Billy London's Blog, page 22

My Girl

The dad, the kid and the cafe owner have music to share with you. From Leila McNamara causing problems to Abigail Yeboah falling for the russet beardedness of Liam McNamara, here's the music of Sweet Child of Mine:


No Money - Kings of LeonOtis Jay-Z and Kanye WestI'd Rather Be High - David BowieGorilla - Bruno MarsBleeding Love - Leona LewisYou Don't Know Me - Armand Van Helden Royals - LordeVoyeur - James BlakeWings - Little MixLove Me Again - John NewmanDance Apocalyptic - Janelle Monae Heart Skipped A Beat - The xx No One Will Ever Love You - Connie Britton Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen Best Song Ever - One DirectionReady To Start - Arcade FireBang Bang - Will.I.Am Together - The xx War - Edwin StarrBaby baby - Justin Bieber Joy - Ellie Goulding All Romance E-booksAmazonShara Azod

Daddy Cool

Today, I'm on the Luscious Literaries blog sharing a bit about Sweet Child of Mine.

http://lusciousliteraries.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/sweet-child-of-mine-by-billy-london-a-luscious-excerpt/

It's also finally released on both All Romance E-books and Amazon. You can find that right here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H03J75Y/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?keywords=sweet+child+of+mine+billy+london&qid=1386433371&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
http://www.allromanceebooks.com/mobile/details.html?pid=1364510&cat=178 
Enjoy!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Last year, everything was to the wire! I barely had time to breathe in between the wrapping and the shopping and the flamin' flu. This year, I've decided to be on my game. As a mini cadeau to say thank you for being delightful readers and my all round cheerleading team, I've written twelve short stories, one for each of the 12 days of Christmas, full of festive cheer and a little sauce. The sauce is because I like you lot. I like you lot quite a bit.

Click here to download the free collection from Weyward Thoughts, the collaborative blog I run with Janet Eckford and Nikki Winter (keep an eye on that for 2014 - things are happening!)

Each story has its own song and each song is perfect for the story. Read, baste yourself in some mulled wine and don't skimp on the pies. Work it off in January.


Past & Present Pleasures

The Fairytale of New York - The PoguesFate & The FuturePut A Little Love In Your Heart - Al Green The Gift Of DonnaJingle Bells - Michael Buble India's ChristmasAll I Want For Christmas - Mariah CareyA New NoelMirrors - Justin TimberlakeChanging LightsDreaming Of A White Christmas - Nat King ColeShopping For TwoHave Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Christina AguileraSeason of DiamondsLet It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Frank SinatraMiller's GirlDo They Know It's Christmas? - Band AidJingle In The NightSanta Baby - Eartha KittCastle Family ChristmasI Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - WizzardBrooke & A Hard PlaceMerry Christmas Everyone - Shakin' Stevens

Sweet Child Of Mine

Look at that?! Makes me feel all traditional and romantic and doing good service in the name of single fathers everywhere! Fathers who have daughters, coz as a Daddy's girl myself, I've made my father suffer. Suffer! The things that man has done with patience and a sigh and most probably several cigarettes after I've gone to bed. So this story is for the Dads to daughters. Fathers who will trek with their daughter to Topshop and endure the trauma so they can buy that skirt everyone's been on about. Fathers who will wear earplugs while their daughters sing along loudly and badly to their favourite boyband who they will marry. They totally will marry every member. Not the fat one though. Fathers who will watch that boy from across the street with suspicion because he is not allowed to look in his child's direction. Fathers who will iron school uniforms, do Design Technology homework before it is burned into a crisp, remember a much needed tennis racket and sneak a cheeky champagne to their daughter just so she knows the difference between the fake stuff and the good stuff. Thank you. You don't get enough credit.

http://www.sharaazod.com/ebook/sweet-child-mine.html

Le Blurb

Liam McNamara has enough on his plate. As a widowed father to a daughter he doesn't recognise, he really has no time for his mother's interference with his love life. She and her church friend can stop handing out photos of him to the single ladies of the congregation and let him try to be the paternal and maternal figure his daughter so desperately needs.

Abigail Yeboah ignores most of what happens in her mother's church. She's focused on her budding business and she's certainly not interested in playing Evil Queen to Liam McNamara's brat. But when Abigail catches his daughter in an act of vandalism, she finally understands it's not only the child who needs her, but the man.


La Excerpt


Abigail carried on clearing down the tables. “I’d like to be home before half eight,” she said. “I’m listening, but I do need this done.”He leaned over and took the cloth and table spray from her hands. “Hold on a moment.”His palms were warm and rough around her wrists. It made her freeze. Er...hello? Did she miss a conversation where this was all right? He gently tugged her in front of him, looking her directly in the eyes.“I’m sorry about Leila’s behaviour. And I do appreciate you being decent, rather than taking her to the police station. It’s what I would have done. I’m sorry for snapping at you. It was uncalled for.”She carefully pulled her wrists from his grasp and returned to cleaning down the tables. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing was broken.” The sigh that came from him forced her to look up. There was some truth in her mother’s words. The man was lonely. “Do you want to talk?”“To a professional?” he asked ruefully.She lifted one shoulder. “To me. I feel like you need to talk to someone who isn’t related to you or your vicar.”He wavered, rubbing a palm over his beard. “Are you sure?”No. “I’ve offered, so I’d hope so.”Bowing his head, he stared at his shoes for a moment. “I’ll drop Leila with my mother. Shall I meet you somewhere in half an hour?”“Just come back here,” she suggested. “Get a cab, come here. We’ll get on the wine I can’t serve until my licence kicks in. Get a cab home.”He grinned. “You said the magic word. Wine. My mum was right about you. I’ll see you in half an hour.”His mother was what? He disappeared, leaving her speechless, holding the cloth and cleaning spray like a doofus. Crap, did she have makeup in her bag? Hurriedly finishing the cleanup, she closed the café and rummaged through her bag to find a bit of blusher and lip-gloss. A little powder toned down the shine on her nose, but nothing was going to rescue the tired T-shirt printed with Books Are Friendsor her torn jeans. She brushed a hand over her cropped hair—the cut that made her mother cry for two weeks straight. It did provide endless compliments as to how it emphasised her jawline and the shape of her eyes and drew attention to her mouth. Still, she looked boyish. Hell, Liam had more hair on his head than she did. What was she doing? Why was she getting overexcited about a grieving man?Just as she thought about how to tell him to keep his widowed arse at home, he strolled back into the café.“You should lock that,” he said, pulling one of her mismatched chairs from the table and sitting down. “Where’s this wine you promised?”“Aren’t we bossy?”“We,” he pointed his thumbs to his chest, “are in need of alcohol. A lot of.”She bolted the front door, picked up a bottle of Pinot and a corkscrew. “You open that. I’m getting some food.”He perked up. “Food? What do you have?”“Goat cheese tarts to start and chicken parmigiano.”His mouth parted for a moment before he burst out, “Jesus Christ, you fucking angel.”“Calm down.” She laughed. “Just open the wine and I’ll bring it out.”In five minutes, she brought out the warm tarts with onion marmalade. The smile in Liam’s eyes was enough to make her feel weak and all too aware of her femininity. “Before you say, this was all made fresh this morning. I just put it in the oven to reheat.”“This is such a luxury, I can’t tell you.” His praise was all in his groan of appreciation after his first mouthful. “I’m a cheese monster.”“Good for you,” she teased, taking a sip of wine. “Don’t you cook?”“I have to. But I’ve been cutting corners recently. Trying to feed a twelve-year-old who thinks you’re Satan out to ruin her life means food needs to be done in fifteen minutes or less. I used to bake.”Abigail choked on her tart. “You used to what?”“Bake,” he said, barely pausing in between forkfuls of tart and salad leaves. “Bread, cakes, quiches. We’d do it together.”Abigail tried not to tense, but the sensation invaded her shoulders. The image of his demon child and his perfect wife all laughing and giggling, throwing flour at each other, did not sit well in her stomach. “Why don’t you? Any more?”“No incentive.”“Come on. Having fresh bread is always an incentive.”“Nice idea,” he murmured, flicking his eyes up from the plate to rest on her. “What’s happening with your licence?”Normally, people only ever stared that intently at her to request service or more chocolate cake. “Refused for some unknown reason. Probably because Mrs. Dalbury-Scott’s husband is the local councillor. He deals with licences and she’s called The Librarya ghetto.”The woman had an issue with Abigail ever since she offered a breakfast and tea menu for local schoolchildren at a very reduced price. It was to help out struggling parents who had to rush to get their children to school and themselves to work. More so, it ensured those children ate well before and after a long school day. Apparently, Abigail was simply encouraging riffraff into the area and alcohol would increase the number of ASBOs the council would have to give out. Abigail wouldn’t put it past Mrs. Dalbury-Scott to imperiously command her husband to refuse the licence without thinking. Only to be petty and completely fuck up Abigail’s revenue.Liam’s brows rose. “Does she know half the kids from her daughter’s fancy school are here every day?”“Like yours?” she countered.“Without the egging. I’m sorry about that... You don’t want to listen to me complaining about my child.”Not really, but if he carried on talking she’d try to ignore what he was saying and instead focus on his voice—deep and smooth and as rich as the wine they were enjoying. “You wanted to talk. So talk.”

Demon Heart

You thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? No, I love my musical influences too much to not collate a soundtrack list for any of my stories.

This is a lucky number thirteen soundtrack to Angel's Baby for your delectation. It's as varied and random as my emotions writing this story.
Jack White - Love is BlindnessFaithless - Insomnia Gotye - Heart's A MessFoals - My Number Keaton Henson - To Your HealthThe xx - MissingFlorence and the Machine - Seven Devils Keaton Henson - CharonOlafur Arnalds - Broken (Broadchurch Soundtrack) Gemma Hayes - Wicked GameThe xx - FantasyJay-Z - Holy Grail ft Justin Timberlake Tom Odell - Can't Pretend 

That's Amore!

As promised, here's the Amazon link for A Life Sublime. Pages of Italian sunshine for you to enjoy. Blimey, it's been so long I've forgotten what happens in it...

http://www.amazon.com

Devil In A New Dress

And look what I woke up to this cold and frosty morn! A brand spanking new sequel to where all my apparent issues stem from! You can find the book, Angel's Baby, right here: http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Baby-ebook


Blurb:

Eva Mensah isn’t happy. To the outside world, she has the perfect life; a gorgeous musically talented husband and a beautiful little boy. But Gabriel Walker happens to be half way across the world on tour in Australia. And her five month old baby boy is evidently displeased by her parenting skills. She can’t do anything right by little Elijah. A world of emotion keeps her from admitting to her husband and her family that past events of two years ago are threatening to swallow her sanity whole. Eva can’t help but feel overwhelmed by being a new mother and inadequate to cope alone. 

Especially when she can still see bad things. 

Really bad things. 

Definitely not when they happen to her and certainly not when they start happening to her son. Unable to decide what’s real and what’s imagined, Eva struggles to keep the life she so desperately wanted, from dissolving into hell.



Excerpt:



The phone rang in the house. She needed to go now. No, to having another argument with her husband and definitely no, to having an argument with her husband in front of his parents. Malgosia stood up to answer it, and Eva collected all of their belongings. “Evangeline, it’s your husband. Come and talk to him.”“I’ll call him later. I need to get Elijah home.” At the car, she tucked her baby into the car seat. “Thank you for today. I appreciate it.”“Evangeline,” Isaak said softly. “You can trust us. With anything.”“I know,” she lied. The seat fit perfectly into the car for once and she and Elijah made their way back to Maida Vale. Feeling little more than super-efficient, she marched Elijah back into the house and gave him a brisk but thorough bath. The phone rang and rang. Infuriated, she put Elijah into his crib and snatched it up. “You are disturbing my child.”“You’re disturbing me, Evangeline. What the hell is going on?”“Look, everyone, every single person is weighing in on what I do. If it wasn’t that my arse had the audacity to marry you, it’s that I had the temerity to get pregnant. And now I have a child, I’m not looking after him right. He’s too thin. I’m not feeding him enough. I’m not showing him that I love him. And there’s you, halfway across the fucking world again when you’re needed. I know, it’s a contract and if you don’t honour it we lose everything, we can’t support our child. But I really, really could have done without the accusation of you cheating on me and if I don’t joke about it, I will cry. That’s all I do these days. Cry. And not fucking sleep.”Silence ruled the telephone line for so long, Eva called out “hello” down the line.“I’m still here.”“That’s what’s up, honestly.”“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”“You should know,” Eva said, her voice breaking. “I shouldn’t have to tell you.”“Yeah, you get that you’re the only empath in this relationship, right? So, you need to talk to me.” He exhaled heavily. “Look. Let me sort out some nannies on my side for you at least. And maybe...”“What?”“See a doctor.”“To tell me that I’m what? Depressed? I know I am. How do I breastfeed on antidepressants?”Gabriel sucked in a breath. “Angel, if you can’t look after yourself, you can’t look after Elijah. I’ll book an appointment for you.”“Then what happens if I’m too depressed to look after Elijah at all?”“He’ll be with me, until you’re better. Small steps, Angel.”“Okay,” she agreed.“I love you, so much. You know that, don’t you?”It took her several swallows to push back the tears clogging her throat. “I do. And I’m sorry for yelling at you.”“Try and sleep. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”“Night.”Not feeling much more reassured by the talk, she returned to her son’s room. She turned on his crib mobile and “Rock-a-Bye Baby” played in delicate notes above him. He watched her action and reached out to her. She kissed both his starfished hands and left the room, to feel anything other than the weight of her responsibility to that child. Fuck. There definitely was something wrong with her.

Father Figure

This was a difficult tale to pen, it did go in contradiction to my moral centre. I don't know what it is, but me and single fathers do not mix. Normally because I regularly witness some of the most pathetic excuses for parental care in the history of man. Shudder.

So to make my hero a single father caused me trauma. Even now, I don't feel entirely comfortable about it. Normally because it all comes with an insane amount of drama and really, truthfully, what about the children? Won't somebody please think of the children? But then, I have been and am still surrounded by towering examples of paternal saintliness - some of them single fathers themselves.

There's a difference between a man being a father and a man being a dad. And the dad part is what I focused on. The more I did, the more I found my hero sexy. His dedication to his daughter, how much he puts up from her, the way he convinces the heroine to give him the chance to show him fatherhood is only one side of him. I still side eye the hell out of him, but he and I understand each other a bit better. Okay, so he distracts me with general hotness. I'm weak, what can I say?

The Walking Sexy

I'm playing around on Coffee Time Romance today. Join in!


http://coffeetimeromance.com/CoffeeThoughts/the-walking-sexy/

Addicted

Remember how I mentioned that I have WIPs started and abandoned a while ago? Well Addicted to Witch was one of them. I read it again recently, with the distance of one who isn't questioning every single word under the cloak of edits and proofs. It's er... it's pretty intense. Witches and doctors and musicians and forestry and weirdness in Kent... Intense covers most of what goes on.

My publisher once told me, all of my stories have a strand of survival running through them all. But none more than in Addicted to Witch. Both the hero and heroine (polar opposites in the career and familial stage) have been through damaging, traumatising events and managed somehow to struggle through their issues to the other side where the grass is decidedly more green and less tragic.

While it's a paranormal tale, it's as real as any other story I've written. I was kinda shocked by what came out of my head. You think I wouldn't be any more, but I was. The story will be out this month and I hope you can identify with Auden and Helena. Two messed up people who find each other in a world of magic. There really is hope for us all.