Thursday 2 August 2012

This is a book that puts the "b" into anal - read Victoria Coren's review

The wittiest review I've come across yet for 50 shades is by Victoria Coren (read it by clicking this link) who says, 'this is a book that puts the "b" into anal.' Now I haven't read it and I certainly wouldn't quarrel with a book that's selling millions. However, Victoria does have a very interesting take on why Christian Grey is so attractive and it's got nothing to do with whips and chains......




While I'm here, please forgive this shameless plug for my new short story, 'The Duchess and the Highwayman' which appears in the gorgeously covered anthology 'La Contessa's game' published by Xcite. Should you wish to help a struggling writer, you can buy it by clicking this link. Thank you!

Monday 30 July 2012

Fabulous 5 star review for Dark Nights by Kitti Bernetti




Well, I couldn't have been given a nicer review if I'd written it myself (and I didn't I swear!). At first I thought my mum might have put this review up on Amazon but then again, she's of a different generation and I'm afraid Dark Nights is far too raunchy for her. So, if it wasn't my mum, who was it? I shall probably never know, but one thing is for certain, this review came out of the blue, dropped like manna from heaven and I'm delighted it did. It was so good and I am so grateful to the person who posted it that I want to offer them some lovely flowers and reprint the review here. Many thanks my kind, anonymous reader for thinking such nice things about my novella and for bothering to put your thoughts up on Amazon. You're a star!!! Here is that review:


An Erotic Thrill Ride


Borrowing the premise of the Arabian Nights tale of the 1001 Nights, Kitti Bernetti creates the intriguing tale of Breeze, who's stealing from her boss, Sebastian Dark (albeit for altruistic reasons), and finds herself having to taking him on an erotic thrill ride to keep him from having her arrested from theft. Of course, these two spiky characters start warming to each other, and as the action shifts from Brighton Beach to the Royal Albert Hall to the Ritz Hotel, the sex games grow wilder and the passion more intense.




You can buy Dark Nights by clicking on this link and help keep it at number #31 in Amazon's erotic reads top 100, still only .77p


Alternatively you can buy my novella together with two other novellas by the very lovely Sommer Marsden and the utterly delectable Primula Bond here. By the way when issued in the Secret Library book of three novellas, Dark Nights has been entitled The Thousand and One Nights.

Saturday 28 July 2012

Dark Nights celebrates London, hosting the Olympics

Dark Nights, my erotic novella has a hero, Seb Dark and a heroine, Breeze Monaghan but it also has another highly prominent 'character' - London.

Right now London is hosting the olympics with a fabulous opening ceremony. The ceremony brought out all the things about London which I feature in my novella. There is first and foremost the fun of London. I have an outrageous scene where the hero and heroine make love on a bed which has been wheeled onto the gallery of the Royal Albert Hall. Not only the Olympics, but the Proms are at present airing in wonderful London town - all the classical music you could possibly want (and possibly a load that you don't!) The idea of making love to music in a public place but where no one can see you is a crazy but fun idea. Also, my characters go down to the funfair in Brighton only a stone's throw from London. The seaside was one of the few aspects of Britain which I think Danny Boyle didn't feature. Apart from that the opening ceremony was fab. 'Dark Nights' which was originally published as The Thousand and One Nights in a 3-book version issued by Xcite has also been issued as a single title. I'm immensely proud to say the single title is now at number 31 in Amazon's top 100 erotic reads. If you want a bit of fun and a romp through London, do go and buy it!

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Shanna Germain - welcome to my blog!

Today I am really pleased to welcome Shanna Germain, a fellow Secret Library author to my blog to talk about: The Sexiness of the Anti-Alpha Male

When Xcite invited me to write a romantic novella for their upcoming Secret Library series, my first thought was hell yes. Then I read their call where they specified they wanted “strong Alpha male heroes,” and my first thought was uh-oh. My male heroes tend to be, well, the opposite of alpha males. They’re usually a little geeky, kind of quiet, and sometimes even clumsy. I don’t know why men like that make me hot and wet, but they totally do. Maybe it’s because I like to see them come alive in the presence of the right woman.
So for “Safe Haven,” my sexy, romantic novella in A Long Hot Summer, I decided to make a strong, sexy, confident Alpha male hero who still had a geeky, quiet, insecure side. Thus, Darrin was born. Fashion photographer, motorcycle rider, puppy rescuer, and sensitive heartthrob.
When Kallie – our strong and feisty animal-rescuing heroine – meets said heartthrob, it isn’t just his blue eyes and fantastic smile that catches her attention. It’s also his adorably clumsy nature and his willingness to ask.   
Prior to this scene, Darrin has had… well, shall we just say he’s had a little bit of an accident? I don’t want to spoil too much about the plot, but I did want to give you a scene that shows Darrin as his sexy and sweet self. Hopefully you’ll find him as adorably attractive as Kallie does.

Excerpt from “Safe Haven”   

It was easy to talk about Shar, it gave Kallie something to think about besides Darrin sitting on her couch with his easy posture. His long fingers wrapped around the mug. Those blue eyes which seemed, impossibly, to be getting brighter and bluer as afternoon slipped into evening.

‘Thank you for letting me stay here,’ he said. ‘I feel ... like a ...’ He dipped his head to sip at his coffee.

‘I don’t even know what you’re doing here.’ It was out before she meant it to be, before she thought it through. ‘I mean ...’ she started. Shit, what did she mean? She meant she wanted to know everything: where he’d come from, what he was on his way to, whether he would stay just for a little while to strip her down and kiss the lonely parts of her body. If the answer to that was yes, that he would stay and then go, she thought she could let her guard down, invite him in. But she didn’t even know how to ask it.

‘I know what you mean,’ he said, and she thought he actually might.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

Darrin seemed to consider this. ‘I’m a photographer, in LA. I got burnt out. My photos were getting ... stale. So I took a little time to ride around the country. See if I could find my, I don’t know ...’ He looked at her, that clear blue gaze steady and strong, the weight of it sending her desire up through her thighs, into the heat of her cheeks. ‘...passion again.’

Kallie returned the gaze as long as she could, savouring the stream of lust through her body, and then she lowered her head to stare at the surface of her coffee. ‘So you’re only passing through?’

‘Yes,’ he said. And suddenly, ‘I’d like to touch you.’

The words, the ease with which he’d said them, the strength, and his bright blue gaze as it fell on her, all of it made her feel unsteady again, as if gravity was changing its laws every second.

‘Nice segue,’ she said, trying to keep things light, refusing to admit the impact he was having on her.

He laughed, shook his head, setting his coffee on the table. ‘I feel stupid, like this. Not being able to get up and come to you, to make the first move, but, well ...’ He waved a hand at his calf, the pant leg still rolled up to his knee, the swelling visible from where she stood.

‘So you’re saying you’d like me to make the first move?’ Her smile surprised her; it felt sleek and sly. What was she doing? She held her cup tighter, as though that might stop the words from coming out, or stop the tumbling, falling lust that filled her stomach.

‘I’m saying I’d like someone to make the first move,’ he said. ‘And sadly, I’m clearly not up to it.’

‘Well, that could be a problem, don’t you think?’ She toyed with her coffee cup, hearing the tease in her own voice, feeling both excited and embarrassed by its obviousness. So much for not touching him. For not letting him touch her.

‘Please come here and kiss me,’ he said.

No one had ever asked her please like that before; no one had ever asked anything so simple. He wasn’t asking for permission, nor if she was interested. Instead, he was laying his desire out there so clearly and asking her to help him reach it. She’d never known anyone so quietly confident, so willing to ask for what he wanted.

Her mind, that last bastion of safe choices, shut off all its alarm systems as his request. Her body, already willing and wanting, helped her put the cup on the table without spilling it, and go to him. She thought she’d feel nervous or awkward making the first move. Instead, the closer she got, the more her body seemed to know what to do, how to settle itself near him without touching his injured calf, how to put herself where she needed to be in order to do the thing she’d been wanting to do since he first walked up her driveway: kiss him.

*****

Shanna Germain claims the titles of writer, editor, leximaven, vorpal blonde and Schrodinger’s brat. Her work has appeared in places like Best American Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, Best Erotic Romance, Best Gay Romance, Best Lesbian Erotica and more. Visit her wild world of words at www.shannagermain.com  

*****

The Secret Library is a new range from Xcite Books which will appeal to the female romance reader market. Each book contains three specially commissioned novellas guaranteeing a satisfying and varied selection.

The story content is relationship led with a strong alpha male hero, a level of conflict and a climactic, explicit ending.

The covers are deliberately designed without visual imagery to be discreet. These books could be comfortably read in public, given as gifts and left on a bedside table.

The Secret Library contains six books with three erotic romance novellas in each:

Traded Innocence – Toni Sands, Elizabeth Coldwell and K D Grace

Silk Stockings – Constance Munday, Jenna Bright and Lucy Felthouse

One Long Hot Summer – Elizabeth Coldwell, Penelope Friday and Shanna Germain

The Thousand and One Nights – Kitti Bernetti, Primula Bond and Sommer Marsden

The Game – Jeff Cott, Antonia Adams and Sommer Marsden

Hungarian Rhapsody – Justine Elyot, Charlotte Stein and Kay Jaybee


Wednesday 9 May 2012

I am just about to enter that most frightening of all places; starting a new novella. It is horrifying! There is of course great unknown of the empty page that stares at you white as a snow-filled sky and just as chilly. Then there's the space in your head which is jumbled with ideas - none of them formed, none of them seem useful or ordered. They're just there waiting like a horribly untidy sock drawer waiting to be tidied and made into something half way decent Then there's the time available to you. Curtailed, foreshortened, always limited and squashed. You know full well that if you waste that time, it's never going to be available to you again. It has no shelf life, there are no second chances. Those seconds, minutes, that precious hour if not filled with writing something useful is gone. Forever. So, wish me luck as you wave me goodbye. I am now about to enter the bat cave of the unknown and try and come out with something that looks half way ike a first draft...

Thursday 26 April 2012

Beautiful, sexy, Brighton



I thought it would be nice to do a series of blog posts about some of the locations I featured in my Secret Library novella, The Thousand and One Nights. One of the locations was Brighton, England. At the end of the pier is a great little fun fair looking right out over the sea. One of the scariest rides there takes you up, up, up very slowly and then drops you at a thundering rate downwards so you leave your heart and soul behind you. As well as being erotica, my novella is a love story and that's one of the locations my hero and heroine Breeze and Seb begin to loose their hearts to each other.

Brighton really came to the fore with the patronage of the Prince Regent who used to wine, dine and generally indulge himself at the Brighton Pavilion.The Pavilion is a monument to extravagance a bit like Brighton itself which exists mainly as a pleasure palace.


I hope you've enjoyed this brief tour of Brighton. Next time it will be St James's, one of the smarter parts of London, also featured in The Thousand and One Nights.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Why Fifty Shades of Grey is good for us



So, everyone in the UK's finally talking about 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by British writer E L James. First of all, I have to put up my hand and say, 'no, I haven't read it'. Yet. I may well do one day but as I have a to-be-read pile that is fifty books high I'm not sure when. A friend who's read it says that it starts off really well although she felt the first in the trilogy was the best and the other two didn't quite live up to the promise.

But hey, who am I to carp? Would E L James care two beans what I or my friend thought? No, because her book is a thumping, runaway, total utter freaking SUCCESS. Good luck to her! But the best thing about 'Fifty Shades of Grey' for erotica writers is that it's brought it right into the mainstream. We've been writing erotica for years. She's written erotica that has raised its profile to such a point that an interviewer was asking her in great detail on no less an august show than Newsnight a couple of days ago about fisting and other unusual diversions. People write erotica, people read erotica (thank goodness readers that you do), the secret's out! So, thanks E L James for ratchetting erotica up the greasy pole of publishing and bringing it out of the shadows.

Saturday 21 April 2012

My first feel of the Secret Library



It's not often that you can rave about the feel of a book. True, I do have a few treasured tooled leather books in my collection. You know, the ones where you can run your fingers over the patterns in relief, and where you turn to the frontispiece to find that wonderful swirly marbling in rainbow colours. But mostly these days, a book is a paperback and there's no temptation to trail your fingers across it or put it to your cheek. That's where the Secret Library books come in. With their black velvet covers, overlaying pastel gloss they are totally and utterly sensuous - and that's before you've even read what's inside.

I'm currently reading the works of my stable mates, Primula Bond and Sommer Marsden and very saucy they are too. Here's what Amazon has to say about the three novellas that come under the one title, The Thousand and One Nights. Three passionate novellas from The Secret Library range that offer essiential, sensual reading. The Thousand and One Nights Kitti Bernetti When Breeze Monaghan gets caught red-handed by her millionaire boss she knows she s in trouble. Big time. Because Breeze needs to keep her job more than anything else in the world. Sebastian Dark is used to getting exactly what he wants and now he has a hold over Breeze, he makes her an offer she can t refuse. Like Scheherazade in The 1001 Nights Seb demands that Breeze entertain him to save her skin. Can she employ all her ingenuity and sensuality in order to satisfy him and stop her world crashing about her? Or, like the ruthless businessman he is, will Seb go back on the deal? Out of Focus Primula Bond Eloise Stokes s first professional photography assignment seems to be a straightforward family portrait. But the rich, colourful Epsom family father Cedric, step-mother Mimi, twin sons Rick and Jake, and sister Honey are intrigued by her understated talent and she is soon sucked into their wild world. As the initial portrait sitting becomes an extended photo diary of the family over an intense, hot weekend, Eloise gradually blossoms until she is equally happy in front of the lens. The Highest Bidder Sommer Marsden Recent widow Casey Briggs is all about her upcoming charity bachelor auction. She doesn t have time for dating. Her heart isn t strong enough yet. But when one of their bachelors is arrested and she finds herself a hunky guy short, she employs her best friend Annie to find her a new guy pronto. Enter Nick Murphy handsome, kind, and not very hard to look at, thank you very much. And he quickly makes her feel things she hasn t felt in a while. A very long while. Casey s not sure if she s ready for it the whole moving on thing. But as she prepares to auction Nick off, she s discovering that her first hunch was correct he's damn near priceless.

Well, let's hope that's whetted your appetites. Available in all good bookshops as they say....... Also available as e-books from Xcite and Amazon

Thursday 12 April 2012

Thanks for inviting me to the party....

Hi - this is my first blog post. What has taken me so long? Well, I've been writing, writing, writing - tons of short stories for Xcite's huge range of print and e-books. The latest novella is for their Secret Library range - a raunchy little number called 'The Thousand and One Nights'. I'm waiting for the author copies to land on my desk any minute now......

But readers often ask me where do you get your ideas, what inspires you, how can you write in so many different genres, what are you going to do next, who the hell are you? So many questions that I thought the best way to answer them was to do a regular blog, so here I am. But this won't just be about writing because I do occasionally peer over my glasses, look up from my computer, stick my nose out into the cool air and even venture out tottling on my high heels into the outside world. I'm lucky enough to have been born in London where I still live and like Dr Johnson said anyone who's tired of London must be tired of life (I paraphrase but I hope the great man would have forgiven me). So occasionally this blog will look at the place I live, the places I visit and I hope it will entertain the odd person (and even the normal ones, ha ha) who occasionally stumble upon it.

After all, what is the purpose of a writer if it is not to entertain......