Charlotte Stein

Winner!

2012-01-28T08:50:00.003Z

Sorry for taking so long to announce this one, guys. I've been busy, toiling away in a despair pit. But I'm here now, and I've mixed the name around in a hat (or in this case, an old ice-cream tub), and then for total fairness Husband drew the name out. He felt very important, as he announced the winner:

Dee Carney!

Hooray! Just email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk to claim your prize, Dee.

And as ever, thank you everyone for entering and making me feel like I have fans.

Hot Steamy Twin Menage!

2012-01-14T22:13:00.003Z

Yep, that's right, my new book was released a few days ago! And it features some hunky twins, a lot of hot menage action, and of course one lucky girl. Sounds orsum, right? I know I had an orsum time writing it. In fact, I don't think any of my other books...ahem...affected me in quite the same way as this one did. And if you want to be affected, too, you can buy it here:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9858-doubled.aspx

(where you can also find a delicious excerpt)

Or here, on the Kindle:

US:

http://www.amazon.com/Doubled-ebook/dp/B006X0JUNO/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326478833&sr=1-2

UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doubled-ebook/dp/B006X0JUNO/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326579707&sr=1-2

And here's the blurb for it:

Bobbi has been friends with the Hoffman twins for one long, glorious year. They’re sweet, funny and kind, but there’s a problem…they’re also hotness personified. Times two. And when they lure her into a kinky little game involving a blindfold and some rather unexpected fondling, she finds them much harder to resist than she’d imagined.

It seems they want to be something other than just good friends. They want a hot, steamy ménage, and all Bobbi has to do is decide if she’s up to the challenge. One big, gorgeous guy is enough for her.

Two might be more than she can handle…

Hooray for hot twins doing loads of kinky things to a girl!

Oh, and I am of course doing my usual competition. Just leave a comment, and I'll put your name into the hat. Then I'll pick a random winner to receive a copy of Doubled, on Friday. Hurrah!

A Big Thing What Happened

2012-01-08T20:10:00.004Z

Okay, so I don't think I've mentioned this actually on my blog, yet, which is a big oversight on my behalf, I know. Especially as it's probably one of the most exciting things to have happened to me to date in my writing career.

I got an agent.

No, no - really, I did. Don't go away laughing. I honestly got an agent - little tiny old me!

And it happened in this really overwhelming way, too. I queried an agent cos I managed somehow to get this big contract, and I thought to myself: well. I'll probably hear back after Christmas. Undoubtedly this agent is very busy and likely on holiday, now, so there's no way I'm going to hear immediatly.

And then two hours later, the phone rang. Yeah, you heard that right. THE PHONE RANG. Husband actually picked up and because there was a delay, he thought there was no one there. So I picked it up the second time and then heard this lovely American voice coming down the phone at me like a terrifying but wonderful dream of all the things my life could possibly be.

The agent in question didn't offer representation immediatly. She asked me questions, and I probably answered them like a maniac. I tried to outline my career goals without sounding like some jackass who has a headset phone and a marketing dossier and says yar, instead of yes.

And then she asked me to send her some material, and I did.

And yet again I thought: well, I'll probably have to sit tight, now. She's a very busy lady. She needs time to mull my work.

Only she got back to me about three days later, with an email that had the most beautiful words in the English language: "I'd be happy to offer you representation". Just like that! There weren't even any trumpets sounding from the heavens! I don't know what I did at this point. I think I fell back on my default position: I must have it wrong. She probably doesn't mean that. Find out more.

So I did. I asked questions, with the help of the fabulous Katie Reus. And then a day later I signed the contract. It's done. I am now represented by Jill Marsal of the Marsal Lyons agency.

And the big contract I needed help with? She looked it over within 24 hours, got it all sorted, negotiated things for me, and I sent it back within two days. So that's all done, too!

MAN I had a good Christmas. Of course, now I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Heart of Flame

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000Z

So guess what? Because of the magicalness of epublishers like Samhain and Ellora's Cave, we get to have loads more Janine Ashbless books than ever before! Oh, I remember the days when I had to wait a whole year for a new Janine Ashbless book, back when Black Lace was still around. But no longer!

Behold, her new book from Samhain!

And she's here, on my little blog, as part of her blog tour for it! Hooray!

Take it away, Janine:

Hey Charlotte – it’s lovely to be here on your blog!

I’m approaching the middle of a blog tour for my Arabian Nights e-novel Heart of Flame, and I’ve already gabbed so much my throat is sore. So I thought that what I’d do here is give you a recipe for a fantastic refreshing drink I’ve enjoyed supping in Damascus. It’s a crazy vivid green, it’s frothy… it’s:

Laymoun Bi-Na’ Na’

(though no, there are no bananas involved)

6 lemons
1 pint cold water
225g / ½ lb powdered/icing sugar
2 fistfuls of fresh mint leaves

• Wash and slice two of the lemons and discard pips. Blitz them in a blender – yes, rind, pith and all.
• Add the juice of the other 4 lemons
• Add the water
• Blitz
• Add sugar to taste
• Add mint, blitz again until smooth. Drink fresh.
• Enjoy the sugar rush!

And if this is too sweet, then the other appropriate beverage for reading Arabian Nights stories to, is - of course - coffee. Take it strong, black and flavoured with cardamom. That’s how my heroine makes it :)

Have fun!

xxx
Janine Ashbless
www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

Orsum, right? Fab books AND drinks!

Here's the info for Heart of Flame, cos I know you want to run out and buy it immediately:

And on the One-Thousand-and-Second night, Scheherazade told this story…

By day, Taqla uses her forbidden sorcery to move freely about the city of Damascusin the guise of an old sage. Her true identity known only by her faithful servant woman, Taqla is content with the comfortable, if restrictive, life that keeps her safe from the control of any man. Until she lays eyes on a handsome merchant-traveler. Suddenly her magical disguise doesn’t rest so easily on her shoulders.

When long-time widower, Rafiq, hears that the Amir’s beautiful daughter has been kidnapped by a scheming djinni—and that she will be given in marriage to her rescuer—he seeks the help of “Umar the Wise” to ensure he will be that man. Yet as he and the disguised Taqla set off, he senses that his prickly male companion is hiding something.

In a moment of dire peril, all of Taqla’s secrets are stripped bare—her fears, her sorcery and, worst of all, her love for Rafiq. Yet the princess’s life hangs in the balance, and there is no running away or turning back. Even though passion may yet betray them all...

Product Warning: Scary monsters and creepy ruins in the desert—check. Pagan gods that demand blood-sacrifices—double check. A handsome hero who looks good in a robe and even better out of it—oh yeah. Check, check and check. That’s worth a heroine dropping a veil or two.

Heart of Flame sale link:
http://store.samhainpublishing.com/heart-flame-p-6571.html

What are you waiting for??

Another Mancandy Christmas!

2011-12-20T23:42:00.005Z

Yep, it's that time of year again. A time of eating beetroot and ham together until your poop turns a funny colour. A time of watching so many sitcoms on the telly you start wondering why the funny things people say don't have a laugh track. A time of obsessively playing your DS until one hand goes weird and you genuinely fear that you've somehow induced temporary paralysis.

But more than all of those things, it's also a time for giving. So for the two people who are still reading this blog, here are my gifts to you. Complete with badly drawn MS paint stockings:

Yeah, I don't know why his head's like that, either. He's perfectly acceptable in the flesh, I swear! Please don't try to exchange him at Marks and Spencers for a better model, with a non-pointy hairdo.

You know why he's smiling like that? Because he's popping out of a stocking, hooray! It's absolutely not because he's diddling himself just below the edge of that weirdly misshapen sock. I mean, seriously? Where would you put your toes in a sock like that? You'd have to have fookin' Barbie feet to manage those things. Yet oddly, you'd also need ankles the size of two Christmas hams.

Also: I have no idea why these men's legs are so small in general. Hopefully it's just because those socks are really sweaty, and their lower bits shrivelled up like fingers in a bathtub.

They'll pop right back into shape no problems, I swear.

I don't know why Fassbender looks so pensive while inside his sock, here. He's the one I thought I'd do a rude joke with - you know, like, having a penis peep over the edge of the stocking top or summat. I dunno. Maybe he's just disappointed that his is the most normal sock. He wanted to shove his Barbie feet into that one of Ryan Gosling's, then get an Oscar nom next year for his work in the masterpiece "My Feet Are Really Little".

It's his knee, all right? His knee. Don't look at me like that. I'd never give away peeping penises for Christmas!

Except I totally would, of course.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

HOMG Has It Been This Long?

2011-12-04T13:57:00.004Z

I'm so sorry, blog. I've neglected you for days and days - months even! I don't even know what's been happening. I can't imagine what's kept me away from your loving arms for such an outrageous period of time. Apart from, you know. THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWO THOUSAND WORDS I WROTE IN NOVEMBER.

Yeah. You heard that right. Apparently I turned into a maniac for about a month. I turned into so much of a maniac that I actually did things like wonder why I was so drained and miserable so much of the time, and couldn't understand how I spent days and days wearing only a big orange dress and not washing my hair. One time I woke up half-naked on the couch, covered in cardigans, because I had mysteriously passed out and in an effort to shield my nudity from passer-bys, Husband had buried me beneath Marks and Spencers' winter collection.

But now I realise why all of these things happened, because I counted how much I wrote. And then wondered how I even managed to put on the big orange dress and not expose myself to the general public on a daily basis. I'm not even sure how I didn't faint from exhaustion, because here are the things wot I did:

1. 20k novella for Xcite. Written, edited, submitted and copy-edited.

2. 50k of novel for super sekrit speshul thing.

3. 20k of novel cut and rewritten.

4. 2 shorts written and edited and subbed. 10k.

5. 2k of novellas for Ellora's Cave.

6. Revisions on Ellora's Cave novella

7. Oh, and about 10k of blog posts written for places that aren't here. Please don't beat me up, blog. I'm already pretty battered. I think I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown because yesterday I cried over an episode of Friends. I cried because my work email wouldn't let me in, even though no one ever sends me emails cos I only work there one night a week. I cried because I found Spogs at a sweetie shop, and I cried when my novel wouldn't go right. I'm probably going to cry right after I've finished writing this, because I've got about 10k left of my novel and I know it's not going to go right either.

I'm so scared, blog, hold me!

Though in better news, I did get two beautiful new covers for my upcoming EC books. They're on the sidebar, if you want to have a look!

And I also got some pretty amazing reviews:

http://amberskye.net/2011/11/10/wherein-i-rave-about-a-book-and-rant-about-erotica/

http://www.nightowlreviews.com/nor/Reviews/Erona-Diane-Hill-reviews-Control-by-Charlotte-Stein.aspx

http://www.nightowlerotica.com/nor/reviews/Erona-Diane-Hill-reviews-Reawakening-by-Charlotte-Stein.aspx

http://www.nightowlerotica.com/nor/reviews/Erona-Diane-Hill-reviews-The-Horizon-by-Charlotte-Stein.aspx

http://thebookbinge.com/2011/11/guest-review-telling-tales-by-charlotte.html

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/198669308

Yep, you read that right. Three top picks from Night Owl, an absolutely beautiful and intelligent and lovely review from the brilliant Amber Skye, an actual review from Book Binge - my first ever! - and a review from the mighty Jan Oda which made me feel all nervous and fluttery cos it's kind of like someone that important and ace at reviews sort of...I dunno. Knows about me and pays attention to my books. The review isn't completely positive, but those comments about my books being her erotica indulgence...

That kind of thing blows me away.

So there you have it. That was November. I've still got a deadline on December 15th coming up, and after that I have to start this merry-go-round all over again. New deadline for January 31st...

Think it's time I got myself a new big writing dress. Maybe I'll go with green, this time!

Some Stuff What I Have Done

2011-10-15T01:07:00.004+01:00

So, I've just subbed three novellas. I'm alternating between feeling good about them, feeling terrible about them, and having dreams that feature some weird guy wanting to buy them because they're about a character called Aleph.

Just for the record, they're not. Nowhere in any of them is there an Aleph. But you can find out a bit about two of them - Sheltered and Doubled - over at Oh Get A Grip. I posted actually snippets from them, which is a big scary thing for me. Behold:

http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2011/10/stupidly-timed-eye-problems.html

The third one on there, Love Letters, isn't quite done yet. The third sub I sent my editor was actually Singing Electricity, my werewolf thingie that I've had on my uhm and ah burner for a while now.

Because that's the thing, you see. I uhm and ah about a WIP, and then it never gets done. I second guess it - will readers like this bit, will they like that, am I just a giant idiot - and nothing moves forward.

Even now I'm second guessing myself over a whole host of things like:

1. What if the disaster I had with awful synopses means the stink of terribleness is now all over my stories?

2. What if my sales at EC are so bad for my latest book, that it can't possibly be a yes on any of my subs anyway?

3. What if the stories are just plain terrible?

4. What if it's all of the above, plus even more awful things I haven't thought of? Maybe I accidentally subbed that fanfic I wrote about Armie Hammer and Brandon Routh having sex all over me, even though I've never actually written anything like that I swear to God. I mean, the heroes in Love Letters kind of look like Armie Hammer and Brandon Routh, but I promise I've changed their names and given them personalities I thought up.

Now they're called Artie Bammer and Brendon South, and they're...uh...singers. Yeah. Singers.*

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, back in boring old neurosis-land. Because it is boring. I know I'm boring people with it. But once you're stuck in it, it's so hard to get out of.

Though I did momentarily get out of it long enough to write about Sci-fi hunks. Hooray!

http://geekandkink.com/2011/10/the-new-era-of-tit-arms/

And also, All Other Things is now available on the Kindle and over at All Romance Ebooks:

http://www.amazon.com/All-Other-Things-ebook/dp/B005OYI2O8/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318638351&sr=1-3

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-allotherthings-605721-144.html

Double hooray!

*For those of you who may now be worried about my writing career, the characters are not really called Artie Bammer and Brendon South, and they're not singers, either. It's a passing resemblance, and nothing else, honest guv'nor.

Mancandy Wednesday: Ryan Gosling

2011-10-05T06:18:00.002+01:00

Okay, I won't deny it. The reason I like Ryan Gosling is almost entirely to do with his approach to sex scenes. Which is probably some method actor intense Stanislovsky thing where he immerses himself in a vagina for a year just to get it right, I know. But that's not how it comes across. To me, his sex scenes - even the tame PG-13 ones - come across like he's literally trying to kill the actress in question with sex.

And when I say literally, I mean literally. None of this half-assed figuratively bullshit. He's got laserbeams in his eyes and his cock is probably made out of Mount Doom, and he's attempting actual destruction of whoever he's in the scene with. He won't be satisfied until they're reduced to molten lava, by the sheer force of his intense raging passion.

Members of the camera crew were actually injured while filming his sex scenes in Blue Valentine, when Michelle Williams exploded. Swear to God. Rachel McAdams isn't actually alive anymore - they just cloned her out of the ash he reduced her to and what you're really looking at when you watch Morning Glory is something made out of a sheep and some leftover Molly Ringwald.

All of which suggests that I shouldn't really love Ryan Gosling. I mean, he's a lethal weapon. My vagina starts threatening meltdown just watching him through a TV screen - so Lord knows what volcanic pressures these poor actresses are under.

And it's not just his ability to telepathically control my nethers through the TV, like Sadako from Ring only orsum. There are a lot of very fierce things about Ryan Gosling that should probably frighten me.

Even though they totally don't. They don't. In fact, nothing about Ryan Gosling frightens me, and I think that's probably because he once played the sweetest, most innocent person to ever be in love with a sex doll.

I don't even know how that's possible, frankly. I saw that sex doll documentary, okay? I'm an erotic writer, and even I found them a little much to take. But not only is Ryan utterly orsum in Lars and the Real Girl, not only does he make it seem lovely to be in love with a sex doll, he's also still completely and massively sexy.

In fact, I think he's actually sexier than normal, in Lars. I desire his moustache, in it. I love his hair. I want to live in the cold with him, wrapped up in the million coats he probably has. Doesn't that sound like bliss? To be wrapped up in coats, with an intense but utterly sweet and innocent Ryan Gosling?

I think it does. And hey, if one day I managed to gently coax the volcano out of him and he ended up turning me to molten lava...well, that's okay.

I'd love him anyway.

More Winners!

2011-10-03T08:09:00.003+01:00

Drumroll please!

The first name out of the hat to win a copy of All Other Things was...

Lynn!

And the second name...

Sommer!

Hooray!

Just email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk guys, and I'll get those sent to you. Thanks once again to everyone who stopped by my little blog and entered. It really does me feel all warm and gooey inside.

Love,

Charlotte xx

P.S. All Other Things is now available on the Kindle! Look, here it is: http://www.amazon.com/All-Other-Things-ebook/dp/B005OYI2O8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317688139&sr=1-1

Hot Menage Fun

2011-09-22T00:37:00.004+01:00

Yeah, that's right. Because there can never be enough hot menage fun going on in the world, I have another book release this week. It's called All Other Things, and it features - you've guessed it - lots of multiple partner shenanigans.

Plus it's also got a married couple, an absolutely filthy Irishman, sex acts that are illegal in many, many places around the world and a good dollop of emotion thrown into the mix. Want to hear more?

Here's the blurb:

Bea’s husband Tommy is the sweetest, most gorgeous guy she’s ever met. There’s just one problem—he doesn’t seem to want to have sex with her. Or at least, he shows no interest in the kind of sex she’s craving. Kinky, torrid, passion-filled sex, of the sort a too-handsome and too-fascinating colleague at her workplace is offering.

Kieran is everything that Tommy’s not—dark to his light, triple caramel swirl to Tommy’s vanilla. But Bea will not be tempted. Or at least, she thinks she won’t. Until she discovers Tommy and Kieran have been IMing each other for some time—and they haven’t been talking about innocent things.

They’ve been talking about her, and more importantly, they’ve been talking about what they’d like to do to her. Together. And once Tommy’s buttons have been pushed and Kieran’s been let off his leash, anything seems possible…

Sounds hot, right? Well, I think it sounds hot. And I kind of had to lay down in a darkened room for a little bit after writing several of its scenes, which says a lot, I feel.

And if you want to feel it too, well, here's the buy link:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9586-all-other-things.aspx

Or you know - if you're feeling lucky you could just enter my competition! All you have to do is comment, leave your name, and I'll stick it in the hat. I'm going to give away two copies, too, so there's an absolutely excellent chance you'll win!

Hooray!

Guest Post: Roped Emotions by Elise Hepner

2011-09-20T06:48:00.002+01:00

My pal Elise had a release last week, so here's a little bit about it and its total amazeballsness. Who doesn't love a good fairytale, eh?

Blurb:

Rapunzel is trapped by the harsh, inescapable reality of her prison, so she builds vivid sexual fantasies where she has full control and no one can take it away. If nothing else, at least she has command over her thoughts.

When Prince Samuel climbs into her tower it’s a small, satisfying excuse to break the rules—until his gentle touch coaxes out her trust. But it’s not enough. No longer can she keep her dark, sexual secrets inside. Rapunzel yearns for rough, passionate sex—a way to unlock her sensual freedom for good.

Vulnerable but unable to turn back, Rapunzel leads Prince Samuel on an intimate journey to define their sexual limits while twisting their definitions of control forever.

Excerpt:

“What in Christ’s name…”

I must be hearing echoes from the town nearby, where Mother sells her herbs and braided goods. No one ventures this far toward my tower because Mother’s gone to great lengths to see that they don’t—bear traps are her new favorite method of discouragement. Once one life is claimed, I imagine word spreads fairly quickly to stay away from the area. Why then are there hoof beats that make my head pulse with a slight pain?

There’s no understandable excuse I can delude myself with any longer. Before I can focus on the consequences, I swing my head out the window into the oppressive, humid summer air. Just the very top of his head is visible, his hair brushing past his cheekbones, glowing from the sunshine and shot through with gold. Never have I seen a color so close to my own before—not that I see many people.

For a few moments I can’t quite come to terms with his presence and it’s not for a lack of staring that my pulse inevitably echoes inside my head like an overbeaten drum. This is my chance. Mother won’t be back for quite some time with her wares. He’s circling the tower, slouched over a horse who looks a bit like a nag. Certainly not a proper horse for a man with such fine clothes in gorgeous colors and sumptuous fabrics.

There’s no going back from this moment. It’s a certainty that makes my teeth chatter in a wash of cold fear, despite the heat, and my hands clasp around my middle as I try to hold myself together. He hasn’t looked up yet, more intent on studying the free-standing structure than noticing my shadow plastered across the grass. My mind is desperately working out what I’ll cry out to him. Even as my throat closes with an infusion of happiness that makes me rock on my feet.

“Excuse me?” A tentative question I’m not sure he will hear because it can’t be any louder than a frightened whisper. “Sir, you’re really not supposed to be here.”

Somehow, I’ve managed to make this part louder because he glances up—and his slack-jawed expression is a blow to my chest. He possesses the most gorgeous cobalt blue eyes. Underneath my ribs, the pain grows until taking a full breath is hard. Mother is right, he hasn’t even overcome his shock as my heavy plait of hair rests down the stone side of my prison. He’s not to be trusted.

What am I thinking? He won’t even come near me to aid my escape and his eyes are swamped in confusion—and there’s a flash of unreadable emotion that I refuse to question. He must leave here now and I must somehow convince him to bring no one back with him. I won’t be paraded around for anyone’s amusement. This man has made a mistake coming here.

Yet, there’s still a part of me that grips the windowsill until my palms are numb and that clings to the hope that he will at least acknowledge me. So long since I’ve had any kind of normal conversation. One that didn’t revolve around my hair, my rules or my mother’s day. Won’t he say anything? I’m as trapped by his thick silence as I am by the beauty of his face.

“Please, you must go and tell no one about what you’ve seen. You shouldn’t have ignored the traps. They are there for a reason.”

I don’t know how I’ve gotten that all out because my main focus lies on the foreign stirrings of heat in my cheeks as the pulsing sensation twists lower in my abdomen. What is happening to me? With a certainty that surprises me, I find myself clenching my thighs together, only to have the subtle touch of flesh-on-flesh be more than I can bear. He has yet to take his gaze from mine and a shudder slips up my spine.

“How long have you been here?” His voice carries the strain I hold back and I’m slightly put at ease that at least we are on similar ground. “Who did this to you?”

“For a man who is about to leave, I don’t believe it matters.”

The words barely tumble out of my mouth before I clamp my hand over my lips. I hadn’t meant to be so harsh and instantly regret it. He is so handsome—and these sudden urges, they are overwhelming and confusing to the point where I wish to completely remove the problem. My lips part in an apology and I watch a jovial grin span from ear to ear as he laughs at me until I can’t hear anything but the frantic beat of my heart.

Who is this man? Now he stares at me with a playfulness that washes a wave of goose bumps across my flesh. He doesn’t seem offended, merely amused at my suggestion that he leave. To further that fact, he quickly dismounts and ties his horse to a nearby tree branch. While I can only stare at the way his tight riding boots and breeches hug his muscular body from his calves all the way up to his perfectly rounded buttocks.

Though I’d learned of desire from my mother—and all its wicked principles—I never expected it to rear its head in my lonely, simple world.

However, now my life spirals out of control quickly enough that I tilt back against the wall to my left and watch with trembling hands. This mysterious man climbs the wall of my tower as if it had been built to be climbed so easily—without any aid from my hair. One strong, sun-kissed hand and booted foot at a time. When he offers up his hand to me to pull him over the side, what choice do I have? Even a man that strong would eventually grow tired and plummet to his death—and I want him tucked close to my body, not on the ground.

“I was beginning to wonder what it took to get some assistance.”

He softly grunts and clasps my hand hard enough that I gasp as I shift my weight to pull him over the side. Muscles I didn’t know existed inside me burn with sharp pain from disuse because of my isolation. His touch radiates heat all along my arm. If it wasn’t for his precarious situation, I would fight to pull away on instinct—but as it is, he manages to throw himself into my home with as much grace as a charging boar—and he trips, falling on top of me and sending us to the hard, stone floor.

His surprisingly soft hand brushes the hair out of my face and lingers, gently stroking, down my cheek. Should I be frightened? Probably. At the moment I can’t bear the thought that my first sincerely gentle touch from a man would be anything but special. His sharp leather scent surrounds my tingling skin.

“Isn’t this a day for surprises?” His gaze cuts through all the fear inside me and his mouth holds the subtle curve of a half smile. “I should move myself off you, this isn’t proper at all when we’ve barely been introduced.”

Yet he doesn’t move an inch.

A realization whips through my mind and would have left me on the floor if I wasn’t already pinned there by a gorgeous man who touches me with such reverence I might weep. When will this happen again? After this twisted, meandering path of fate, there is no doubt I will be alone again—and I want a loving memory to cling to at night when my old fears tighten my chest until I can’t breathe. This is a choice I can make for myself. And I won’t live the rest of my ordinary, sheltered life not knowing true passion when it burns across my skin.

“They call me Rapunzel.”

“Samuel.”

His inviting smile lights up my whole world.

Buy Links:
http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9567-roped-emotions.aspx

Author Links:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elise-Hepner-Writing/311925106401

www.twitter.com/EHepner

www.ehwriting.com

Winners!

2011-09-18T08:05:00.001+01:00

First of all, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who entered! I've never had so many people take part in one of these competitions, and even though it's probably weird and sad I was really touched. Plus, the compliments made me blush for about a week.

So, before I embarrass myself further with anymore gushing, here are the names I drew out of the hat:

Barednakedlady (aka Jill)

and

Evita

Hooray! Just decide which book you'd like, ladies (either Telling Tales or Guarded, take your pick!), then email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk and I'll get it sent to you.

Also, I decided to do an extra prize. Mainly because "eyebrow-singing" is perhaps the greatest way I've ever heard my work described, but also because I just feel like it. So Astahil - if you'd like a copy of either Telling Tales or Guarded, just email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk and I'll send you one. For being orsum and having burnt eyebrows.

Mancandy Monday: Loki

2011-09-12T07:00:00.001+01:00

Now just to be clear, that's Loki from the movie Thor I'm talking about. Not some shitty drawing of Loki out of the nightmares of strange children, as in this thing:

I swear to God, I once wet the bed at the age of three because of an image like that. I had a doll that looked like that thing, and it came alive and ate my baby brother. That exact creature lived in the basement of my primary school, and feasted on the bones of children who didn't eat their mashed potato. I think that I once -

Okay, yeah. You get the picture. That's a creepy looking Loki.

But the Loki I am interested looks much more like this:

And suddenly I'm kind of wanting him to be a doll that comes alive and tries to eat me. But when I say that, I obviously mean the good kind of eat. You know, the sort that features much less gnawing on bones and a lot more face-planting between my legs.

I mean, he's just amazeballs in Thor. The movie itself is kind of boring and Thor looks like someone squeezed his face too hard and then sneezed Cheeto dust all over him, but Tom Hiddleston as Loki is divine. He anguishes. Which isn't even the right word, but it just fits better than angsts because angsts sounds plebian and Tom Hiddleston is all refined and he went to Cambridge and studied old dead people and he probably rows a boat on a sunlit river while reading the Telegraph I dunno.

He plays Loki with all the commitment of a first year student at RADA, only really good. His eyes are haunted, he cries, he does it all while looking like Lt Cmdr Data only even more impossibly handsome and also normal coloured.

Plus, he wears a lot of leather and knee high boots and big helmets, and you all know how much I adore big helmets. I adore them almost as much as all the crying he does, about Daddy never loving him as much as Thor. I just wanted to go to him and hold him close to my vagi- my breast and tell him everything was going to be all right.

He's just flawless and perfectly my type. In fact, he's so perfectly my type that before we even watched the movie I saw a picture of him next to Thor looking all big-eyed and dark-haired and Husband said: you're going to come out of the cinema fancying that guy's pants off.

And I did. I fancied his pants off so hard that he spent an entire scene opposite Anthony Hopkins with his cock flapping in the Asgardian breeze.

But wait. Wait. There is one problem with this crush. Because although Loki is absolutely gorgeous and sensitive and viscious and all of the things I love, in real life Tom Hiddleston is...well. How can I put this delicately?

Not as orsum. I mean, don't get me wrong. He's still achingly attractive. His eyes are beautiful, his cheekbones are exquisite. He's lovely and funny in interviews and polite in a way that makes my vagina sit up and bark like a dog.

But the thing is...he has a massive, massive forehead. I mean - it's immense. Druids could pray to this thing. I don't even know how I failed to notice while watching Loki rend his breast in Thor, because seriously man. It is gargantuan.

Oh - oh what's that? You don't believe me? You think I'm exaggerating? Oh well CHECK IT:

Yeah. What are you saying now? That's right. Nothing.

Well, either that or you're pointing out that I obviously doctored this image with MS Paint. Badly, as usual. But I swear, his forehead is really big. And not only that but he has curly blonde hair, like he just fell out of painting done by some member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood who didn't realise he was gay yet.

I just can't with that. I could cope with the big forehead - it's probably like one of those rules about comparing feet and hands and nose to cock size, anyway. Only you know, about breadth instead of length. His is three feet wide, probably.

But the curls, the curls. No. No. They agitate me. They make me think of giving his head a Brazilian. I just don't know what to do with this crush. I want to see him in a million things basically being Loki, and instead I get him in bike shorts looking like a cherub in Suburban Shootout.

Come on, Tom. Get it together. You and Michael Fassbender in a film where you both have the exact same haircut and then have weird incesty clone sex - make it happen.

Make it happen and I'll love you forever, I swear.

Well. I'll love you until next Monday, at least.

New Releases! Competitions!

2011-09-05T19:55:00.006+01:00

So today I've got some new books out. Hurrah! And coincedently they both feature red hot menage or more type scenarios, they're both about obsession and lust and well...all the things I hope you know I'm mad for, by now.

The first is Guarded, my Bollywood themed, Arabian Nights stylee type bonk-fest, featuring two hunky bodyguards and one lucky Princess. Here's the blurb for it:

Their duty is to protect and guard, but their desires want more…

When Amina is captured by the Maharaja of Hadad and forced to read his prophetic scrolls, all she can think of is escape. But then Ashan and Orin are assigned to guard her, and they’re giving her some thoughts she’s sure she shouldn’t be having.

They’re both big, they’re both handsome, and they’re both sworn to protect, guard and be by her side at all times – something which proves increasingly difficult as the steamy nights get longer and their desire for each other reaches boiling point. When she next runs, they’re right on her tail, and this time they have more for her than bound hands and stern words. They’ve got their own needs, and they mean to satisfy them…

And the link, if it takes your fancy:

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1352

You can also read a sizzling excerpt, there, and find other novellas under the Bollywood theme from such amazeballs writers as Justine Elyot and Victoria Blisse!

And then there's also my new erotic novel, Telling Tales. It's not the official release date for this book, so you're getting it massively early - if only so far on the Kindle, or over at ARE. But at ARE, you can get it for the absolute bargain price of $4.99. I have no idea how long for, so don't hesitate!

This one's really balls to the wall. And by that I mean there are literally balls flinging about the place. And willies, and fannies, and all of that red hot stuff. It's got MMF, MFM, MFFM, MFMF, MMMMM - hell, it's got so many acronyms you can almost make whole new words out of the initials. I mean, you can totally pronounce MFFM, right? It's muffum. And MMMMM makes a definite and real sound, one that I think sums up the scene nicely:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

But anyhoo, here's the blurb:

Allie has held a brightly burning torch for Wade since college. They were part of a writing group together, and everything about those days with him, Cameron and Kitty fills her with longing. All of her old and most decadent fantasies are coming back to her as though they never left, and when their former Professor leaves them his rambling mansion in his will, it’s a chance for them all to reunite.

But there’s more than friendship bubbling beneath the surface. As secrets are revealed and relationships rekindled, the stories get dirtier and the stakes get higher. And now Allie’s realized that she isn’t quite sure who she wants…fun-loving Wade, or quiet, restrained Cameron.

Neither of them have been honest with her about their feelings. And now all four have the chance to act on the tales that ignite their most primal desires.

And the links:

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-tellingtales-598649-144.html

http://www.amazon.com/Telling-Tales-ebook/dp/B005KT24L4/ref=sr_1_24?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315241832&sr=1-24

Where you can also find excerpts that barely touch on the kinds of shenanigans that go on in this book. Seriously. I'm mortified that I wrote it. My Gran doesn't speak to me anymore. Even though that's a total lie and she's my biggest fan because now I write the kinds of books she grew up reading, only with the sex left in.

And on that over-sharing note about my elderly Grandmother, I shall take my leave. Though not before doing what I always do on release day:

If you'd like to win a copy of the above books, just comment on this post. I'll stick your name in the hat, shake it around, and the first to emerge will win Telling Tales. The second to emerge will win Guarded. Hell, I might even give you a choice, or have the first prize be both, or who knows? Enter and find out!

Mancandy Tuesday: Howard Wolowitz

2011-08-22T23:20:00.007+01:00

Don't say anything. Just don't. I know already. I've even made a list of all the ways in which Howard Wolowitz from The Big Bang Theory is completely not a Mancandy. Such as:

1. He has a haircut that roughly resembles a penis. And that's not even my obvious and by now quite out of control penis obsession talking! Behold!

And just in case my utterly scientific diagram isn't clear enough, I've created a double of his haircut using the same penis and super-imposed it flawlessly on his head:

2. He has no discernable neck. I'm not even going to attempt an incredible manipulation of a picture using MS Paint, here. You can see it for yourself without me making a fool of myself with a computer, too much time on my hands, and an unhealthy hunger for penises.

Check it out:

There's no neck there, right? It's just all head, then straight on down into body. Makes me wonder where his neck went. Is his penis so huge that the weight of it has actually dragged his head down into his torso?

Or is that just my mentulomania talking?

3. His clothes. Of course, on the face of it, there isn't anything wrong with his clothes. His belts are fantastic. I love his shoes. He wears a variety of tight pants in some splendid colours.

But the problem is, he wears them all together.

And yet...and yet...I want him. He is a Mancandy. He's practically the very definition of Mancandy, because he's small and sweet and he comes in primary coloured wrappers.

I don't even care that his head looks like a penis or that he has no neck. I don't care that he says the following to a woman on the show:

"How is doable anything but a compliment?"

I just want to rip those candy wrapper clothes off his small but weirdly angular body. I want him to hop nimbly around in front of me, like he does on the show all the time. I want him to yell at his Mother to leave him alone while he has a play date with me on his ridiculous bed.

I love his Jewishness, I love his cheeky smile, I love his pathetic attempts at wooing women. I love that he dresses up as a Goth to try and get a girl.

Oh Howard Wolowitz, I'd be that girl. And then after I'd been that girl all over you and under you and back to front with you, we could play Mario Kart all night long together.

Sounds like bliss, to me.

Writing Update

2011-08-17T04:39:00.000+01:00

Inorite? You didn't expect me to do that. If you visit this blog often, you're probably shocked to find that I'm actually a writer, and not some insane inventor of a device called The Man Fancier.

But I swear to God I am, and I thought I should maybe talk a little bit about this thing I do in between watching The Big Bang Theory and wondering why it has to be Howard Wolowitz I man fancy.

So, on the upside:

I'm writing proposals for a super sekrit thing! And I had a dream about super sekrit thing - namely that I was only asked to maybe take part in it because someone wanted Charlotte Stevens and mistakenly asked me instead, but lets put that aside before it makes me evaluate my psych too intently. Basically, I'm hovering between massive excitement and certainty that it will all never come off, at the moment, so please wish me luck. Or failing that, please wish for me to get over my sudden, inexplicable love for a man replete with sleazy come-ons.

My novella, Carnal Craving, is out now in the anthology Mammoth Book of Hot Romance. Or at least, it is in the UK. And it's a totally exciting and wonderful antho to be in, so even if you hate me and wish you were reading Charlotte Stevens instead, go buy it because everyone else in it is orsum. See:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-Book-Hot-Romance-Books/dp/1849014671/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313467752&sr=8-1

My other novella, Guarded, comes out soon! Hurrah! Here's the link, if you want to learn some stuff about it:

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1352

I am in the middle of editing a novel (Telling Tales) and a novella (All Other Things). The fact that I'm editing them in and of itself isn't exactly good news (though I suppose it might count as such when you know that I'm also currently addicted to Sims 3 and The Big Bang Theory, and both things are making me not go to the toilet and not bathe and not eat until I turn into a sightless mole person who thinks she has to keep an eye on her energy bar in order to determine when to sleep), but the fact that I don't hate either of them with a passion of a thousand burning suns shining out of Michael York's butthole is. Somehow I always think I'm going to hate the books I've written when I haven't read them for a while, as though evol goblins came in and rewrote the whole things when I wasn't looking. But no, I think I'm safe.

I got a lovely review of my short story in Obsessed, from none other than the illustrious Super Librarian herself:

http://wendythesuperlibrarian.blogspot.com/2011/08/like-butterfly-wild-butterfly.html

Of course, I then did a big excitement wee. She liked it! Even tho the story's weird as fook! And she wants to read more stuff of mine! *shorts out*

And on the downside:

I don't care about the downside anymore. It's there, but I'm not even going to give it the time of day. Look: Maru!

Mancandy Monday: Brandon Routh

2011-08-01T00:39:00.011+01:00

I'm pretty sure I've never done a Brandon Routh Mancandy. Which quite possibly threatens the very existence of our universe, and makes me a likely evol doppelganger of myself. I mean, only an evol doppelganger of myself would not have done a Mancandy about Brandon Routh, by now. Plus, she has a tiny goatee and she eats all of the mint Bliss Hershey's things that I swear were made by God himself, I swear they were.

But enough about Hershey's mint Bliss things copyright God 2011. Onto why it's so unbelievable that I've done so many Mancandies that I now can no longer remember if I've done one about him, or not.

Because seriously, he's like the most perfect man ever. I think God made him while he was eating one of the mint Hershey's Bliss thingies. He put it in his mouth, and then he had an instant orgasm, and then he made Brandon Routh.

Don't believe me? Check out this arm:

I mean seriously. How is his arm like that? It looks like it has a sexy alien growing inside of it. And I don't mind admitting that I want to hump that sexy alien. I want to hump it until it hatches out of his face.

Which probably explains why he's staring in such trepidation at the whole area. I'd be staring too, if my arm was a) that sexy and b) likely to turn into a seven foot xenomorph that eats the crew of my spaceship and leaves me crying in my underwear with a cat.

Though I've got to say, I think I cry harder when I look upon Brandon Routh's glorious visage. Or at least, my vagina cries harder. My vagina cries so much that I have to hook myself up to an IV to combat vagina dehydration. Most of the fluids in my body are halfway down my legs, because of this thing:

I can't even call it a face. It's not a face. It's a mint Hershey's Bliss thing on top of someone's neck. It's my every sexual fantasy made flesh, in so many, many perfect ways that I can't even really talk about it. I mean - he's literally like Zachary Quinto's more attractive younger brother.

Can you even wrap your mind around that? I can't. I can't even think about it without being consumed by my own groin. All I have to do is picture myself going round to Mrs Quinto-Routh's house for tea, ready to wet myself over her gorgeous son Zachary, and then THIS creature walks out of his sweaty boy bedroom and is all like:

HAI WATS GOIN ON GUYZ??

Because come on. You know the Brandon Routh in my head talks like that. He's not only vagina dehydratingly handsome, he's also somehow the most adorbs thing ever. He made an orsum Clark Kent precisely because he's so good at tripping over his own feet and being all awkward, and you know how stupid things like that turn my crank.

I want him to trip over his feet and fall face first into my fanny. Which is not half as gross as it sounds, because by this point he's spent half an hour being all vulnerable and cute and prudish, and my vagina's as dry as the Sahara because it just created a miniature Nile around my ankles.

Brandon Routh makes me have geographical locations between my legs. Tomorrow the Discovery Channel are coming around to make a documentary about this mysterious confluence of a giant river and a barren desert. Bear Grylls is going to climb my left thigh and survive on the Ruffles crumbs that I somehow let drop into the crevice behind my kneecap.

But I don't care, because Brandon Routh exists. And not only does he exist, but he also brings more visitors to my blog than any other thing does, purely by virtue of the search term "Brandon Routh bulge". And I can't even feel bad about that, because his bulge looks like this:

And also because recently the search term "Charlotte Stein" overtook it, which just makes me want to kiss the world. Stay still, world. I'm going in.

If you'd like to hear more about my obsession with Brandon Routh, you can visit these posts what I did over at Geek and Kink about him, Superman and Clark Kent:

http://geekandkink.com/2011/07/the-shit-that-destroyed-planet-earth/

http://geekandkink.com/2011/07/disco-hitler/

I have no idea if I've ever said this on my blog because apparently I have all the "my blog" knowledge of someone who's the opposite of me - like, say Cameron Diaz - but I blog every Friday there, and other orsum people blog there on other days about all things sexy and geeky. It's fun! Check it out!

More Killing of Dead Things

2011-07-09T04:44:00.007+01:00

Okay, so you know how last week I brought you a fabulous excerpt from Sommer's zombie book? Well guess what, beetches. She's written a sequel, and it's as amazeballs as the first one. And just for you, I've got a fabulous excerpt from that book, too.

Because nothing makes me happier than spreading the Sommer love. Especially after she went and wrote the most amazing review of Control:

http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com/2011/07/control-by-charlotte-stein-book-review.html

I swear to God, I didn't pay her. I didn't even ask her. She just did it, because she is made of all that is orsum and amazeballs in the world. Seriously, one of my writing heroines saying that. I can't even.

Instead, I will just leave you with living proof of how talented she is:

Excerpt from NO GUILT (Zombie Exterminators book #2)

Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/323-201-107-489-2--no-guilt-zombie-exterminators-series-book-two-by-sommer-marsden.html

Also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand etc.

Chapter One

“Don’t spook her,” Garrity said.

Noah was turning his big white van onto Topaz Lane, and I was trying really, really hard not to stare at Cahill. This was our first big job since moving from Maryland to Connecticut. Our first mission handed down and paid for by the county we lived in. Once we left our hometown after taking care of the Evoluminaries and their rabid leader William Tell (who had wanted to use me as a zombie baby mamma, thank you very much) we’d treated ourselves to a few weeks off.

Now the cupboard was bare, and we were itching to do something that did not involve loud music, alcohol and trading creeper war stories like old men at a veterans’ lunch.

“I won’t spook her. Why the hell would I spook her?” I snapped. Being fixated on Cahill’s offer wasn’t helping my mood. An offer of a threesome with him and Garrity—something that, yes, boys and girls, I have fantasized about more than once. It had come out of the blue after a drunken bucket-list conversation the four of us had had. Bam! In a moment of privacy, the offered was slammed down on the figurative table, and I couldn’t seem to stop poking at it. It was something I wanted, but it scared me.

I caught Cahill looking at me from the front seat where he rode shotgun to his lover Noah. I felt my face flush when I saw his cocky grin. Jeesh.

“Because you seem a bit on edge, Poppy,” Garrity said and leaned in. “Why are you so on edge, babe?”

It had taken forever and ever for me and Garrity to get together despite attraction and all that jazz. But my mother’s death and our last mission had sealed a bond that was a long time coming. So how would he feel about bringing handsome, tall Cahill in on the sex part of stuff? My brain wouldn’t let it go, but I swallowed hard and said “Don’t know. Maybe I’m rusty.”

“Nah. You’re good, girly. There’s nothing rusty about you,” he said and kissed me.
I turned my face fast—before I could analyze it—and kissed him on the lips. Part of me wanted to say those dreaded three words. I love you…part of me wanted to scream at even allowing myself to think it.

The van jumped and jittered on non-existent shocks and ripped me out of my reverie. “We’re here,” Noah said.

“Ready?” Cahill asked.

“No,” I said.

“Good.” Garrity patted my legs. “So let’s do this thing.”

We got out of the van and went to knock on Marylou Peterson’s front door.

I watched that instant—the instant that all couples seem to have—unfold. As Garrity was touching the small of my back, Cahill was touching Noah’s arm. That we-have-a-connection touch. Would Noah hate me forever if I took Cahill up on his offer? Would it ruin our friendship? Would it ruin the four of us and how we worked together? It was something I had to push out of my head as the front door swung inward. I had to focus on the complaints by the neighborhood and the county about a creeper that was loose that no one could seem to pinpoint. The last place it had been seen was Marylou’s house. I needed to focus on her.

“Hi, Marylou Peterson?” I spoke. The boys felt it better that I introduce us since I was relatively calm and a girl and there was a zombie apocalypse under way—or so the general population thought. “My name is Poppy Cooper, and we need to talk to you about a recent cree—” Garrity nudged me. Creeper was our own personal nickname for the undead. “Um…undead sighting on your property.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re county licensed freelance exterminators,” I said. Which was a fancy way of saying we kill dead things. We’re killers for hire.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice.

“May we come inside and speak with you?” Garrity asked, flipping a piece of nearly black hair out of his blue-blue eyes. He smiled. His boy next door shtick. Niiiiice.

“Sure. Come on,” she said and took a step back.

Funny. She seemed more scared of us than the idea of rogue zombies in her neck of the woods.

People were strange.

“It was on my property?” she asked. Her eyes were wide and frightened but off. Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t figure out what. Maybe we’d interrupted her and her boyfriend or something.

I looked at the county’s paperwork. Connecticut was way more of a stickler for paperwork than Maryland had ever been. Go figure. “Two complaints of a lone male undead subject on your property,” I said. “But when someone is sent out to take care of the call, he’s gone. There is a note that the second complaint called was only partially sure it was a male subject. Have you seen anything?”

She shook her head. Her big brown eyes wide, her fingers twirling a piece of dyed-red hair so tight I feared the whole lock would pop right out of her scalp. “No. It’s just me and my brother here. I haven’t seen anything. My dad’s long gone—has been for years, my mom…” She shook her head and looked away.

Christ, I hated this part. I always felt like a heel. Like I was pouring salt in a wound, because I was. I had lost my mother to a creeper, I knew the pain of it. I also knew I’d been slightly luckier than most simply because my mother had been immune to the virus that was infecting all these undead. She didn’t rise. Most people had to deal with the loss and unwanted resurrection.

“I’m sorry,” I said. A few stupid words that could not possibly stem the flow of pain.

She nodded, cleared her throat. “My mother succumbed to the virus.”

“And your brother? Has he seen anything?”

“I’d have to ask him. Chuck’s not here right now, though,” she said, waving her hand around the kitchen. “But I’ll ask when I see him.”

“Can we look around your property? Maybe there’s something attracting this subject,” I said. When did I start talking like a zombie cop? I didn’t know.

“Sure,” she said and gave me another shrug. “You’re not going to find much. An overgrown yard, a shed, honeysuckle bushes and an old dog house. But go for it.”

“Thanks.” I nodded to her back kitchen door. “May we?”

Marylou stood and unlocked a series of locks on the door. Finally, she was able to pull it open. “I’ll be here when you’re done,” she said.

I eyed Garrity and his gaze flicked to the locks. Five of them by count and an old fashioned cheap battery operated alarm. It simply hung on the door knob, and if jostled it would sound an ear piercing alarm to let the occupants know someone had opened the door.

When we hit the wide planted, screened-in back porch, I whispered to him “Safety first.”

“Jesus, I’ll say.”

Cahill and Noah had already hit the property, walking the perimeter like two jungle hunters. I turned to face the house once I hit mid-yard. I stared up at the farmhouse windows that reminded me creepily of the eyes of the undead. They were there, they were open, but no one was home. The windows were uncovered, the sun bouncing off the upper panes of glass. I thought I saw something in the upper right, but then a crow flew overhead and it was gone. Probably a reflection.

The house to the right was for sale. The house to the left was buttoned up like a storm was coming. “We need to check next door,” I said to Garrity.

He grunted and checked out the shed. “Nothing but lawn stuff. Mower, hoes,” he laughed.

“Are you five?”

“Hoes,” he laughed again.

“Dipshit.”

“Snippy.”

“Childish.”

“Bitchy.”

“Hey, flirt later!” Cahill called, and when I looked up, surprised, he winked at me.
It went right to my pussy, that wink. I shook my head, ashamed of myself. We were on a job. I could worry about my sex life later.

“Anyway, just some gas and lawn care stuff. Normal shed crap,” Garrity said and put an arm around me as he passed to show we’d just been teasing.

I kissed him on the cheek, and he looked surprised. It was my penance for dirty thoughts about Cahill. Now how did I make amends with Noah? I had no idea.

Not that Noah was even paying attention. Or seemed to care. Maybe he didn’t know about…

“Hello?” Garrity rapped softly on my forehead with his knuckles.

“Sorry. Spacey. What did you say?”

“I said we need to talk to that brother. But first we’ll go next door.” He cocked his thumb at the battened-down house. “My guess is at least one of the complaint calls came from there.”

“I agree.”

“Well, someone call fucking Guinness. Or the church. Because that’s a miracle.” Noah brushed his surfer boy hair out of the way and holstered his gun. We were all armed to the teeth but trying to appear like we were just checking to see what was what.

It was nice to keep everything tucked away and hidden until we had an actual creeper spotting. On the other hand, we had to have it all so we weren’t caught off guard and didn’t become lunch for some dead things.

“Seriously,” Cahill said and put a possessive hand on Noah.

It made me hot all over to see those two touch, and it instantly brought to mind the times I’d accidentally seen them together. It was easy to imagine Noah sucking off Cahill. And it was never hard for me to call up the image of Cahill plunging into pretty Noah. Holding his slim hips and pushing his cock deep inside. But it had totally been accidental, me seeing them. Okay, the first time had been an accident.

The other times had been luck.

“We’ll cut through the bushes to speak to the neighbor. When we come back here we can use the back door and talk to Marylou.”

“She’s edgy with a capital fidgety,” Noah said.

“I know. But imagine that you’re a young woman living with just your brother, and he’s not here. Maybe she’s alone a lot. Her mom died.” I felt a twinge in my gut when they all looked sad for me, and I shook my head. “Don’t do that. Don’t pity me,” I snapped, and they all fixed their faces into masks of indifference.

I cleared my throat, coughing away the ball of emotion that had lodged there.

“And she doesn’t have dad to speak of. That’s gotta be hard. And then we show up—our ragtag team of killers…I gotta say, boys, I’d be a little edgy too, I think.”

Garrity sighed. “You have a point. Lucky you, you have us.” He smacked my ass hard, and I gaped at him.

“Come on,” Noah said to Cahill, and led the way. “Let’s go talk to the neighbor before they do something like fuck in the bushes.”

It was Cahill who turned and waggled his eyebrows at me. Jesus. This was getting sticky fast.

We Kill Dead Things

2011-07-02T07:09:00.001+01:00

So right when I was writing my zombie book, Reawakening, guess who else was doing it at twice the speed? And by doing it, I totally do not mean boffing. Except all the places where I do.

Because the person was the fabulous Sommer Marsden, and lo, I had my very own zime (see Sommer's comments below for clarification)! Hooray! And if you like zombie apocalypses, and you like hot smexing, you will love her book. Seriously, it's amazeballs. I'm hoping some of her brilliance will rub off on me, but so far all I'm getting is huh, so this idiot wrote a zombie book too, did she?

Alas, alas. I leave you with the true master, Sommer Marsden!

My name is Sommer and I like dead things. On paper, mind you. I also like dirty things, but I like those in real life as well. Somewhere along the line I got the idea to mix the two. At first I thought, Sh’yeah. Right. Naw. But then…Hmm…Maybe. Possibly. Hell yes!

So I wrote them together—sex and dead things, dead things and sex, exterminating and the horizontal mambo. Poppy is the girl I’ve always wanted to be. She wears shit kicker boots, kills things with a machete, wants Garrity but has the balls to still lust after—and admit to it—Cahill. She is a voyeur (Hello m/m action), a bad ass, a soft hearted ass buster who loves family, country and killing things that should be dead.

And she has blue hair!

I thought I’d do one—just the one. I did one. Then I thought maybe one more. So I did a second (where there is even MORE sex) and then today while out running I came across a very live (I’m almost positive) but very creepy woman who was out walking and…bam! Book three is fully formed in my head. And I have to say, the zombie exterminators are in for a sticky situation. But also…more sex!

That is the very short, very condensed, very non-earth-moving story of me and Poppy, the boys and yeah, a bunch of dead things.

Thank you, Charlotte, dead thing loving partner in zime (that is zombie crime) for having me.

XOXO

Sommer

Excerpt from WE KILL DEAD THINGS (Zombie Exterminators Book #1)

Buy Link: http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/315-200-107-489-1--we-kill-dead-things-by-sommer-marsden.html

Also on Kindle, at ARe, Bookstrand etc.

Prologue

Honestly, the whole thing is Noah’s fault. We were all doing our normal closing-time bitchfest in the food square at Parktowne Mall and not really paying attention, when the first creeper showed up. That’s what we call them—the zombies—creepers.

Anyway, the first one showed up, and I assumed it was just another stoner looking for a slushie. Nope. It took all of my college logic skills to finally realize the creeper was up to no good when it lunged over the counter at me.

Garrity—Chris to his enemies—the object of my not-so-secret lust, let out a yell and rushed out with the bat we keep behind the counter at Smash It, the slushy and juice shop we run. He hit the guy on the shoulder—intending to do no real damage—but the bat sort of sank in and then made a squishy noise.

“He reeks,” I’d yelled, or something equally brilliant.

Then Noah was running out of Mamma’s Pies pizza stand with a meat cleaver of all things. Which he promptly buried in the guy’s skull. Thank God he was carving up Italian beef at the time.

The creeper gave me a stunned look that almost made me feel bad for him and Noah gave the cleaver another little shove and something cracked deep in the dead guy’s skull.

The dead guy fell on me.

Gross.

That had been the first creeper, and Noah had taken it out (being the only one smart enough to have the news on in his food court stall so he actually had news about the suddenly mobile undead). Garrity had to take out six more before we got the main doors locked. Nick Cahill—main man at The Beef Barn—found one making the moves on a side of beef in the walk-in. He took it out with an electric knife.

The night was pretty much what bizarre is made of, and when we found ourselves clustered on the merry-go-round drinking a good bottle of wine pilfered from the gourmet place, Noah made a joke.

“We should start a new business,” he laughed. He was a business major, after all. “Our slogan could be We Kill Dead Things.”

Like I said, it’s all Noah’s fault. Because that is what we do now. A year later, and we’re pretty damn good at it. We kill dead things.

Chapter One

“Little help over here,” Noah yelled. I tossed him a small axe from my pack, and he caught it with one hand. Noah’s the one with surfer boy hair, pale skin, freckles and an ass any girl would want to bite.

I watched him take the axe and with three economical blows behead our zombie friend.

“Nice.” Garrity laughed—sometimes I think he enjoys his work too much—and did his
own damage with a claw hammer he kept tucked in the back of his jeans. How he sat on that damn thing all day is beyond me. Garrity is the one with the dark, dark hair and the blue, blue eyes. He makes you want to—well, if you’re a girl—he makes you want to take your pants off for him. Hey, he might even make you want to take your pants off if you’re a guy, too. “Head’s up, Poppy,” he called out.

I turned—and lucky I did—because a big, bad and ugly was shuffling toward me like I was his last supper. “Not today, buddy.” My weapon of choice is a gun. I find it cleaner to just put a bullet in their brains. Or what’s left of them. Since my dad was a cop for thirty years, I know my way around a firearm. One shot and the creeper was down.

The boys still think one day I’m going to shoot them. I’ve told them that won’t happen as long as they behave.

“Where’s Cahill?” I called. Noah was sweeping the perimeter and Garrity was checking on his latest kill.

“He’s out back. The owners said the creepers come in through the back bushes.”

“Great. Nothing like sneaking off away from the pack,” I growled. I waited for the boys then we went around the side of the big farmhouse as a unit.

“Where are these bush—” I didn’t need to finish that sentence because Cahill was being tugged by six waving arms into the giant stand of bushes. “Jesuspleezus,” I sighed. “I can’t get a shot. He’s all tangled up with them.”

Garrity moved forward and so did Noah. Together they waded into the overgrown foliage and tugged two of the creepers free. That left Cahill enough room to turn fast and dispatch the creeper with his favorite butchering knife from his shop.

Cahill’s arms are about as big as my thighs and freckled. There’s barely any hair on them but what is there is a ginger-colored down. His eyes are bright green, and they can see right through to your soul. Or, at least, it feels like it. I watched him behead the thing with a fierce grunt and an even fiercer swipe of his knife.

Then I plopped onto the grass trying to catch my breath and get my heart to slow down. It was too damn fast in my chest. I felt like I was floating. Adrenaline cocktail, anyone?

“Come on, Poppy.” Garrity hauled me to my feet, and we all met up around the owner’s gazebo.

“They’ll be home tomorrow. We’ve secured the area. Those are the only creepers we could find. Anything else pops up they can give us a shout.”

I nodded. “Neighbors?”

“All alive and accounted for so far.”

Unlike the movies you see about the undead, they don’t spring up overnight in waves. They spring up one at a time like a flu victim—and like any other disease, there are some naturally immune. My own mother was bitten by the guy who broke in and killed my dad a few months back when this whole thing started. She’s a widow with a wicked scar but beyond that, totally fine.

You just can’t tell if you’ll be one of the immune or one of the infected. Best bet is not to get bitten.

“Good. Now can we go home and sleep? I’m tired.” I was tired, but I felt like a wuss saying it aloud—occupational hazard when you work with all men.

“Yep. Sleep is on the way.”

Garrity ruffled my short blue hair and I felt the touch reach my pussy. Damn him.
He leaned in, pressed his lips to my ear and said “How long is this stuff going to be blue, anyhow?”

“Until I get tired of the blue,” I growled.

He shrugged, that lazy, sexy boy shrug some men have, and said “Just asking. Don’t get all knotted up.”

I rolled my eyes, and when I turned I caught Cahill staring at me. That made my stomach curl in on itself. Those vibrant eyes on me. We were all messy and gross and banged up, but Cahill wore it well. So did Garrity. Poor Noah, he was staring at Cahill as usual. Noah would climb Cahill like a tree if he could get away with it.

Hell, so would I.

“Come on. Let’s get you home. Boys check in when you get to the house. I’ll take Poppy home,” Garrity said.

We split up after one more sweep of the property. Our exterminating service would get paid pretty well for this. Corpse disposal was the job of the owner, plus it helped if they could see the work we’d done. Body count was important. Extra added bonus, the corpses served as a warning to other creepers who might stumble-shuffle-walk into the neighborhood. Garrity pulled me in with an arm to the neck. “Hanging in there?”

“It’s been a long year.”

“No girl should have to kill her dad,” he said softly.

We’d danced around our attraction since day one at the slushy bar. Now it was a steady back beat to every encounter we had. Problem was, as tongue-tied as Garrity made me, Cahill made me the same…just in a slightly different way. Lust is a funny, funny thing.

I figured it best to hang back and do nothing. Plus, we were too busy killing things to fuck. Right?

* * * *

“All’s clear,” Garrity said. We’d given the inside of my house a once over.

The good news with the infection was folks got sick first. High fever, lethargic, sores, coma even. It was pretty easy to spot them if you paid attention. And then if they did die and rise back up, you could take care of business. Problem was that apparently a lot of folks had no one paying attention to them, or they were living with people who couldn’t stomach the taking care of business part. Which I can totally understand, truth be told.

“Thanks for the help. I want a long, hot shower and then a long, deep sleep.”

“Sounds good. Got room for company?”

I opened my mouth but no sound came out. “I—”

“Do you really have to think about it?”

No! But then again, yes…

“Of course,” I joked. “I don’t go jumping into the shower with just any guy.”

“And I’m not just any guy,” he said, tracing the zipper of my black hoodie with his fingertip. Garrity is the kind of guy who takes up space—big, broad, imposing, huge—all of those adjectives worked for him. “I wasn’t just any guy when we were serving up Polar Berry slushies, and I’m not just any guy now.”

“True but—”

“But you lust after the meat whacker, too.” He grinned. Clever description of Cahill. Made him sound both perverse and silly. Honestly, Garrity won hands down. There were feelings there for him, real ones. Cahill was just a hot, hot friend that I wanted to fuck. But I’d never tell Garrity that. He’d probably run around yelling I won! I won!

I rolled my eyes. “I think you’re both…” I trailed off. We were whispering because my mother was apparently asleep already. Her bedroom door had been shut when we came home so I tried to keep my voice down. The whole effect was that of a teenager sneaking in after curfew ended.

“Nifty? Sweet? Groovy? Fun?” He laughed.

“Shut up.”

“Hey, Poppy Cooper, kiss me,” he said and tugged my hoodie hard enough to make me stutter-step forward.

“Garrity,” I sighed. “Christ.”

He shook his head. “Unh-unh. Something about watching you dispatch creepers gets my blood pumping.”

He pulled me in, and I considered raising my objections. But then his lips touched mine, and I sort of oozed against him in a highly embarrassing way and got lost in that kiss. I kissed him back after a moment. It was our first kiss. All the flirting and sexual tension made it so intense, I felt like I was vibrating. I felt that kiss in my entire body. Scalp to toe and all the naughty, willing places in between.

“Let me in, Poppy. Let me in your room. Let me in your bed,” he muttered, pulling that traitorous zipper south.

“Garrity, I can’t. My mom…she’s sleeping and…”

He laughed outright, and I heard something in the distance. We both stilled, listening. Could be a roaming creeper, if so, our neighborhood watch would notice and call it in. When the noise stopped, I managed to pull free from him.

“I’m tired.”

“And I’m beat,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take you to bed and make you—”

“I need a shower!” I blurted. “Creeper brains.”

He cocked his head at me. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”

“No,” I sighed, grateful he saw it now.

“But I will win soon,” he said, leveling a finger at me before taking it and sliding it along my lower lip so that I felt the tug of arousal between my legs.

“I don’t doubt it.” It was the honest-to-God truth.

“Be safe. Lock up. I’ll come pick you up in the morning. Not sure what we’re working tomorrow. But someone somewhere is overrun with zombies. Infestation.”

“Wow, that’s so peppy.”

“Sad, but true, Poppy,” he said.

“Sleep well,” I said, guilt staining me on the inside. I wanted to try to explain to him just how much I actually wanted him. But I sucked at that stuff.

“You, too.” He started for the porch steps and hesitated. “Last chance to take advantage of me. Change your mind and lead me upstairs and ravage me like the easy man that I am.”

I snorted and covered my mouth. “Good night, Garrity.”

“Goodnight, Poppy Cooper.”

And he was gone. I watched his big, lumbering, ugly-ass green truck pull away and patted my pockets. I had my cell, I had my gun. I crept inside being as quiet as I could and locked the bathroom door behind me. I would take a long hot shower and then hit the sack.

It was just what the doctor ordered. You know, before reporting for duty tomorrow morning to dispatch a bunch of dead things.

My Thoughts On Bridesmaids

2011-06-29T23:14:00.005+01:00

So I went to see Bridesmaids, last Wednesday. And although I laughed my ass off and loved every funny second of it, there was one moment in the film that for some unaccountable reason made me cry. Not tears of laughter crying - real crying, of the kind you usually only do when a shark eats a seal on Animal Planet or Ripley dies in Alien 3.*

It's the bit where Melissa McCarthy's character says to Kirsten Wiig's character that she has a best friend right here, in her. And it wasn't a fake, sappy moment, and it wasn't the point where Annie turned all of her life around. It was just this weird, plain-faced girl saying to some other girl - I'm your friend.

And I just found that so...I don't know. Overwhelming. Same thing when the pretty one said she had no female friends. In fact, the whole film had this undercurrent of how hard it is to actually make friends and have them stick by you no matter what and so and so forth, and for some reason that really affected me.

In fact, I'm not even going to say "for some reason" there. I'm just going to flat out state it: I can completely relate to that. It's not because I'm too weird, either, because although there's an element of that, I know it's mainly my fault. I'm annoying, I'm abrasive. I say all the wrong things and then only later am sensible of saying the wrong things but have absolutely no idea how to apologise about them because if I apologise, it will seem as though I knew I was saying something bad in the first place.

I try to give advice, but it just comes out like I'm being a know-it-all. All my life I've been a know-it-all, and the thing about being one is you can't stop yourself. You try, but there's just so much stupid stuff in your head that most of it keeps leaking out and then it's all fuck you, apple polisher.

I am a social dunderhead.

So I guess what I'm saying is: it was really nice to see a movie where someone as wonderful as Melissa McCarthy, someone actually stranger than myself, got to be onscreen in all of her plump, weird, mad clothes wearing no make-upped glory, and was not only held up as something fun and interesting but also as a decent person. Who then just flat out asked someone else to be BFFs with them.

I don't think anyone's ever asked me to be their BFF. I can't even imagine what I would do if Melissa McCarthy asked me to be hers. It would probably make my life, because not only is she an absolutely orsum human being in Bridesmaids - she takes nine puppies! She identifies an air marshal correctly and then sleeps with him! - she's pretty much the most brilliant best friend in everything she's in.

In Gilmore Girls, she put up with Lorelai even though Lorelai is pretty much an insufferable human being ninety percent of the time. I mean I love her, and she's funny and smart and cool to watch, but in reality she would have probably driven someone as sweet as Sookie nuts in about thirty seconds and then Lorelai would have had to go live in her Mother's basement with ninety cats, or summat.

Which is undoubtedly my fate. I mean, once the zombies invade my husband has absolutely no chance - he won't even practice barring all the doors! - and all of the friends I do have are either equally as zombie unsavvy or live miles away. And though I'd like to say that I'd be able to cross the apoclaypse ravaged landscape and get to the three other people who can stand me in all the world, I know the truth.

I'd hide in a basement somewhere, with ninety cats.

But you know, I don't think it was just the friendship thing that so affected me about Bridesmaids. There was something else about it - something like the heralding of a new dawn. There were women on screen, doing things I've never seen women doing before.

And no, I don't mean the shitting in the street thing. I mean stuff like...sleeping with some guy in a self-destructive way but totally knowing it and doing it anyway. I mean like hitting rock bottom and not having some dude drag you out. In reality, there rarely IS some dude. There's usually nothing and you really do end up living with your mum, without a job or a life or any friends.

Not every woman is Jennifer Lopez in the Back Up Plan, whose biggest problem is that ALEX O'LOUGHLIN IS KIND OF UNSURE ABOUT RAISING BABIES THAT ARE NOT HIS.

I mean, really? Really? I'd be happy just to smell Alex O'Loughlin's breath. After he put it in a jar and mailed it to me. That's right: I'd be happy with secondhand O'Loughlin breath, that's really probably just a fart his assistant trapped in there, for a laugh.

I don't like "chick flicks" because for the most part, they're not aimed at any chick I know. They don't represent me. I don't even particularly like them in an escapist, glossy sort of way because in order for me to buy things like "she has to choose between Armie Hammer and Jon Hamm to raise her quintuplets" I need to believe in her.

But I believe in Kristen Wiig. I believe in Melissa McCarthy. Dear God, I hope they do a sequel, quick.

*I accept that you might cry at different, normal things. Like accidentally cutting your finger off, for example.

Mancandy Friday: Kieran and Tommy

2011-06-24T21:41:00.004+01:00

Vastly appropriate Mancandy, today, because Kieran and Tommy are actually the heroes of the book I've just had accepted by Ellora's Cave! Hooray!

So I feel they deserve to be thanked, in the form of my copious and almost disgusting levels of drool slopped over them both.

Behold!

And yes, that is a graphical representation of my saliva all over them. Of course, MS Paint has its limitations, so this saliva sort of looks a little less like spit and a little more like...um...some other sort of bodily secretion. But that's okay, because I do feel that if my mouth could ejaculate, it would definitely do so over both of these two gentlemen.

I mean, just look at them. And now imagine them doing stuff to the heroine. And maybe also to each other. The mind can barely take such hotness, right? I think I went temporarily insane, writing this book.

Note to self: must cast less handsome men as my heroes, in my imagination. Next time I swear to God I'm going to write about Michael York doing Clint Eastwood. Even though just thinking about that pairing makes me do the opposite of a mouth-ejaculation. It makes me mouth-withdraw. Literally, all of my face sucks back into my body, in abject horror.

Sort of like I've sucked on a crusty, weird bum-faced Michael York/Clint Eastwood shaped lemon.

But anyway, I digress. About something so insane I can't even sum it up in a few words.

Back to Kieran and Tommy, who I genuinely believe have brought me back to writing life. No, seriously. I know that a menage novella about discovering your husband's naughty habits might not seem like an earth-shattering, writing-changing sort of event. But it really has been, for me.

I thought I'd lost it. I thought I no longer loved writing. But the inspiration of Armie Hammer and Michael Fassbender, coupled with a lot of watching of nature documentaries, some computer poker playing and a bout of tonsilitis has literally given me back some of my zest for it.

Of course, it might all go away tomorrow. It might. But for right now, I'm happy.

I'm a writer.

Dear Any Readers I Am Lucky Enough To Have,

2011-06-15T23:45:00.002+01:00

Thank you for buying my books. Thank you for buying them in ebook format, in print format, in some format I've never heard of because it's a thousand years from now and you're downloading it direct to your brain with the latest reading device that I'm now going to dub "MindSuck".

Thank you for buying my book on Wednesdays, on Saturdays, on any day you like. Thank you for buying them ten or twenty or even a billion weeks from release, when MindSuck has been replaced by The Brain Devourer and everyone is more than likely a slave on the planet Amazon.Com.

Just thank you.

All my love,

Charlotte Stein

Mancandy Monday: Erik Lehnsherr

2011-06-06T20:21:00.011+01:00

If you follow my twitter, I'm sure this Mancandy will come as no surprise to you. But even if you're simply a foolhardy explorer of the murky world of my blog, I doubt it's going to really rock your world to find me lusting after Erik Lehnsherr.

I mean, let's look at the facts, shall we.

1. He's being played by Michael Fassbender in the new X-Men movie. Michael Fassbender looks like this:

Yes, that's right. He looks like a cross between a dancer for a brand new genre of dance called "Porn Bending", the Lord of a Perverted Manor from the kinky version of the 1800s, and a guy you desperately want to call the man version of the word slut.

In fact, for him I have invented this word. He is a humongous slatterdick.

2. Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, most traditionally wears a large helmet while bending metal. I have no idea why this combination of words turns me on, but my vagina tells me I should just go with it.

3. During the course of the new X-Men movie, Erik Lehnsherr does one or more of the following:

Cries in anguished horror over his tortured, holocaust surviving, mind-fooked life. In some cases, he commits this crying while hugging another man. Now, I realise that many people do not find a crying man sexy. Many people also do not find a man hugging another man sexy. However, I am not one of those people. I wanted to steal his tears and keep them inside my underpants, like the horrifying witch from some story about children who are stolen from their beds and kept in gingerbread cages.

Wears a skintight wetsuit. Michael Fassbender is a skilled artiste at the dance form known as Porn Bending. You do the math, here.

Wears sweatpants. I fully admit that there is no math you could do for this one. Even I'm not sure why a man in sweatpants just does it for me. I think it's about the way something might dangle within the forbidden recesses of such loose fitting and comfortable material. Sweatpants lure men into a false sense of security. They think nothing's showing and then BAM. Giant swinging cock for all to see.

Hunts Nazis like a Boss. Surely no explanation is needed for this. All I wanted to do after the movie was finished was see it's sequel: "Here Are The Ten Nazis You Didn't See Him Kill, In Even More Inventive Ways Than The Ones Who've Just Been On". Of course I realise this title is completely impractical, but it's just a working one, okay? In reality, Fox can call it something like "Magnetic Vengeance" or "Fookin' Nazis" or "When I'm Mad I Become Irish" or summat.

Makes googly love eyes at Charles Xavier. Now, if you had told me three years ago that pretty soon, I'd be wetting my panties over the thought of Magneto and Professor X falling madly in love, I'd have wondered if you were subscribed to Old Men Monthly. I mean, Patrick Stewart's pretty sexy. And Ian McKellan's not that bad. But you can't escape the fact that they are elderly. 72 is a little past the place I'm prepared to go to. Where as Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are both in the prime of life. Even if Fassbender occasionally looks 64.

All of which I think adequately sums up why I'm spending my time trawling the internet for suspect pr0n featuring Erik doing stuff to the various members of the X-Men. Especially that one mutant. You know - that weird one in the corner, whose power is intense chocolate consumption and the ability to watch a load of terrible sitcoms all night long.

And maybe some other power that's going to lure him in, too, like...I dunno. Vagina Eyes? Yeah, my mutant power is Vagina Eyes. Take THAT, Erik Lehnsherr.

Blog Tour and Winners and Reawakening For A Bargain Price, Oh My!

2011-05-30T21:04:00.004+01:00

So I put the names in the hat, and the winner of a copy of Reawakening is...drumroll...

Sasha Devlin!

But as I'm feeling extra generous, I thought I'd give away another copy. And the tiny bit of post-it told me that the second winner is...

Sayoko!

Hooray!

And it seems I'm feeling even more extra generous than that, because if Saskia, Madelynne and David would like to pick another book out of my backlist, I'd be only too happy to send them a copy. I've got print copies of the anthos Fast Girls, Smooth, Orgasmic and Fairytale Lust. I've got ebook copies of Control, The Horizon, Past Pleasures, Tigerlily, Closer and Giving. Oh, and the anthologies Threefold and Master Me!

Just email me, guys, and I'll get those prizes out to you!

In further news, I did a blog on more zombie goodness over at Passionate Reads this week:

http://passionatereads.com/2011/05/30/hot-zombie-apocalypses/

And it's got news of an amazing deal you can only get today. All Romance Ebooks are doing a 50% rebate, and Reawakening has already been released there! Buy it now and save loads of cash! Hooray!

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-reawakening-550153-140.html

And finally, a little bit of info as to where I am on the web this week. Loads of people were kind enough to offer me a space on their blog to promote Reawakening (much to my blubbering happiness), and you can view a few of my little jaunt around the tinternets here:

Justine Elyot: http://justineelyot.com/uncategorized/time-to-reawaken/

Hailey Edwards: http://haileyedwards.net/2011/05/charlotte/

Daisy Harris: http://www.thedaisyharris.com/reawakening-with-muthereffin-zombies-by-charlotte-stein

Erotica For All: http://eroticaforall.co.uk/new-erotica-releases/new-release-reawakening-forever-dead-series-book-one-by-charlotte-stein/

There'll be more coming, too!

Sexy Zombie Threesome Competition!

2011-05-26T23:57:00.003+01:00

Yep, I put that title in there to make the competition sound more exciting than it probably is. What of it?

Though really, the competition is exciting enough on its own. I swear to God, it is. Enter, and you could win a night with the heroes of my latest zombie novel, Reawakening! They'll soothe away the stresses of the apocalypse, and do dirty things to you all the live long day, and even if all of this will only actually occur in my head, I'm sure you'll have a grand time.

And on top of this totally fictional prize, you could also win a copy of my book! Hurrah!

So what do you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this fabulous prize, I hear you cry? Well, it's more than simple. Just comment on this blog before Monday, and your name will go in a hat. And then I'll pick out a winner and et voila! One person will get fictional threesomes with Jamie and Blake, plus a free copy of my book.

And who knows, I may even throw in a second prize of the other eight million books I don't seem to have sent to any reviewers. I've got print copies of Control, anthologies like Threesomes and Fast Girls and Fairytale Lust. I've got all sorts!

And if you want some extra info about the book I'm talking about, or even if you just want to buy it right now and gain yourself my undying love forever, here is the link:

http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/318-201-107-490-1--reawakening-forever-dead-series-book-one-by-charlotte-stein.html

And a blurb:

June has spent the last two years of her life trying to avoid death at the hands of murderous psychopaths and ravening zombies. So when Jamie turns up on the scene, careless, still whole and promising her safety on a little paradise island, she isn’t quite sure she can trust him. Especially when he tells her that it’s just him, and his equally big, burly, handsome friend Blake.

But Jamie and Blake are even better than her wildest dreams—sweet and funny and charming. And worst of all: sexy as hell. Though they're trying to be gentlemanly with her, all she can think about is how much she wants to get tangled up in them, and forget the nightmare the world has become. She's waiting for her reawakening—back to life and happiness and love.

And they seem like just the right sort of men to wake her—body and soul.

And an excerpt:

All June could think was—Kelsey is dead, Kelsey is dead, Kelsey is dead—while the image of the ravening hordes feasting on Kelsey’s body played behind her eyes. She tried to shut it off, keep it down, keep running before they got to her, but Kelsey’s blood was still wet and all over her right arm.

And if Jamie hadn’t shot Kelsey—right as she was still screaming, and begging for help—she’d be one of them, now. That’s what happened. Once they bit you or bled on you or hell, spat on you, you had maybe thirty seconds.

Before you turned.

She needed to stop, just stop for a second. Lean against something and catch her breath. But Jamie had somehow led them into this building and he just kept running and running—only up instead of out.

June didn’t even know if Jamie was really his name, or if he was leading them right into a dead end. But he kept going, none-the-less.

She could hear the hordes, busting through the door below. He’d barred it, but they were coming in anyway, to this place that was an almost total deathtrap. The staircase was narrow and blanketed in darkness, one winding section after the next. Even if she dared to pause and look over the railing, she wouldn’t be able to see them until they were almost on her.

“Jamie, wait!” she shouted, but not because things would be easier if he had hold of her hand or was there to comfort her in this dire hour of need. She’d made it this far, on her own

Or at least, she’d made it this far, with Kelsey.

No, it was just that—if he kept going, eventually they’d be trapped, on the roof. And she couldn’t have that. That was one of her and Kelsey’s rules—don’t run to someplace with only one exit.

Only it was just her rule, now. This guy, this Jamie…he didn’t seem to have any rules. He’d decided to run to the roof of a twenty story building then potentially wait outside until the hordes pushed through a probably very flimsy fire door.

Kelsey had said to her. She had said—wait. He’s as crazy as they are. A safe island? He’s nuts. We can’t go with him. He’s probably an insane apocalypse rapist.

And she’d been right, God help her. Maybe not about the insane apocalypse rapist part, but even so and besides—there was still time for that. He could be anyone, be into anything. He could have planned this all along…Kelsey’s death, the run to the roof…hell, maybe he had a whole party of insane assholes up there, just waiting to do horrible things to her.

Even if that was as nuts as he now seemed. Why would he trap himself on the roof, just to have a little fun with her? Nothing in her head was functioning in quite the way it should. Connections had been lost. Wiring had come loose.

She still called out to him again, when they got to the level before the last one. Her voice came out hoarse and breathless, burning lungs making everything difficult, Kelsey in her mind making everything worse. But somehow the words emerged.

“Jamie, stop. Take the nineteenth floor exit, okay—we can go back down on the other side of the building—answer me, fuck!”

He did, then. She heard him call out over her own shrieking breaths, the pounding of her sneakers on stone, and the sounds of the once-were-people below, slathering and barking like animals.

There were two cracks, like he’d fired her gun into the stairwell. Though she couldn’t see where he was shooting or at what. Then—

“Just keep following me, June-bug—come on!”

Only it sounded more like come own, because of the Texan twang Kelsey had sworn up and down was fake. And he’d called her June-bug again, because he was crazy, he was crazy, oh dear Lord he was probably leading them to their deaths.

This was all just some final mad hurrah. He was suicidal, and this was how he wanted to go out. Death by stairs or death by zombies—because they were zombies, no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise—or even worse, death by roof.

Was that what he was going to do? Hurl himself off? Plummet to his untimely end? She didn’t know. All she could really think about was how close the first ravening cannibal was getting, and how unfit she really was. She’d started believing all the cardio was really beginning to pay off, but as it turned out, eighteen flights of stairs and she was out for the count. Her heart clawed at her ribcage. Her thigh muscles screamed and screamed.

While her zombie pals kept coming and coming, as though the stairs were nothing, really. Why, leaping up eighteen flights was like a morning stroll to them! They could have climbed these stairs forever and still had the wherewithal to eat her innards, once they got their claw-like hands on her.

She hit the fire door to the roof just as one of said claw-like hands brushed the back of her shirt.

It made everything inside her leap, including the heart she’d thought had escaped. Whenever they got really close—that was when you realized just how terrible they were. How awful the world had become. How much it wasn’t like a movie at all, but like a constant and unbearable pressure against your sanity, always threatening to make you go over.

She felt like going over, when the door wouldn’t close on them. For a second of pushing and heaving with their hands coming through and all over her, her mind tried to fly away. It told her to start screaming uncontrollably, while clawing at herself—that doing so would really be her best bet. No more running constantly. No more pain over Kelsey—and before Kelsey, Joanne and Pat and the old lady whose name she never learned.

Just peace, finally. One moment of agony, then peace.

Only it wouldn’t be, would it? No, it wouldn’t be. If she stopped pushing at the door and jamming it at them and just God, let the door snap their arms, let it crush them, let it kill them all forever, if she stopped…they’d turn her into one of them. And no matter how much she tried to let it hurt her that Jamie had pointed the gun and shot Kelsey between the eyes, it didn’t. It couldn’t.

Being one of them was worse. After all, it could have been that they’d caught a disease. It might have been that they were infected with something—like in 28 Days Later, rather than Night of the Living Dead. But part of her wondered whenever she stared into their hollow, ink-black eyes, if they’d simply lost their souls.

He looked like it. The one who’d managed to squeeze his mottled face into the crack she was struggling to close in the door. He had no pupils, no irises, no whites to his eyes. It was all just blackness, empty and weirdly unseeing, as though they operated on no more than a bloodlust now. Like upright land sharks roaming the land, blindly searching out prey.

She wrenched the door from him for just an instant then smashed it back into his face. It was a risky move, but oh so worth it. Worth it for the satisfaction, worth it for Kelsey, worth it for everything these things had taken from everyone. People’s souls hadn’t left. These things had stolen them.

And when it slithered away and the door quite abruptly shut, the idea didn’t go with it. It stayed, and festered—so much so that she wanted to open the door for one mad moment, just to smash it back in their faces again, and again, and again.

She wanted to, but Jamie was calling to her. And other sounds were starting to flood through her now, too, other big, big sounds that she should have noticed ages ago.

At first she thought it was some kind of weapon. That he’d found a chainsaw or a pneumatic drill or a wood chipper. Something he’d known was up here all along for them to use against the enemy.

But then the wind whipped up and she turned to see something far more incredible than a zombie eating wood chipper. It was so incredible that she forgot the zombies battering on the fire door, for a second. They’d bust through it soon enough because although they couldn’t figure out handles, the sheer pressure of them would figure out the release bar.

Though it didn’t seem to matter. For the first time in these two years of hell, it didn’t matter. She found herself laughing out loud, high and probably hysterical.

Jamie had only gone and gotten himself a helicopter. And not only that, but he apparently knew how to fly a helicopter. The rotors were going. They were kicking up the fine gravel that lined the roof of whatever building this was, and he was yelling to her—

“Come on, June-bug, get your ass in here!”

She thought of him talking about the island. About his buddy who was waiting for them. How they’d just wanted to find survivors, and populate their safe haven, and how crazy that had sounded when he first started yakking about it.

Then she ran to him.

Mancandy Monday: Hot Zombies

2011-05-24T00:00:00.011+01:00

Welcome, welcome. It's zombie week here at chez Stein, due to the fact that my orsum zombie novel is out on Wednesday! Hurrah! So in celebration of this fact, I thought I'd create a little infomercial for you. A guide, if you will, on how to survive the zombie apocalypse. Which as the movies have told us repeatedly, is definitely on its way.

In fact, the movies themselves often give splendid advice on what to do, should you find yourself being chased by the various types of zombies. Such as:

Type A: People who've basically been slathered in grey paint then told to walk as though they're almost pooing themselves. (The original Dawn of the Dead, for example)

Type B: People with red contact lenses who've basically been told to scare the shit out of me forever. (28 Days Later)

Type C: People with funny coloured contact lenses that kind of turn into these withered stick insect looking things, then get you in the dark. (Rec)

In all of the above movies there are plenty of examples of what you can and cannot do to save yourself. If you're being hounded by pooing people slathered in grey paint, there's plenty of time for you to run away. And maybe laugh, while you're doing it. You can build a mall fortress, or possibly shoot a lot of guns at the ravening hordes.

If you live in England and are suddenly beset by running maniacs with red contact lenses, however, you may find yourself fairing slightly less well. For one, England has no guns. But we're also a bit like Game of Thrones only older, so there are bound to be swords lying around for you to grab.

As for the advice on the last type of zombie, which seems to be the result of some sort of demonic possession and ends with you trapped in a pitch black room with something night vision can't quite identify, I'd say the best bet is just to sob and let it eat you.

Or at least, that's the advice I took from Rec. But there are plenty of other zombie movies with better advice, I promise! Zombieland even actually gives you the advice in handy bullet points, which I dutifully noted down in my Big Book of Being Shit Scared of Zombies.

However, there's one point that all of these movies and books have never quite dwelt on. One crucial bit of advice that's missing:

What if the zombie you're facing is a total hottie?

Now I know what you're thinking. Charlotte, zombies can't be hot! And maybe you're also thinking: God, I hope Charlotte's book is not about hot zombies (I swear to God, it's not. It's about totally hot humans going at it menage stylee in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, to counteract all the death and horror they've been through).

But you know me, people. I cannot abide Mancandy wastage, no matter how covered in grey paint it may be. I will not sit idly by and see good manbeef go to waste, even if said manbeef has started losing parts. How on earth would someone like me cope with seeing a perfectly good slice of hunk turn to zombie? How could I raise my machete/Ice from Game of Thrones and thwart this handsome blight on the human race?

Well never fear, gentle reader. I have compiled a handy guide on how to identify and destroy the hot zombie!

First up, we have an easy one for your edification:

The signs you need to look past the hotness for are obvious, here. I mean, rationally our loins will know that this is Aidan Gillen. We can see evidence of his masterful hair, his intense Irishness, his glorious man-stubble. His mouth is still a lush garden of kissability. But you'll probably find yourself resisting the urge to kiss even without my advice, because one of his eyes appears to have popped out of the socket and is rolling around on his face.

Of course, if that's not enough to help you resist the hotness and fight the zombie, there are also the patches of decaying flesh. I have represented these patches by liberally spraying Aidan with the spraycan from MS Paint, because I am shit at drawing. Apologies if this flaw of mine one day winds up getting you all killed by hot zombies.

And now onto the second example of undead beauty:

Although Bradley is trying to pretend he's not a zombie by employing a broad and handsome grin, we can clearly see by the undead eyes that he's already become one of the unclean, diseased, rabid monster creatures. And if the undead eyes from out of the movie Krull were not enough of a clue, the fact that one of his ears is hanging off almost certainly is.

Don't be fooled, people. Reach for that axe, even as your loins demand you snog his undead face off. Maybe literally.

And finally, we get to the hardest test of all: hot zombie Armie Hammer. Because of course Armie is so handsome that zombification barely touches him. It tries to make him turn grey and lose limbs, but a scientific condition I've called "Extreme Cockmastery" keeps him almost whole and normal looking. You find yourself drawn in by his promises of "Unh unh" and his rabid gargling. He's even worn a crafty pair of sunglasses to hide his demonic eyes from your view. Of course the sunglasses are hideous, but that's not the point.

The Armie Hammer level of hot zombie is wily. But if you're careful, and you keep your wits about you, you can clearly see blood running out of his left ear. Blood running out of someone's ear during a zombie apocalypse is almost never a good sign.

And that's the end of my guide. If you enjoyed, and would like to hear more about the zombie apocalypse and also about lusty bonking, please visit here on Wednesday:

http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/318-201-107-490-1--reawakening-forever-dead-series-book-one-by-charlotte-stein.html

I promise you won't regret it.

Party Games

2011-05-18T22:53:00.003+01:00

So I'm doing another promo - I know, I know. I shouldn't have so many fabulously talented friends. So little time, so many great books to talk about!

But this time it's the turn of my lovely writer friend Elise Hepner, who's very first extra special release came out from Ellora's Cave last week! Hooray!

Show her some new writer love and check out the cover:

The blurb:

William’s boring lovemaking leaves Catherine unsatisfied. Harboring fantasies she can’t put into words, she longs for a sexual voice but finds herself too stifled by her proper social upbringing.

When a blackout hits their resort hotel and William proposes a sexy version of hide-and-seek, playtime takes on a whole new salacious meaning. Charlotte’s mind races with sexual scenarios. But even her fantasies fail to compare to the titillating adventure her husband has planned for her—with the help of another man.

Soon everything she knows about lust will be irreversibly changed—and she’ll moan for more.

And a fabulously sexy excerpt:

Reader Advisory: Contains scorching-hot M/M/F sexual scenarios, a woman giving orders on an erotic high and slight trickery.

Her fingers trembled—should she risk giving into fear and walk out of the closet or wait for William? Without a doubt he’d planned this as a sexual hunt. A naughty bedroom game. But huddled among heirloom furs in her thin silk slip, she was already prey.
“I’ve got you.”
She couldn’t mistake that wicked laugh. It was him. David, who had been a friend at galas she’d attended, but whose body she couldn’t help tracing with her gaze as he had made his way around the room. He was magnetic—and something she shouldn’t want. Which made her desire flare to life every time he had kissed her hand in formal greeting. Through her glove, his lips had been a seal of heat that had built underneath her flesh.
Until a sexual beast she hadn’t known she held inside roared to get out. Had it been fate that he had found her here? Or perhaps something more devious. Either way she couldn’t push back the relief that flooded her limbs at the sound of his voice.
At last, a voice she knew. One of the doors to her left unlatched and creaked, jerking back to reveal a lean, masculine figure against the weather’s cruel backdrop. One of his large hands groped her breast and tweaked the tender nipple. She muffled a groan between her clenched teeth. Goodness, this was wrong—but he moved in beside her and closed the door.
His fingers crept over her body against the slide of silk. He was gentle, but underneath her skin there was an elated tingle where he touched her, his caress stripping her mind of all logical thought. She wanted him everywhere at once. His heavy palms pressed and curved against her like he would memorize her form in the dark. He found her every reactive spot.
Against his eagerness she rose to the occasion. Their breaths came out in loud, tortured rasps. The roar of rolling thunder silenced their noises as the darkness shrouded them from reality. When his hand grasped her hip and he drew her in tight against his body, his cock against her stomach was a heated, pulsing barrier between them.
“I’ve always wanted you, from that insipid garden party until this moment.”
“Why?”
“You’re my ultimate conquest. My sweet as sin fantasy. I want to please you as only an illicit lover can please his lady.” He whispered against her cheek so she could only focus on the low rumble of his voice. “You need me.”
She wouldn’t deny it.
“Then take me.” She sought out his lips. The thrill of possible sin with another man made her flesh burn from his touch.
William must have his fair share of dalliances outside their marriage bed. What would be the harm in her having just this one? Her husband worked nights often. She knew what the sewing circles whispered. William had never made any motion to make her doubt the gossip. If anything, his actions only enforced the rumors because he would come home at night with different women’s perfumes on his skin and wrinkles in his untucked shirts.
Briefly, the thought of her husband in an affair stung until she buried it away. They didn’t know each other well enough, like other married couples, for her to waste so much time on her emotions. Their courtship had never been a match of love, but their marriage was one of business between families.
So it didn’t make sense to waste pain on the hypothetical. It wasn’t as if she could change things. Where would hurt get her in the end? She wouldn’t be any better for it, so it was best for her to lock it away.
But surely William didn’t care enough for her for this to hurt him? He’d never done much but scold, reprimand or mount her―that is, when they saw each other at all. William couldn’t deny her curiosity. Not when David might bring her to life again. She couldn’t resist when the timing was so right.
If anything, William should be pleased that she might finally have fun in the bedroom—or a closet. Maybe this would teach her to bring her own desires to her husband. Wouldn’t that be ironic?
It was no secret that it took two to make a marriage. In or out of the bedroom. Though she and her husband had intercourse—because that was the only clinical thing to call it—often enough Charlotte rarely knew the whimsical pull of truly earth-shattering sex. Yes, she couldn’t begin to know how to ask for what she wanted—but William would probably laugh and then deny her everything.
David, on the other hand—he wouldn’t give her a choice in the matter. A hard, hot flush crept up her cheeks. There would be no going back now. She straightened her shoulders and came to her decision.
David held her back for a moment with his strong hands on her shoulders. Was he rethinking this? Caught between a frown and anger tightening her chest, she let it all go when he drew close again. Each inch was a mile. His tongue traced her lips in a sensory sweep that left her weak-kneed and dizzy.
As an excuse for something to do with her hands, she groped until she could begin to unbutton his dress shirt. When his mouth crushed hers, she took pleasure in exploring his hot, muscled upper body. God, it was much naughtier without lights.
When had been the last time she used the word naughty in her vocabulary? Not since school. And then it wasn’t for anything as serious as breaking a commandment or committing a sin. But if she was going to hell for the way David possessed her—body and soul—it was all worth it.
Now her hands trembled for an entirely different reason. Undeterred by his fingers inching up her slip, she raised her arms and her final protection slithered to the floor. In preparation for her husband, she’d removed all other garments that would get in his way before she got into the closet. William never liked to take his time. But now she leaned into David’s touch and tightened her grip on his body.
Determined to go slow with her exploration of his flesh—even knowing time wasn’t a luxury they had because of the game winding throughout the old resort hotel—she cupped the sides of his face in her palms. Under her hands his jaw hardened, a brief protest that died on his lips. He turned until his soft mouth delicately kissed her palm, sending a fluttery jolt of desire to her abdomen. Beneath his fingers she flushed from the attention as he traced her curves in tingling, barely there circles. Her fingers caressed his high cheekbones as she relied on her heightened sense of touch.
When his face tightened in a smile, she found the irresistible dimples that showed up whenever he complimented her at parties. Her fingers traced up and over his forehead, normally creased with concentration, and through his short, mussed curls. She didn’t need light to know and appreciate the raven color and feathery texture under her hands. A crash of thunder outside the room’s windowpanes made her startle and his wicked, honey brown irises lit up. From the crack in the closed doors there was just enough illumination to catch a glimpse of his cupid-bow lips parted in pleasure. His hungry gaze locked on her nude body.
“I like when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?” He coaxed her onward.
“When I glimpse my attraction and what I’ve wanted to do to you all those long months dancing in your eyes. I’m glad we understand each other.” She sealed her words with a scorching kiss of tongue and teeth. But it was with reluctance that she pulled back from his eager hands. “But we can only do this once. This is my time to be selfish, but I can’t take the prolonged guilt that these engagements take out of a person.”
“I think you’ve read too many romance novels.”
“Please. I’m serious, David.”
“All right,” He let out a small exhalation before returning to his deft work over of her body. “I’ll make it good then, my very best for the lady.”
Satisfied, she sank gratefully into his touch.

Awesome, eh? And she's lovely, too. So if you feel like reading some sexy shenanigans and supporting a new author, just click the link here:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9302-party-games.aspx

Guest Post: Shoshanna Evers!

2011-05-06T19:01:00.003+01:00

So today my blog is going to be graced with the illustrious presence of Shoshanna Evers, who wrote the amazeballs novella, Ginger Snap. Which is about ginger figging. Yep - you heard that right. IT'S ABOUT GINGER FIGGING.

And if you don't know what that is, look it up, look it up NAO. Also: I love her.

But enough about my love for a woman who is only the second person I know to write about actual ginger figging, and on to the purpose for her presence gracing. She has a new book out! Take it away, Shoshanna!

Thanks for having me on your blog, Charlotte!

I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Charlotte a bit through Twitter. It’s always fun to meet another author who likes to read and write the same type of stuff (read: smexybooks) I do.
My latest book from Ellora’s Cave sort of pushes the limit of anything I’ve written before, content-wise. This is the first time I’ve shown the heroine get pleasured by more than just one man (in the scene where she’s tied up and eaten out by a dozen or so men, ya know, no big deal), and it’s also the first time I wrote some F/F/M scenes.
Those were *fun* to write, although the story is ultimately about the Hero and the Heroine finding love with each other. I think that other girl in the equation needs to find her own soul mate, so I’m hoping I’ll find some time to write her story in the future.

Here’s the blurb and an adults-only excerpt for Chastity Belt:

Georgia Hearn has found the perfect way to make easy cash—performing an interactive BDSM-flavored stage show at the exclusive Gentlemen’s Club. When handsome GC client Jonathan Syler goes up onstage and locks her into a chastity belt, it’s all supposed to be part of the fun. But Jonathan makes it clear he won’t be unlocking her anytime soon.
Now she’s at his mercy—and has no choice but to see him again, since he holds the key to her pleasure. Literally.

Reader’s Advisory: This book contains a hot girl-on-girl tease and denial scene and some F/F/M action.
By reading any further, you are stating that you are at least 18 years of age.
An Excerpt From: CHASTITY BELT
Copyright © SHOSHANNA EVERS, 2011 All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

With the blindfold on, she had no idea how long she’d been there or how much longer she would be enduring the talented tongues of the Gentlemen’s Club clientele. Then she heard a familiar voice. Jonathan. Her pulse inexplicably raced at the sound of his voice as he leaned into her ear. She could feel the warmth of his skin, feel the whisper of his hot breath on her ear and smell just the slightest whiff of expensive cologne.
“Have you had enough, Georgia?”
Georgia didn’t know what to say. She instinctively tried to close her legs, forgetting again that they were bound far apart.
She felt his hand drop between her thighs and she moaned as he dipped his finger deep inside her pussy—and there was definitely no plastic wrap there. His finger felt so good and so wrong at the same time. She shouldn’t be letting him do this. How could she want Jonathan so much when she had just been thoroughly sated by a dozen other men?
Of course. It was all that talk about the chastity belt. Casey had to have been behind that—she must have tutored Jonathan on exactly what to say to have Georgia begging for more. That had to be it. Right?
She heard the other men in the audience start cheering and clapping. What on earth were they going on about now? Then she felt it.
Something smooth and cold as ice was being slid under her buttocks. It felt like a thin piece of metal nestled against her ass crack. The same metal, but wider it seemed, pressed against her pussy and then she felt Jonathan’s hands firmly gripping her waist. She heard a click.
The applause grew louder. What on earth? She fought the urge to say “umbrella” and get the hell out of there. She wouldn’t, not now.
The blindfold came off. Georgia squinted at the bright spotlight until her eyes readjusted. Jonathan smiled and knelt before her, dropping a tender kiss to her inner thigh in a quick, almost secretive motion before he uncuffed first one ankle and then the other. She looked down—what had he placed on her?
She gasped. It couldn’t be. Georgia didn’t say a word until Jonathan uncuffed her wrists. The she immediately grabbed at what looked like a stainless steel thong between her legs. It was literally locked into place.
No way. She had to be dreaming. Fantasizing still. Because if this was actually happening, then she was in way over her head.
“Get this off of me!” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm.
Jonathan grinned. “Of course, it’s just part of the show,” he whispered. “The men just like to see it, that’s all. Now pick up your money and blow a kiss to your fans.”
Her money? Oh, that’s right! She looked on the ground below the chair and saw it was covered in ten- and twenty-dollar bills. She grinned and picked them up quickly, trying to look as sexy and graceful as possible while crawling around under the chair on her knees. She couldn’t count it just yet, she’d have to wait until later. After Jonathan unlocked the chastity belt.
Georgia picked her rumpled clothing off the floor before she stood and did as Jonathan said, smiling and blowing kisses to the audience. She walked off the stage, naked except for the metal device locked around her groin, and sauntered into the back office. The cash sure felt nice crumpled in her hand.
She looked over her shoulder. Good. Jonathan was following her with the key. She knocked on the office door and when she didn’t hear an answer she stepped inside. Jonathan stepped into the office and closed the door quietly behind him.
“You did great,” he said.
My goodness, he’s a handsome devil. Georgia smiled and turned to put her bra on.
“I’ve seen you naked,” he said, amusement creeping into his deep voice. “Why would you turn around so I can’t see your breasts as you dress?”
Georgia laughed and turned around again. “I don’t know. Can you unlock me so I can put my panties and skirt back on?”
“You can put your skirt back on over the chastity belt.”
The thought stopped her cold. Her fantasy was just that, a fantasy. She could never act it out in real life, even if the thought turned her on. It just wasn’t rational. “Um, no thanks. I’m leaving now, so…unlock me.”
Jonathan fingered the key in his hand before slipping it into his pocket. “No.”
What does he mean, no? Her pussy clenched in excitement at his refusal, but she shook her head. It had been fun to talk about, but this wasn’t actually going to happen. She was done. She was taking her money and going home. Georgia quickly counted through the cash in her hand. Whoa. Two hundred dollars. That plus the one hundred from Vincent and Mary Ann and she had just made three hundred dollars in an hour.
She looked up at Jonathan and sighed. “Umbrella, then. I’m ready to call it a night.”
“And I said no. I will not unlock your chastity belt.” Jonathan’s handsome face was serious and thoughtful.
“Didn’t you hear me? I said the safeword. I said umbrella, that means I’m serious and you have to unlock me.”
Jonathan took a step toward her and she had to tilt her chin up to gaze into his deep brown eyes. “I’m not playing a game anymore, Georgia. You’re mine now. The chastity belt stays—for a full week, just like you told me.” His lips came down on hers then, pressing against her mouth until she felt herself melting into his kiss, opening her mouth to receive his tongue despite her best intentions not to encourage him.
“Please,” she whispered. “Unlock me.” But even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew that if he did unlock her, she’d be disappointed. This man—this stranger—was making her fantasy come true.

You can buy Chastity Belt from Ellora's Cave here. http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9270-chastity-belt.aspx If you have a Kindle, you can get the MobiPocket format (.prc). For the Nook, get the ePub format. If you want to read on your computer, get the Adobe PDF. :)

Sexily *Evers* After… ShoshannaEvers.com Twitter Facebook Blog Titles at Ellora’s Cave

Mancandy Tuesday: Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish

2011-05-03T02:38:00.005+01:00

Yes it's more Game of Thrones just shhh ok? Let me have my feelings. Let me have my feelings. My feelings are burning out of control in the groinal region for this GQ motherfooker right here:

Rolling into King's Landing in his pimp mobile, with his badass self all up in Ned Stark's face, going on about how Catelyn Stark totally gave it up to him that one time because Jesus Christ how could she not? I'd have given it up to him the moment he clicked his fingers, despite the fact that he is:

a) A fictional character in a series of fantasy novels by George RR Martin.

b) A total pervert, perving all over a thirteen year old girl. Though luckily, Sansa Stark looks about twenty-seven in the TV adaptation, so I don't have to get too skeeved out every time I watch Aidan Gillen (the guy who plays Petyr) almost lick her shoulder with his long, lascivious tongue. And yes I know Aidan Gillen has a long lascivious tongue because over the weekend I watched him RIM SOME GUY on the TV show Queer as Folk. Which begs two questions: why did I not have this show in my life before? And: why did I not have this show in my life before? IT HAS AIDAN GILLEN RIMMING SOMEONE IN IT. HIS TONGUE ACTUALLY GOES BETWEEN SOME GUY'S CHEEKS I SWEAR TO GOD I ALMOST MELTED.

c) A complete bastard. No, no really, he's a bastard. And I'm not even really spoiling what happens next in the TV show saying that, because just fooking look at him, for God's sake:

They couldn't have made him more obviously evil looking if they'd given him a scar down one side of his face and a pointed black hat.

And even if the look of him with his evil pedo beard isn't enough, the fact that he is played by Aidan Gillen should be an almighty giveaway. Because not only has Aidan Gillen made a career out of playing some of the skeeviest characters man ever put to celluloid, there is also a picture of him out there looking like this:

I mean, just take a long look at that picture. Have you ever in your life seen a more evil looking human being? I didn't even know they MADE humans that evil. It's like all the evil in the world is shining right out of his eyeballs. I'm afraid to look at them, and they're only made out of pixels on my computer screen!

Though in all honesty, that picture is probably like the movie Ring. You look into his demonic eyes and the next thing you know, he's crawling out of your computer screen in a weird backwards crab double jointed horror show, to eat your immortal soul. I can feel him eating it now, as I type this. I want to urge you to run, run from the terror of Aidan Gillen's unholy stare, but the truth is I'd only be doing it so he crawls out of my computer screen and not yours.

I mean, I'm bound to get a couple of minutes in between screaming and being turned into a rigid corpse. I could totally do him in that time. He's so hot I'm certain it'd only take me a matter of seconds to tear his kit off and have sex with his face.

I'm sure he wouldn't mind. He's evol. Just look at him. He probably does it the bad way. With, you know. Things. And stuff.

By God I want to do things to his stuff.

Mancandy Wednesday: Tyrion Lannister

2011-04-27T17:32:00.008+01:00

There's one thing that bothers me about casting Peter Dinklage as Tyrion in the new Game of Thrones adaptation. I mean, yes, yes. He's an amazing actor. He makes every witty thing Tyrion says in the books come to unearthly life. He's both grave and teasing, serious and not. Everything is almost perfect about him, except for one thing.

The books describe Tyrion thusly:

"grotesque"

"Head too large for his body, squashed-in face beneath a shelf of brow"

"ugly"

And then this is the gorgeous flawless handsome motherfucker they cast:

And it's even worse in the show! He looks even more handsome, despite the fact that shouldn't be earthly possible:

I mean, seriously. How is Jaime Lannister supposed to be "the handsome one" with this flawless God walking around the place, being his usual badass self? I don't even get why he's always having to pay for it, because if I was some warrior queen* shooting the shit out of everybody in George RR Martin's fantasy world, you can bet your ass I'd be all over him like white on rice. Or something more medieval-y, like skins on a potato.

And then I'd murder all the Lannisters and all the Starks and just fucking everybody, and rule the realm with him as my King.

Because you know he deserves to be. I've read all of book one and almost all of book two in a fever of reading-crack, and you have to know that Tyrion Lannister only gets even more badass and flawless as the story progresses. Never mind King of Westeros. He deserves to be King of Everything right here and now.

And then inbetween being King of Everything he can be a filthy little lecher all over me. Lech to your heart's content, my love. Lech until the cows come home. Let us lech in our feather bed of deviant iniquity, with all the delights of Medieval Land around us: suckling pig, mead, strange sexual devices the likes of which my own pristine world has never known.

Or failing that, I could just watch you slap the shit out of Joffrey forever and ever and ever:

*Status of self in George RR Martin's fantasy world may have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it's far more likely that I'd just be some fat peasant wench and Tyrion Lannister wouldn't bother himself to fart in my general direction.

Hot Zombie Threesomes

2011-04-14T00:23:00.004+01:00

And no, I don't mean zombies having sex with each other. I mean humans having sex with each other in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, hurrah!

Because that's totally what happens in the middle of my zombie apocalypse book, Reawakening. Apocalypse getting you down? Too many zombies to just kick back and relax?

Have a threesome. It's a well known cure for almost any amount of gore, terror, and death.

And the reason I'm giving this public service announcement? Resplendence Publishing agreed to take on my mad, horny, zombie apocalypse opus, and here's the cover for it:

Orsum, right? Look at the flames! The gigantic amount of glorious male ass! The shadowy things that could possibly be zombies! I love that they put the shadowy things on there.

And I love all the nakedness, too, because I specifically asked for some and oh, the wonderful art department there obliged.

Can you tell I'm psyched about this? Doubly so because I honestly thought this story might never see the light of day. I became scared of it (probably because it's full of marauding zombies and Sharlto Copley's twin brother being too handsome for my eyes to bear), and wasn't sure if I should press on with trying to get it published.

But there's a lesson in that: always press on. Thank you to my lovely editors both at EC and RP for reminding me of that.

Mancandy Monday: Punk Armie

2011-04-11T19:58:00.004+01:00

Look, right. I'm totally allowed to do this. Just because I've already had, like, seventeen Armie Hammer posts, does not mean I cannot have another one under the guise of him being a totally different person.

Because behold!

In the shitty DTV suspense horror trapped in an elevator movie Blackout, he actually does look like a different person! Hoorah, double the fantasies!

And you know I'm having them double fantasies. I mean, God, just look at him:

Just look at how much he seems like he's wearing eyeliner. But you know what? I don't even think it is eyeliner. I think his eyelashes are just so immense and dark they block out all sunlight. You could use them to shade yourself on the beach. In fact, you could just use all of Armie Hammer to shade yourself on the beach, because he's the size of a truck and also he seems very amenable, even when he's playing a disaffected punk type.

Which as you all know, is something I sort of maybe like a little bit. Big solid man? Check. Hairy all over? Check. Willing to do anything like some sort of mad, sexually flexible and over eager puppy? CHECK CHECK CHECK.

Though in truth, none of these things are what I like about punk Armie. Punk Armie is more broody, he's more secretive, he probably has piercings in his knob. Or if not in his knob, than at least in a nipple or two.

And though I rarely think about piercings, when they're on Armie Hammer I find myself thinking about them a lot. I think about the earring he's got in the cartilage of his ear, as Punk Armie, and somehow that's even hotter than the idea of one being in his nipple. I want to bite the piercing in the wrong bit of his ear, and lick it, and pull it, and ask him what the fook he was thinking putting it there.

And then maybe I want to ask him about all the other mysterious things on his body, like the tattoos - because seriously, what better pleasure is there to be had with a punk than exploring all of his markings like a dog looking for fleas on another dog? Like that bit in Lethal Weapon 3 when they share scars, only cool and without that racist woman beating douchebag Mel Gibson.

Punk Armie would never rant about Jewish sugary boobies, or whatever it was Mel said. Punk Armie is glorious and quiet and in my head he's forever saving my heroine from a life of repression and mediocrity.

Which is so the other way around to the things I usually write that I just have to love him more. Next thing you know I'll be writing about him tying my heroine up then spanking her with a paddle, and then where will we be?

Slap bang in the middle of the apocalypse, that's where.

P.S. The single title release of my menage tale, Lust Dazed, is out now from Total-e-Bound: http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1164 But just to be absolutely clear, it was previously released in the anthology Threefold!

The Next In My Series On How To Get Published

2011-03-31T06:00:00.004+01:00

Or: more rubbish from me.

Stuff not to do unless you're in love with the idea of being rejected and want to marry it:

1. Go on your blog and do a big rant about how everyone in the publishing industry is a massive idiot. Then name names, and describe why they're an idiot. The description will usually include things like "because they rejected my book" and "because they rejected my book" and then it'll finish with "because they rejected my book". It does not. Make you. Look good.

Not only that, but doing stuff like the above will only cause you drama. And drama may seem cool when you're fanficcing on livejournal and everyone has a big fight because someone said summat idiotic like "gais r baddies", but it is not cool when your career depends on something. It will make you ill. Stay calm, don't get involved in internet fights, don't respond horribly to reviewers, try to keep your crying about stuff to a minimum (that last one I fail at horribly, but I do my best. Twitter is forever but it's less forever than a ten page blog post).

2. Start your novel with a massive info dump. Agents and editors will forgive a lot of things, but I rarely see them forgiving this. And why should they? If they've got book A starting off "The world of Tengongtwon is a big pizza floating in space and on it live all these people called the Pizzonians and Mary is one of them. She lives in a big house by a lake and she has blonde hair and big boobs and she's 5"10..." and book B that starts "Mary looked up at the sky and wondered if there really was a Pizza God, the way everyone said" they're not going to pick book A. They're just not. Book A leaves nowhere for them to go. Nothing for them to find out. Also, it sounds like nonsense - where as book B at least sounds like it might be going somewhere interesting.

And don't try to hide your info dump, either. "Mary flicked her blonde hair and adjusted her top over her double D boobs and then noticed how tall she was in the window next to her" is just as bad. Pace your information. Focus on the action.

3. Query letter and formatting mistakes. If you write a query letter that's ten pages long, and has the synopsis on page nine, and doesn't include any pertinent information about you (publishing credits, area of expertise related to the novel), and then your first three chapters are in font size 18 with pink Gothic lettering and eight million typos, you know what's going to happen? Your masterpiece will not even be read. That's a fact. That's not me exaggerating. I know this has actually happened a million times over - just read Query Shark.

Agents and editors don't have time to read something from someone who hasn't done the barest minimum of research into querying, MS production and publishing. Think of it this way: if you owned a business and someone filled out an application for a job that ranted for four hours about how much they loved burgers when what you made was pizza, would you really want to hire them? Could you even be bothered to give them an interview? I don't think so.

4. Send a sci-fi book to an agent/publisher who only deals with historical novels. Same thing as the burger/pizza analogy. It's just not going to happen. They're not going to change their minds for you. All you'll end up with is another rejection that whispers to you in the night that it wasn't because you sent a sci-fi to a historical publisher. It was because you're shit, you'll always be shit, no-one likes you and you should go die in a fire.

5. Write a book over 120k for your first submission to publishers. Stephen King gets to publish novels over 120k. Because he's a living legend. It's not even taking a chance, to take a chance on him. Publishers are taking a big chance on any first time author, and that chance gets a million times great every K you go over 120.

Though I should add, here, that there are books that have gone over 120k and been published by first time authors. There are. Hell, I'm sure there are books and authors who've broken all these rules and still gotten a deal. But the thing is: why be the exception to the rule? Do you know how hard it is to be the exception to the rule? It's the exception because it's rare and tiny. Why aim for rare and tiny?? If you've written a book and honed it and loved it and worked on it for a thousand years, then someone says to you right, you now get to make your own bullseye and once you've hit it, you win, you don't make a bullseye a milimetre across eight thousand miles away.

You make it as massive and close to you as you can. You make it two inches from your face and fifty feet across. Don't make things hard for yourself. In this case, you're not being cool by trying to be the exception to the rule. The rules are there to help you be awesome. Don't fail to be awesome.

Mancandy Monday: The Beast

2011-03-29T01:19:00.007+01:00

Yeah yeah yeah I know I keep saying I don't like alphas. But another one slipped through the cracks, okay? Maybe if he wasn't the most perfect representation of an alpha male to ever exist, he wouldn't have. But tough titties because he is and so here we are, with me drooling all over a cartoon character from a much loved Disney movie. That's right. This guy: I mean, for a start he's still somehow handsome. Even though he looks like a cross between a bear and a lion. Can you imagine having sex with a bear-lion? Can you? It'd be like doing it with a lawnmower. A hairy, hairy lawnmower. Not cool, brain, not cool.
.
Though I suppose the wider question should be: how on earth am I going to have sex with him anyway BECAUSE HE'S A CARTOON. What's wrong with me? Why do I want a cartoon? I mean, I'm fully aware that none of the men I crush on are real in the strictest sense, but at the very least Armie Hammer does actually exist and if I was mad I could fly to Hollywood, break into his house, and sleep under his bed. I could take pictures of him while he was sleeping, and prove his existence.
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How the fook do I prove the Beast from Beauty and the Beast's existence? He's a drawing. He was made with pencils. I don't even know what's going on in my head, swear to God.
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And yet I still find him sexy. I like that he's a total asshole at the beginning, but here's the kicker: he has plenty of reason to be an asshole. That's what makes him great! All the alphas who are just assholes for no apparent reason whatsoever: FOOK YOU! Check this guy, man.
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He's lived in a cold abandoned castle of a kingdom that doesn't seem to exist for about a zillion years, with only a teapot and a candlestick for company - a candlestick and a teapot who used to be, like, his best friends, until an evil witch TURNED THEM INTO HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS BECAUSE HE WAS A BIT OF A JERK ONE TIME.
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No, no. That's really what happens. And she doesn't stop there, either. Just as he's thinking Jezzuz Crist, man, you just turned a little kid into a teacup you psychopath, she turns him into a bear-lion. For the terrible and most heinous crime of refusing her offer of a flower for a stay in his luxurious five star castle.
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I mean seriously. Can you imagine turning up to the Hilton with a bunch of daisies in your pocket, expecting a suite?
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Didn't think so.
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Really, he has every reason to be a bit pissed. Plus, you know. He's a bear-lion. All his shouting probably comes across much louder than it actually is, because bear roar x lion roar = some fookin sound I can't even imagine. He's probably actually like a T-Rex inside.
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So how much more does it mean when Belle melts his heart? Loads more, that's what. He's justifiably angry, he's lonely, he's some kind of terrible dinosaur hybrid, his only friends are things you more typically drink tea out of. I can't even do the math on this one - it's incalculable odds and yet he falls for her anyway and even starts throwing snowballs at her and dancing in his Sunday best. Plus he lets her read millions of books, which is really all I want out of my eighteenth century castle dwelling beast-man.
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What can I say? I have realistic expectations. Of cartoons.
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Oh, and also: he's hot when he's a dude, too. Shut up, he is. I'd somehow convinced myself that the beast was way hotter but I watched the movie again last night and I realise my brain has been lying to me all this time. His nostrils are perfectly reasonably sized, and he has lovely Armie Hammer coloured hair not horrible weird Hercules hair.
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And so now I can totally bring all of this into the realms of reality and have Armie Hammer charging about a giant drafty castle after me, wearing nothing but a cape and a pair of shorts. Because I swear to God, that's all the Beast wears throughout the film. Just that. Nothing else.
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Yeah, I paid attention. What of it?

Things You Can Do To Help Get You Published

2011-03-24T17:57:00.003Z

1. Practice writing for years. And yeah, I know there are many, many writers who started five minutes ago and want to be published tomorrow. But unless you're some sort of incredible Mozart-like prodigy, you're gonna find it tough. Don't get disheartened if you did start five minutes ago and still aren't published tomorrow, or even the next day. Or the next year. Everything you're doing is money in the bank. Every moment you spend writing is not a moment wasted. If you end up with ten unpublishable books, that's okay. That's your groundwork. I mean, I could cry about the "waste" of the ten million pieces of X-Files/Harry Potter/Smallville/Buffy/Vampire Diaries fanfic, and then the further three hundred half finished and in some cases completely finished horror/fantasy novels I wrote. But at the very least those folders and textbooks filled with rubbish meant I can now type 80 words a minute.

2. That thing over there...I think it's called the tinternetz? Use it. You know how writers got published as little as twenty years ago? By looking in a giant book for a random publisher, or seeing some submission guidelines in some magazine somewhere randomly by chance, or because they knew someone. That's about it. They didn't know anything. Twenty years ago, people were still sending in handwritten submissions because they had very little access to the knowledge that publishers wanted things typed.

But that doesn't have to happen anymore. Hell, we don't even have to pay seventeen quid for the Writer's And Artist's Handbook thingie. We can just go online and google "call for submissions". We can actually look up agents we think will represent us, and find their personal guidelines for submission. We can research them at places like Absolute Write, Romance Divas, Preditors and Editors and find out who's really running some kind of bizarre Mickey Mouse scheme whereby you pay them a million dollars and they send you a pamphlet they made out of your book.

We are so lucky to live in this age of information. Don't get caught out. Exploit that information.

3. This is really a separate point, but kind of the same as before: use the tinternetz to find out information about writing. Again, this is something we could never have done before. Not unless we paid £10 for R J Sherman's Guide To Writing Excellence or went on some bogus course that's really just a massively expensive holiday in France. But now, you can just google previously alien terms like show don't tell and it comes right up! Jezzuz Crist! Every rule on writing, every tiny little thing that any agent or editor could possibly be looking for is right there at your fingertips, to the point where you start doubting everything you've ever done, eventually go crazy, and wind up writing I Am A Fish eight thousand times even though you're sure you've just written the erotic masterpiece equivalent of War and Peace.

I know, because this has happened to me. It still happens to me, all the time. OH MY GODZ I USE THE WORD JUST ALL THE TIME I AM FOOKED etc etc.

But it's still better than fumbling in the dark like a monkey with its eyes poked out, not knowing what the word "subtext" means while being unsure of how to find the font button in Microsoft Word.

4. Don't write a blog post entitled "Things You Can do To Help Get You Published". You'll only piss people off. They'll all whisper about you behind your back: what the fook does she know, anyway? Or they won't, you'll just think they will because seriously, what do I know? I don't know anything. If there's a formula, I don't know it. I get rejected all the time. Being published once doesn't secure you against it. Nothing secures you against it - not even being LJ Smith. I mean, she should be on top of the world, right now. Her books have been made into a massively successful TV series. And yet what happens? HER PUBLISHER DROPS HER AND STARTS WRITING HER BOOKS WITHOUT HER. Holy shitballs, man - but hey, that's the real world. Do your best to keep going, no matter how much that last fact sucks. And it will suck and you will hurt and you're allowed to be hurt, but after a certain amount of time you pick yourself back up and you keep going.

Which is probably really the best advice I can give you. And know this, too: if you're out there, and you're not sure what the fook you're doing, and you can't find an answer on the thing you need and feel you've got nowhere else to turn, ask me. I'm right here. You can ask me. Demanding I send your manuscript to a publisher I don't have any connection to might piss me off, but asking me a question that I would have killed to have answered back when I was flailing in the darkness: yeah, I got your back for that one.

Mancandy Monday: Stephen King

2011-03-21T22:15:00.007Z

You know what I love about Stephen King? It's not the beard, in case you were wondering. I mean, I'm sure by now you know I have some kind of perverted beard fetish. And he does look better with the beard, as you can see from this handy diagram full of maths and stuff:

But it isn't that. There are so many men with full bushes for me to choose from, should I feel the pull of fecund hairiness. No, my love for Stephen King stems purely from the fact that more than any other writer, he makes me believe.

I mean, think about it. No really, just think about what some of his stories are about. Here, I'll create a handy list of them.

1. A car that comes alive and kills people.

2. A shit weasel.

3. A cellphone signal that turns everyone into rabid crazy murderer zombie things.

4. God is, like, a giant turtle.

5. A magical Kindle. Yeah, that's right. As in, the ebook reading device.

I swear, all of these things happen in his books. They really and honestly happen or are a part of actual published novels of his. I'm not lying. I'm not even exaggerating a little bit. I mean, I was going to say a "haunted Kindle" but the Kindle in his story is not actually haunted - it just shows you books from a parrellel dimension. So I think "magical" covers it.

And yet, I totally bought the premise. I didn't want to. I started reading it thinking: he's gone too far, here. This is ridiculous even for him. And then halfway through I did this big, disbelieving laugh because God-dammit. He only went and had me believing in an ebook reading device from another dimension.

The man is a legend. And if there's one lesson I've taken away from any writer, it's the lesson he's taught me. It doesn't matter who or what you write about, as long as you make it real. You can tell a story about a woman who falls in love with a goat, as long as every word that comes out of her mouth and every move she makes is consistent, grounded, believable. As long as she thinks before the reader does: God this is weird.

Because that's what people do. If a reader thinks God this is weird, than fook knows how weird the character would find it. And that's the beauty of Stephen King. He gets there before the reader does. Before you even know the characters should be doing something, he has them do it, or feel it, or experience it.

Like at the end of Desperation when the kid unfolds that little note, and everything in me is thinking man, God is cruel. Everything is cruel and awful and endless, and nothing will ever be good again. In my own life I'm thinking that right now, because although I haven't seen my family killed by a demon inside a man-skin, things just seem very bleak and full of casual cruelty.

And then I read the note. And it says:

God is love.

Mancandy Monday: Fat Jesus

2011-03-15T04:05:00.007Z

Or as he more typically goes by, "Zach Galifianakis". Though to be honest, I'm suspicious of his so called real name. It's why I've put it in quotation marks, because I'm not sure I believe it. I think his name actually is Fat Jesus, as the movie The Hangover openly acknowledges when that dude goes "not you fat Jesus".

I mean, let's just assess the facts, shall we?

1. He has a beard. Jesus had a beard. In all honesty, I'm not even sure if Jesus had a beard as magnificent as Zach's, because in all of the probably non-accurate portraits of him his beard looks decidedly pointed and slender. Whereas Zach's beard is full and lush, like a great blossoming mushroom on the bottom portion of his head. As though the bottom portion of his head is warm and moist, and a new species of fungi simply had to nestle there, pulsing and growing and providing sustenance to my aching soul. My soul aches for your beard, Zach Galifianakis. It aches.

2. Jesus was really well known for playing the flute like this, while dancing with his feet pointed outward in a pink jumpsuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP2t52RRXJI

I'm pretty sure. I mean, don't quote me, or anything. "Exodus 47:92 and lo Jesus didst playeth thine flute with his toes doth pointed". But yeah. I have a strong feeling about the total truthiness of this one.

3. I'll confess, I'm out of similarities by this point. I mean, Jesus was a really cool and nice guy, and I suspect Zach is also a cool and nice guy. But no-one has written a book that could at least be partially true about Zach and how he healed the lepers that one time. So you know. Jury's still out.

However, I would like to stress that whether he is similar to Jesus or not, Zach Galifianakis remains sexy. It's the furry eyebrows, hovering over his weird burning animal eyes- as though THIS is what a real werewolf would look like, should it actually exist. Yeah- we're all there, clicker clacking at our keyboards, sure that we've got it right with our seven foot tall werewolf hunks from the planet Manboob, but in reality we all know real werewolves would look like Zach.

Short and stout and furry looking, with lots of room inside for wolf bits to grow.

But I like all of his room inside! I like his little round tummy, so soft and inviting. I like tight t-shirts pulled over it like this:

Because why should he hide? Why should he hide his glorious real werewolf shape, as though it's something to be ashamed of? I often wish slightly plump to massively fat women didn't have to hide all their bits and pieces, beneath voluminous tent-like contraptions.

Zach never wears a tent-like contraption, and I love him for it. He's my little fat Jesus, and I want to bury my boobs in his beard.

Mancandy Monday: Troy McClure

2011-03-07T23:08:00.004Z

I'll confess: I desperately, desperately wanted to include the bit where Troy confesses to Selma that he likes to bonk fishes in my last post about great Simpsons moments. But the trouble is, it's not funny enough. It's really more disturbing than anything else - though it's disturbing in that uniquely Simpsons way, that surreal, somehow-you-still-believe-it-way.

And it's also orsum. Oh my God it's orsum. A Fish Called Selma is hands down my favourite ever Simpsons episode. And it reigns supreme because of one man, one towering, brilliant, B-movie star parody of a man:

Troy McClure.

God, just look at that almost sweater-vest. Check out the dazed desperation in his eyes. How I love Troy McClure! I love everything about him, from his resume that includes such films as:

The Erotic Adventures of Hercules
The Verdict Was Mail Fraud
The Revenge of Abe Lincoln
Leper In The Backfield
and
Here Comes The Coast Guard

To the fact that he's so clearly based on every also-ran actor to ever exist. He symbolises that grey, terrible, not-quite hopelessness that I feel on a daily basis, like some awful reminder of the mediocre limbo the majority of people fall into. We can't all be Brad Pitt. Some of us are just Scott Valentine, or literally any guy who had a mullet in some TV show in the eighties.

But that's okay, cos you know what? I love Scott Valentine. And I love Troy McClure. I even love that he likes bonking fishes and stars in infomercials where you squeeze juice out of an orange with your eye. I love the fact that he needs lens as thick as bricks in order to see, and has all of these creases around his eyes.

But most of all, I love that he was voiced by Phil Hartman. Phil Hartman, who seemed like the gentlest, loveliest, funniest guy in the world. I don't often miss dead celebrities, because, well...they're not actually really here in my life. But I do miss Phil Hartman, if only because there's some terribly sad part of me that always knows I'll never again hear a new you may remember me from such films as...

I Have Been Mostly Watching The Simpsons

2011-03-04T02:02:00.003Z

And so here are my all time favourite Simpsons moments:

1. When Homer is driven from Moe's and finds a dive bar, the surly bartender gives him a beer and Homer meekly asks for a clean glass. To which the bartender utters the most divinely sarcastic, rude, aggressive line: "Grrrr. Here you GO, your MAJESTY." I routinely say this to people in real life, in that exact same big hairy man tone, when they ask me things like "Charlotte, please can I have my clothes back?"

2. "The goggles do nothing." As internet-meme as this has become, the whole moment is truly a masterpiece. The fact that they'd ludicrously decided to do it all in one take and Millhouse somehow isn't there, the real acid, the use of goggles to somehow hold back something that melts an entire metal room... And then the capper. That Rainier Wolfcastle actually somehow believed the goggles would save him, and feels like commenting on the insane fact that they don't.

3. Even when The Simpsons started to go down hill (around season ten, I'd say), there were still shining moments of loveliness. Like when Homer says the following: "This is a very, very proud day for us, especially me. Your father, me, beat city hall. It's just like David and Goliath, only this time, David won." And we turn to Lisa, eyes narrowed, her mind murmuring to her: "I know. I heard it too. Here's some soothing music." Oh, how many times have I wished for some soothing music, to drown out a world that starts hero-worshipping woman beater Charlie Sheen.

4. The best guest star to ever grace The Simpsons is not Michael Jackson. It's not Albert Brooks, though he does play one of my favourite ever Simpsons characters. It's not Aerosmith or any other number of big names, like Alec Baldwin or Elton John. No-the best guest star The Simpsons has ever known is indisputably James Woods. It just is. Everything - from Woods' timing to the ridiculous writing of him as an insane method actor who can travel through time, to the way he's been drawn and how flawlessly it captures some of his facial expressions - is pure glory. My favourite part, though, is when he asks Jimbo if he found him believable as a Kwik-E-Mart employee, and when Jimbo won't comply he says "Hey. Don't. JERK me around. Fella." With one crazy eye on him, as big as a moon. Again, I feel this reaction applies to my everyday life, almost constantly.

5. The escalator to nowhere, from the monorail episode. This fairly small side gag so brilliantly embodies the genius of The Simpsons. How it can take one fairly simple idea - that the town builds stupid things like a monorail - and then pushes it to its most absurd and yet somehow logical, reasonable conclusion. You still believe it. That's the majesty of it. It's ridiculous that a town would build an escalator to nowhere, but with Marge's practical, earthy voice over the top, and the visible evidence so carefully put on a screen for the viewer- it's magical. It makes the cut aways on Family Guy look like something a four year old did.

6. And now we come to a version of the above done to its most extreme, nth degree. The episode with Scorpio. That's right. Homer somehow ends up working for a supervillain, but doesn't know it because the villain is an orsum, progressive boss who treats his employees like gold. And then the final, most logical and wonderful conclusion of this: Homer sadly telling Scorpio he has to quit, while around them both the world he's just threatened to destroy fights back, complete with orsum Bond villain control room, bombs going off, nukes- the works. Though that isn't really my favourite part of the episode. No. My favourite part is after Homer and family have gotten home, and everything's normal, and then you hear on the news that Scorpio has siezed control of the East Coast. Just like that! So throwaway, so barely there- you hardly even hear it! And yet such a flawless conclusion to a brilliantly executed joke.

7. "Remove the rock of shame. Attach the rock of triumph."

8. When Bart is forced to wear support shoes, and then finally he's told he can take them off. He kicks them - and herein lies the beauty of the gag, because he makes a little noise as he does so and I can forever hear it in my head "uh uh" he goes - and the shoes fly off and through the Flanders' window. Ned quite calmly asks Rod and Todd if anyone prayed for big shoes and, of course, one of them pipes up that he did.

9. Another example of pushing things to their absurd yet logical conclusion. Homer agrees to donate a kidney to his Father. But the night before he's scared, and he says to Marge that she has to promise him one thing if he dies. Naturally, she agrees - and you can hear every movie or TV show that ever existed ringing in your head at that moment, every single one where the husband or wife asks for a promise like that and it's always something sappy like "kiss the kids every day for me". But of course, Homer then says "blow up the hospital". Though that's not the funny part. No, the funny part is the absurd, logical conclusion: Marge saying "well, I said I'd do it, so I guess I'll have to". Completely matter of fact. Flawless perfection.

10. And finally, my all time favourite Simpsons moment. It is the ultimate in progression through absurdity via logic. It is resplendent, magnificent, it pushes until you're sure there's no more juice to be had from this joke and then suddenly, there's a glorious world of funny you never knew existed. It's the Russian doll of gags. It's perfect in every way. And it's done in about half the time than any other TV show and it's funniest gag. That's the true beauty of The Simpsons. It doesn't pause for you to laugh. It knows that you can catch up.

And that is my entirely incomplete list of total Simpsons love. I've missed out stuff - Lenny carving Carl's face into a mountain, Homer imagining some weird creature when it says "pearls and a lot of blue hair" over the police radio, the slow reveal that the lawyer we're seeing on screen turned into the crazy cat lady, Troy McClure's secret vice, Homer's inability to respond to his new witness protection alias, Frank Grimes, Super Nintendo Chalmers, Moe kicking out an obviously disguised Homer only for it cut to outside where Homer's stepping over the "fake" one, the many times something blows up or sets on fire though there's no earthly reason for it to, Homer's bare ass dragging up that glass church just as the preacher commands the congregation to stare up at God's miraculous creation, the show's blase acceptance that CHUDs are real, Homer in the sensory deprivation tank, all work and no play makes Homer something something...

God, how I love The Simpsons.

Here Is Me Writing At The Moment

2011-02-24T04:13:00.002Z

HNNNNUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!1!1!

"...and then they did some stuff that that that was was was was sexy."

GRRRUUUUUGGGLLLLRLRLLLLLRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

"Prupt pern turg gargle whosa whatsin."

Shit fuck forgotten what words are HHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRNNNN:

"^^^77$5^())8&%*)__****____________"

Great. Shoved the words out of my head. Now there are only a random bunch of symbols and what looks like a large underline.

BURRRRRRRRRFFFFFFF:

"My penis has vaginas."

Wrong order brain. Squeeze harder, come on. I'll give you orange Aero and midget gems and Twitter and men going herp-derp-herp look how big I am!

DRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG*

"My vagina would like your penis."

Yeeeeeeeeeesssss! Hooray! Victory is mine etc etc now give me the goddamn midget gems.

*Brain noises may not be accurate.

My New Top Five

2011-02-22T20:26:00.013Z

So there has been a lot of upheaval in my life, over the last few years. A lot of changes, many things going on. Bad things happening, good things happening, etc. But amongst these changes, none is more important that the complete re-ordering of my top five men I'm allowed to sleep with if I magically dared to actually meet any of them (which I wouldn't) and they magically went insane.

Yes, I'm talking about my laminated top five. Hubby has argued that I should not be allowed to create a new laminate and throw away the old one, but as I pointed out to him the old one had Vin Diesel on it so shut up.

So here is my new one. No take backs. No swapsie-changies. My top five hot dudes:

1. Sharlto Copley

This one is fairly obvious, I feel. I crushed on him for so long that the hubster started calling him "Husband Number Two". As you may now be aware, my hubby is extremely understanding and also, Sharlto Copley is very, very, very hot. And I find him so for various reasons, chief amongst them being that he has played one of my favourite TV characters of all time - Murdock - he's handsome without being overbearing about it, he's wiry and interesting and always has this insane light in his eyes, and his real accent is sexy in a way I can't even fathom. I long to write my sci-fi epic starring him, but fear that no-one will ever want it ever. Sara Megibow expressed an interest in my query for it, but then saw it and quite possibly ran away screaming. I do not blame her for this; she was very kind. It is just that mad.

2. Zachary Quinto

Again, pretty obvious. Like all my enduring man-crushes, Mr Quinto just has that flexibility in my head. He can be steely and dark, ala Sylar. But more importantly, he can be submissive with a core of steel, ala Gabriel Gray. Plus, he seems as horny as fuck, which is always welcome. Of all my top five, Quinto gives the best head-sex.

3. Ryan Reynolds

I debated whether or not to keep Ryan in, but ya know, he's been around a long time, now- ever since Two Guys and a Girl. He's my glory of the eighties. My good go-to friends to lovers guy. I can't leave him now, just as he's all superhero mega star. That would just seem like being shallow in reverse. Which is probably a good thing when I really think about it but I don't care. Still love ya, Ryan!

4. Nick Lea

And the longest holder of the esteemed title of "On Charlotte Stein's Fuck List"? Mr Nick Lea ladies and gentlemen, give him a round of applause. Yep, Nick Lea has been on my list ever since I first fell for Alex Krycek a hundred years ago, and he's held on by virtue of never aging and continuing to be in stuff that makes him sexy, like that ridonkulous made for TV movie Deadly Isolation. I swear to God, I built a new obsession around him just based on that dumbass movie. But seriously, check out the plot:

Grieving over the death of her "perfect" husband Ron, Susan Mandaway (Sherilyn Fenn) exiles herself to the couple's summer home in Maine. Her self-imposed solitude is interrupted by the arrival of an affable (editor's note: this is a euphemism for "so hot he chokes my vagina") fellow who introduces himself as Jeff Watkins (Nicholas Lea), and who claims to be an old college chum of Ron. Only too late does Susan discover that "Jeff" is an escaped convict, who in concert with his partner is after the $10 million in diamonds that he helped Ron steal.

I mean, what? What? Was that plot made for an erotic romance, or am I crazy? I just wanted Sherilyn Fenn to go to town on his ass all the way through, and whenever I watch it to the end I'm like noooooo don't kill him! You're supposed to have a HEA! Just take out that bit where he snaps someone's neck and this romance is GOLD.

5. Alternate

Look, right. My hubby is not that hard done by. He fancies Kesha, for God's sake, and she looks so much like John Travolta that it actually frightens me that he fancies her. See:

Lord knows I've tried to steer him towards Mila Kunis or Kelly Brook, but oh no no. He has to fancy a person who seems to have no soul, literally. All she sings about is getting drunk! Doesn't she care about anything else?

But I digress. About Kesha. When what I really wanted to say was: yes, I'm allowed an alternate. I know it breaks the rules and clearly means that I'm just allowed to sleep with anyone, but as I'd never actually really sleep with anyone else because hubby is orsum even tho he fancies John Travolta's uglier brother, I think I'm allowed.

So my alternate at the moment is, of course, Armie Hammer. Which is really just an excuse for me to put up various pictures of different parts of him, most of them rude.

Look, a nipple!

His giant hand!

It's not rude, but I know you're imagining it doing rude things right now don't lie. I mean, he's about three inches away from titty, there. And even if you had mega titty, you know that hand could just swallow it right up like the shark eating Quint at the end of Jaws.

His face!

My God, how I want to have sex with it!

And here endeth this completely weird and uninteresting to anyone but me and Bertha post.

Mancandy Wednesday: Armie Hammer

2011-02-22T06:00:00.000Z

First of all, check out that name. I mean, seriously. Who has a name like that? Outside gay porn? It sounds like he wants to hammer you with his armie. His armie is probably ten feet long and three feet wide, and he has to loop it like a length of elastic to fit it into his pants.

And you can tell this because of my magical theory of penis ratios. Don't laugh. The theory is completely solid. It has algebra and things like that, see:

ld + om - a = gsc

Where "ld" is laidback dude and "om" is overall massiveness and "a" is aggression, then gsc is obviously "giant swinging cock". It's a proven scientific fact. The angrier a guy is and the more out to prove himself he seems, the less likely it is that he has a big one.

And Armie Hammer seems so calm and still he's practically a statue. He's like James Spader - all melting molten metal voice and those eyes, full of some kind of strange unguessable inner life - only absolutely massive and blonde and massive and oh Jesus. Jesus. How have I not noticed this person before? How can it be that I've missed a more attractive version of James Spader??

Because he totally is. His mouth is both plumper and meaner, all at the same time. His eyes are like great glassy worlds, assessing you with their planetary-ness. He has huge broad shoulders and hands that could probably crush James Spader's head, and when he talks my loins freeze and crack like that bit at the end of Alien 3 when the burning liquid steel gets poured on the xenomorph. My loins are a cracking, boiling xenomorph. Armie's voice is liquid steel.

So how have I not known of this incredible creature before right now?

Oh yeah. Because he's TWENTY-FOUR.

And yes, I know he doesn't exactly look twenty-four. He's got a hairy chest and he's six foot five and he's got those ancient universe James Spader eyes that age him by at least five years. Or so I tell myself. In the dead of night while hugging myself and crying.

But even so he's younger than any guy I've ever crushed on. He's younger than guys I crushed on when I was twenty-four. When I was that age I crushed on guys in their thirties, guys in their fifties, guys in their seventies, for fuck's sake. I never crushed on guys who couldn't legally rent a car. I never liked boyband dudes or non-threatening boys called Corey.

I liked men, and have always liked men, and am very disturbed by this development. It probably means I'm turning into a cougar or something like that, but Jesus Christ can you blame me?

Look at him:

No really, look:

Lord I want to climb inside his pants with my face. I want to re-enact every James Spader film with him a million times, but most especially Wolf and White Palace and yeah okay probably Crash, too. We can get mangled together in a car and then do weird things to each other's leg braces. We can look all haughty and indifferent and desensitised by the modern age, before having weird anal sex in a melted airplane. Or something.

Either way, I'm damned grateful for Armie Hammer. When God closes a door, he opens a giant, James Spader shaped window.

Indigo Skye

2011-02-11T06:00:00.002Z

Have you seen this? Check this out:

Yeah. That's what I like to see. In all honesty, I'd buy this just based on the cover alone. The fact that it's called Her Captive Muse and is written by the fabulous Indigo Skye is just the icing on the cake, really.

But oh no wait there's more. That's right: she's running a fab competition and the details are all here:

To celebrate the release of Her Captive Muse, Indigo Skye is running a contest for her readers! Enter for a chance to win a $25 gift card from Eden Fantasys and a copy of Her Captive Muse. Visit her blog for details... http://indigoskyeinkandart.blogspot.com/2011/01/kicking-off-my-blog-tour.html

Hooray! Though by this point, I know you want to know more about her. So I've got a bio of her fabulousness right here:

Indigo Skye is a writer, photographer and visionary living in the American Southwest. When she's not writing steamy stories, you'll find her on the trail- hiking in the mountains and visiting ancient ruins. Her first novel, Her Captive Muse, was just released by Noble Romance Publishing. She is currently penning a sequel, and is hard at work on a collection of short erotic fiction and poetry. Her short story, "True Confession," was published in the erotica anthology, Uniform Behavior, edited by Lucy Felthouse. Her fiction has been widely published online. She blogs at http://www.indigoskyeinkandart.blogspot.com/ and tweets @indigoinkandart.

And even better, a delicious free read of hers! I've got a little teaser for you here, and then if you pop on over to Erotica For All (most brilliant of all sites) you'll find the rest:

The Man Downstairs, by Indigo Skye

My first night in my new apartment, I decide to throw a huge housewarming party for all of my old friends- and my new neighbors. It’s a great bash, and being newly single, I’m eager to get some action and christen my new bedroom.

On my own after a nasty breakup, I’m ready for some single-girl fun. My best friends, Mandy and Chris, are here to cheer me on, get me drunk, and introduce me to all the available guys in the vicinity.

“What about the guy with the ponytail?” Chris asks, yelling to be heard over the blaring house music.

“Ew, no! You must be drunk,” I tell her. “He’s ancient. And, FYI, Chris, that’s a comb-over, not a ponytail.”

“You’re cut off,” Mandy teases her, taking away Chris’s beer and swilling half of it herself. “Beer goggles, beer goggles, beer goggles,” she chants, downing the rest at a go. I laugh as they continue to fight. They fight like sisters- with much humor, and great love for each other.

“You two work it out. I’m going outside for a smoke,” I tell Mandy.

“I thought you quit,” she says, narrowing her green eyes at me in an evil glare. “Is this a drunk cigarette, or are you starting again?” she asks, hands on her hips.

“It’s definitely a drunk cigarette.” They both give me suspicious looks, which makes them seem more like sisters than ever. “It is. I’ve got two left in my emergency pack and when they’re gone, I’m quitting again.” I give them both big hugs and say, “Find someone cute for me to flirt with.”

I slip outside on a warm wave of party-laughter. The porch is crowded, so I edge past them and down the stairs to the little courtyard below. It’s beautiful in the moonlight, with pepper-trees and rose-vines bordering a small labyrinth of white stones.

A chill breeze blows over me as I open the gate and enter the deserted little courtyard. There’s a little gazebo under the boughs of an ancient pepper tree near to hand, and I venture inside for shelter from the wind. I’m hoping to get out of the wind long enough to light my cigarette. It’s dark in there, all overgrown with rose-vines, and I take a seat in one of the wrought iron chairs. I dig through my purse, finally locating my emergency cigarettes. But I can’t seem to to find my lighter. Not even a cheap pack of matches from a bar. Nothing.

“Damn it,” I mutter, cigarette bobbing between my expectant lips.

“Need a light?” I look up, startled, and see a dark figure emerge from the shadows beneath the pepper tree...

http://eroticaforall.co.uk/free-erotic-reads/free-read-the-man-downstairs-by-indigo-skye/

Mancandy Tuesday: Alexei Kruschniev

2011-02-08T20:46:00.005Z

Now if you know me well enough, you'll probably have an idea of who I'm talking about here. But since not even Bertha cares to know me well (she's always screaming urgh! It's dank and sticky in there! I don't want to stay in your mind Charlotte no don't make me!) I think I'm going to have to explain.

I don't want to, though. Mainly cos it's embarrassing. But at this point my whole life is just one huge embarrassing mess so what the hell, here goes. Alexei Kruschniev is actually Alex Krycek from the X-Files, who I loved so much that I actually invented a fake Russian name for him, in my head.

That's right. I had whole great worlds going on in the alternate X-Files that lurks within the dank recesses of my mind (Bertha: see. I told you it was dank!), and I did things like invent a massive Russian past for him complete with mountains and a stupid name and things that are probably sooooo not Russian that it's embarrassing not just for me, but for Russia. I mean, I know that the name Alexei Kruschniev is about as Russian as an idiotic moron from West Yorkshire. I know it. It sounds like chicken kiev, for a start.

I named the Alex Krycek in my head after an ill-made item of food that no-one wants to eat. What was wrong with you, fifteen year old self?

But God, how I loved him. I remember vividly starting out in love with Mulder, and buying the video boxsets with the express purpose of ogling him forever and ever. But then somewhere around the episode Apocrypha, I knew things were starting to shift in Krycek's favour. I mean, just look:

You can understand, can't you, Bertha? He was deadly and dangerous and a Russkie double agent. He had eyes that were too wide set and an upper lip that seemed to rise steeply over his teeth and for a long while, I thought he was the most perfect looking man to ever exist. In fact, I kind of still do think that. There's just something about the combination of his different features that still gets me every time, even though objectively, he's a bit hamster-like. Also, he's never done a shirtless scene and I sorta suspect that he's a little chunky or at least has a weird tattoo just above his navel.

Not that things like that bother me. Nothing about Alex Krycek bothers me. He's my Russkie double agent super spy, who has lived a whole other X-Files in my head- so much so that sometimes, it's almost as though I have a set of memories for things I never actually lived or watched. I can remember all the stuff I shoved into my ridiculous 300 page fanfiction just as clearly as I can remember real life events, which seems at best, ridiculous.

At worst, completely mental. No-one should ever have memories of apartments that don't exist and events that didn't really happen, especially when the events are so totally ludicrous. Aliens! Sex under heating vents! More aliens! Doppelgangers! Being punched on trains! Someone as handsome as Alex Krycek crossing oceans of time for what was, essentially, my Mary-Sue!

And yet I do think about it, often. I think about being that fifteen year old girl, who somehow so believed that her life would turn out to be something exciting and wonderful. I mean, she wasn't daft or mental enough to believe that Alex Krycek was really going to turn up one day and tell her that actually, aliens had wiped her brain and replaced it with another one and then mysteriously decided to make her a boring nobody with nothing going for her until one day the Goblin Ki- he comes along and whisks her away to Made-Up Russia.

But I am crazy enough to know that the reason I think about those fake memories so often is because I know I let her down. I didn't even finish writing the Fake X-Files. I kind of want to write them today - names changed of course and less about people who bleed fizzy green pop - but something in me puts a halt to that all the time, now. Those days of writing that clumsy, silly, but ultimately bristling and electric fanfiction are long, long gone.

I reread it, and could hardly believe it was me. All those punchy sentences. God, what a glorious bitch the heroine was! A glorious, bloodthirsty, inescapable bitch, like something I wrote while on the top of Mount Doom, typewriter clenched between my teeth, all the fury in the world in me like that howling chaos whirlwind thing from the Red Dwarf books.

And now there's just this. That me is gone and I'm just this...this wet, cowardly milquetoast who could never be the equal of Alexei Kruschniev. I could never write the character as I wrote him then, because he wanted someone angry and all I can give him is simpering, silent, afraid.

God I want to rage, rage, rage against the dying of this light.

Mancandy Saturday: Andrew Garfield

2011-01-29T23:02:00.004Z

Or as I, and many others like to call him, Bambi.

Because he totally is! He stumbles around on his shaky, stalk-like legs, with his big moon eyes just gazing and gazing at you until you fall helplessly in love. Or helplessly in something, at any rate. The need to feed him handfuls of raisins or nuts or whatever the fuck it is deers eat, while petting him.

I would totally pet him. I would pet his wild maze of insane hair, until I went down the wrong follicle avenue and wound up facing a minotaur with nothing but a flimsy nightie and my feverish love of Andrew Garfield to protect me.

Which it wouldn't, because Andrew Garfield couldn't protect anything or anyone. Look at him, he can barely walk. I'd have to throw him over my shoulder like a saddlebag, and run like the wind so that we don't get gored by the bull-man that mysteriously lives in his hair. Though how both of us came to be running away from something in his own hair I've no idea.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Things I like about Andrew Garfield:

1. He does a lot of awkward things with his hands. As though he's holding a lot of imaginary items in front of his face. Hopefully, they're items we can use to fend of the Minotaur in his hair maze, otherwise we're in trouble.

2. He makes the most excrutiatingly perfect Tommy from Never Let Me Go. Seriously, it's like they carbon copied him out of Kazuo Ishiguro's brain. Or failing that, like they carbon copied him out of the file in my brain labelled "socially stunted total weirdo that somehow you still want to fook".

3. He's going to be Spiderman! Only without the requisite "his webslingers as a metaphor for nocturnal emissions dirty boy filthy boy yum". Booooooooo, I say.

4. His face juts out, weirdly. He's like the opposite of Robert Pattinson. He got the bits of face that Robert Pattinson didn't. He reminds me of how Natalie Portman looks at the end of Goya's Ghost, cos her jaw's been all smashed up. Look, this is what I mean:

See? It's like something's happened to his lower jaw. And now for the life in me I can't say what it is I like about that. I'm definitely not winning anyone over to the "Andrew Garfield Is Sexy Ok?" club, I know that much. Maybe it's just all about that Bambi thing again only it's a Bambi where his Mum got shot and then the hunter kind of shot half his face off, too, and now I have to give him soothing linament rubs and pin his jaw back together.

Jesus Christ, what am I saying??

5. After this, I can definitely say that I've crossed over into cougar town. I mean, he's three years younger than me. That makes me a cougar, right? And sometimes he looks so young that it makes me feel kind of queasy and wrong inside, until I put on Red Riding and stare at his sideburns and remind myself that he's actually nearly thirty.

6. And finally, my most favourite of all my man-crush tropes: "secretly a goer". Yeah, that's right. He looks like Bambi, but he nails that girl at the start of Red Riding like sex is going to cease existing tomorrow. Like he needs to hammer sex home, in case people start forgetting what it is. The kid can barely walk upright and keep his hands by his sides for more than thirty seconds, but he rode that chick like a pony and that's what I like to see.

I don't care if you can't walk. I don't mind if you stare at me gormlessly from behind that TV screen, Andrew Garfield. Stare as gormlessly as you like. Staring don't mean anything. Horniness means everything. Wild, abandoned, secret horniness, and the ability to hammer away for Britain.

I was wrong, Andrew Garfield. You could save me from the minotaur who lives in the maze of your hair. You could save me with the almighty and secretive power of your total sex.

Neglectful Charlotte

2011-01-22T05:25:00.003Z

So I've been kind of neglecting you of late, blog. Yeah, I know it. I can feel you always on the periphery of my mind, your sad little last dated post getting further and further away. Is it really over a week since I last loved you?

I'm so sorry, blog. I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry that I made you cry. I didn't want to hurt you. I'm just...well. Not a jealous guy. I mean, you haven't given me anything to be jealous of, have you, blog? It's not like you're off having flings with other, better, more interesting blogs behind my back. Like that Justine Elyot, who's got this mammoth free read thing going on over there when you've just got...Paul Schneider.

God, I knew you'd turn this around on me, blog. It's not that you're a cheating hoor, it's that I'm not filling you up with satisfying content! I mean, don't you see how much that hurts me, blog? I try and I try and I try to come up with silly Mancandies and useful updates and sexy bits and pieces, and all you do is complain about it.

Well, what do you want me to do about it, blog? Write a post-modern self-referential bollocks post as though you're a real person and I'm a hateful jealous neglectful shrew?

Well fook you, cos I just did. Ha!

Mancandy Tuesday: Paul Schneider

2011-01-11T20:20:00.006Z

There's a little story behind this Mancandy. Well, not exactly a story. A story implies that it's interesting and you're going to be gripped, when really it's just another meandering load of old nonsense about my weird head-life. In other words, it's a bunch of stuff that never actually happened because the stuff that actually happens in my real life isn't worthy of discussion on the internet. Mostly it's just:

Ate some midget gems. Am now comprised entirely of E657594

Watched something then fell asleep with the menu song playing over and over. The Dexter one goes peeeeeyoooooo-yooo. Yoooooo-yooo. Peeeeeeyoooo-yooo. Yoo-yoooo.

Wrote some stuff. Almost destroyed laptop after passing out from exhaustion.

Almost destroyed Kindle. See above.

But I digress about my boring life. Back to this non-story from my head-life.

So, I almost started fancying Paul Schneider back in some year I can't remember. I think it was after watching The Family Stone, because in it he's adorable and just waiting for some girl to notice him and also I think he's a cop*, which is orsum. Everyone knows by now how much I like contrasts, and the contrast between tough cop and sweet guy is almost too much for my vagina to bear.

And yet somehow, I didn't progress into full blown man-lust. Just so we're clear, full-blown man lust occurs when my loins reach critical mass, and the CDC has to come and cordon me off in case I spread to other areas and turn perfectly reasonable women into foaming feral 28 Days Later-a-like creatures who attack at the slightest provocation.

You know, like, when a dude accidentally shows a bit of underpants as he bends down to pick up a ten pence piece.

But I never quite got to that stage, with Paul Schneider. I mean, he has everything I like. Check him out:

Insane eyebrows. Roguish stubble. Very dark. He's not that tall, but he gives the impression of tallness. There's even a slight hint of burly about him, which I love. Plus, he kind of looks like Zachary Quinto:

Only he's really, really heterosexual. Which I feel bad about listing as a plus point, but I can't deny that it's easier to imagine him boffing ladeez than it is Quinto. And that's important to me, because I write mainly about dudes boffing ladeez, as you all know.

But anyhoo, I seem to recall then having another mini-crush on Schneider during the winter of 2009**, after watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. In this film, he's this total man-slut (he often plays man-sluts, which is sometimes in his favour and sometimes not) who goes around seducing proper ladies while they're sat on toilets, and he calls himself an innamorato which is just the most sex-busting thing I've ever seen on screen.

He's fully clothed while he says it, and he doesn't even progress to fookin' this woman's brains out (though I have no doubt he could accomplish this task, should he so choose), and yet there is something so completely lustful and sexual about a hot rugged dirty cowboy saying that about himself that I can't even. I can't. Call the CDC.

And yet, I still did not promote Paul Schneider to the status of man-candy. He lasted a week, at most. I idly cast him in a few stories, then took him out. Time passed.

Then BLAM. I watched Parks and Recreation. Suddenly, I had acres and acres of Paul Schneider to run around in. I had hours and hours of him fumbling his way through weird romances and trying to better himself and although he never once calls himself something that I'm used to only hearing the female version of, he still finally got into my stable of man-candies. He's in the harem in my head, probably having a slightly sardonic and fairly miserable time.

While I write stories about a dude who looks a lot like him, seducing chicks with his enraged eyebrows and his strange bottom lip and oh, Paul Schneider. You're my innamorato.

*He's actually not- he's a paramedic. But the point still stands because he's a cop in my vagina.

**Date almost certainly made up.

Femdom

2010-12-30T17:48:00.005Z

There are many things I love about femdom. I mean, I hate the fact that it sounds like one of those stupid female contraceptive plastic bag thingies, but otherwise- yeah. Totally love it. Love reading about it, love writing about it, have made a list of all the things I love about it:

1. 95% of the erotica/erotic romance I read features alpha males. It's good to get a break, sometimes.

2. Male vulnerability is orsum. Yes, I know that men are big and tough. I know that it's great that they swing in at the last second to ruggedly save someone in a ruggish fashion. But just occasionally, I like it when Indiana Jones gets punched and looks like he feels it.

3. I'd make him feel it, all right.

4. The dynamics are so different to what's expected. I've always loved stories that push against barriers, be it actual literal sci-fi forcefield barriers or just barriers around propriety or good sense or any other number of things. The tension in a story is highest when people aren't allowed to do stuff, or maybe they just think they shouldn't be allowed, or maybe society does a frowny face when they try and allow themselves. It's easy to explore this stuff in femdom, and when I read it there's always this delicious frisson of gender subversion and other naughty stuff.

5. It's hot. It just is. And I think more people would find it hot if they encountered the really well done stuff. Because it's so rare, the proportion of actually well written femdom is much, much finer than the proportion of well written alpha male stories.

So now I'm going to go over my favourite all time femdom stories.

1. The Top of Her Game, by Emma Holly

It's a modern cowboy story. That I actually like. That's some kind of miracle all on its own. But the main and most important thing about this book is that the hero is not some simpering, living in a cage obsessed buffoon. And the heroine doesn't have to give up her illicit femdom ways in order to find happiness. Nor does she discover that actually, secretly, she's really a submissive.

2. Taking Care of Business, Megan Hart

I'm just going to talk about the Megan Hart portion of this book, here, because the Lauren Dane portion is not femdom. Here, again, you've got a hero who isn't a cipher or a whiner or some other stupid thing usually associated with femdom. He's big and handsome and orsum, and the action is hot without a hint of "oh what a little pathetic idiot he is". I can handle the doubting, am-I-a-weirdo-for-liking-this attitude of the heroines in both of these books, because...well. I can understand why they feel that way.

3. Blackberry Pie, Bonnie Dee

It's not technically femdom, but there's something about the dynamic in it that veers close. There's just something about a religious man giving in to carnal desires that ticks all the boxes. And I feel that Bonnie Dee has the potential to write awesome femdom, if she ever tried her hand at it.

4. A Baumgartner Reunion, Selena Kitt

Again, it's not technically femdom. But HOMG the scenes with Henry in them... He's everything that I love in a femdom hero: horny, handsome, big, eager and just waiting to be bossed around. I was desperate to get my hands on his story, and though it didn't live up to those little snippets in Reunion it was still totally fab. Selena Kitt always writes the best male characters, and especially when they're bonking. She makes them vulnerable in their horny eagerness, which is something you hardly ever see in erotica/erotic romance.

And that's it. I think there are others. Joey W Hilly writes some great femdom heroes, for example, and other writers dare to create beta heroes. But the fact that I can't think of very many other femdom books I love when I've read every erotic novel ever written says a lot, I feel.

Which is why I wrote one of my very own! The ravenous zombie-like craving for femdom just became too much, and I had to feed my fix myself. Which is weird because I can't really read my own writing and enjoy it, but I can at least hope that you do, gentle reader.

Here it is:

And here's the blurb:

Clarissa Levinson’s boyfriend has asked for a very unusual birthday present this year. He wants her to fulfill three wishes, and all of them require Clarissa to push her own personal boundaries and become the boss not just at work, but in the bedroom as well.

His kinky demands initially make her nervous, but the more she gives him what he wants, the weaker her inhibitions become. In fact, she’s starting to really like being the one in charge. Who knew domination could be so much fun?

And the link:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8883-giving.aspx

And an excerpt:

“Are you shocked?” he asked. His voice sounded dry, like it was desperate to gulp right in the middle of the sentence.

“I don’t think shocked is the word for it.”

It was true. It wasn’t. Instead, she had to press her thighs together against the rising tide of feeling. Sweet tingles threaded through her body, tightening her nipples and swelling her sex as they went.

“Is disturbed the word for it?”

She had to laugh at that. He always thought the worst of all the things he wanted. Like he shouldn’t take that extra slice of pie, and if he did, people would think he was greedy and disgusting. Like he shouldn’t tell people he liked watching figure skating, because they would think he was weird and unmanly. Like he shouldn’t confess things he’d been feeling ever since he caught his first girlfriend being spanked by another man and all he could think was—

I wish I was the one being spanked.

She knew what he thought. She’d seen it in the flush all over his cheeks and the nervous stammering and the questions he didn’t need to ask, like—Do you think girls leave guys because they know that secretly the guy is kind of soft inside?

But how do you reassure someone about something so simultaneously complex and ridiculously simple? None of the things on the list even remotely suggested a softness about him. They were largely mean, cruel sorts of things that took all kinds of strength to endure or admit to.

Yet the fact remained that he wanted them because of some deep-seated needs and long-held desires, and she couldn’t just unpick these things by patting him on the head and telling him not to be silly. She couldn’t just suggest to him—Don’t be embarrassed. This stuff turns me on too, apparently.

Showing would likely work out better. Just showing him that it was okay. That would work out right, wouldn’t it?

“You don’t have to do any of them if you don’t want to. I mean—they’re just ideas, really. Outlines, if you will. Nothing set in stone. And if you don’t want to at all then that’s okay, because I love doing the stuff we do. I really love it. At the very least, you actually act like you want to have sex with me.”

Sometimes she could understand why he said things like that. When they’d met he’d had no idea about clothes and spent his days in brown corduroy or even worse—purple corduroy. He’d side-parted his hair and worn sweaters just for everyday living like the one he was wearing now, and he’d found his glasses in the bin marked “die alone” at Specsavers.

So she could see how he often wondered why anyone had ever wanted to have sex with him. She really could. Apart from where he was absolutely and obviously gorgeous underneath all the derp-itude and the corduroy, like the ugly-duckling-to-swan movie She’s All That only stupider.

Hadn’t anyone been able to see his outrageous potential? The size of his hands, the broadness of his shoulders, that jawline like something out of Strong and Firm Magazine’s wettest dreams. And he was sweet, too. And smart and funny and not like any other man she’d ever met. She knew he was, because here they were spending his birthday together and she’d never spent birthdays or holidays or any of that kind of thing with anyone. Not even her own mother.

“I always want to have sex with you. I’d be having sex with you right now if you weren’t wearing a sweater with dancing bears on it. In fact, even that cutesy image isn’t really putting me off.”

He chuckled.

“You’re such a goof.”

She loved him for doing things like calling her such a goof. He said it with such warmth and affection, as though her being silly meant something good, instead of how her other boyfriends had felt about it—that being goofy or silly made her a scattered flake who didn’t fit into their career plans.

Unfortunately, considering their various points about her only made her think about how relevant being goofy was to the idea of becoming some kind of sexual Dominant. Probably not very, right?

Until words came out of her mouth. And they sounded so businesslike and almost alien that her entire body thrilled all over again.

“So. When do you want to get started?”

Christmas Reading and Watching Marathon

2010-12-26T15:07:00.002Z

So in the true spirit of Christmas, I've been reading and watching loads of stuff. I got the following for Christmas:

A Kindle
Sims 3
Tetris Party
A sudden and amazing amount of new readers for Past Pleasures, courtesy of All Romance Ebook's "get it free for one day" offer. So far, it has an average of 3/4 stars, which I am so thrilled with I can hardly speak.
Professor Layton
Art Academy (as you already know my fab art skillz, you know this gift is going to be put to good use)
Miranda Series One
Time Travel Machine
Modern Family
The Office Series Six
Sharlto Copley
30 Rock Series Four
The Middle
Supernatural Series 1-5
Holodeck
Loads of chocolate

As usual when you read my blog, be aware of the disclaimer: some items may not be real and are just the product of Charlotte's fevered imagination. But the Past Pleasures one that doesn't seem real? Yeah, that's totally real. I am actually still number one in All Romance Ebook's Time Travel story chart, and number two in their sci-fi chart. Hell, I'm number six in their erotica chart. See here if you don't believe me:

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/category141.html

http://www.allromanceebooks.com/category144.html

Have never been so high in any chart before, and it's totally made my Christmas.

But anyhoo, back to my reading and watching orgy.

Matched, by Allie Condie: I bought this for my Kindle, and love, love, loved it. Have a big hard-on for dystopian YA at the moment (like the rest of the world), probably because of The Hunger Games. I think I like dystopian YA for two reasons: it's always fast paced easy reading with a bit of subtext, and my mind goes into overdrive, thinking of all the ways I could write similar stories only with loads of bonking. Which is probably really perverse, considering the books are written for teenagers.

Miranda Series One: You know how, like, people say they're totally Samantha, from Sex and the City? Well, I'm not Samantha. I'm not even Carrie. I'm nobody from Sex and the City, because I do not lead a glamorous, sexy life with cocktails and shoes and hair brushing. No, I lead Miranda's life, from the TV show Miranda. She IS me. She really is. I've never seen a closer representation of myself on television, than Miranda. The only difference is that I'm not single. Everything else is identical. The clumsiness, the lack of social skills, the asides, the love of hotel rooms...I can't believe this show ever got made. It seems like they should have made yet another "fat moron gets a hot wife and complains about it" sitcom. I thank God every day that we now live in a world where Miranda gets made, instead.

Tetris Party: Loved it! What you do is, right- you make the blocks go in a particular shape, like a penguin! And if you make a penguin, then you win. Hooray!

I shall be back tomorrow with more things I have watched and read and done. I know you're on tenterhooks.

Mancandy Christmas!

2010-12-21T02:47:00.009Z

Last year, I lusted after Santa. This year, I'm just going to dress up a whole cavalcade of hunks as Santa, and lust after them instead.

Mmmm, phallic.

Oooh, even more phallic glllllrrrrrrrrrrrrr.*

I call this one "terrifyingly phallic".

Uh...his hat slipped?

Okay, I realise this is just getting silly, now.

No, brain. That was not your cue to post a giant picture of a hat penis.

*sigh* See what I have to put up with? And in the season of goodwill to all Mancandy! Merry Christmas, everyone!

*Homer drool

Some Questions

2010-12-16T18:40:00.003Z

So Cara McKenna put up some questions over here:

http://naughtyauthorchicks.blogspot.com/2010/12/dont-think-just-answer.html?zx=45672abcf3573335

And being all contrary, I decided to answer them here.

Favorite recent book: Dirty Thirty, by Cara McKenna

All-time favorite book: I have three, that represent the different bits of me. Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood. Desperation, by Stephen King. Menage, by Emma Holly.

Book that most changed your life: The Madwoman In The Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

All-time favorite author: This time, I have four: Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Christopher Pike, Emma Holly

Favorite band or musical artist: Tori Amos

Favorite album (by any artist): From The Choirgirl Hotel

Best song ever: Let Go, Intimate Strangers

Your favorite song right now: Dancing On My Own, Robyn

Favorite recent movie: Is District 9 recent enough? I've also enjoyed Predators, Buried, The A-Team and Let Me In, but District 9 still overrides them all in terms of the impact it had on me.

All-time favorite movie: Return To Oz

Favorite actor: At the moment, Sharlto Copley

Favorite actress: Sigourney Weaver

Favorite recent (last five years) TV show: The Office

All-time favorite TV show: Frasier

Favorite game (video-, board-, parlor-, drinking-, anything): Super Mario World

Foxiest person alive: My current top five is: Sharlto Copley, Nicholas Lea, Ryan Reynolds, Zachary Quinto, Matthew Macfadyen

Coolest person alive: My best mate.

Funniest comedian, living or dead: Stand up? Dylan Moran

Job you'd love to try for one day: Captain of the Enterprise

Dream car (or other mode of transportation): The Enterprise

If you had to get a tattoo today: I'd get a barcode with LV-426 underneath it. Yeah, that's right. I survived, and now I'm pissed.

Mancandy Wednesday: Holt, From Closer

2010-12-09T01:16:00.009Z

Yeah, yeah- I know. Another Mancandy that ties in with a promo I'm doing. But I always feel I have to do some promo and tell people about my latest work, because you know, maybe people genuinely don't know but actually want to!

You're out there, right? People who actually want to. Bertha says no but then she thinks that all those readers who bought and quite probably read The Horizon are just people I made up. She even went as far as to say I forged my first frankly amazing royalty cheque, flew to America, and posted it to myself after sneaking into the offices of Ellora's Cave for that very purpose, because she's weird and actually a figment of my imagination.

And the less said about what she thinks of all those people who added Control on Goodreads, the better. I mean, they're not really just those squiggly demon things from the movie Ghost, haunting the halls of Goodreads. Right? I'm pretty sure they're not. Goodreads isn't even haunted, okay? It's totally not.

But I digress. About figments of my imagination that HATE me.

Where was I? Oh yes. Talking about Holt, from Closer. Holt, who looks a lot like this:

But with glasses. Et voila:

Though there's more to him than the glasses I gave him in Microsoft Paint, I assure you. He's also completely comfortable in his strange sexuality, in a way my heroine is not. And oh, what fun I had watching him persuade her to progress from simply naughty rubbing against strangers on trains, to fullblown filthy sex in public places.

I hope you have fun too, if you read this little snippet of sexy. It's only $1.49 from Ellora's Cave, and you can get it here:

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8823-closer.aspx

Oh, and here's an excerpt, if you need to wet your whistle:

******************

The urge had gotten so bad she even knew what time of year was best for doing it. Christmas. Christmas was the best time of year for indulging her little habit, because during the holiday season everyone went temporarily insane and forgot things like personal space in an effort to buy useless things no one ever wanted.

They crammed themselves into shops and tinsel-laced streets, wedged their way onto buses and sandwiched their cars into car parks. But best of all, they got on trains. And they didn’t sit, oh no, because old people and pregnant people and jerks who’d gotten there first always sat.

Instead, the people she wanted to be amongst stood, in thin aisles and broad aisles, in the spaces by the toilet and the exits, by luggage racks when bags and brightly wrapped packages filled it up and on it when they didn’t. But better than all of this, they pressed against her. They jostled her. Some anonymous stranger rubbed her when they thought she wasn’t looking or paying attention.

Oh yes. That was the best sort of press.

At first, of course, she’d hated it. There she was, just starting a new job. Her little suits always immaculate, pencil skirts with little kicky pleats and neat, professional, well-tailored jackets. A coat that she’d almost deemed too expensive, and a new, businesslike haircut that would make everyone understand the kind of person she was.

A professional person. A together, carefully kept, in-control sort of person. People would respond well to that and understand she meant business. No one would ever rub up against her on a train, looking the way she did.

But someone had. They’d pressed their front to her back, and on that very first day to work she’d spent her journey there with a mouthful of the man in front. Mortified beyond belief. Unable to understand how so many people could travel to work every day like that, enduring the heaving, sweaty, intrusive presence of so many other people.

How awful. How terrible. How wet it had made her, to feel some anonymous body sliding against hers.

Though naturally, she’d tried to deny it. The next time she’d stood right in the corner, right next to the exit, so nobody could come up on her from behind. Most of her knew that she’d probably imagined the man behind her, rubbing and rubbing, but some part of her said otherwise. He’d probably gone home that night and masturbated thinking about her round ass in her tight skirt.
Maybe he’d wondered how far he could have gone before she protested—a hand on the back of her thigh, perhaps? If he’d lifted her skirt, just a little, would she have cried out?

She didn’t know if she would’ve or not. She only knew that when she’d stood there, wedged in that little corner with some man’s back in front of her, she’d made a little sound just thinking about it. A little cry, for the cry she didn’t make.

Then she’d pressed her body against the man in front.

That was how it started, she knew. That was when it went from disgust, and being pressed, to pressing back. And so quickly too! One second she was a normal person, the next she was getting off on the feel of a hundred strangers, clamoring to get near her body.

Or at least, that was how it felt when she closed her eyes. Like being clamored for.

But better than that were the dirty things she could imagine happening, with barely any effort at all. One time she’d been trapped between three businessmen in their soft wool overcoats, her senses full of their interchangeable and ludicrously rich-smelling man-perfumes. She’d gotten so close to one of them she could have tasted the tang of the shaving gel used to get that gun-metal stubble down to nothing.

So close he could have forced his mouth on hers with very little trouble at all. And then maybe one of his buddies could have pushed a gloved hand up her leg, between her thighs and beneath her skirt.

Of course she would have preferred the fantasy if he hadn’t been wearing gloves, but then that was the problem with getting off on rubbing against people on trains. There were always far too many layers and it never got any better, not even in summer.

At least in winter the secretive peep of the nape of someone’s neck always got close enough. So close she could have just poked out her tongue and licked, and oh she knew she got nearer to it every day. It tempted her constantly, that final perverted step. To just reach out and really touch—it didn’t seem like that big a deal. No one would ever know.

Except for that man sitting over by the window. He’d know.

Uniform Behaviour

2010-12-03T06:00:00.002Z

Okay, so you know what Lucy Felthouse, writer, reviewer and keeper of Erotic For All did? Yeah, that's right. She went and created and edited a fabulous anthology, on the theme of those sexy peeps in uniforms.

Now I'll confess. I totally enjoy reading about people in uniforms. Especially priests. As I'm sure you've probably guessed already. But I find it incredibly difficult to write on the subject, so I couldn't sub and so kind of hate Lucy for doing uniforms. Why not vampires, Lucy? Why not an anthology called Weird Repressed Weirdoes Do Weird Things To Some Chick?

Oh wait. I know why. Cos it doesn't sound half as hot as this, dammit:

Do you get all weak-kneed at the sight of a grubby fireman or a hunky soldier? Perhaps immaculately-dressed waiting-on staff get you feeling frisky? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

Uniform Behaviour contains sixteen smutty stories about firemen, soldiers, sailors, police, security guards and even waiters, priests and cleaners!

Delve into this anthology and enjoy steamy stories from established erotica authors including Justine Elyot, Craig J Sorensen, Victoria Blisse, Shermaine Williams, Elizabeth Coldwell and Lucy Felthouse. Uniform Behaviour also proudly introduces some exciting debut authors. So remember, you saw them here first!

As well as being written and compiled for your titillation, this anthology is also designed to do good. A portion of the proceeds from Uniform Behaviour will be donated to UK charity Help for Heroes, which helps those wounded in current conflict.

The stories in this anthology have been hand-picked by a uniform aficionado, so you can rest assured that only the sexiest erotic fiction lies in this eBook.

So hot, right? And for a good cause, too! Get your to buy links right here, right now, cos I know you want to get your mitts on it:

http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/index.php/published-works/uniform-behaviour-steamy-stories-about-men-and-women-in-uniform/

What are you waiting for?

Mancandy Monday: Jamie and Blake

2010-11-29T20:24:00.004Z

So I'm in the middle of my neverending zombie apocalypse epic. Or more accurately, I'm towards what probably should be near the end at 48,000 words, but is actually nowhere near the end at all.

Mainly because I don't think I want to leave the two guys at the centre of the action too early. I just don't. I can tell. I want my heroine to keep porking them until the end of time, and at the moment she's only just started getting into the really dirty stuff.

She needs at least another 20k, in order to progress towards even dirtier, filthier stuff. I mean, come on. She's just been through two years of zombie hell. She had to mow them down in a big truck. Her best friend is dead. She deserves 20k extra of hot lovin', surely?

And I mean, just look at them.

Jamie:

Blake:

They're hot, right? And if this makes my novel kind of like The A-Team only with more zombies and more nakedness and loads of threesomes, then so be it. I got no trouble with that. I wish The A-Team movie HAD contained more zombies and nakedness and threesomes. It could have been called "Sharlto Copley and Bradley Cooper Get Nude A Lot, Then Run Away From Zombies".

I mean, I don't know where the threesome equation comes into that, but after I've sat for an hour watching their wangs flap around in the breeze as they try to evade being eaten, I'm sure I could come up with something. After all, it's The A-Team. They could probably build a woman out of old bits of pipe and half a car battery.

And then you know. They do something with the woman they've built. Even though that sounds kind of depressing and like some sort of commentary on how sad and alone we all are, and especially when there's a zombie apocalypse going on.

Plus, just to be clear- my novel isn't really about two guys building a robot woman after being chased naked by zombies. Because that would just be...well. It would be totally orsum, but that's not the story I've written. I feel you need some sort of realism in a zombie apocalypse story, and that kind of gets chipped away just by having the zombies and the eventual threesome, so best that I avoided the whole robot angle.

And went with them finding a human woman who's dead inside, and then bringing her gradually back to life with the healing power of their total magnificent handsome orsumness.

God. Can you imagine if The A-Team movie had been like THAT? I mean, don't get me wrong. I loved it. I loved Murdock saying "Bosco, the buttons are confusing me". But how much better would it have been if he'd said "Bosco, my sexual feelings are confusing me"? Even if I have to confess I kind of can't get into A-Team slash that much because weirdly, Sharlto Copley/Murdock seems like the least gay man to ever exist in the history of the world.

It stretches the bounds of credibility, for me. Probably in the same way that having your heroes and your heroine bonk for the rest of the apocalypse stretches the bounds of credibility. But come on. I totally owe her that extra 20k of hot lovin'. I killed her whole family, after all. She should totally be allowed thousands and thousand of words about horny sex with hot guys.

Fun Facts About Control

2010-11-23T16:21:00.002Z

So Madelynne Ellis did this. And I liked it. So I thought I'd do it, too.

But first, I just have to point out this amazing thing: Control is £2.80 on Amazon UK (for paperback!) and $4.21 on the Kindle on Amazon US! Can you believe that? Bargain, right? And since I'm sure this is some sort of one week only deal, grab a copy while you can!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Control-Charlotte-Stein/dp/1907016449/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Xcite-Novels-ebook/dp/B00492CQJ8/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Fun facts about Control.

1. It was originally going to be set in a library. But then I realised I couldn't have half the kinky shenanigans going on, actually in the library. They'd be far too noisy. I mean a blowjob alone makes not just a bunch of pleasured groans, but a whole cavalcade of lip smackings and suction noises. Whereas the bookstore gave me a lot of...ahem...freedom.

2. At first, the book was going to be largely about Andy. Then it was going to be largely about Gabe. And then I realised it would be much more fun to just put the two together to make one shaky, horny menage. Hooray!

3. Andy is based on Alex O'Loughlin.

4. Gabe is based on...well. I'm sure you know by now who Gabe is based on.

5. Madison is based on...I don't know. Me, I guess? Though the odd and probably telling thing is that Gabe's obsession with horny books is actually my obsession. His story about discovering horniness through a horror story? That's from my life. So maybe we won't look too deeply into that.

6. The books named in Control are based on Menage, The Top Of Her Game, Crash Course, On Demand, The Stranger and Dreamers In Time. It's my homage to Black Lace, of course. In fact, my early love of Black Lace probably informed the book more than any other thing.

7. I did actually pick a specific street in York where I imagined the book shop being. We used to pass it often on the way to the cinema, and notice it because it had a big glaring sex shop right in the middle! I imagine Wicked Words would be just as glaring.

8. I totally wish Wicked Words was real. I basically created my fantasy book shop, and I swear to God I'd be in there every day. Of course, in reality it probably wouldn't survive three seconds. Thank God for fantasy! In fact, its survival is probably the most fantastical thing in the entire book.

So there you have it. I can't think of any more, now. Though if you've read the book, and have any questions about why I wrote about this weird thing or that, please feel free to ask! Not to mention enter the competition that's still going on. Just email me with the fake titles of some of the books in Control, and you could be in with a chance of winning my entire ebook backlist, plus three Cleis anthologies!

Mancandy Monday: Andy Yarrow From Control

2010-11-15T22:55:00.003Z

Now, I know you all know why I dig Gabriel Kauffman so hard. He ticks all the boxes I often babble on about, on this blog. The repressed box. The dark-haired box. The sweater-vest box. The dick in a box. Etcetera.

But Andy Yarrow is more of a mystery. He ticks boxes I don't often think about, and man alive he ticks them hard. He doesn't give a shit if I have boxes or not. He just wants to get out his big tick and...

Well. I'm sure you get the picture.

You see, as much as I love a beta man, and as much as I love femdom...I do find that I like a contrast with those things. When I'm developing a huge stonking beast of a novel, I need some light, to the shade. Some aggressive to the submissive. Some alpha to the beta.

And that's what Andy is.

However, I think it's unfair to say to a totally fictional character that he's just the contrast to Gabriel's uptight submissive, because really, he was kind of around before Gabe was. The novel started out with him, looking all hot and surly and sweaty and tattooed. Based, pretty clearly, on this slab of man-flesh:

Then it suddenly sprouted Gabe, right when I hadn't even been considering going the femdom route. Which makes it sound as though I was very surprised by this- but I probably shouldn't have been. When I crush, I usually start off with someone obvious and handsome and probably a bit of a jerk- like, say Sirius Black.

And then suddenly I find myself utterly and hopelessly mad for Remus Lupin, who has crept up on me like something I didn't even know I wanted. Like something insiduous and with claws, that grips onto my brain and my lust hubs and won't let go.

The ones that creep never let me go. They stay in my imagination forever, and demand sequels, and I look back on them fondly like old lovers I never had.

Where as the Andys...yeah. The Andys are a little more disposable. A little more casual. Ready to jerk on my lust hubs* whenever I'm in the mood. But hey- I'm pretty sure that's just the way they like it.

Want a taste of Control? It's now totally available on Amazon, on either the Kindle or in paperback, US or UK. And it's available at Xcite, too!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Control-Charlotte-Stein/dp/1907016449/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Xcite-Novels-ebook/dp/B00492CQJ8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=A7B2F8DUJ88VZ

http://www.xcitebooks.co.uk/category-207/9781907016448.html

*No, I've no idea what lust hubs are, either. They're not my boobs. Shut up. They're not.

Cora Zane: Connection

2010-11-13T06:00:00.001Z

So the lovely Cora Zane (who I always secretly believe is secretly married to Billy Zane) has a book out over at the Cave, and she asked me if I'd do a post for her about it on my blog. To which I said yes, cos she's orsum and her novella is orsum and it's her first one for EC, and I know how nervous I was when that happen all those millions of...hours ago.

So here it is!

Fabulous cover:

Super amazing blurb (seriously. How amazing is this blurb? It sounds like the most interesting story of all time):

Gage is a cyber vampire, an AI being who feeds off energy, sexual and otherwise. Kiri loves that they can feel each other’s pleasure during sex…during those electric moments when Gage slips his fangs into her neck ports.

Kiri knew from the start Gage wanted a no-strings relationship, but hadn’t realized his bite would grant him access to her heart. Hadn’t counted on being so lost to pleasure she lets loose her innermost desire. Now Gage knows her secret, and Kiri can’t bring herself to face him.

But Gage has a secret too. He’s found more than sexual satisfaction with Kiri. He’s discovered the ultimate connection—and he’ll prove it the second he’s back in her bed.

Amazing flawless excerpt:

"An Excerpt From: CONNECTIONCopyright © CORA ZANE, 2010All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

“You’re more than welcome to join us,” Adam offered. Once again his gaze settled on her neck ports, and she shivered at the way his gaze caressed her like a physical touch. As androids, cyber vampires fed off sensual energy rather than blood. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind what this one wanted from her.

With his card tucked between his fingers and his arm resting on the back of the booth again, he created a space near the edge for her to sidle in next to him if that was her wish. “Interested?”

“Um, thanks, but…” Kiri just shook her head.

He’s not Gage. Fucking him won’t fix things.

She hated herself for having to rationalize it.

Ignoring the way her clit throbbed, she tucked the serving tray under her arm and left the suite in an effort to distance herself from the temptation. Once outside, she shut the door behind her and headed down the glass walkway that ran all the way around the cylinder-shaped club, connecting the circle of third-floor suites overlooking the main club area. A discreet stairwell tucked farther down the walkway spiraled behind the inner walls of the building, connecting the multiple levels.

As Kiri reached the stairwell, she stopped to look out over the glass riser edging the walkway, gazing down at the light show that pulsed and flickered over the dance floor. Instead of going straight down to check in at the bar, she stepped back into the shadows of the tiny third-floor landing and pressed her back against the wall on the other side of a waist-high vase of peacock orchids.

The music vibrated through her, the booming bass matching the desire throbbing through her body. Her inner thighs were slick with cream, her cunt aching for a man’s attention. She couldn’t get her mind off the scene in the suite. Kiri clamped her eyes shut tight, her conscience turning over the many reasons why she shouldn’t—why she wouldn’t—accept the blond man’s offer. There were many, but still her body nagged her for release. Craving a quick climax, she glanced off to the right, around the large plume of flowers, to see if anyone was coming up the stairs and saw no one. She was alone.

Heart galloping, her skin tingling with urgent need, she slipped her hand beneath her skirt, hesitating when her fingertips grazed the edge of her panties.

She wondered if she was far back enough from the glass riser to prevent anyone from looking up and seeing her. Were the shadows dark enough for true concealment?

To hell with it. Getting caught seemed a much lesser punishment than going unfulfilled."

And finally, to buy link. Because what are you waiting for?

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-8754-connection.aspx tion.aspx

Elise Hepner: Thumbtacks

2010-11-11T06:00:00.002Z

So one day, I got a mentee called Elise. And she kept fighting even when I was Miss Bossy Pants and gave her tough lessons that Gabriel Kauffman would balk at, and she kept writing, and then one day she got her dream! A short story in a Rachel Kramer Bussel anthology! She's on her way, hooray!

But she's also an impatient little minxy, and a determined-to-get-her-work-out-there little scamp, so while you're waiting for her wonderful story in RKB's quickie anthology, she's only gone and self-pubbed something for your delectation!

And here it is, in all its glory.

Stupendous blurb:

Thumbtacks

Tyler and Brie share a quirky fetish--office supplies. Unable to embrace their mutual needs and desires in a work environment, the women have been meeting in secret every week to troll the local office supply store for a little foreplay. But now it's no longer enough.

Driven by their boss's orders that they go pick out a new printer for the office, they are unable to fight their mutual desire for each other while surrounded by so much temptation. What follows is a torrid session in office politics that could get them fired--and laid.

Magnificent excerpt:

"Tyler's gaze skittered across her co-worker’s features as if she were afraid if she looked too long she would give in to her lustful cravings. Brie wasn’t helping by drawing attention to her luscious mouth that would look perfect locked onto Tyler’s nipple. Their gazes connected. Brie’s eyes were suggestive all the time, but she acted like a woman who just didn’t understand she was a walking billboard for sex. Her eyes were a light green like the skin of a Granny Smith apple flecked with gold and the long, extra large kid’s pencil she shoved in her scarlet hair to keep it in a bun never failed to capture Tyler’s attention. Every day it was a new pencil. Today there were multicolored hearts with a rainbow eraser. What would it be like to do luscious acts with that long, firm piece of wood? Barely breathing, Tyler crossed her arms tight hoping to draw attention away from her hard, aching nipples.

“I think the laser printer with the large paper capacity and fold out tray would be handy to have around the office. Optional color is something most of the staff have never seen before and it’ll help with Power Point print outs and graphing.”

Thank god. When she found her voice it only came out slightly tremulous.

“Whatever you think is best.”

When Brie deferred to her like this her pulse roared in her ears. Her co-worker’s melodious voice was soft, like a Disney princess, and it awoke in her a feeling of longing that Tyler hadn’t known existed. It was a fight to hold back the thought of that voice lost in orgasm, crying out her name. So many fantasies sifted through her mind. Greed grasped onto her lust until nothing else made sense but burying her face in those perky, milky white breasts and opening up a sexual self that had been lost through all the late nights and early days at the office. Dominant, power hungry thoughts that had never entered her mind until she met this woman—and now she couldn’t seem to stop them. Caught in minute-by-minute fantasies, until her flesh burned with a blush that made her throat tight. Now Tyler’s fingers tensed into fists. Better to keep her hands from pulling back into all that gorgeous, scarlet hair until Brie whimpered in pleasure and the over-sized pencil of the day hit the floor. It wasn’t polite to maul someone in public."

And the to buy link. Because you know you want it.

http://www.amazon.com/Thumbtacks-ebook/dp/B004ASOWEI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1289086501&sr=8-4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004ASOWEI

Mancandy Monday: Gabriel Kauffman From Control

2010-11-08T06:00:00.002Z

If you know me, you know before I explain it what Gabriel Kauffman is like. Light of my life. Grain in my coffee. Apple of my eye. My ideal man: Gabriel Kauffman.

But let's say you don't know me. You have no idea that Gabriel Kauffman is one of the main characters in my first ever novel, Control. Or that he is bound to be a certain way, because I have a kink in my make-up, a fetish for this sort of man, an uncontrollable urge to smear him all over my writing because of many things, all of them strange.

In which case, allow me to paint a picture of Gabriel. And also a picture of the insides of my head, thusly:

1. He puts plastic on his furniture. I honestly don't know why I find a man who puts plastic on his furniture so compelling, or so sexy. Maybe it's the smell of polythene. Maybe it's the thought of him lovingly encasing everything but his penis in giant condoms. Maybe I should just move on to the next thing about Gabriel, and why I like him.

2. He side parts his hair. Oh God, for a man who side parts his hair! The rigidity. The nerdiness. The urge in me to lick the line of white between the two wings of black...oh.

3. His hairiness. Yep, I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is nothing quite like a man who's outwardly repressed and uptight, but inwardly hard-bodied and covered in manly hair and I'll move onto the next one to fully expand on this concept.

4. The fact that he surreptitiously reads dirty books. Mainly ones aimed at women. I loved writing him and just loved him for that for two reasons. a) It meant I got to express my love for Black Lace and the burgeoning erotic romance genre through him, in a cheeky way and b) It means he's horny. Beneath the glasses and the general Clark Kent get up and the tweed, Gabriel Kauffman is irrepressibly, rampantly horny.

And that, ladies and gents, is why I adore Gabriel Kauffman. It's why I wrote a good half of a book about him and his adventures with Madison Morris and Andy Yarrow. And you can read that book right now, because it's out today.

It's not yet up on Amazon, but you can get it through third party sellers, here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Control-Charlotte-Stein/dp/1907016449/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

You can buy it here on the Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Control-Xcite-Novels/dp/B00492CQJ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3TVV12T0I6NSM&qid=1289178509&sr=1-1

Or you can get it direct from Xcite, in PDF or paperback form:

http://www.xcitebooks.co.uk/category-207/9781907016448.html

(where it's also three for two on most of their erotic books)

Or here at the Xcite US store:

http://www.xcitebooks.com/category-207/9781907016448.html

Or you can enter a giveaway to win a copy, here, at Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/6539-control

And you can also enter a competition that I'm going to do right here- though this one's going to be a little different. It might not work. Maybe this is a dumb idea. But I'm going to give it a go anyway cos I was never one to shy away from dumbness. As you know.

Anyhoo, here it is: buy a copy of Control. PDF, paperback, doesn't matter. Read it, and then email me with the answer to the following question:

1. Name the four books Madison finds in Gabriel's drawer under the bed, that she then cites as her favourites.

The competition will close on December 1st, at which point I'll draw out a name from the hat. And because I'm asking you to go to some trouble in order to win this competition, the winner will receive a far more fabulous and cool prize than just one plain old copy of my newest release. Oh yes. The winner will receive a copy of all of my ebooks - including the upcoming Master Me anthology from Total-E-Bound http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=981 - and paperback copies of the Cleis Press anthologies Fairytale Lust, Fast Girls and Orgasmic.

What do you think? If you like it, enter it! Maybe you've already bought Control, in which case- easy peasy! But remember- don't comment with your answer. Email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk

Even if it's just to tell me how dumb this idea is.

Next week: Andy Yarrow, and how man-candy-licious he is.

Goodreads

2010-11-04T20:57:00.004Z

I'm writing this post because it'll show up on Goodreads, and then possibly all the people who've been good enough to enter my contest for Control, and add my book, and friend me and do that fan thing will maybe get to know how much I appreciate them.

Thank you so much, every one of you. Thank you, thank you. It means the world to me, even if many of you entered or added my book cos you thought it was that other Control. I don't care why you're here. I'm just thrilled that you are.

And now I don't want to sound like some stupid Oscar speech person or like some braggart or some smug or summat, so I'll just leave it at that.

Love,

Charlotte Stein

Mancandy Monday: Niles Crane

2010-10-26T03:44:00.005+01:00

Don't look at me like that. He's hot, okay? Or more accurately, I've been watching a lot of Frasier, recently, and I keep noticing little weird things about him that disguise themselves as hot. Or maybe they don't disguise themselves. Maybe they are just hot. I don't know.

I've compiled a list, to help me decide:

1. He's really hairy. I know when you look at him it doesn't seem like he's hairy, but I promise he is. You can take my word for it. Though really, you're going to have to take my word for it because I mysteriously can't find a bare-chested picture of him.

2. Whenever he's about to say something witty, he gets this little cheeky glint in his eye. I deeply enjoy the contrast between witty, and cheeky. As though witty to him is just cheeky, because he's that brilliant or I don't know. I'm just rambling now about stuff in his eyeballs.

3. All the random bursts of total horniness. He's uptight and stuffy and he wipes chairs down before he sits on them. And yet he lusts like a lusty thing on lust day after Daphne, and various other women on the show. If you read this blog often, you'll know why this bangs my gong. Because I like men who are probably gay sniffing a woman's hair, I guess.

4. He's one of the greatest comedy characters to ever be on television. No really, he is. He's all the things that Frasier isn't, and all the ridiculous lengths Frasier won't go to. His comic timing is impeccable, he's sharp and dry and has an imaginary wife for most of the series. He utters the immortal line "You got to pick where you would be having your sleepings", and forever after I've called falling asleep as doing sleepings. Few characters come close to Niles Crane in terms of comedic flawlessness- maybe Blackadder. Possibly Bender. Could be that Rimmer makes it.

But the problem with Rimmer and Blackadder and Bender?

They're not Niles Crane.

Things I Have Looked At With My Eyeballs, Recently

2010-10-21T01:10:00.003+01:00

Gentlemen Broncos: You know what's wrong with Gentlemen Broncos? Well, apart from the fact that it doesn't have enough Sam Rockwell. But then, most movies don't have enough Sam Rockwell, so maybe we'll just set that aside. For another time, like Sam Rockwell Appreciation Day. When we'll all get together and demand that Sam Rockwell be digitally edited into every movie ever, like that 30 Rock episode with Seinfeld only instead of Seinfeld Vision it'll be Rockwell Vision, and I'll get to see his butt (YES!) bobbing between Kim Basinger's legs forever, instead of Mickey Rourke's butt (ugh).

I'll even rename the movie. Nine and a Half Sam Rockwells. And we all know what I'm referring to, when I talk about the nine and a half. Right?

But I digress. About Sam Rockwell. When I should be talking about what's wrong with Gentlemen Broncos, which is namely this: the central conflict does not occur until about five hundred years into the film.

It's a film about an author stealing a kid's novel, but this event and its repercussions don't happen until I'm too bored and kind of angry to care. Because I mean, if most authors I know get pulled up on this sort of stuff - even the famous ones - why on earth did Jared Hess get away with it? Didn't some person from a screenwriting class he clearly didn't attend think to say: hey. Your trigger event is triggering after most of the movie has occurred. The rest of it is just boring waffly filler. It's not even funny!

Apart from when Sam Rockwell's being a space transvestite. Then it's funny. And orsum. But that's purely by virtue of Sam Godwell's presence.

Gah, the whole thing just made me actually believe I could have written it better. I'd have pulled the conflict forward, had them fighting for the rest of the film, then used the flashes of his novel to mirror the events going on in reality more closely. Or at least in a way that makes the whole thing moving or funny or just fookin's something, God.

As Napolean Dynamite would say. In his far superior film. What went wrong, Jared?

The Horde: Ugh, I'm bored. You're boring me, The Horde. How do you make a film about French gangsters being attacked by fast running zombies with super human strength boring? I don't know, but The Horde managed it. I fell asleep in the middle, and did not have terrible nightmares about the zombie apocalypse and Murdock rescuing me in his helicopter. That's how bad the Horde was.

The Office: The Office makes my life. That's all I have to say about that. No seriously, it does. It's a sad fact to admit, but I think there are moments in The Office that have made me more purely happy than most of the stuff in my actual life has. When Michael said he didn't make up what him and Holly had, I burst with this joy. So much love in me, for The Office.

Frasier: I have been re-watching every season, because I'm burnt out and just want to lie in my bed and have a sitcom wash over me like the tide. And Frasier fulfils this task nicely. Also, while I watch it I get to ogle Niles who is totally hot shut up he is God that deadpan stare, that mouth, his prissiness...I want him to wipe me down, the way he wipes down chairs. I want him to press my trousers when they have a single wrinkle in them, though I will be in the trousers as he does the pressing. I want him to sniff my hair and take me to the opera and talk to me about the antique footstool he just bought oh God...oh God why are my crushes so weird? And always obviously gay?

I can't write convincing erotic romance about men who are obviously gay falling for women.

Stupid Frasier.

Mancandy Thursday: Beards

2010-10-14T20:31:00.011+01:00

No, not the kind that hangs off Bradley Cooper's arm. And by that, I don't mean he has an actual rug of hair on his elbow. You know what I mean. Or maybe you don't because like me, weird extended rumours about celebrities and their hidden sexual activities kind of disturb you. I mean, you might be gay, Bradley Cooper. But somehow, I don't think you hook up with guys you found on Craigslist through a hole you cut in a bedsheet.

Sidenote: I hate Blind Items. They're the journalistic equivalent of the bitchy girls in high school, talking just loudly enough so you know they're talking about you, about something you've never done, or maybe you did do but it's nobody's business, or you're not ready to talk about it, or God, just shut up bitchy girls.

But I digress. About Blind Items. That are apparently now starting to leak into real reporting about some celebs, as though it's all just a given now. Jake Gyllenhaal apparently has a secret baby with a man, and I didn't find that out by reading a Blind Item. In fact, I don't find any of these things out by reading the actual Blind Items, wherever they are or come from. They're just everywhere now, like cockroaches. Ugh.

On to something nice! Like my sudden fetish for men who can grow lush, full beards. I mean, just check it out:

Now, this is just a micro beard. But the thing about Paddy Considine is- I know he can grow a full...uh...bush. And so I appreciate this little starter plan, because it holds the promise of lushness. Soon I'll be able to run my hands through his glorious chin garden. Soon.

Yep. That's Bradley Cooper with a beard. An actual beard. Not Rene Zellweger hanging off his chin.

And here's Jake Gyllenhaal with a beard! I bet he hides his secret baby in there. It has to be for some purpose, because I don't actually like this beard all that much. True, it's full. Sure, it's lush. But it's also a funny colour, and I have to say- I prefer a dark beard.

Like this one. Here. Here is the Lord of All Beards. I mean, did you ever see a more beautiful beard, than that one? It makes this guy - Joshua Gomez - look like Paddy Considine, but strangely, his beard is actually superior to Paddy's full bush.

Just look at it. So textured, so rich with unspoken treasures. And this beard, I feel, has a dual meaning, because Josh Gomez is only five foot seven. He's a very slight, unassuming sort of fella. He plays the sidekick, on Chuck. He's nothing, really.

ONLY HE CAN GROW A BEARD LIKE THAT.

Man, that hits my kink buttons. Nothing better than a secret vein of raging testosterone, beneath the calm surface. And hairiness - especially hot, hairy beards - always signifies this. Always.

I want to dance in the garden of your beard, Josh Gomez.

Stuff and Giveaways

2010-10-06T23:05:00.002+01:00

Okay, so a while back I did a giveaway of Threefold and The Horizon. But no-one claimed their prizes! However, it has since occurred to me that people didn't see me announcing the winners, back there in the comments, so I thought I'd try again!

The winners were:

Jo and Kate Pearce! If you're out there, ladies, come and snaffle your prizes!

But all you millions of lovely people who are now undoubtedly stuffed full of misery at thought of not winning, never fear! Because here's the other thing I'm posting about:

http://celise91writer.blogspot.com/2010/10/rally-to-support-beta-male.html

Elise Hepner's rally for the beta male, featuring a massive giveaway of all the things I've ever written! Hoorah! Just visit her here and comment, and you too could be the winner of a prize that you might not know you've won!

Oh and finally, I also wanted to faint slightly over the review I got, in the JERR newsletter. Yep, they reviewed Past Pleasures. But even more miraculously than that: they liked it!

"Title: Past Pleasures: Desire Through Time 1
Author: Charlotte Stein
Publisher: Total E Bound
Reviewer: Tallyn Porter
Rating: 4 Stars
Heat Level: S

Kate Connor is a writer hired by Professor Charles Waites of Visiotech to be the guinea pig of sorts for his time machine invention. Hired to record what future Earth is like seems like something out of a Hollywood movie. But when Kate ends up in the year 3033 in the living quarters of Aley and Tem, does Kate crave to discover what this future holds especially when she finds out that women have become extinct?

Past Pleasures is a carefully crafted romantic science fiction story about finding love in the distant future. Kate is an intelligent, caring and humorous character who is the right person to be teleported to the future. Her outlook of 3033 is quite comical and laced with a sarcastic undertone which at times had me chuckling at how she perceives this pristine 1984 kind of future.

Aley and Tem have this innocent quality about them that you can’t help but be attracted to their honest and easy going personas. Aley has this direct approach to everything new while Tem is the more soft spoken character yet both are quite memorable and charming. The extinction of women in the future does give this story an interesting twist and Ms. Stein could have taken this story beyond the limits with this idea but I’m quite relieved that she focused mainly on Kate, Aley and Tem’s relationship.

I found the love scenes quite interesting as Aley and Tem had to rediscover how to be with a woman. The way they both took care of Kate as if she was a fragile piece of glass with such tenderness and passion, I just have to sigh. The complexity of Aley and Tem’s relationship was lacking something but adding Kate to their relationship definitely added spice to their lives. The sterile ambience of this futuristic story definitely provided such a lonely and desolate environment making Kate, Aley and Tem’s relationship elevate into something more like breaking all the time barriers.

I found Past Pleasures enjoyable and I look forward to reading future stories from this author."

Thank you, Tallyn!

In fact, I've had quite a bit of good feedback, for my little future-where-there's-no-women-and-then-a-woman-turns-up menage bonkathon. Behold!

http://naughtyauthorchicks.blogspot.com/2010/09/alpha-male-vs-beta-male.html?zx=818613d7b7488b23

http://theblackravensreviews.blogspot.com/2010/09/author-review-past-pleasures-by.html

Inorite? Miraculous! Just when you think you're never going to make it as an erotic romance writer and no-one will ever read your work and people might even start actively burning your books, for their crimes against literature...this happens.

The relief, she is palpable.

Mancandy Monday: Daniel Dreiberg

2010-10-04T22:42:00.008+01:00

There are three ways in which Daniel Dreiberg is actually probably my ideal man.

1) He is the most totally beta that ever beta-ed. He's so beta, he's practically omega. He's so beta, that v-necked jumpers and tank tops aren't enough for him. He has to wear an actual honest-to-God cardigan.

I swear, it's a cardigan! Look at him here, in the movie version of Watchmen:

That's a cardigan. And it's, like, olive.

Plus, check out his hair! The massive glasses! The worried look on his anxious face! Be still, my aching woman-parts.

2) He's secretly a super hero. Yeah. You heard that right. So while everyone's busy laughing (except for me) at how much of a beta he is, and maybe plotting to steal his lunch money, and possibly talking about how much tougher that nerd Clark Kent is than him, what's Daniel Dreiberg doing?

That's right, bitches. He's saving people from actual riots. He's braving burning buildings, being his secret badass Nite Owl self. He's only fookin' flying around in the goddamned owl ship he built with his own two beta geek hands.

And did he need to advertise that fact? No, he did not. Does he make you feel like a whimpering, simpering idiot, because he just saved your life? Of course he doesn't.

Because the whole time he's Nite Owl, he's also Dan Dreiberg. Who is all the many things I love about beta men: kind, considerate, intelligent, funny, humble, and a roaring repressed animal in bed.

3) But wait. Wait for the kicker. THIS is the man playing Daniel Dreiberg.

Yeah, I can't hear those mean girls laughing now, Dan. The jocks have all fallen silent. Because THIS is what you look like, underneath.

But I want you to know, Dan, that I don't care. Wear those glasses forever. Have that weird receding hairline until the end of time. You go on, rocking that olive cardigan. I don't mind if you never look like Patrick Wilson. I don't mind if you're not in your Nite Owl rubber.

It's you who makes me hot, Dan. Just you. I want to have lots of butt-thrusting sex with you to the song Hallelujah, and comfort you when you're feeling impotent, and beat up bad guys in alleys with you.

That Laurie Jupiter is soooo lucky.

Authors Behaving Badly

2010-10-01T18:22:00.003+01:00

Here's a sample of some responses you should never give to a bad review:

"Dear Mr Reviewer, I'm sooooo glaaaaaaaad you hated my book. And your review was just great! In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. You STINK. You are a senile, buck-toothed old mummy with bony girl arms, and you smell like an elephant's butt! Not sincerely, BB Author."*

But the one above? Yeah, it's obviously a terrible response to a reviewer. Absolutely terrible! I mean, the author has called the reviewer an elephant's butt! You can't get much worse than that. Even the silliest of authors would know that's a bad, bad response. Of course, some do it anyway. But more frequently you see this one, because it's a little more sly. As you're writing it, you could almost convince yourself that really, you're being super nice and decent:

"Dear Mr Reviewer, well, you know it's strange. Everyone else liked my book. In fact, all the other people who liked my book are extremely intelligent, well read and all round wonderful people. How odd, that you didn't like it. I mean, I know that there are many, many twists and turns and highly intellectual moments in my book- it takes a lot of really insightful reading. So I suppose I guessed that there would be some who wouldn't get it. But thanks for giving your little review of it, anyway. With slick and slightly queasy sincereity, BB Author."

But believe me, you're not being super nice and decent. We ALL know what you're doing, and almost all of us don't like it. As a reader, the above makes me mad. As an author, the above makes me cringe.

And then there's this one. The one that my hero and future husband, Christopher Pike, did only a few short days ago:

"Dear Reviewer, well yeah, I know that so and so isn't the capital of where-is-it. But actually, it was all my editors fault. Yeah. My fake, sockpuppet editor, who I'm pretending to be now. Plus, you're an idiot. And I think you're threatening me and that you know nothing about country X, even though you're from said country. Sincerely, An Author Who Writes Good Reviews For Themselves Under Said Same Sockpuppet."

As in THIS, pointed out by Dear Author and the Smart Bitches, amongst others:

http://www.journalfen.net/community/unfunny_fandom/700.html?thread=41916

I could have cried. I mean, the above is my true reason for writing this post. After all, I can take it when some writer I don't really know all that well does it. I can understand, in particular, when it's someone "small", because...well. We all feel on edge, sometimes. I got an absolutely terrible, mortifying, feeling-like-my-career-is-over review the other day, and it means double to me because I'm just starting out. A bad review could mean the difference between making sales and not, for me. I know many authors who are in that same position with me, and when they strike out at a bad review I can sympathise, even as I'm cringing and begging them, mentally, to resist and see the positives of a bad review. At least it means someone read it!

But Christopher Pike? You've sold millions of books, Chris. You are established. One review will not hurt you. And you don't need to give good reviews to yourself, either, because you KNOW people love you! You don't need to prompt people to buy, for God's sake. And if I, and many of my author pals, can resist giving ourselves good reviews (I'm not even sure, to be honest, how Chris managed to write those things about his own work without puking), and resist slamming bad reviews or even just readers who have EVERY DAMNED RIGHT TO VOICE THEIR OPINION, then so can you.

Otherwise, I may not one day marry you. And you don't want that, do you? No. Didn't think so.

*My thanks to The Simpsons, for the greatest non-thankyou letter of all time.

Mancandy Monday: The Only Alpha In My Harem

2010-09-27T06:00:00.005+01:00

You may have heard: I like beta heroes. Correction: I love beta heroes. In fact, if I were truly being honest, I kind of like the greek letter that comes after beta. I'm halfway down the bloody alphabet. I like omicron heroes. Which sounds even more alpha than alpha, weirdly, and also like he's the star of some weird sci-fi novel about the code that unlocks the universe and lets out creepy space monkeys or some other such nonsense.

I call it: The Omicron Factor. Yeah, definitely space monkeys in that one, somewhere.

But all of this immense and unwieldy digression aside, I do like one alpha. There is one true balls-to-the-wall-chugs-drill-bits-instead-of tea-arms-like-trucks-sweats-viagra alpha in my imaginary harem of hot heroes. One real man's man, of the sort who probably wipes engine grease on his many cut-off items of clothing, when he's done at work for the day. One hairy, temple popping, testerone rippled, unadultered slab of man-meat.

CJ, from the Dawn of the Dead remake.

Yeah. Just fookin' look at him. It's like my brain and my loins have opposite day, when it comes to this guy. Like my brain and my loins revolt for one sheer instant of man-beast, because of all the Gabriel Grays I put them through.

When they go alpha, they go full alpha. I mean, have you seen the Dawn of the Dead remake? He's a security guard at a mall, for one. I mean, stereotypically speaking, you don't get much more hopped up on crazy testerone juiceballs than that. And then he pushes everyone around with his big gun and gets all pissy about there being a zombie apocalypse going on.

But that's not even getting into these images of gratuitous facial hair porn:

Which is the point where my loins spontaneously burst into flames. I mean...his hair is just so...black. And his eyes are...so black. And his soul is so...black.

But worse than this: he's played by Michael Kelly. who has the most masculine face in the history of the universe (especially with that fookin' handlebar and goatee thing he's rocking), but also has a mysteriously gentle voice.

That's right, folks. He's the alpha who cares. He only goes and saves everyone from a goddamned zombie apocalypse, at the end! He's like the prototypical romance alpha. He has the entire asshole alpha to dominant provider storyline! Only in a zombie movie.

How orsum is that? I'll tell you how orsum that is: very. And though I don't often like great hulking brutes who are also assholes in my erotic romance, I do like him, doing that, in a zombie movie. And I mean, not enough to write stories based on him, all the time. Not enough to oust my betas (no matter how much flack I get for writing them, I'm going to keep coming back for more. They deserve it, because girls do want to make passes at boys who wear glasses. I know they do. They're somewhere out there, those readers who love betas. You're out there, aren't you? Please be out there!), but enough to one day maybe write my zombie apocalypse epic.

With him as the dirty, filthy star.

The Business of Pleasure

2010-09-22T22:46:00.005+01:00

Yeah, you heard that right. See that title, there? That's the actual title of Justine Elyot's latest book. And I mean, that title alone makes you want to eat it, doesn't it? But then pair that title with the name Justine Elyot, and you've got a feast for the senses, an erotic delight, a masterpiece of dirty deeds and domination and all the usual wonders Justine is so good at making cool for little beta-guy-loving me.

But okay. Maybe you're not convinced yet. Maybe you need a little more persuasion. How about this?

KAPOW!

Check out that cover. That's right. How hot is that? I'll tell you how hot. Awesomely hot. The Business of Pleasure doesn't just get orsumly, either. It gets the full works, the proper word: AWESOMELY.

What's that you say? You're still not convinced to go out and buy this delicious treat? First off: what's wrong with you? Second off:

If one call could set you on a trail to the heart of your darkest fantasy, would you make it? Charlotte does, and her bold decision propels her into a world where no desire is too outrageous, decadent or extravagant to be satisfied - for a price. Her own fantasy life merges with reality when she is hired to work for the shadowy organisation she first encountered as a client. She organises an array of wild set pieces involving banquets, film productions, mansions full of pleasure slaves, as well as thoroughly researching those requests that chime with her own kinky tastes. Two men, one woman, and every sexual fantasy imaginable - these are the ingredients that make up the business of pleasure.

BLAMMO!

Mega hot synopsis.*

And if you're still not convinced, then I can only imagine you're thinking...yeeeaaah. Justine Elyot? She's, like, Charlotte's bezzie mate, isn't she? No wonder she's pimping her book! They probably passed brown parcels, under the table! They probably snog, on Wednesdays.

Well I tell you what- we do not snog on Wednesdays. Tuesdays, maybe. Never Wednesdays. And even if we did snog on every single day of the week, I should also inform you: I didn't become Justine's friend because we met at a swanky soiree, where we drank canapes and ate wine and told each other we'd conspire to take over the world.

Oh no no. For a start, I've never been to a swanky soiree. There aren't any swanky soirees, in an erotic author's life, sad to say. Instead, I read her story in the anthology Liaisons. And I thought- hello hello hello. What's all this then? Because apparently it was so good, it briefly turned me into a police officer.

And then I searched out her blog, because I'm a creeping creeper and when I like someone's work, I damn well tell them. I thought she was a fresh new voice at my much beloved Black Lace towers, and I wanted to tell her so. Because you should always tells someone so. Other authors aren't your competition. They're writers who make the world brighter by being in it.

So I told her stuff like that, and to my delight she didn't think I was a creeping creeper, and she told me she too was going to have a collection out with Black Lace, and from then on we became friends. We weathered Black Lace closing, together. We've had massive ups and huge downs. We walked the road to nowheresville side by side.

And we came out on the other end.

But none of that weathering is the reason why I'll write a post like this. I write it because I was a reader, first, when it came to Justine. And I'll never forget a writer who made Black Lace more awesome by writing for it, the same way I'll never forget Sarah Copeland and Juliet Hastings and Portia Da Costa and Janine Ashbless and Madelynne Ellis.

In the end, you should try The Business of Pleasure because erotica needs great voices like Justine Elyot. She's the best.

Amazon link, where you'll have a slight wait to get your mitts on it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-Pleasure-Justine-Elyot/dp/1907016422/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284751079&sr=1-2

Xcite link, where you can get it now, now, now!

http://www.xcitebooks.co.uk/category-207/9781907016424.html

*Yes, I know, I know. The main character is called Charlotte. But she wrote it ages ago! It hasn't got anything to do with me, I swear. I swear, we don't snog on Wednesdays.

Mancandy Monday: Dat Ass

2010-09-13T04:34:00.007+01:00

As I'm still fancying the living love God that is Sharlto Copley and all of his divine gloriousness, and can't work up the necessary effort to create a Mancandy Monday about a being who is not Sharlto Copley (he's ruined me for other men. Just ruined me), I thought I'd do a post that honours one of my favourite internet things:

Unf, dat ass. As in, you know. You see an ass and go UNF. Dat ASS.

So behold! The asses!

Yeah, this is Sharlto Copley's ass. It is a rare and beautiful sight, here presented in its natural habitat- a pair of almost see-through blue hospital pants. Of course, if he were not wearing said hospital pants, I'd be much happier. But we can't have everything, now, can we gentle Bertha.

Though I don't know why I'm calling you gentle. The reason Sharlto Copley has a restraining order against us is because you tried to take a bite out of that sweet, sweet candy. Goddamn you, Bertha, and your total lack of self-restraint! And love of candy!

Anyhoo, another ass!

This time it's Nathan Fillion's. I have been talking, of late, with the author KJ Reed, about the bounty that is Nathan Fillion's ass. Hopefully I'm going to be over at her blog on Tuesday, discussing my thoughts on it, as it features rather prominently in my drea- my novella, The Horizon. You know, the one that's still out now? Yeah, Quade has an apple butt because of the apple butt you see here, shining out at you like a glorious beacon of all that is good and right in the world.

Okay- more asses. Alexander Skarsgard's this time.

Now, I don't know what to think of this ass. It seems to have a deep, deep chasm between the buttocks, in a rather unsettling way. As though his ass is the surface of Mars, and the Valles Marineris lies right in the middle, just waiting to disgorge alien space vampires or some other such thing.

And yes, I realise that all of the above sounds like some sort of metaphor for pooing. Which I swear, it isn't. It's just...what's with the deep chasm, Alexander? Do you keep things in that mammoth groove, between your buttocks? A spare pencil, perhaps? What am I saying! You could keep a pencil case in that valley. You could keep me in there, nestled safely and happily in your butt crack.

And believe me, Alexander Skarsgard, I would be happy. Clenched by your muscular buttocks. Able to roam where I might, with my two free hands. Ah, bliss.

But enough of that insanity. Onto more crazy!

This time, it's Bradley Cooper's. Ass crack.

Yeah, I never said that this post wasn't going to also be kind of gross. But it's the right kind of gross, is it not? It is the sexy kind of gross, whereby you feel dirty and not right for wanting to lick that trapped butt crack, but can still comfortably revel in your own filthiness.

Though I have to say, I think that's how Bertha got into trouble, with Sharlto Copley. Call me crazy. Just a hunch. She should know that when a man bends down and accidentally shows butt crack, that is not a cue to poke your tongue where it's not wanted.

Bad Bertha.

How To Go About Promo Without Feeling Too Dirty

2010-09-09T06:00:00.007+01:00

Okay, so as you all probably know by now, tomorrow is the release day of my first actual real novella from Ellora’s Cave. I know, right? Me. An Ellora’s Cave author. But anyhow, marvelling over that fact is not the purpose of this blog post. Oh no no no.

You see, the fabulous and amazing authoress, Cara McKenna, also has a release tomorrow at the Cave. And because both she and I feel all funny about shoving ourselves forward and doing promo stuff, we came up with this stupendous plan.

I would promo her earth-shattering work on my blog, and she would promo mine on hers. Brilliant, eh?

Okay, so you don’t think it’s brilliant, Bertha. But just shut up, cos no-one cares what you think. Cara McKenna thinks it’s brilliant, and she’s like, a genius or summat. She writes erotic romances that are not only hot, and cool, and excellently written, but that also have an authenticity about them, a realness to the characters and their actions- no matter how wild the actions might be.

I can see why they do the things they do, and that’s a big thing for me. Sometimes I think some erotica and erotic romance writers think you can just have you characters do anything, and who cares about things like authenticity or motivation? But Cara cares, and that’s why I like her work.

Anyhoo, enough gushing. Or rather, not enough gushing, because now I’m going to read to you the ode I composed, in her honour:

Oohhh (there’s always an oohhh at the start of an ode. Shakespeare said) Cara!
How delightful you are
With your love of round birds.
As opposed to square birds,
Which I don’t think exist.
Or at least,
I hope they don’t. That would just be frightening.
But anyway where was I-
Oh yes. Cara!
With your watching of shows like Hoarders,
Which sounds to me like
A program about serial killers who keep people’s skins.
Or maybe that’s just
Because I’ve seen Silence of the Lambs recently.
I’m sure you would never watch
A program about serial killers who keep people’s skins.
I don’t know how I started
Talking about this.
Instead, let me talk about all the ways in which you
Are brilliant.
When I think of you,
I always think of you total acceptance
Of my man lusting ways.
And also of that picture you took.
Of you kind of eating your iPad.
Because you seem to me a mixture
Of dedication and brilliance
But also fabulous crazy.
And that’s the best sort of person.
The sort of person who
Writes utter brilliance
But doesn’t take themselves
Too seriously.
Don’t ever change, fabulous Cara.
Alan Rickman’s voice won’t love you,
If you do.

I know, I know. Masterpiece, the next Shakespeare, get Derek Jacobi on the horn to boom it out on the London stage etc etc. Just shut up, all right, I don’t even really know what an ode is! But I do know what an interview is, and since you’re probably wondering a little bit about this amazing brilliant writer who loves round birds and people’s skins, I did one with Cara! Check it out! She tells you stuff about her fabulous new release, and other things!

1. Okay, so first off I'm going to ask you the most vital question to be asked of anyone. No writer can live, without answering this deadly serious and completely normal question: Is Planet X going to crash into us in 2012?

I don't have the tinfoil hat scientific expertise to address that issue, but if Planet X does exist, it needs to bear in mind that the ancient Maya are scheduled to do the same thing, right around Christmastime. Unless they're like, in cahoots? I don't know the details, but Jessica Andersen does. Ask her. Read her books. Give her your first-born because she is hilarious.

2. Shut up (Ed: Why am I saying shut up so much? God I need to shut up). It's a serious question. Even more serious: If it is going to crash into us, what book do you want to write before we all die horribly, like from half the world breaking off and floating into space, or giant tidal waves forming a nuclear tidal wave so big it leaves no water on the ocean floor, or summat like that? If you don't believe this is going to happen, go to question three.

I'm going to assume that either Planet X or the Maya will destroy us in 2012, because I like to err on the side of caution. And before the world does asplode from planets or conquistadors or whathaveyou, I'd like to see two things published: my ridiculous yet-to-be-finished erotic novel The Ant Farm (that batshit battle royale Orwellian kidney stone with seven main characters you foolishly volunteered to beta read for me) and my favorite mainstream romance, Between Brothers. The latter is not, as its title might suggest, about incestuous male siblings. It's about a gal in a big romantic pickle with a pair of foxy Kiwis (Ed: All I can think of is Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby. But then as you know, my man lusting wiring is all wrong). Grarrr. I love that book, and if I ever get around to starting my quest for an agent, I might even sell it.

3. Seriously, you don't believe in Planet X? That person totally saw it in Australia one time. It wasn't the moon, okay? It was Planet X. Roland Emmerich and Nicholas Cage made a film about it, I think. And then his kids went to Pandora only it was like Eden, IDEK. Is this a question? Not sure.

I don't like Nicholas Cage…except maybe in Moonstruck, because he played a punchy baker and his arms were all jacked and filthy and that was pretty sexy. Next question please.

4. So enough about Planet X. Let's talk, instead, about something equally important: bad eighties movies. Which do you prefer- My Demon Lover, Teen Witch, Adventures In Babysitting, or that one with Charlie Sheen in where he's haunted by a car or summat?

I don't like Charlie Sheen, either…can I chose E) None of the above? Can I write in an answer? Because I totally would NOT write in Tron. That movie so did not live up to my childhood memories. I'd write it in and then scribble it out and write Batteries Not Included in big fat marker on top of it (Ed: Yesssssss! Tho my favourite old people in the eighties movie is defo Cocoon).

5. How on earth have you not seen My Demon Lover? It's clearly the greatest movie of all time. No really, it is.

I know, I totally didn't…and I worked at a video store for four years. I have no excuses.

6. You like reality shows. I've never even heard of half the ones you like. Most of their titles make me think- I bet a reality show based on Cara's life would be more interesting than something called "Hoarders". Is that even real? Never mind. Tell me more about this fabulous new television show that I've just invented, The Cara McKenna Show:

Well, I'm the host and every week there's a new guest, like Alan Rickman, or a willow ptarmigan, or Julian Barratt with his clothes off, or like six button quails (because they're so small). I stick my face through a hole in a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Charlize Theron's body and ask my guests to tell me how it is I manage to be so awesome. Not sure if the face-hole is like, where her face should be, so somewhere totally unexpected. Tune in and find out!

7. So now you have your own TV show, and you're rich and famous and everyone loves you. Johnny Depp, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt all hit on you at the launch party for your new show "Why I Like Round Birds". Who do you take home? Also: details plz.

Hmmm… George's salt and peppery beard is tempting, but…

8. If you don't take any of them home because, quite frankly, they're all boring and not as handsome as Sharlto Copley, who do you take home, and why?

I would politely rebuff George and Brad and Johnny and attempt to seduce Survivorman host Les Stroud into my limo. He would gently (while sharpening a hunting knife or setting a snare) remind me that we're both happily married, and suggest we go on a platonic camping trip instead. I would accept, then figure out a way to push him into an arctic lake while we were hiking, assuming he'd have to get all naked while his clothes dried by the fire. I would emphatically endorse that strategy by citing any number of instances where this happened to Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild, and then Les would get offended and leave me to die in the tundra.

9. If you say Sharlto Copley, I will end you. You knew I was launching my own show, Masterchefing While Dancing With The Stars! He would have loved me then, I hate you forever. How do you feel about that?

I would never attempt to steal Sharlto from you, not even by distracting you with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Evan Lysacek, because as everyone knows, you are a fickle, fickle slut. Oh, sorry—I forgot you're English. Slag. A fickle, fickle slag. (Ed: I wish I could defend myself, here, but well. You all read my blog, right? New man every Monday. Me, slutting it up all over him. He feels degraded. I do not care).

10. As you can see, I'm extremely good at conducting interviews. I mean, no-one can come up with such brilliantly insightful and sensible questions as me. Some of my questions aren't even questions, because I'm post-modern or summat. But I've got to ask, if you could have been asked different and probably better questions, what would you have had me ask?

Well, I like talking about unshaven dudes fighting each other. Why not ask me, "Cara, which two unshaven dudes would you totally want to watch battle it out in 300-style monoschrome muscly slow-motion detail?"

11. Now answer the question you would have had me ask, were I an actually competent interviewer:

Ooh, good question, Charlotte…possibly the most insightful interview question I've ever been asked, considering this is my first interview (Ed: fanks. And this is your first interview? Can I make a popping your cherry joke?). I'd have to go with Vincent Regan (who's already in 300, how convenient) and the evil Slavic guy with the shaved head from Universal Soldier: Regeneration. Let me IMDb him…hang on…Andrei Arlovski. Yes, that'll do nicely, thank you.

12. If you could bonk any one of your characters, which one would you bonk, and why? Come on, don't be like Charlaine Harris, all "none, because they're not real". Of course they're not real! But isn't it fun imagining bonking them, in your head? If the answer to that is no, please don't tell me. I want to remain pure in my love for you.

Oh geez…the only character I've written who I could actually imagine myself dating is Colin, one of the two heroes from that romance I mentioned earlier—Between Brothers. But that's no fun, since no one except my faithful beta reader Amy has read it yet. Well, I wouldn't mind getting it on with Patrick from Ruin Me. I like me a desperately horny and morally conflicted working-class man of few words.

13. Finally, we'll do some sane things. Like: you have a super fabulous orsum book out. Of course it's super fabulous orsum, because it's you writing it. Everyone knows that. But I want people to hear it from the horse's mouth. Why is your book super fabulous orsum?

Do you feel as dirty as I do, getting down to the actual pimping? (Ed: You know I do, bb) But yes, Backwoods is out tomorrow, September 10. It's the pre-quel (yeah, stupid word, but accurate) to Shivaree—the story of how Shane and Gabriel's smoking-hot codependent whatevership began. Strictly male/male. Well, strictly unsuspecting-straight-guy-becomes-obsessively-infatuated-with-another-man. I absolutely love writing Shane's POV, and if anyone out there read Shivaree and enjoyed him as well and digs m/m (and digs Shane constantly dropping mf bombs), give it a try. Unless you like happy endings…if you've already read Shivaree you know Shane and Gabriel have a complicated thing going on, to say the least, and it's not all glitter and butterflies. Mostly it's sketchy power dynamics and filthy sex and hangovers. Poor Shane. But I promise he'll get his happy ending in the next six months, if Ellora's Cave buys Shivaree's sequel, which I'm fairly close to finishing.

14. Once people read this super fabulous orsum book, they're going to want to read more by you. They're salivating as we speak. Tell us a bit about your other books, and why they rule:

Well usually I'm Little Miss Prolific, but the only other story I've got coming out soon-ish is Dirty Thirty, [link: http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-8647-50-dirty-thirty.aspx ] which I'm really rather proud of. It's coming out October 8 from Ellora's Cave. It's an m/m/f menage—emphasis on the m/m—about Evan and Margie, a young married punk couple, plus Evan's thirtieth birthday present—Paul. It's a short story, and actually quite sweet underneath all the filthy filthy sex. And for people who haven't read my stuff before, I had another book out last month called Willing Victim [link: http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-8542-612-willing-victim.aspx ]. It's somewhat controversial, but so far reader response has been crazy-positive, so I'd recommend that one, if you aren't put off by its kink.

And that was the interview! Told you she was orsum. And here’s the link to her orsum new novella, Backwoods, to prove it:

http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-8697-50-backwoods.aspx

But wait! There’s more. If you want to comment and say hi to Cara, or hi to me, or talk about your dog, Peter, you can totally do that. And then I’ll enter you into a competition to win a copy of Backwoods! How brilliant is that?

But there’s even more! If you do decide to enter, or you enter the competition on Cara’s blog to win a copy of my novella, The Horizon, here:

http://naughtyauthorchicks.blogspot.com/2010/09/charlotte-pimpernel.html

You will also be in with a chance of winning actual $5 Good Vibrations gift cards, courtesy of the lovely Cara McKenna, who thinks of doing things like that and then buys them to give away, unlike me, who doesn't and is a fool and then isn't sure how to pay my half for this deal, and offers to buy her a book cos she lives across the ocean and it seems weird to send three quid through Paypal. Not only that, but her post about me is orsum and contains hamsters, and she knew to put in all sorts of important info like twitter stuff. Which I've totally forgotten to do! You can find her on twitter, and she's hella funny and amazing so follow her immediatly!
http://twitter.com/caramckenna

Me and her are getting orsum at this pimping lark. Well, she is. I'm kind of sort of maybe. Possibly.

I'm not at all, am I.

ETA: The competition will close on Saturday, like Cara sez! Yeah, I'm really bad at this promo stuff.

Bonus Super Fun Lucky Time!

2010-09-06T06:00:00.002+01:00

Yes, that's right folks. It's bonus super fun lucky time! Because this week, I have not one, but TWO releases out! I can't even believe that. I won't be surprised if you find it difficult to comprehend.

How did I get this lucky? I don't know. But now, I want to give you guys some super lucky fun time, in return for this bounty all over me. And yeah, I know it's not a man from my harem or a Kindle or anything truly orsum. Actually, when I think about it, it's a very small thing indeed. It's just a copy of The Horizon, and a copy of Threefold.

But even so! All you have to do is comment, wave, show your bum- you know the drill, by now. And then I'll put your name in the hat, and one (or maybe two...duh duh DUH!) lucky winners of the super fun variety will get a copy of my first fabulous release from Ellora's Cave, AND a copy of the amazing anthology I'm in, alongside such actual luminaries as Kim Dare, Desiree Holt, Brynn Paulin, Kris Norris and Suzanne Graham!

So actually, when you think about it, you get like...seven whole novellas. And the novellas are about hot sex in space due to sex pollen, and menages.

I mean, who could ask for more? But if you are still asking for more, here's the blurb for my release from Ellora's Cave (out this Friday, September 10th):

When Quade swoops in to save his archenemy, Sol, from bloodthirsty Cybers, he doesn’t expect to find himself almost torn apart, terrified beyond imagining and even worse—declaring his love for her.

Now they’re trapped on Sol’s spaceship, both half-insane due to the Cybers pumping them full of some lust drug. If they can’t get a hold of themselves quickly, they’re going to be doing some pretty dirty things.

But surprisingly, Sol doesn’t seem to mind that newfound feelings are bursting out all over—especially when said feelings pave the way for wild and constant sex with her former enemy.

And the to buy link, in case you're not quite fortunate enough to win the super lucky fun prize:

http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-8613-50-the-horizon.aspx

And here's the blurb for my story in Threefold, Lust Dazed:

Ellie, Evan and Jimmy have always been best friends. They work together, play together, support each other and...accidentally eavesdrop on each other, doing some very dirty things.

When Ellie hears what Evan and Jimmy have been doing behind her back - watching smutty movies that feature women who look just like her - she doesn't know whether to be bemused or offended. Or maybe just hugely turned on.

And that's not even getting into the secret crush Jimmy seems to have on Evan...or the plans he has for the three of them, now that everything's out in the open...

And the to buy link, cos it's out now!

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=906

Hooray!

ETA: I'm also running a competition to win Threefold over at Erotica For All, so if you fancy two chances to win, pop on over to Lucy Felthouse's brilliant site!

http://eroticaforall.co.uk/new-erotica-releases/new-release-threefold-anthology-from-total-e-bound/

Some Things What Have Happened To Me

2010-09-04T19:03:00.004+01:00

Tigerlily was reviewed over at Whipped Cream: http://whippedcream2.blogspot.com/2010/08/tigerlily-by-charlotte-stein.html?zx=610a555292be6077

They gave it four cherries, and the reviewer, Tiger Lily (no, really) said: "If you want a story with bittersweet moments, white-hot sex, and a hero that’s yummy, you need to read Tigerlily."

Go team me, yay!

I also don't think I mentioned that I got a cover for The Horizon (there are only, like, six days until it's out!), but you may have seen it in the sidebar, Bertha. It looks like this:

Which is just...it's so glorious...is that the sun shining out of his butt? Oh, how apt.

Let's see...I also started doing Goodreads. I don't know how you do Goodreads, but Goodreads seems to like it. Here is me on Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3200938.Charlotte_Stein

I spend all of my time on it doing one of my most favourite things: pressing a load of buttons until stuff flashes up. It tells me I rated this! It gives me updates, to tell me what other people are reading! I never previously knew that I could be so fascinated by what everyone else is reading!

Also, you may be able to see that I have only written one review. And it's a searing diatrible on the futility of existence and the true nature of art and literature, with all of its power to elevate or degrade.

Either that, or it's a comment about an A-Team comic book. Before you even click on that link, gentle Bertha, I know you will have invested your faith in me, and decided which one of the above reviews I have so painstakingly crafted. And believe me, I do not let you down.

In further news, I'm beavering away at something I'm loving writing more than any other thing since The Horizon, probably. The hero is crazy, the heroine is in love with his crazy, they go on the lam...oh, love. I listen to the synth wonders of the Starman soundtrack, and just want to write it forever.

Which probably means it's awful. God, I hope it's not awful.

Mancandy Monday: Christopher Pike

2010-08-30T18:48:00.003+01:00

I'm pretty sure Christopher Pike isn't real. He's, like, a total recluse and no-one ever sees him and there's only one picture of him in existence:

Probably because when you try to take his picture, the camera melts. He's an alien space vampire. He's really a woman called Catherine, and his publisher just told him to pretend to be a man because he used to write the most gory, grown-up horror stories for young adults and they didn't think people could take a woman writing that shit. Seriously, they outdid Stephen King for scary nastiness.

But his books were also beautiful. There are times when I remember haunting scenes from literary masterworks, like that bit in Jane Eyre with the tree, and that bit in The Handmaid's Tale when she finds the scratched words at the back of the wardrobe. But maybe I'm just plebian because I remember bits from Christopher Pike's books just as hard.

I remember the end of that one where that lad plays this game, and the only way to win is to not launch a single bomb. I remember the needle in Whisper of Death and the lake in Monster and the mines in The Hollow Skull. He always had creepy abandoned mines in his stories, but somehow his creepy abandoned mines were so much creepier and darker and colder than other horror writers, and their abandoned mines.

I really believed I could go down there, and come out as a different, evil, possibly possessed by space alien vampires person. That was the power of Christopher Pike. His stories haunt me in a way I find hard to explain, and I always find little bits of my stories being inspired by his work. A drowning girl here, a person acting weird there...

Even weirder, I used to dream about marrying him. I'd grow up and be a famous author, naturally, and buy a beach house, because my stupid thirteen year old self had heard he lived near a beach even though it's now obvious that he lives on Mars or in Narnia or some other magical made-up place brilliant enough to contain him. And then one day, he'd be jogging on the beach even though he's a space vampire and I doubt they can jog in the dawn light but anyways. He jogs, and then he sees me on my porch even though I never sit outside, and we fall instantly in love.

Of course it later turns out that he's possessed by black goo from an abandoned mine or evol lake, and he tries to eat me like a hamburger or murder me inside a car filling up with carbon monoxide or by pushing me off a cliff or hurling me out onto the surface of Mars. But what kind of shit would I give, by that point? I got to be married to Christopher Pike, even though he doesn't actually exist!

Small Things I've Learnt As An Erotic Romance Writer, Part Three: Never Useable Words and Phrases

2010-08-25T16:54:00.002+01:00

I know you may want to. I know you may think: God, I really need to use that word. No other word can describe what's going on better. The word is perfect, it's awesome, it epitomises everything that's happening.

But I tell you now- the word "queef" doesn't epitomise anything. It's not cool, it's not the perfect word. It's a stupid word that's going to kill the eroticism in your story stone dead. No point getting the paddles. Don't charge them. That thing is cold and blue and in need of burying.

Queef is not sexy. It means fanny fart (which is another phrase you should avoid), but it reduces fanny farting down to its least sexy components. Imagine that! A word that actually makes fanny farting less sexy.

And then there are some other words and phrases and sentences, that may also turn your story into night of the living dead:

1. Leakage. Old people leak. Old people leak when they've lost control of their bodily functions. Your hot characters do not leak.

2. Seepage. Wounds seep. How gross is that? You want your main characters fanny to be like a wound? Ugh. Especially wrong when paired with the word "anal". Nobody wants to hear about anal seepage.

3. Flaps. As in fanny flaps. Just...no. No.

4. Beef curtains. See: flaps.

5. "He penetrated her clitoris with his finger". This one falls into the "I don't know a fucking thing about anatomy category", but has as big a cringing effect as "She looked at the anal seepage that had queefed onto the bed". And yes, I've actually seen someone use that very series of words in a story. Not the anal seepage series, obviously. The other one. Thank God.

6. "He breached her womb". Same category as the one above. Dude, if you're breaching her womb with your cock, something's going wrong. Horribly wrong. It reminds me of the movie Alien, only in reverse. Penetration of clitorises and wombs means you're probably using a pen knife. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. A thousand times ugh!

And that is my list of things you should never say in erotica/erotic romance. Just don't. I mean, I'm sure I could be wrong. I'm sure there are some wonderful moments in both erotica and erotic romance that employ those words and lines. I'm sure.

But I'm also sure that authors should try to avoid contravening the laws of anatomy when writing about sex. And that every author should think, really think about what their potential readers are going to find hilarious in the middle of a steamy scene.

Hilarity can come from the characters - "they giggled at each other" - but it should never come at the expense of them, in good, hot, erotic fiction.

Mancandy Monday: That New Dude Off Of True Blood

2010-08-17T00:37:00.004+01:00

I mean, what the what?

Is this guy even real? He must be real, 'cause I'm currently looking at him. I see him on True Blood every week, floating across the screen in a haze of too-handsomeness, rippling his abs all over the place as though yeah. My eyes can take it. My loins understand, insanely handsome rippling person.

What's the matter with him, being this handsome? I mean, how selfish can you be, to take other men's quotient of handsomeness? Because he's clearly stole a buttload of goodlooking from other, less fortunate dudes. Like Michael York.

And in all honesty, I don't know what to make of that. Or of him. Science tells me I should fancy him. Or at least, the made-up junk in my head that passes for science tells me I should fancy him. But I'm not sure I do.

Maybe he's just...too handsome? He's so handsome, that romance novel covers are having orgasms, just thinking about him being on them. Flexing his mantitty and scowling moodily at things. In that picture alone, he looks as though the far off heaving bosom of some probably purple dress wearing heroine is giving him extreme constipation. All he needs is a rearing horse behind him, and maybe a sword stabbing into a hill, and perhaps a crashing wave, and he's all set.

And yet I still don't know if my loins want to burn for him.

You confuse me, New Dude Off Of True Blood. You confuse me so much that I can't even remember your name.

Winners!

2010-08-14T19:34:00.008+01:00

So I've put the names on bits of post-its and stirred them around inside my hands, and the winners are:

Katie Reus and Tara Lain!

Just email me at charlotte_stein@hotmail.co.uk, ladies, to get your fabulous free copies of Past Pleasures!

Thank you everyone, for entering and saying congrats and all those nice things, that always make me feel warm inside.

And now, because I cannot let a blog post go by without a) some kind of Mancandy and b) some kind of weirdness, here are some funny things I found, and a drawing of what I imagine Sharlto Copley's ass looks like:

Yeah. That is Hugh Jackman.

And yes, I spent time drawing this. What of it? It's not at all worrying, because if you knew me, you'd know I spend a lot of time drawing asses in Paint. No, really. Behold, the image I sent to my editor at Ellora's Cave, when she failed to believe I had a pic of Sharlto tattooed on my butt!

I don't know why my butt looks a lot like Sharlto's. Probably means it's destiny for us to be together. Yeah, that's definitely what it means.

New Release: Past Pleasures!

2010-08-09T06:00:00.001+01:00

And so another release date rolls around- and so quickly! I'm in a permanent state of giddiness, I've had so much good luck and so many releases out and coming up. Dunno what's going on, but have to say am super thrilled about this one.

It was the second thing my lovely editor at TEB accepted after my first release there, and the first thing I ever wrote in past tense. So the tension was like a thick fist in my face. A thick fist that tried to make me eat it, and then maybe poop it back out again. I was terrified and paralysed and then suddenly Past Pleasures just poured out of my fingers and onto the keyboard, and all was well with the world. Especially as by some other miracle, it's the first in a series. I'm acutally going to write sequels for it! Me! Writing sequels!

So I've got a soft spot for PP. I love it's silly premise and I love the two heroes and I love my not-quite-knowing-what-to-do heroine. And I hope whoever's reading this and my work will love it too, I really do. Or at the very least, I hope you like it.

Here's the blurb:

When Kate agrees to a mad experiment with something as insane as time travel, she expects exactly what Professor Waites had suggested: dystopian nightmares and possible barbarians.

So when she finds herself in a future where women no longer exist and the men have no idea what they’ve been missing, she can’t seem to catch her breath.

Especially when the men in question—the darkly handsome Tem, and his starkly beautiful companion Aley, are so curious and so ready to learn everything she has to teach—including all the past pleasures they never knew existed.

An excerpt:

When the machine first wound down, Kate Connor couldn’t quite decide if it had worked. The room she was standing in looked ordinary—neat and uniform, but ordinary. The carpet was a rough beige pile, and a little curving armchair stood to her right, by the door. Warm light spilled from beneath another door directly in front of her, giving the entire room a soft ambience that she found somewhat comforting.

It could have been anywhere. It didn’t have to be 3033. For all Kate knew, the machine hadn’t worked, and instead she’d been teleported to somebody’s plush, little apartment.
But then more details surged into focus, and a different idea of what sort of year this was came with them.

The door to her right, for example. It had the look of something you’d find on a submarine. It seemed reinforced and strangely shaped, rounded where it should have been sharp-edged, sunken and scalloped where it should have been smooth and straight.

There was no discernable handle.

There were no objects in the room, either. It took her a while to notice, but once there they became starkly obvious. No books, no DVDs, no magazines lying around—nothing but a little table, a bed and an armchair, with nothing resting on top of any of them. Everything was pristine and seamless, as though no-one had ever lived in the room she stood in.

Even though she knew someone did live here. She could hear them, in the bathroom.

Of course, it could have been that the room before her was not, in fact, a bathroom. After all, the running water might have signified anything, in this brand new alien context. Perhaps they used the water to pass electric currents through their molecularised bodies here. Maybe it wasn’t water she could hear at all, but stabilising fluid, for their mechanised gears.

For the first time since starting this whole crazy thing, awareness of the complete unknown grabbed hold of her guts. She thought not of the sweet countdown to her first journey through the machine, but of its opposite—how long until Waites zapped her back? How long was left? Ten seconds? Twenty? It had seemed like a scrawny little glimpse, before, and she had pushed for more.

Why in God’s name had she pushed for more?

The bathroom door was starting to open. Any second, and Earth’s bleak and terrible future was going to emerge and grab her with its tentacles. She held her breath without even being aware of it; her hand clenched tight around the timer strapped to her wrist, ready to press and press and send a frantic plea for help across the vast acres of time and space—

He was almost a disappointment, after a build-up like that.

“Hello, brother,” he said—and not even in a Chaucerian accent in reverse, or with a buzzing mechanical note behind his voice, like the lizards in V. She ran her gaze the entire length of him, but no third arm sprang out. There didn’t seem to be a ray gun on him or a tentacle growing out of his bum or anything, not anything at all.

He looked like a normal human man. Apart from the preternatural attractiveness, which Kate was pretty sure didn’t count as terrifying. In normal circumstances, perhaps, but not when in the future, trying to cope with everything aside from handsomeness.

Like the gesture he appeared to be making. Hand up, palm facing her. It seemed impolite not to make the gesture in return, and yet awkwardness flooded her on doing so.

“Hello,” she found herself replying, the steady tone of her voice a flickering surprise. It should quake, if only because of one constantly beating fact—she was speaking to a man from the year 3033. Whether or not he was about to eat her face seemed somewhat irrelevant, in light of that fact.

“Can I help you?”

And for the lulz, the warning that comes with it:

Reader Advisory: This book contains explicit threesomes.

Yep, that's right. It's saucy menage fun.

And the to buy link:

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=874

And of course, release day wouldn't be complete without me running a competition for you to win a copy! Yay! Just comment - about anything you like, from menages to sci-fi to what you ate for dinner last Tuesday, and I'll put all of your names in a hat and pull one out in a totally scientific and rigorous process, involving post-its and my cupped hands.