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.

Wednesday Regency: What I love about the era

It's popular, let's face it. And secretive, though not as easy to get away with things as people often think. All those servants and delivery boys going in and out makes it hard to keep a secret. Too many eyes and ears. Which makes it weird that the gentlemen and ladies spoke as if their servants were deaf and mute. Like they didn't hear the upper echelon's gossip and share it with their own society.

So what do I love about the Regency?

• The clothes. Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in those tight leggins? Yeah. Women's gowns were beautiful, flowing, and to die for.
• The manners. They knew how to insult you with the most polite turn of phrase.
• The place settings. I wouldn't want to set the table and sure as hell wouldn't want to clean up afterwards. But as a guest, to sit at one of those elaborately set tables with footmen serving me and endless wine and food? Perfection.
• Secret Societies. There were all sorts of secret societies from the erotic to the economic. But they make for fascinating reading! I used The Hellfire Club for a short series but there are all sorts. With the rise of the coffee shops and the gathering of men (and women) interested in activities not merely following the current crowd, Secret Societies gained power.
• The fact that everything that happened in the Regency Era led to all the inventions of the Victorian Era. So much of what we refer to Victorian Inventions started because of the interest in science during the Regency Era/

What about you? What makes you come back for more? The ton? The Napoleonic Wars? The thought of Mr. Darcy in your bed?

Nellie Bly: Around the World in 72 Days

I've talked about Nellie Bly before, and her investigative journalism, her pioneering spirit, and her take-that attitude to the view of women in society. There's a new book out about her Round the World Travels and I can't wait to read it!

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman.  

On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading young female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s World newspaper, left New York City by steamship on a quest to break the record for the fastest trip around the world. Also departing from New York that day—and heading in the opposite direction by train—was a young journalist from The Cosmopolitan magazine, Elizabeth Bisland. Each woman was determined to outdo Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg and circle the globe in less than eighty days. The dramatic race that ensued would span twenty-eight thousand miles, captivate the nation, and change both competitors’ lives forever.

The two women were a study in contrasts. Nellie Bly was a scrappy, hard-driving, ambitious reporter from Pennsylvania coal country who sought out the most sensational news stories, often going undercover to expose social injustice. Genteel and elegant, Elizabeth Bisland had been born into an aristocratic Southern family, preferred novels and poetry to newspapers, and was widely referred to as the most beautiful woman in metropolitan journalism. Both women, though, were talented writers who had carved out successful careers in the hypercompetitive, male-dominated world of big-city newspapers. Eighty Days brings these trailblazing women to life as they race against time and each other, unaided and alone, ever aware that the slightest delay could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

A vivid real-life re-creation of the race and its aftermath, from its frenzied start to the nail-biting dash at its finish, Eighty Days is history with the heart of a great adventure novel. Here’s the journey that takes us behind the walls of Jules Verne’s Amiens estate, into the back alleys of Hong Kong, onto the grounds of a Ceylon tea plantation, through storm-tossed ocean crossings and mountains blocked by snowdrifts twenty feet deep, and to many more unexpected and exotic locales from London to Yokohama. Along the way, we are treated to fascinating glimpses of everyday life in the late nineteenth century—an era of unprecedented technological advances, newly remade in the image of the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph. For Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland—two women ahead of their time in every sense of the word—were not only racing around the world. They were also racing through the very heart of the Victorian age.

Today's stop is...

Today I'm over at My Reading Obsession talking about all sorts of stuff. Stop on by and be entered to win either an Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card.

Stop on by!

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Wednesday Victorian: Nellie Bly and World Travel

November 14, 1889: Nellie Bly was the world famous female journalist who defied convention and did what everyone said she couldn't. Meaning, write meaningful, insightful journalistic reports in a 'man's world'. She exposed corruption, poor working and living conditions, and horrible abuse of the mentally ill. All first hand.


Pft to those naysayers. She certainly showed them, the first female investigative journalist. (Some consider her the pioneer, period.)

And she circumnavigated the world in 72 days. Every read Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days? Or seen one of the three takes on his famous work? Verne published his book in 1873...in 1889 Nellie Bly proved it possible in a shorter amount of time.

The Victorian age was one of innovation, travel, social commentary, and expansion. And women had a very large role in all that. And as Ms. Bly proved, records could be broken and by a woman no less.

This is one of many reasons I enjoy writing in the Victorian era. The change. The world was changing at a rate that it never had before, and everyone was excited.