Harper Bliss's Blog, page 47

Hump Day Hook: Learning Curve

This week’s Hump Day Hook is from Learning Curve, a novelette about a woman who has a crush on her German tutor, set in sexy Berlin.

My company sent me to Berlin five months ago and I’ve been having these weekly sessions with Giselle for the past fifteen weeks. That’s a lot of hours spent gazing into the impossible blue of her eyes. If only I could pick up German by doing that.

“Watch the news on ZDF,” Giselle says in impeccable English. I’m sure she does it to taunt me. I bet she’s a genius who speaks at least seven languages with no sign of a native accent.

“And address people in German this week. Don’t worry about making mistakes.”

“Sure.” I bury my books in my backpack with no intention of digging them up before next week’s session. Giselle has told me many times that German is not a language you can learn without memorising vocabulary, articles, and the dreaded verb cases, but does she honestly believe I have nothing better to do?

“Any wild plans this weekend?” She takes off her thick-framed glasses with those long-fingered hands and I can feel my heart skip a beat before it starts thundering in my chest. It doesn’t matter that those hands have pointed out countless mistakes and have, occasionally, slapped the desk in frustration with my apparent German learning disability. If Giselle wasn’t my teacher, she’d be perfect. Apart from her hands, they’re perfect already, regardless of our relationship.

“Just the usual speaking your fair language to everyone I encounter and maybe a few drinks in between.” I grab my leather jacket from the back of the chair and sling it over my shoulder. I need to get out of here before I lose my cool completely. I can feel it slipping away as I skim her freckled face for a sign of a smile. She shoots me a small one at last. One that says—I know you want to fuck me, but you’ll have to learn German first.

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Sunday Snog: Personal Training

It’s been scandalously long since I last posted a Sunday Snog. Let’s get the snogging train rolling again with a snippet from Personal Training, a brand new short story set in (you guessed it right) the gym.

Blurb

Jan works out people for a living, but one day her client Ali, the one she’s been lusting after for months, turns the tables on her and gives Jan the work out of a lifetime.

Maybe it’s the tension, but I can’t suppress a giggle bubbling up from my throat. “Any interest I have in your backside is purely professional,” I lie.

Her mouth widens in feigned surprise. She shakes her head and corners me next to the TRX cables. “Is there anything else I should know? Now that you’re being so honest.”

My back hits the wall and Ali is so close I can smell her. The scent of her sweat stirs something in my blood. When I dreamed of this moment, and I’ve spent hours picturing it, I was the one backing Ali into a corner. I was the one in command. I imagined it would come naturally to me. Now that the moment is here I feel I’m losing more control with every passing second. I respond by grabbing her arms and pulling her close.

Her breath warms my already flushed face. Her blue eyes bore into mine. As far as truth goes, I can only repeat my previous actions. I move my hands upwards, trailing my nails along the flesh of her arms, and pull her in.

This time, she responds to my kiss by parting her lips and allowing my tongue to slip into her mouth. She withdraws and traces a moist path to my ear with her lips. “You have no idea,” she whispers. And it’s true, I have no idea what she means. But I don’t care as I inhale her closeness and revel in it. My nipples harden under my top. They poke into the fabric of my sports bra and I can’t wait for them to be freed.

I make a play for Ali’s tank top, wanting to lift it and expose the abs we’ve been working on so hard, but she’s quick to intercept me. She grabs me by the wrists and, in one swift movement—as if it’s all she does in life—she pins my hands above my head.

Her eyes don’t leave mine. Her face is unreadable. Maybe this is what she does in life.

Do hop over to Victoria Blisse’s blog for more snogs!

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Deadline for ‘Anything She Wants’ submissions extended

A few people have e-mailed me to ask for a few more days to submit their story for Anything She Wants. I agreed and have extended the deadline with one week. To be fair, I’m posting it on here as well. So, if your story was almost ready, but you just missed the deadline: here’s your chance to send it to me anyway.

The new deadline is May 8, 2013. Everything else stays the same.

 

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Hump Day Hook: Personal Training

This week’s Hump Day Hook is from my brand new short story Personal Training, which will be released very soon. Here’s a taste already.

I have no idea what she says next. I’m enthralled by the flush in her cheeks and the excited tone of her voice. I hardly notice that I bring a finger to her lips, silencing her. My body seems cut off from the common sense that’s supposed to keep me from touching her. Reputation is everything in this town. If word gets out…

“Jan?” I feel lips moving against the tip of my finger. I focus my gaze and meet Ali’s big blue eyes. I know I should retract my finger and apologise as profusely as possible, but I can’t. After hours of admiring her strong body, her tenacity and unbreakable willpower, something inside me gives.

She goes wide-eyed, but doesn’t push my hand away. I move in closer, cupping her chin with my palm. Maybe I should say something, but I have no idea what. So I kiss her. I lean in and plant my lips on hers. Instantly, I’m dizzy with lust. Until she pushes me away by the shoulders.

“Excuse me?” Ali’s expression is more amused than annoyed. I can see in her eyes this is not a dismissal. I can see it in the way she tilts her head and bats her lashes.

This is my gym, I think. I’m in charge. I stand to face her. “I’ve wanted you since the first time you walked in here.” I bring my hands to my sides, as if I’m casually explaining a new exercise. “I thought it was time you knew.” In the frenzied state my mind is in, there’s no room for rejection.

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Win a signed copy of High Rise (The Complete Collection)

I’m giving away two signed copies of High Rise (The Complete Collection) on GoodReads. Click here (or below) to take part in the giveaway. I WILL write something naughty in it, if you ask nicely.

Goodreads Book Giveaway


High Rise
by Harper Bliss

Giveaway ends May 29, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

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Q&A: Ily Goyanes on Girls Who Score

The cover of Girls Who Score makes me sad that I live in a shoebox Hong Kong apartment with not a lot of room for print books. Maybe I can have a poster made out if though, and hang it on my bedroom wall. Hey, I have a thing for toned women in tank tops and sport bras. (If you’ve read any of my stories, this is probably not news to you.)

No lesbian erotica anthology could be tailored more to my taste than this one filled with hot stories about sporty lesbians. (Because there are not a lot of things in life that I love more than sporty lesbians.) Please, Cleis Press, can you make this an annual series?

Obviously, I’m thrilled to have Girls Who Score editor Ily Goyanes on my blog today. Before she tells us more about this fabulous anthology, I want to give a special shout-out to the brilliant Cheyenne Blue, whose story Run, Jo, Run lingered in my mind long after I finished reading it (and is partly responsible for me starting to run again!)

Let’s hear from Ily.

1. Sell us your book in one sentence.

Smart, sweaty, steamy sex involving female athletes and the women who desire them.

2. Favourite line (or paragraph) from Girls Who Score

I hate to sound cliche, but I really can’t choose one. There are so many sassy, smart lines, and passionate paragraphs, that it would be a disservice to choose one above all the others.

3. Last book that blew you away?

Dirty Cooking by Jay Sheehan.

4. Which celebrity is at number one of your imaginary to-do list?

Ooooh. I get to choose two since I’m queer, right? Channing Tatum and Catherine Zeta Jones.

5. What’s your favourite sexy song?

Tough question. Too many. But electronica and jazz really do it for me.

6. What are you most proud of?

Being asked to participate in Miami Book Fair International as a panelist last year, and the Lambda Literary Award and Golden Crown Literary Society nominations for Girls Who Score.

7. Who’s your favourite TV Character?

Rick Castle.

8. Which author’s books are a must-read?

Megan Abbott, particularly Dare Me.

9. Anything else you want us to know?

If you find the strength (and bodies) of female athletes sexy, you’ll probably enjoy reading Girls Who Score.

10. What’s next for you?

I’m simultaneously working on two novels, one mystery, and one contemporary lit.

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Ily Goyanes is a journalist, editor, publisher, and widely published erotica author. She writes about food and culture for the Miami New Times and the Fuming Foodie, her columnist alter ego, has been known to cause a bit of controversy. Her erotica appears in Best Lesbian Erotica 2012, Lesbian Cops: Erotic Investigations, Spankalicious: Erotic Adventures in Spanking, and Power Plays.  Girls Who Score: Hot Lesbian Erotica is her first full-length anthology. She calls Miami, Florida home.

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The Complete High Rise Collection

All four of my High Rise novellas are now available bundled together. You can read all about Alex, Maddie, Nat and Isabella’s romantic adventures in either an 85.000 word e-book or a hefty paperback of 294 pages.

This does mark the end of the High Rise series, but not to worry, I’m brooding on a new series already, and I’ll be releasing a lot of short stories in the coming two months.

Here’s a reminder of the blurb:

Four women. One building. A million complications. 

High Rise is a series of lesbian erotic romance novellas focusing on four women who live in The Ivy, the sexiest building in Hong Kong.

There’s Alex, a local gym instructor with a broken heart. Her room mate Nat, a celebrated American writer who moved to Hong Kong for love. Their upstairs neighbour Maddie, a workaholic investment banker. And the penthouse inhabitant, Isabella, a psychiatrist who’s lived in the city for fifteen years.

Romances develop and untangle as these four women get to know each other better.

This collection includes:

Novella 1: Fool for Love

Novella 2: Undisclosed Desires

Novella 3: No Ordinary Love

Novella 4: Close Enough

Warning: these novellas include countless hot and graphic f/f sex scenes and may make you blush (amongst other things).

Price: $6.99 (e-book) / $12.99 (paperback)

Available as e-book from

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon CA

Smashwords

Kobo

All Romance eBooks

Rainbow eBooks

Harper Bliss web shop

(Other retailers like Barnes & Noble and iTunes should follow soon.)

Available as paperback from

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon FR

Always a proud moment.

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Hump Day Hook: All of Me

With all this talk about asses on my blog last week, I thought I’d pick this week’s hook from my free lesbian anal erotic story All of Me.

“On all fours,” she commanded and sparks coursed through my blood as I exposed my pussy to the musky air of our bedroom. I settled on my hands and knees and, looking back through my arms, searched for her eyes. I found darkness, pure sexual desire mixed with the will to possess. To have and to give.

She reached for the bedside table where we kept all our toys—her toys—and watched how, from beneath handcuffs and blindfolds, she unearthed a dildo. Not the biggest one she owned, but not the smallest one either.

My throat went dry at the sight of it. Two fingers seemed nothing compared to the hot pink silicone cock she was about to negotiate into my virgin ass. Luckily, she grabbed a bottle of lube on her way back to my rear, on her way back to deflowering me once and for all.

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Only 10 days left to submit to ‘Anything She Wants’

Dear lesbian erotica writers, you have 10 days left to submit your story to me. The call for Anything She Wants closes on May 1st, so if you get cracking now, you can still send me something! I’m waiting eagerly and impatiently.

Hey, if you’re anything like me at all, you’ve waited until now because, well, there’s always time right? And procrastinating is just something that needs to be done. I get it. I am the queen of procrastination, but even I, procrastinator-par-excellence would get my butt in the chair ten days before the deadline and start writing.

I admire all the lovely authors who have sent me a story already. You deserve nothing but respect for not needing a looming deadline to get things done. All of you should have received a personal reply from me within 48 hours of submitting. (If you haven’t gotten a reply, I have not received your story! So, don’t hesitate to send it again.)

Let me quickly repeat what I’m looking for. Full details and submission guidelines can be found here. And for those of you who have e-mailed me expressing concern over anything keeping them from writing the story, there’s only one thing to it: just do it! (It really can be that easy.)

Ladylit Publishing wishes to celebrate its first anniversary with a sizzling collection of lesbian tales. We’re looking for F/F erotica of any subgenre (fiction only). It doesn’t matter how many characters end up in bed (or anywhere else) together, as long as they are all female. Make your setting original, and make sure there’s a little something more going on than just sex. Whether you’re writing about cougars, first-timers, tomboys or latebians, give us a fully-formed character. We’re open to all varieties of lesbian lust, as long as your story is well-crafted and hot.

Word Count: 2.000-3.500

Payment: $30 per story

Rights: First international electronic rights

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Q&A: Lyn Gardner on Ice

Yay, I snagged Lyn Gardner for a mini-interview! Ice is one of the best and most entertaining lesbian fiction novels I’ve read recently. This is what I had to say about it after I’d just finished it.

Talk about unputdownable… I stayed up half the night reading this. I can not recommend it enough. Ice had everything. Action. Hot characters. Suspense. A thrilling story line. Excellent dialogue. Romance. And… a couple of very moistening sex scenes.

As you might have guessed, I’m thrilled to have Lyn Gardner tell us some more about her bestselling indie book. Here we go.

1. Sell us your book in one sentence.

Ice is written for the romantic, and in its pages, you’ll discover one woman’s stubbornness, and another’s tenacity, but you’ll also discover a smile and a pang… and a passion that will flame for eternity.

2. Favourite line (or paragraph) from Ice.

During the ride to the airport, Alex Blake had made herself a promise. She would not push buttons. She would not start an argument, cast a dirty look, or make a derogatory comment. However, defense mechanisms are just that: ways of preventing people from getting too close or from seeing the truth, and as far as Alex was concerned, she had no intention of allowing Campbell to do either. Alex had learned her lesson the hard way, and even though she thought Maggie was the most beautiful woman that she had ever laid eyes on, the woman was undeniably straight. End of subject. Time to push buttons.

3. Last book that blew you away?

This is the part where I’m going to sound very boring, because I haven’t read a book in years. I’m a focused woman, so when I have a hobby all my interest is in it, and past hobbies never gave me the time to read. However, there is one book that did blow me away, but probably not in the way you may think. Many years ago, I was sitting in my apartment reading Stephen King’s The Shining. It was late at night, and back then I read quite a bit, so it was no big deal to stay up until all hours devouring a novel. The only problem was Mr. King’s words scared the shite out of me. I mean, I was reading a book. A book! Something easily closed and put aside, but his writing was so vivid that I got pulled into that story and into that fear. So much, I had to get up to make sure all the doors and windows were locked, along with turning on some lights. LOL

That was the first time I realized the power of a book. I mean, yeah, who hasn’t been turned on by erotica or vivid passion, but fear… that’s something different. That’s something special. I’ve only been writing for five years, but what Mr. King did in his pages is what I want to do. I want to suck the reader into the ink. Into the cabin or the cold or the love and make them feel what my characters are feeling. Yeah, I’d have to say that was the book that blew me away.

4. Which celebrity is at number one of your imaginary to-do list?

Not that I have a list like that, but if I had to pick at this moment, I’d say Diane Lane. I think the older she gets, the more beautiful she becomes and there’s this playfulness in her eyes. Have you ever noticed? Just this youthful, giggly-girl playfulness and combined with the confidence that comes with age… well, that’s a lethal combination in my book.

5. What’s your favourite sexy song?

The one that comes to mind is Fallin’ by Alicia Keys. I’m very visual, so when I hear a song I like, I can see a scene in it and that one calls up images of nakedness in the shadows. Their skin glistening with sweat, their moves slow, melodic… hot… neither needing to rush because the journey is too sweet to miss a moment of it.

6. What are you most proud of?

The fact that Ice and Mistletoe were #1 and #2 on Amazon for over three weeks in December 2012. I stuck to my guns and I turned down a publishing contract because I wanted the words on the page to be my own, rather than what someone thought they should be. For the books to reach that pinnacle, without a publisher, without a professional editing staff, and following not one suggestion that they offered during discussions… hell, that just made me smile.

7. Who’s your favourite TV Character?

Once again – a boring answer – because I don’t watch TV. Okay, I catch up on Grey’s Anatomy when I get the chance, but I work full-time, so my free time is usually spent on writing. However, since I got my start in fan fiction, I’d have to say that it’s a tie between Nikki and Helen.

8. Which author’s books are a must-read?

If you’re asking about lesbian fiction, Jeanette Winterson and Sarah Waters – hands down. If you’re asking overall, I think I’d want to support the independents and read Hugh Howey’s Wool and something by Amanda Hocking. And there’s this erotica writer – Harper Bliss – she’s read mine, so I seriously need to read hers.

9. Anything else you want us to know?

I’m living a dream, and I’d like to thank everyone out there who’s purchased my books. They’ve been so kind in their comments and reviews, (okay, most of them – we all know we can’t please everyone – damn it) and the dozens of emails I’ve received have brought smiles to my face. I’m an independent author with no clue how to self-promote or advertise, so I attribute whatever success comes my way to the readers who’ve gone out of their way to make me feel welcome and to talk about my books.

10. What’s next for you?

I’m working on a novel called Give Me a Reason. It’s not what I would call your typical love story; although its pages will contain romance… trust me.

GMAR (which is what I affectionately call it) is a book about a woman who struggles every day to take her next breath because she’s terrified of the world around her. Her past has left scars, both physical and mental, and the story revolves around her learning to live again, to trust again, to love again, and to face her demons when they appear.

11. Bonus question: How does it feel to have written a lesfic bestseller?

Thank you for the compliment! It’s so hard to believe, but when I allow myself to think about what I’ve done – no – what Ice has done, it’s a f*cking kick in the pants. It really is.

I had to open Ice on my Kindle to grab my favorite paragraph for this interview a few minutes ago, and I’ve got to tell you – OMG, I’ve written a book! That’s my first thought – every flipping time – I’ve written a book! I don’t know if you grow numb to seeing your name on the pages of Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or finding yourself mentioned on Goodreads or in someone’s blog, but for me it’s still jaw-dropping. I seriously don’t think it’s really sunk in, but I am so enjoying this ride.

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You can find Lyn Gardner on her blog, her website, or Facebook.

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