The Classics

Every so often, in the midst of my long reading list, I like to tackle a 'classic'. I'm not going to attempt to define what that means, but to me, it's a book that's well known and published some time ago. DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' is my latest selection. I've read it before but a long time ago. I have links with DH Lawrence. He went to school on the site of the school that I attended. He was born a stone's throw from where I lived for 18 years. He was a student teacher at an infant school I attended. Er - a long while before I attended. He wrote a book that was considered so disgusting, they tried to ban it. Since I write hot erotic romance - I thought, I'll read that book again.

Oh dear. I'm sure it's very worthy but so far I'm finding it hard going. It's so dense and learned and meaningful that the pace is slow enough to send me to sleep. I haven't got to 'those' pages yet. Maybe it will pick up then. I do like the show of society at that time - attitudes of men toward women and both genders' attitudes to sex but tastes change. We're a fast moving society who like constant stimulation (not necessarily sexual!), we want page turners, to be caught up in the world the author creates and this world DH Lawrence describes is long gone and of little interest to me.

I will finish it. There are bits I've liked very much but I fear I'm not clever enough to understand anything but the sexy bits! I think I thought that the first time round. The thing that really tickles me is that my books, example above, would most definitely have been banned!

Starting Over - an MMF menage from me!

Starting Over - my short story for Total-e-Bound is now available.

When Pia goes into a hotel bedroom looking for a night of stringless sex, she gets more than she bargained for.

Pia’s life needs a kick start. She’s tired of going home to an empty flat, killing plants and fed up with her job. She hasn’t been held in a guy’s arms for far too long. If men can do sex just for fun, why can’t she? But as she makes the trek to a hotel bedroom she’s fraught with indecision. It’s a minor miracle that she manages to pluck up the guts to open the door and slink into the room. That miracle becomes so much more than minor once she crawls into bed and gets the shock of her life.

Connor and Espen want a third person in their lives but don’t seem to be having much luck finding the right lover until Pia comes along, but when she’s gone in the morning, they don’t know what they’ve done wrong and if they don’t know that, how can they put it right?

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1988

Jumping in Puddles!! Out today!

My MF paranormal 'Jumping in Puddles' is out today with Loose-Id.

A huge thanks to fellow authors Arlene Webb and Pam Godwin for beta-reading this story and giving me such great advice. Scott Carpenter has produced a stunning cover!!!

Jago doesn’t just inherit a title after the death of his parents, he’s saddled with the crumbling money pit of a mansion that’s been in his family for centuries. With his medical career on hold, he struggles to secure the future of Sharwood Hall, trudging uphill with no finish line in sight.

The sins of a past generation fall on faerie Ellie and her family, and each year they must trek to the exact center of the UK to recharge their energy. Until they find the Kewen, treasure guarded and lost by their ancestors hundreds of years ago, they’re banished from Faeryland. Ellie’s father has spent fifty years searching, now it’s his eldest child’s burden.

As a stunning woman sweeps into Jago’s world in a thunderstorm, he can’t stop thinking she’s too good to be true. For little reason other than her sweet and generous heart, Ellie is helping to put Sharwood to rights and leaving him more and more suspicious she wants something other than him. When family and duty clashes with trust and love, it’s debatable whether a perilous leap of faith, directly off a bridge into treacherous waters, will keep lovers from being swept apart.

http://www.loose-id.com/jumping-in-puddles.html#product_tabs_description

Worth repeating?

When I read a book, I expect the experience to be a positive one. If it isn’t, I don’t finish the book. It usually gets tossed to the bedroom floor with a grand flourish in the hope that husband will notice so I can rail about the disappointment of wasting my time and money. Of course having to get out of bed to mop up water, having knocked over my glass, sort of spoils the moment.
Genre expectations exist for all types of books. Fans of mystery novels expect to see a crime being solved, horror fans want to be scared witless, readers of fantasy require an imaginative challenge and hard core sci fi readers – ah well, I don’t get those weirdoes but that’s probably because I was crap at physics. The requirement for a HEA in romance books has some people rolling their eyes but what’s wrong with romance readers expecting a happy ending? What’s wrong with anyone wanting a happy ending?
I read to be entertained, to be removed for a while from my ordinary life on my mega-yacht drinking champagne and be transported to a fantasy world of good looking guys. I don’t mind if they’re alive or undead, werewolf or gargoyle, prince or pauper, (but not zombies- I have to draw the line somewhere). But I need to know that the world I enter will become ordered and safe and happy by the end of the book.
To be honest, I like HEA or HFN in everything I read, romance or not. That doesn’t mean to say I don’t read books with unhappy endings, I do, though most often by accident. It’s not something authors announce on the back page – oh by the way, I kill off that lovely hero and leave the heroine to take poison on his grave.
Unhappy endings are not common in romance. If I ended up in floods of tears because one of the MCs died or walked away from love, I’d feel cheated and annoyed. I don’t mind crying at their angst part way through and I don’t mind crying with happiness because they end up together, though it doesn’t happen often. The crying I mean. Readers need characters to get what they deserve. I want the villains to receive their comeuppance. I expect the hero and heroine, or heroes, having completed their journey and learned life’s lessons, to be rewarded with happiness. That’s why I read romance. I want the world to be fair and just.
So what’s the attraction of romance books when I know what’s going to happen? If the ending is predictable, why bother reading? Because HEA isn’t straight forward and is only a small part of the whole. We don’t know the journey the MCs will take and if a writer is skilled enough, she or he will make that journey so compelling we feel the happy ending is the perfect finish.
It might be the fairytale ending of marriage, 2.4 kids and a blissful ride into old age. It might be more a HFN, the feeling of satisfaction that having shown characters maturing during the book, the author has given them the hope of a better life in the future. So it’s really what comes before HEA that’s important- the journey, the learning experience, the battling through difficulties and disappointments as the relationship grows so that the readers feels these two or three – ooh, maybe more – characters can’t live without each other.
How about romance books that don’t have the HEA – or at least my view of a HEA. Gone with the Wind – is the one most commonly quoted. Rhett walks away but we don’t know if Scarlet follows. Personally I couldn’t give a damn, my dear. She was horrible! Remains of the Day is a great story but definitely has an unhappy ending. Jude Deveraux’s – A Knight in Shining Armor is a time travel romance where the hero goes back to his own time and leaves the heroine in the present. We get a sort of HEA but the ending still niggles with me that the two main protagonists don’t end up with each other.
I suppose I learnt a lesson from that with my story – Power of Love, It’s the story of a woman whose boyfriend has been killed. He returns as an angel. I never plan my stories – so I got towards the end and thought – how am I going to keep them together? It never crossed my mind that Joe would go off to heaven and leave Poppy to find another love. No, they had to stay together so I made it happen. Ah, the power of the pen!

Starting Over - available for pre-order!

This is my first story for Total ebound - a little menage! It's not out properly until 18th Feb but it can be preordered now.


When Pia goes into a hotel bedroom looking for a night of stringless sex, she gets more than she bargained for.

Pia’s life needs a kick start. She’s tired of going home to an empty flat, killing plants and fed up with her job. She hasn’t been held in a guy’s arms for far too long. If men can do sex just for fun, why can’t she? But as she makes the trek to a hotel bedroom she’s fraught with indecision. It’s a minor miracle that she manages to pluck up the guts to open the door and slink into the room. That miracle becomes so much more than minor once she crawls into bed and gets the shock of her life.

Connor and Espen want a third person in their lives but don’t seem to be having much luck finding the right lover until Pia comes along, but when she’s gone in the morning, they don’t know what they’ve done wrong and if they don’t know that, how can they put it right?

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1988

Cover for my May Book!!!!

To grump or not to grump?

That is the question. I have to hold up my hand and confess that I am not a sweetness and light sort of person. What? I hear you cry. Surely not. But tis true. I'm Mrs. Negative according to my other half. Definitely a glass half empty person and not a glass half full. Well, to be honest, I never leave half a glass of anything, so that analogy is a bit redundant. But I am critical. I was brought up by a mother who always pushed me to do better. That can be a good thing and a bad. Bad when nothing is ever good enough. Bad when every little achievement is pulled apart. Good when it instilled in me a need to always keep trying. But balance is the thing and I didn't have that when I was growing up.

• 

So now I find it easier to pick fault that I do praise. I rarely think anything is perfect because generally, it isn't. It can't be a coincidence that a couple of my many jobs have involved inspection of some sort - in other words finding fault (and also stuff to praise) in other people's work. My very first job - if I don't count the disaster that was serving tea and coffee at a motorway service station - and I don't!!!! - was inspecting business tax records. Imagine how I was loved. I don't think anyone ever loved me for any of the jobs I did - but I do get love from readers who like my stories and I'm grateful for that every day that I breathe!! You made my dreams come true- but I'm a still a grump at heart.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my readers, those who love me, those who hate me, those who are indifferent, those I wish would read me. All three million of them!!
I'm sick which is not the way to start the new year. Some sort of flu and I can hardly stir from bed. I have moments of no fever and lucidity and then the chills rush in, bed beckons and I sleep again. I can't speak - which my husband says is a blessing. Nor can I write - which is frustrating. But no point trying, I can barely remember the plot of my current story. 40,000 words in and I'd guess 30,000 more to finish it, but that's a big guess. Though I've reached the point that I'm already dreaming of new stories. Two twirling in my head though fuelled by my flu soaked brain, they will likely come to nothing.

But I know a lot are worse off than me, so I'm not moaning. Much! Just a little whimper......

And just because I like to add a picture. This is the view from my house. Wet, wet, wet. There shouldn't be a pond there. It's just a field.