Release day! New #Menage: Wicked Seduction

My new m/m/f menage Wicked Seduction: A Victorian Menage at the Parisian Exposition is finally available!

Where to buy:All Romance
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She came to the Parisian Fair for adventure...what she found far exceeded her every expectation.

Victoria Scott defied her absentee father and went to the Parisian World's Fair alone. Daring and adventurous, she believed herself able to conquer any obstacle, after all she was a woman of the world. And then she made a rather foolish wager that she could find a lover--or two. Uncertain why she made that wager, and unsure how go about it, Victoria finds herself attracted to two handsome men.

Edmund Garrison is in Paris with his employer, Warren, Lord Sherborn, to see the engineering pavilions at the world's fair. When beautiful Victoria stumbles across their path, he's attracted and intrigued. When she agrees to accompany them back to Warren's townhouse, he's shocked--and aroused. He hadn't expected his time in Paris to be quite so enlightening, but the education he receives is what he's always wanted.

Warren Blackthrope, Lord Sherborn, has had many lovers, but it's his young protege, Edmund, who attracts him the most. He wants Edmund to learn all the pleasures of being a submissive and plans to enjoy every moment of those lessons. It's Victoria, however, who shakes Warren from his path. She's feisty, willing, and eager for each part of their menage. But is it enough to steer the foreboding Earl from his once-chosen path?

Sex and adventure abound, and Victoria is caught up in the bliss she, Edmund, and Warren create. She wants more, craves it, but is terrified of the consequences. Scandal is around every corner; when she meets one head on will she flee? Or will she realize the power of her menage is stronger than merely sex?

This 56,000 word story is an MMF menage where all characters are romantically and sexually involved in a relationship.

Wednesday Victorian: #Excerpt Wicked Seduction

On Wednesday May 7 my Victorian Menage, Wicked Seduction will be (finally) released! I had some problems with this one, but am now happy with the end product. Here's an excerpt from chapter 2:

The hackney pulled to a stop, and Edmund offered her a hand down. Her fingers trembled just enough that she was certain he’d feel the shaking against his palm, but he said nothing. Victoria swallowed hard as the warm, fresh air cooled her heated cheeks.

The townhouse was nestled in a prominent neighborhood, the kind that used to belong to the highest echelon of French society. The gardens would be well tended, she knew, the servants the most discreet of any servants, and the walls high to ensure privacy.

Her own townhouse didn’t sit on this street but several avenues west in an equally prestigious neighborhood, if not one that boasted as rich a history as this.

Victoria swallowed and pushed all thoughts of houses and ancestry and history to the back of her mind. Taking in a deep breath to calm her nerves, she noticed the front door already stood open, a light beckoning them inside. She’d second-guessed herself the entire ride here, short though it had been.

Vacillating between wondering if this had been the worst mistake of her brief, adventurous life, and embracing all Warren offered, she took several steps toward the door. Was it a mistake to accept Warren’s enticing invitation? A mistake to climb into his carriage? A mistake to exit it now, instead of ordering the driver to continue on to her own house?

Her mind told her she knew nothing of these men and needed to turn right around and run. She’d come here with two strangers in order to embrace an exciting future. To be not what society expected, or her father demanded, but who she wanted to be.

Her body hummed with the strange, new need Warren’s seductive voice promised.

Wednesday Victorian: Wicked Seduction and the 1889 Parisian World's Fair

In Wicked Seduction, Victoria sees several pavilions in the Parisian World's Fair. Unfortunately, she does not get to climb Eiffel's Tower.

As with Philip and Lillian in Seduction of my Proper Wife, Victoria does see the Egyptian Pavilion and the Danse du Ventre. Now called belly dancing, this scandalous dance was done by dancers who wore authentic Algerian and other ethnic costumes.

She and her men also visited the Galerie des Machines. It was remarkable for its vast exhibition hall, made possible by exploiting a new structural innovation, the three-pin hinged or portal arch. Although used previously in bridge construction, this was the first application of the arch on such a large scale.

One final stop, though she does tour the majority of the fair, is the Renaissance Exhibit. Not a lot on that exhibit, but it just sounds cool.

Wednesday Victorian: What Romance Would you Indulge in?

In my May 7 release, Wicked Seduction: A Victorian Menage at the Parisian Exposition, Victoria Scott thinks she's a worldly adventuress. What she discovers is that she yearns for that adventure. What she finds at the Paris World's Fair is sexual adventure she never thought she'd embrace.

Victoria is a woman of her time, young and confined to Victorian ideas about sexuality. However much like many women, she wants to break free and explore. She discovers things about herself she never knew.

The question is, which romance would you choose?

• A menage with 2 men who also love and enjoy each other?
• A menage with 2 men who love and respect each other but don't enjoy one another?
• A menage with 2 women who also love and enjoy each other?
• A menage with 2 women who love and respect each other but don't enjoy one another?
• A hot fling with the opposite sex?
• A hot fling with the same sex?

Wednesday Victorian: 125th Anniversary of the Eiffel Tower

I spent a lot of time researching the 1889 Parisian Exposition for my Victorian Menage series. Some of my favorite research was on Eiffel's Tower. People hated it, it was only supposed to last 20 years, but of course some loved it and nearly everyone wanted to climb it. It's now a national icon.

Technically Eiffel's Tower turned 125 on March 31, 1889 , but it didn't open to the public until May 6, 1889. Most people made the ascent via steps, as even on the grand opening the lifts weren't completed. Didn't stop people, everyone wanted to see Paris from the top of the tower: 1,896,987 visitors from May 6 until the fair closed on October 31, 1889.

10 things you didn't know about the Eiffel Tower on its 125th birthday:

1. Strange but true: In a commitment ceremony in 2007, an American woman ‘married’ the Eiffel Tower. Erika La Tour Eiffel (she changed her name) suffers from ‘Objectum-Sexual’ a condition in which people fall in love with inanimate objects.

2. Aging requires no small amount of cosmetic touch-ups: every seven years, the Iron Lady undergoes a paint job that requires up to 60 tons of paint to protect her from rust.

3. The Eiffel Tower will shrink and grow by up to 15 cm (6 inches) with the fluctuating temperatures.

4. Every year, the combined distance traveled by the elevator lifts works out to be about 103,000 km a year -- or 2.5 times the circumference of the Earth.

5. Did you know: technically it’s illegal to publish photos of the illuminated tower at night. Permission and rights must be obtained from the "Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel.”

6. The tower is open every day. In a country that shuts down every Sunday, the tower is perhaps the only thing open 365 days a year including Christmas.

7. After the French, Italians, Spaniards and Americans make up the biggest visitors to the Eiffel Tower.

8. The tower has its own YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/toureiffelofficielle.

9. Eiffel paid homage to the great French men of science by engraving the names of 72 scientists, engineers and mathematicians on the four sides of the tower.

10. The nightly five-minute light show, which begins on the hour every hour from nightfall until 1 am, requires 20,000 light bulbs.

Pictures from Wikipedia.

Seduction of my Proper Wife #review

This is from the beginning of the year but I just saw it now from Confessions From Romahollics

The erotic encounter between Aria and Lillian is very well narrated, and the ménage-a-trois with Philip makes for a very, very hot story. This love-ménage story is beautiful and sexy played out in an exotic Middle Eastern enclave in the heart of Paris, the city of love. Kristable Reed, the author, has a very good style and she has a good narrative rhythm.

Blurb:
 Philip Thornton adored his new bride but found she was frigid in their marriage bed.

Lillian did not know how to ease her fear of the bed until she was freed from her past.

Aria was paid to educate and entice, but what she found was more than she ever dreamed possible.

The Parisian Exposition of 1889...the world is changing and the three of them are caught in its whirl. Philip and Lillian went to Paris to save their marriage and to help Lillian overcome her fears. Aria danced and seduced Lillian, but before Lillian left, Aria found herself seduced, in turn, by the beautiful Englishwoman.

When Philip and Lillian break all the rules and escort Aria around Paris for a week, will it be the beginning of their future? Or will this seductive interlude be nothing more than a dream?

 Where to buy:
All Romance
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Struggling with a story: Wicked Seduction

For weeks now I've edited Wicked Seduction on and off but continue to feel as if I'm missing something vital to the story. It has sex. Wow does it have sex!

Could be that I've read it over so many times I'm way too close to it now, but I'm not happy with it. I'm going to let it sit for another week or 2, read it over once more, then be done with it.

How long can I keep at it before the story isn't what I wanted and is not just edited, edited, edited?

And can I just say it's driving me batty!

There you have it, what's happening with this story. Forgive my lateness with it!

Opening of the Parisian Fair 1889

Today in  1889 (also a Monday) the Parisian Exposition of 1889 opened to wide audiences and critical failure of what is now one of the world's most recognized sights, The Eiffel Tower.

 This world's fair was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789). That celebration was a little iffy given the vast majority of countries invited (you had to be invited!) were monarchies.

From the Wikipedia article:
The Eiffel Tower had been a subject of some controversy, attracting criticism both from those who did not believe that it was feasible and also from those who objected on artistic grounds. Their objections were an expression of a longstanding debate about relationship between architecture and engineering.

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"

Stats:

• Expenses: 41,500,000 Francs ($8,397,982.52 today)
• Receipts: 49,500,000 Francs ($10,016,870.71 today)
• Visitors: 32,250,297
• Exhibitors: over 61,722, of which 55% were French

Seduction of my Proper Wife: A Victorian Menage at the Parisian Exposition

Paris did nothing small and their latest exposition was no exception. Talk had been rampant for so many months of the grandeur of this fair that Philip half expected to be disappointed once they’d walked through the impressive entrance arch the tower made. However, seeing it now upon simply entering, Phillip knew there had been no exaggeration.

With his first glimpse, he caught the sight of a myriad of different worlds. There were countries here he’d barely heard of much less had had a chance to experience. It was all exotic and erotic at once.
 
As Lillian moved forward with the crowd, Philip hoped this trip would be worth it.

He’d brought his new wife to the World’s Fair in hopes Paris in the springtime would entice and intoxicate her. He’d hoped this trip would see Lillian warm to him in ways she’d previously withheld.

In the nearly two weeks they’d been married, he’d yet to enjoy her body in their marriage bed.

Not understanding it, and certainly not anticipating it from the vibrant nature of his wife previous to their marriage, Philip had hastily booked passage from Yorkshire to Paris three days ago. Outside the bedroom Lillian was the exuberant woman he’d first fallen in love with.

Inside, she refused to even change before him, calling upon her maid to undress her, a task Philip would have been more than happy to oblige.
Another excerpt
Where to buy: 

All Romance
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Victorian Paris: The Seine

My Victorian Menage stories are set in 1889 Paris during the Parisian World's Fair. The fair bordered the Seine River, an historic and still important waterway in Paris. In a scene from Seduction of My Proper Wife, the trio take a boat ride down the Seine.

Paris and the Seine, perfect together.

• Joan of Arc's ashes were scattered in the Seine.
• Napoleon wanted his ashes to be scattered over the water as well.
• The 1900 Summer Olympic games rowing, swimming, and water polo were held in the Seine
• The Seine was an original objective of Operation Overlord in 1944
• In 1991 UNESCO added the banks of the Seine in Paris to its list of World Heritage Sites in Europe

Seduction of My Proper Wife:

His hands itched to grab her and pull her to him, but he settled for offering a wicked smile instead. “We have plenty of time to be naughty, my love. And I want to feel you clench around me as Aria screams your name.”

Lillian’s breath caught but before she could do more than whimper her acquiescence of that, Aria returned. Dressed much as Lillian was in a crisp walking gown, she looked just as striking in Western clothing as she did in the sheer skirts when she danced.

Paying Madame Dupré the deposit she required, Philip whisked them both out of the small shop and onto the Parisian street.

They ate at a small outdoor bistro, the three of them enjoying conversation as well as the succulent food. They walked along the Seine before deciding to hire a boat to enjoy the crisp, clear day.

The boat master seemed to ignore the three of them as they chatted at one end. Lillian ran her hand over his cock, teasing him. Already hard, uncomfortably so, Philip caught her hand and brought the gloved back of it to his lips. But her eyes were heavy with her own arousal and her tongue peeked from between her moist lips to tease him further.

Unable to stop the impulse, Philip kissed her, a hard quick kiss that did nothing to alleviate this need for her and everything to arouse him further. Breaking the kiss, he looked to Aria. Her breath came short, and her fingertips rubbed her full lower lip.

Philip didn’t care if they were in public; he didn’t care who could see them or what danger that involved. He wanted to watch his women kiss each other and know anyone could see them.

He hadn’t taken himself for a voyeur, but then he supposed he wasn’t the one engaging in public sex. Pulling Lillian closer, never taking his eyes from Aria, he whispered his desire to his wife.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed, eyes shooting from Philip’s to Aria’s.

Where to buy:
All Romance
Amazon
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
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Kobo

Monday #goals and #excerpt

I've been editing my new contemporary menage romance, Forbidden Road: A Havenbrook Menage and plotting out book 2. Actually I've been editing a whole lot, I also have a new Victorian Menage finished and the first in my trilogy of paranormal erotic stories.

No allergy or sinus medicine isn't helping but that test is Tuesday (tomorrow). Here's hoping I survive until then!

This week's goals are the same as last week:
Edit Forbidden Road
Put together a contest for Wicked Seduction release
Plot Forbidden Love: A Havenbrook Menage
Do the allergy test (ugh)

Anyone ever have an allergy test? Anyone know any practical advice on immunotherapy for allergies? I'm suffering here! I need my sinus/allergy meds!

Seduction of my Proper Wife: A Victorian Menage at the Parisian Exposition:

Aria waited for the English beauty to take her hand. Lillian hesitated, it was clear in her face, that vulnerability that drew Aria.

From the first moment she saw the tall, pale woman, Aria wanted her. She didn’t have the English words to describe her, but she found Lillian to not only be striking externally but within as well. Even before she broke down and shared her past, Aria could see her pain and fear sharply defined in Lillian’s vivid blue eyes.

It only made her want the other woman more.

Her breasts ached to feel Lillian’s mouth on them, to feel her teeth close over her hard nipples. She was slick with need, and Aria wanted desperately to alleviate that yearning. To feel her fingers within her, to feel Lillian’s touch, her mouth.

More, Aria wanted to taste Lillian, to breathe in the scent of her passion, to show her all the ways of love.

In her life she’d enjoyed both men and women, many of the women here enjoyed each other in ways their male companions could never understand. She enjoyed sex, enjoyed the difference between making love with a man and doing so with her fellow dancers.

She had, on occasion, slept with European women who wanted the anonymity and exoticness of sex with a foreigner. She found them demanding, dominant. While Aria didn’t necessarily mind the dominance, they weren’t as conscious of the entirety of pleasure as her other women lovers were.

Should Lillian stay as planned, Aria intended to teach her all the ways of love, not simply momentary pleasure.

Where to buy:
All Romance
Amazon
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

Review: 4 stars from LASR: I really enjoyed the relationship between the two, and then when Phillip came into the picture the dynamic changed yet remained the same. I think the author did a really good job of that. When the three were engaged with each other, you could feel the heat come off the page! Wow!