Excerpts: Westerman Extended with Bonus

Continuing my blog series of Excerpts, for which reasoning and explanation see the first post, with an extended excerpt from my polyamorous Victorian erotic romance, The Westerman Affair. In this excerpt, our hero Charles is seduced by an unknown-to-him woman, who happens to be our heroine–and his eventual muse–Rosamund. Of course, the scene takes place in a library. I like to include sensual scenes in libraries in as many stories as I can.

This excerpt was originally published on the (now defunct) Residence 11 blog in 2021. It is an extended version of the excerpt I included with an interview for Gemma Snow’s blog. Continue reading

Inspiration: Antiquities, Accents, and Together Alone

This is my Discovering Her Delight inspiration post. Warning! There are spoilers ahead for the book. If you don’t mind spoilers, read on. If you don’t like your romance spoiled, read Discovering Her Delight first!

An Initial Inspiration

I started the notes for Discovering Her Delight way back in 2014 (then known as Discovering Her Desire). I knew it was going to be a story centered on an archaeological expedition, I just wasn’t clear on the specifics. An archaeologist friend of mine had a bizarre idea: what if the hero had to write on the heroine’s back?

So I held on to that thought, and it continued to inspire the story. Why would he need to do this? Under what circumstances? And how would he do it in 1881? Continue reading

Inspiration: Romance in the Interstices

Interstice (noun) in·​ter·​stice
plural — interstices
1a: a space that intervenes between things, especially one between closely spaced things
b: a gap or break in something generally continuous
2: a short space of time between events

Have you ever seen the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? The play (also a movie) is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the point of view of the courtiers Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, minor characters who inhabit the interstices of the action of Hamlet.

I like to think of A Delicate Seduction as the Rosencrantz and Gildenstern of The Harwell Heirs series, except without the existential absurdism. Continue reading

NaNoPrep2021: Sooper Sekrit Steampunk Romance

It’s October and once again time for NaNoPrep. “Preptober” is the time when authors all over the world prepare their National Novel Writing Month novel. This year my novel is called The Sooper Sekrit Steampunk Story. Yes, it will be Steampunk! Yes, there will be romance! But, I only have sort of an idea of what’s going to happen! Continue reading

NaNoPrep2020: Pantsing Adam and Lydia’s story

Welp, it’s October 2020 and time for NaNoPrep2020, otherwise known as Preptober. Also, it’s the absolute end of October and I really just started prepping my NaNoWriMo novel this week. Ugh, sigh.

But, I have a premise, I have the fake NaNo cover, and I think farming is over for right now. (Okay, well, farming never ends, but it sometimes takes a seasonal break. By the way, did you know I was a gentlefolk farmer?)

This year I’m totally pantsing it. I have a vague premise of a story involving Lydia and Adam from The Vicereine, the sex club in my Art & Discipline series. The title is tentatively A Model Alliance.

Who are Lydia and Adam, you might ask?
Continue reading

Teaser: My Final Contemporary Romance

Don’t you just hate teasers?

Or maybe not. Perhaps there’s something about a teaser that excites you?

Whatever your fancy, I offer you this teaser to whet your appetite for Resistance, my upcoming autumn 2019 contemporary romance: Continue reading

NaNoWriMo 2014: The Westerman Affair

[UPDATE: The Westerman Affair was published in 2017!]

This will be my ninth NaNoWriMo. I’m such a geek about the event that I went ahead and filled in all my novels since 2006 – which just shows how geeky I really am since I’ve kept all that NaNoWriMo documentation over the years. I’ve left the original covers I made for the event and not the covers as published (only two books remain unfinished, and therefore, unpublished). I really like that General’s Wife cover! It’s a detail from Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s amazing Baroque sculpture The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-22, in Rome’s Borghese Gallery. I also like that tag line I made for it: “Will she submit to the enemy?” I should totally use that when I redo the cover. Continue reading