Wednesday 31 August 2011

Addicted to Rope - now out

This is the cover for Addicted to Rope - written last month and just published as a novella by Xcite. As the title suggests there's a fair bit of bondage involved in the plot, including suspension. Oh, and some use of Magic Wands. And pegs. And other implements. But mainly it's about bondage.

Opening lines:

It felt weird. Exotic. Slightly dangerous. It felt like a challenge. It put a tight knot of anticipation in the pit of Ruth’s stomach, because the little demon inside her that automatically rose to a challenge was bouncing around in there.
Challenges were good, though. They made her feel real, alive, fulfilled.


Xcite gave me a publication date of 15th September but it's already showing on the Fulani section of the Xcite website (this links to the main site, just use the 'search' facility on the page to pull up all my titles).


Saturday 27 August 2011

Erotic Books Network - the new home for my novel

Remember the consternation caused recently when credit card companies in the US announced they would no longer do business with publishers of explicit adult fiction?

This just in from Pink Flamingo:

Erotic Book Network (EBN) www.eroticbooknetwork.com is now online! Featuring the entire Pink Flamingo Publications BDSM catalog

Lizbeth at Pink Flamingo has just announced: "On this site we’ll include all titles with BDSM content, including the nonconsensual titles that were removed due to bank/credit card restrictions. We’ll also include consensual BDSM titles that still appear on the main PF site.

"If you access EBN now, you’ll note that we still have some work to do uploading images and ebooks. However, ALL paperbacks are available for ordering now. We expect most of the ebooks removed from the Pink Flamingo site to be up and ready for download by early next week. All books released in 2011 are ready for download now. It’s great to see these books online again!

"And… We have secured a new credit card payment gateway for the EBN site so books can be purchased with credit card, paypal, check or money order."

My Secret Circus novel is now available on the new site (link opens in new window). I'll update links to it on this site and elsewhere shortly.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

A couple of interesting links

I've found, fairly randomly through links on some other web pages, a couple of interesting things recently.

'I’m Gonna Need You to Fight Me On This: How Violent Sex Helped Ease My PTSD' - an article by a female journalist whose personal experiences, along with her experiences of interviewing many women who'd been raped, led to the onset of a stress disorder. Her way to deal with it was essentially a ritualistic baptism of fire: she asked an ex-lover to rape her, as realistically as possible. By going through the experience, and proving to herself that she could live through the experience, she cleared all the emotional blockages that had caused her stress.

It's hardly a textbook clinical approach to her problem but it worked for her. That's not to say it would work for everybody, but I''m certainly aware of others who have used bdsm play ritualistically in the same way, to the same ends, and with success. The enactment of the scene reinforces the intent to sort out emotional responses, perhaps. It's a private ritual that relies on much the same psychological mechanisms that religious (or magical) ceremonies employ. Not all such approaches might involve violent sex; not all bdsm is done for such purposes. But there does seem to be a link, and the author of the article was brave enough to describe and discuss her problem and how she dealt with it successfully.

'BDSM’s Dirty Secret – The Real Risk of Kinky Sex' by Midori is another equally interesting thinkpiece. Midori, if you haven't come across her, is one of the foremost bdsm gurus in the US. The article notes that bdsm is indeed potentially dangerous, though of course many everyday activities carry equally health-threatening risks - you can fall walking down stairs, burn yourself while cooking, and so forth.

The interesting risk, she argues, is intimacy. Often, bdsm scenes are relatively technical: a dominant does whatever they do to a submissive, who gets off on having it done rather than on who's doing it; the relationship is, ironically, almost a non-relationship in which each party gets off on the activity in a solitary way rather than relating to the other person in the scene. But it isn't always like that, and where there is communication and connection between people. it can be a massive emotional bond - the strong intimacy you get where people really give each other absolute trust and commitment.

Her argument is that the greater the level of technical skill involved in a scene, the more disconnect there is and the less such intimacy is built; conversely, simple non-technical scenes may enable much greater intimacy. Personally I can see where she's coming from, though as someone who does bondage suspensions and other 'technical' forms of play, I'd say that technical challenges aren't necessarily a bar to intimacy. Someone who's proficient enough to know exactly what they're doing and who keeps a good level of communication going with their sub before, during and after a scene is also able to build and experience the same intense level of connection.

Especially if the 'technical' form of play is actually part of a ritualistic scene, of the kind I described above...

My 2p or 2 cents' worth. Your opinions may vary.

Saturday 13 August 2011

Normal service resumed, sort of...


We're back from a brief road trip in the campervan. It gave me lots of ideas for stories but no actual words written.
While we were away, a novella I finished a couple of days before we went has been now accepted by Xcite and contracts signed - more details when I have an actual publication date, cover pic etc. Also they seem to like the idea for my next novella, though I can't begin writing it until I have the current novel finished (about 15K words left to do...).
Apart from that, it turns out an interview I did with Renaissance Sizzler for their blog came out while we were away - you can read it here (opens in new window). The interview includes a teaser for Hanging Around (link opens in a new window), the story collection of mine they published a couple of months ago.
When I'm a little more recovered I'll try to post some flash fiction based about the places we went and the things we saw...

Thursday 4 August 2011

Seducing the Myth

I'm conscious I haven't been updating much recently, but that's because I've been writing. And playing with new ropes. And stuff.

Meanwhile, a short story I did a while back is now out in Lucy Felthouse's edited collection Seducing the Myth (link to Amazon.co.uk, opens in new window).

If you're in the States, the Amazon.com link is this one.

The collection as a whole has 24 tales inspired by myths and legends of Greek, Roman, Arabian, Arthurian, Hindu, Jewish, Norse, Slavic, Sumerian and Welsh sources. There are fairies, mermaids and ancient fertility rituals and, in my story, a smattering of bondage (well, what else would you expect from me?).

The full list of contributors is: Louisa Bacio, Lexie Bay, Rebecca Bond, Shan Ellis, Justine Elyot, Lucy Felthouse, Lisa Fox, Fulani, K D Grace, Bronwyn Green, Hawthorn, Caz Jones, Burton Lawrence, Maxine Marsh, J. C. Martin, Jillian Murphy, Lydia Nyx, Rachel Randall, Kay Dee Royal, Toni Sands, Indigo Skye, Elizabeth Thorne, Saskia Walker.

My 'Andi in Chains', is a retelling of the Andromeda myth in a pulp fiction style (well, why not?). Teaser:

Forget the rumours. Here’s how it went down, for real. Andromeda – we always knew her as Andi – was one of those rare beauties, the kind who look like a porn star except none of it’s fake. Masses of wavy blonde hair, nice figure, long legs, lips the colour of pomegranate seeds. She knew it, too. Always in shorts or miniskirts and tops that showed a good bit of cleavage.The thing was, none of the guys would touch her. Word on the street was that she was still a virgin, which in this neighbourhood was nothing short of miraculous. Most of the girls here are well on their way to being mums or prostitutes, or both, by the time they’re fifteen.
There was a reason why she was off limits. The reason being her dad, Ceph, was the hardest, nastiest Class A dealer you could think of. You don’t get to be that way without putting a few people six feet under, and everyone knew he’d done it. One time he even nailed a guy’s dick to a telegraph pole just for “looking at Andi the wrong way.”


Enjoy!