrelated, is that I have a new novella out to celebrate this. Almost-Married Moni, book 3.1 in my “Girl Meets Girl” series was written and published especially to coincide with Australia’s vote.  And I’ll get this in now above the “Read More” cut–if you go to the Ylva site this weekend (9 – 10 December) you can download 22K words of happy, humorous, lesbian outback wedding for FREE.

I’ll wait while you do that.