Out now: Smut Alfresco

I was really pleased when I found out my story had been accepted for Smut Alfresco. Having read the first Smut by the Sea anthology, which I reviewed here, I was instantly drawn to the whole idea. The bright and breezy nature of 'smut', the Britishness of it (although there are stories set around the globe, it just has a Brit feel to it), the wholesome, life-affirming nature of fresh air and sunshine. So to be able to participate as an author in the Smut family is just amazing.

There's a new Smut by the Sea anthology in the pipeline, but sister publication Smut Alfresco is out now and the blurb goes like this: 

Sex in the great outdoors is the theme of this erotic anthology, edited by Victoria Blisse and Lucy Felthouse.

From the dramatic gritstone escarpments of Derbyshire's Peak District, to a quiet caravan site in deepest Wales, Smut Alfresco has it all. Whatever your interpretation of frisky outdoor fun, there's something nestling between the covers for you.

Sexy woodsmen, daring couples, rock stars, cougars, map enthusiasts, mattresses, ex-lovers, tour guides, hunky sheriffs and nature reserve rangers all appear in this hot collection of stories from erotica's finest authors.

I'm going to be heading over to the blogs of editors Lucy Felthouse and Victoria Blisse to talk more about the inspiration behind my story soon.

You can get Smut Alfresco at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and other online bookstores. 

Review: Frank/Eva from Sudden Sex

Well, I have lots going on at the moment, with two new anthologies out with my stories in them: gay erotic romance collection Lust in Time, which you can read my blog post about here, and Smut Alfresco, which I'll be telling you all about later in the week.

But today, I'm pleased to bring you a review of two paired stories from the new Cleis Press anthology Sudden Sex: 69 Sultry Short Stories, edited by Alison Tyler. Thanks to Alison for letting me be part of the mammoth blog tour she's juggling for this fab anthology. 

The stories 'Frank' and 'Eva' by Donna George Storey provide two viewpoints on the same event. The wife and then the husband give their version of their dirty break in a cottage suite at a rural holiday complex. There’s nothing like a quaint country cottage for providing the perfect setting for kinky games. And if there’s a four-poster bed, well, that just makes things a whole lot easier.

Eva’s story sets things up. As they arrive at the hotel complex, she’s getting into character. She points out that although she booked their stay, she doesn’t want to check in and makes her husband do it. She’s on the threshold between ‘normal’ life and their playtime world in which her husband takes the lead. Eva then makes her preparations in the bath while her husband Sean goes out. When he returns he is ‘Frank’, a different man who is happy to tie her up and spank her. The story’s not really about the twist in the tail – that Frank is Sean – but about how an ordinary married couple can change roles and give themselves the freedom to have a lot of fun.

Sean’s story then provides an extra layer to the whole thing. It adds humour that takes a cheeky stab through the facade of polite society. While he’s out making his transformation into Frank, he imagines a conversation with a member of staff at the wine-tasting room in which she asks, ‘Is this your first visit to the wine country?’ And he replies, ‘Actually my wife and I come up a few times a year... We like to play our kinky Dom/sub sex game in your country hotel. Would you like to join us tonight?’

This touches on how such ‘kinky games’ ie exploring your wilder fantasies, cut through the crap of polite society, how liberating it can be to stop having to put on your respectable face. Frank admits as much, saying, ‘I love “breaking her”, using her own arousal against her to reduce her to pure animal desire.’ 

He tells the back story, her fantasies, their first explorations and his latest sexy plan, building the heat level until he goes back to their cottage for the actual encounter. He turns into the ‘man inside Eva’s head,' although that man is actually a level up in terms of dirty fantasy – subjecting her to group fuckings and filming her. The story shows how, as a married couple they can tap into those feelings without actually going to dangerous extremes or endangering their marriage.

It’s all done with care and love and the intimate knowledge of someone’s physical responses that only comes from a long-standing close relationship. In the end it’s all about her. Sean/Frank says with pride: ‘Afterwards Eva thanks me for being such a perfect master. I’ve done well this time.’ The pairing of the stories works perfectly and the kinky contents are both sexy and heart-warming.

The anthology includes a treasure trove of top writers with names such as Sommer Marsden, Lucy Felthouse, Giselle Renarde and DL King grabbing my attention along with many more I'm eager to read for the first time. 

Sudden Sex is available at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. For links to more reviews, take a look at Alison's blog Trollop with a Laptop.

Published: 27 A.D. in Lust in Time

Just realised that this anthology, Lust in Time, containing my first ever m/m story is out now. Meep! It's a collection of historical short stories, spanning 1000 BC to 1979 AD, edited by Rob Rosen and published by MLR Press. 

My story is set in a fictional pre-invasion of Britain by a small Roman force with a commander somewhat disgruntled by the empire. When Lucius finds himself on his knees in the mud with the enemy leader's sword at his throat, death is the only honourable option. But he is fascinated by the wild, blue-painted barbarian. And the rough treatment he endures as he stumbles back to their camp roped to his enemy's horse only inflames his lust. Kinky hotness ensues and the pair come to a deal in which Lucius will teach the Britons all about the Romans' battle techniques and tactics, while barbarian lord Finian will see that the Roman's taste for humiliation and submission is sated. 

The first review of the whole anthology at Amazon has this to say: 'This has to be the most creative and original collection of M/M erotic romance I've read in quite some time. The stories go in chronological order from 1000 B.C. to 1969 A.D., and each of the story titles is the year the story takes place in. The romance is always steamy and frequently touching. Most of the stories are super erotic, a couple of them funny, a few heart-racing and highly charged. All of them, however, are highly literary and exceedingly well-written, which is what really blew me away.'

And here's the blurb for the anthology:

Love and lust through the annals of time, from ancient Israel and Greece and Rome, to the Vikings, the Wild West, Woodstock, and all points in between.

History and fiction meet at the crossroads in these erotic tales of love and lust. Witness the steamy encounters, lurid battles, raucous clashes, and tender moments of couples who span the centuries. Get swept up in the lives of the biblical David, Emperor Hadrian, barbarians from Britannia, a 19th century physician, Jewish immigrants, cowboys and Indians, Billy the Kid, Civil War and World War I soldiers, hippies, and so many more, all in search of adventure, passion, and, yes, even fame.


Lust in Time is available at MLR Press and, in the UK, at Amazon.

Review: Kinky by Justine Elyot

First of all, I just have to say that I want a Dimitri. In fact, I think everyone deserves a Dimitri of their very own. Maybe a pocket-sized version so you can keep him with you at all times. He’s such a sweetie. He’s also the hero of this fabulous tale. A tale which has joined the ranks of books that kept me up past 11pm. And you should know that strange things involving pumpkins happen when I’m still up past 11pm.

It’s a beautifully well-written story of an office worker and a Russian wannabe actor brought together by their clandestine spying on an S&M club. But not as strange and circuitous as that sentence makes it sound. Anyway, Rosie and Dimitri watch a little schoolroom spanking scene and then manage to wangle an invitation to said club. As complete novices, they set about trying out its various rooms and items of equipment while Dimitri considers working as a professional Dom to beat the restaurant kitchen drudgery he’s ended up with.

So Dimitri = Dom. But he’s a million miles from the stereotype. Sure, he can be a little unpredictable and succeeds in embarrassing poor Rosie, but he’s also attentive, caring, funny and sweet. The sort of guy you think you can trust and you actually turn out to be right. And did I mention sweet? The other thing that really struck me about Kinky was that it manages to successfully negotiate that very narrow track of being both hot and humorous. It made me snigger, particularly where Rosie and Dimitri battle the language barrier and in Rosie’s increasingly preposterous bastardisations of another character’s name – Trixietots.

Elyot has managed to write a book about ‘the scene’ that steers an original and compelling path away from leather trousers and leashes. But it’s also a heart-warming romance between Rosie and Dimitri that leaves you genuinely wishing them well. 

Kinky is published by Mischief Books. I bought it at amazon.co.uk, here.

And for the love of gods, someone please tell me how to get rid of the white background from my first paragraph...

Happy Valentine's Day

As Valentine's Day approaches and the world of erotic romance goes into overdrive to sell you sweet tales of happy every afters... I'm wondering what the February 14 version of Bah Humbug would be. This picture comes close. And if you prefer to stick with the Scrooge version, here's some subversive cross-stitch:

DIY Editing Tips

I know how it is. You’re writing your first novel or starting off with some short stories to submit to anthologies. You don’t have the money to pay for an editor or proofreader. So at the same time as doing a very 'soft' launch of my editing/proofreading business over at www.tillyhunter.co.uk, I bring you some tips for doing it yourself.

1. Three-stage editing
Once you've wrestled your first draft into shape, I see the editing process as having three stages. First up comes editing for what you've said, the content and plot, making sure there are no holes in the storyline, getting all the detail you want in your setting and characters’ backgrounds, making sure you've followed the theme strongly enough if you’re writing for a particular submissions call. Secondly, you've got the editing for how you've said it - language and readability. This means cutting superfluous words, rewriting where you have repetition, questioning your metaphors, checking whether adverbs and adjectives could be cut if you used stronger verbs and nouns instead, possibly reading out loud to see how it all flows. In both of these stages, you will have corrected any typos you spot. But the third stage is the actual proofread, where you take a step back from the meaning of the words and check for misspellings, poor grammar, abused commas and mysterious changes of characters’ names.

2. Taking your time
At some point in that three-stage process, you want to put your story aside for a while so you can view it afresh. And yes, this means finishing your first draft more than five minutes before midnight on deadline day. When you’re in the middle of the writing process, you often see what you intended to write rather than what you actually wrote. I always try to leave at least a few days before doing a final proofread of a short story, and I’d make it more for longer works. 

3. Changing format
These days, most people are used to doing all their work on screen. But if that’s what you’ve done so far, the final proofread would be the time when you might want to do a printout and read it on paper. If you prefer to save trees, you can use tricks such as changing the font and line spacing at this stage to fool your brain into thinking this is a new and different story and requires all your undivided attention. I tend to write in the default setting my Microsoft Word version sets you up with – Calibri 9.5 point, single line spacing, gaps between paragraphs – then switch to standard manuscript formatting for proofreading.

4. Standard formatting
Speaking of which, standard formatting tends to mean Times New Roman 12 point, double spaced, no extra space between paragraphs, the first line of each paragraph indented half an inch. But you should always double check a publisher or anthology editor’s specific instructions before submitting and do exactly what they say.

5. Know your weaknesses
I have a blind spot when the words ‘know’ and ‘now’ occur together. As in ‘I now know better’. I always have to read them twice to make sure I put them the right way round. And I can never spell ‘rhythm’. Except there, where I did because it autocorrected. Anyway, the point is to be aware of the things you tend to get wrong and double check them. For you it might be ‘there, their, they’re’ or mixing up your Arctic with your artics. 

Inspiration: Miranda's Tempest

'Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.' That's Shakespeare, obviously, from his Wikipedia entry. I wonder what he'd make of the internet. And I wonder what he'd make of all the reinterpretations of his work today, the movie versions, the feminist versions, the queer versions, the postcolonial versions, the erotic versions... I tend to think that he'd be a Tarantino or a Scorsese if he were around today.

When it comes to gender identities and sexual politics, he did a fair bit of subversion of the norms himself. Lots of cross dressing, lots of cheeky banter, lots of people running off to places where the normal rules of society don't apply, like the forest of Arden in As You Like It.

In my retelling of The Tempest, the first of three short stories in my new ebook, out now from House of Erotica, Miranda has secretly learned her father, Prospero's, magic from his books. And Caliban has taught her the more 'feminine' earth magic of his mother, the witch Sycorax. Uniting the two, she intends to escape the island with Caliban, the forbidden lover to whom she loves to submit. Things get a little more interesting when they find a bedraggled Ferdinand in their path, who is immediately dazzled by Miranda's beauty.

It was Ferdinand who really inspired the story, with passages like this: 
       My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
       My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, 
       The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats,
       To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
       Might I but through my prison once a day
       Behold this maid.

He seems such a sweetie, and naturally submissive apparently. So I took the opportunity afforded by today's somewhat more liberal attitudes to literature to have him render some services to both Caliban and Miranda.

If you're fond of Shakespeare, my story As You Like It, in the Xcite anthologies Past Pleasures and Cherry Ripe, sees the bard submit to the crop of a woman who wants to act in his plays. 

And if you like subverting the bard yourself, there's currently a call for submissions from Storm Moon Press for an anthology called Shakespearotica: Queering the Bard, deadline 1st April 2013.

You can get your hands on Miranda's Tempest: Three Classic Tales with a Kinky Twist at amazon.co.uk or amazon.com, at Barnes & Noble for your Nook, or at kobo, amongst other places.