Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. Youdon’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

He we are again. And as it’s almost time for my sequel release – Love Is My Sin coming January 12th! – I thought a passage from Ilfayne’s Bane from the Hero of the sequel’s POV. Lord Hunter is …er..quite an intense sort of chap

Hunter stretched his shoulders at the touch of clean, fragrant sheets, a welcome change from the odour of horses, mud and unwashed men, himself among them. A knock disturbed his luxury. He sighed, sat up, and called out for them to enter.

Burin, Ganberg’s Captain of the Guard, rushed in, his face creased into a worried frown. “I thought I’d best come and tell you the news, before you heard it from the serving maids.”

“What?” asked Hunter with a creeping horror. Matters had been far from right for weeks. “The king, is he worse?”

Hunter rose and crossed to the washstand to splash his face with cold water, unsure he could face Burin and the news he dreaded. Before he had left to slay the troll that threatened the road north to Atlan, King Arall’s behaviour had become steadily more erratic. His temper had worsened beyond reckoning, and he had taken to muttering to himself. Two days before Hunter’s departure, he had exploded into an unprovoked rage against one of his own guards and maimed him. From the look on Burin’s face, things had not improved.
“There’s no doubt he’s worsened in the last ten days. If he wasn’t before, I’d swear he’s mad now,” Burin said.

Hunter leaned on the stand and stared at the mirror. He had aged years in the last weeks. His red-and-black family braid had come loose, and he fiddled with it. Anything to avoid the look on Burin’s face in the mirror, a look that told him there was some news he did not want to hear. “What else?”

“He’s imprisoned Lord Gaulnir and the Duke of Hergun, swears they’re spies plotting to overthrow him. Arall fears spies everywhere, though spies for who I can’t imagine.”

Hunter yanked on his clothes till cloth threatened to rip. “They’re his two staunchest supporters, after my father. How can that be?”

“I don’t know.”

Hunter dropped his dark blue mail over his head and groaned inwardly at the weight. Two weeks of almost constant wear, combined with heavy rain, had left sores where the undershirt had wrinkled and rubbed until he was raw. If only he could have a day or two without the weight of mail, but that was not possible. The Champion must wear the armour and carry his sword wherever he went.

“The king sees none of that, only what his demons whisper to him,” Burin said. “And they tell him that all who surround him are spies and assassins. He acts as though every man should hear them.”

Something was at work here that Hunter could not name. He picked up his breastplate, midnight blue with a white wolf running across it. “Please, tell me there’s no more.”

“Villages to the north and west have reported attacks by the Unseen, or so they say. Blue-skinned men who carry off the young women, but Arall sends no help, saying all are needed here to protect him from some imaginary threat.”

Hunter rubbed at the scar that puckered the skin by his left eye. How could Arall have come to this? He was a good man, or always had been; his best friend for many years, and his cousin. Hunter had never found him wanting in any respect of honour, duty, or friendship. Now that was just ash in the wind.

Burin had said no word of the news he dreaded above all, and Hunter hesitated to ask. “Did you send anyone?”

“I dare not! Arall would have my head. I was hoping you could talk sense into him. He trusts you still at least.”

Hunter shook away the pang of guilt—now was not the time. Burin handed him his cloak, trimmed with a white wolf pelt that was tatty at the edges. Hunter had gained the pelt in the hunt that earned him his nickname. He had been eleven and stumbled across the wolf when he should have been at lessons. The scar at his eye, and several others, had come from that fight. It had been a long and bitter-fought battle, and his father had named him “The Mighty Hunter”. It stuck and few used, or even remembered, his real name.

Burin’s face had a hollow, frightened look that made Hunter’s skin crawl. Here it came.

“There’ve been other bouts of violence. Queen Amariah sent for me three nights past. I heard screams coming from her room as I got there. I’d swear I heard the sound of fists hitting flesh before Arall left her quarters. I made sure he didn’t see me, but the look of a madman was on his face. Amariah would not see me then, hasn’t left her quarters since.”

It was the news he feared, the worst news he could imagine, and it told him Arall had come to the end of his sanity. No doubt now. The king’s marriage was a political one, to seal the friendship between Armand and Ganheim, but they had seemed content enough, and Arall would never have hit a woman if he had been sane.
Anger and jealousy surged through him, and he struggled to keep them from his face. No matter how deep his feelings ran, it could come to nothing, could never even be spoken of. He had taken oath with the king. Yet it was two oaths he had sworn, after he won the right in tournament. King’s Champion and Queen’s Protector.

Hunter swallowed past a dry click in his throat and tried to think rationally but it was impossible. Arall had beaten her, and he had not been here. His very absence was a betrayal of her, a betrayal of his oath. He snatched up his sword and tried not to think of using it on Arall. The heat in his head, in his heart, made it difficult to think.

Burin put a hand on his sword arm. “I’ve sent word, to Gunther.” Gunther was Queen Amariah’s father, King of Armand.

“You didn’t tell him…” Hunter’s mind went blank with shock. No matter the king was mad, they could not betray him in such a way. But he had to protect her at all costs, betrayal or no.

“Gods, no, I’m not stupid! I said Amariah wished to visit, with the children. I thought it best to get them out of here.”

If she would go, which Hunter doubted. Maybe they could get the children away. He scooped up some troll’s teeth, a memento of his latest trip, which he had promised to the young prince, Aran. The boy was strong and quick-minded, a good man in the making, and sweet little Amma, Aran’s sister, was a joy to him. The children he would have had, should have had if Amariah… This was no way to be thinking. It would never, could never happen.

That didn’t stop his dreams though.

“Why, why is he like this?” He could hear the desperation in his own voice.

“Maybe you should talk to the queen. She’s asked for your escort on her ride this morning.”

Amariah rode daily, but in recent weeks, Arall had decreed she must have an escort when she rode, for fear of assassins. He trusted only himself or Hunter, and as he was often busy with his increasing paranoia, the duty fell to Hunter. The rides fed his dreams, which until now had been kept in check by his given word.
As Amariah entered the stable, Hunter caught his breath. To his eyes, she was the most beautiful woman who had ever lived, with nut brown hair to her waist and eyes the blue of a summer sky, but today she was ashen, with a drawn and weary face. Her normal greeting was missing and she would not meet his eye. When he held out his hand to help her into the saddle, she flinched from him, and misery and pity chilled his stomach.

They rode through the streets of Ganberg to the city gate. Most of the people lived in a jungle of two and three-story houses made from the same pink granite of the outcropping upon which the city stood. Strong buildings that valued practicality over art, much like the Gan themselves. It was a city that teemed with life, especially in Temple Square, home to many temples, shrines and fine buildings. Statues of past kings and
heroes dotted the paving stones. Hunter and Amariah made their way down the road that snaked along the steep slope to the plain below, with silent thought a livid barrier between them.

Hunter was powerless to break the silence without revealing what was in his heart: his desperate desire to help her, hold her, take her and run. His horse snorted and chafed at hands held too tight, and he had to force his fingers to relax on the reins.

They came to a favourite spot of hers, where the river chattered over stones washed down in meltwater from the mountains. Amariah left her horse to forage and walked to the river’s edge. She seemed smaller than he remembered, more closed in.

He laid a hand on her shoulder. She flinched from him again, and that small movement wounded him. That she thought he would hurt her—he could not, he did not have it in him to do such a thing, and it scraped his soul to the core to think her husband did.

She turned towards him and silent tears streamed down her face. It was not the tears that stabbed at his heart, but the glimpse of what lay under her collar. He moved his disbelieving hand and pushed the cloth away to show the finger-shaped bruises that ringed her throat. His hand shook with rage and pity, and he was so torn between the two, he almost could not speak. When he did it came out harshly, his throat painful as he pushed out the words that tightened there. “He did this to you?”

She nodded as if fearful of the look in his eyes. If Arall had been there at that moment, Hunter would have killed him, oath or no. “He’s done this before?”

“Every day since you left, but he’s hurt me worse in other ways.” She spoke haltingly, as though barely able to hear it said. She shut her eyes against the look in his.

He did not know whether he could speak. His throat closed in an iron grip when he realised what she meant by “other ways”. Guilt tore his heart, for his absence, when he could have stopped it—would have done anything to stop it—had he been here. When he could trust his voice, he took her gently by the arms. He steeled himself not to mind the flinch. It was not him she feared. “You must leave. He’s mad, if he wasn’t before. If he carries on like this, he’ll kill you. I couldn’t bear it if you…”

He had nearly said too much and was close to breaking the first of his oaths. The priests said oath breakers went to a special place in the Bitter Dark. As did adulterers. But his other oath had been to protect her. She stared at him but did not move away from his touch, just trembled in his hands.

Fear, longing, and guilt mingled into a stream of stray thoughts. He loved her, Arall had hurt her, he could have stopped it if he had been here, although he would have killed Arall. The punishment would have been worth it if he could have spared her this.

He could bear it no longer. He kissed her, as though the touch of his lips could tell her the depths of his heart. All thoughts of his oath were banished from his mind. After a moment of surprise she returned his kiss, and his heart pounded enough to burst. He was breathing hard when her hand brushed his cheek and she pulled away.

“I’ve broken one oath, that I would be faithful to his word, and I don’t care if I’m damned for it, but my oath to protect you, I won’t break that. I’ll ask nothing else of you, but please, by the gods, please leave.”

“I can’t.” Tears slid down her cheeks again, slow, silent tears that took his heart with them as they fell. “I took a vow too, on my wedding day. I didn’t marry for love, but I won’t break it.”

He reached to brush the tears away but she took a step back.

“I’m sorry.” She let out a wretched sob that threatened to pull her heart out. He wanted to reach out and hold her, comfort her, but she backed away. “Please, I can’t.”

She ran for her horse and mounted. Hunter stood a moment, scraped the tears off his own cheeks, and then followed her. She was almost under control when he mounted his horse and moved it towards her.

That one brief moment of bliss was all he was ever likely to get and it was gone, just a memory even now. The thought made the breath stop in his throat and he almost did not care if another never came. Even to look at her face brought fresh grief. She might care for him, other than as a protector from her current trouble, at least a little, but nothing could come of it. Ever. Part of him shrivelled and died, even as he admired her for not betraying a man who had done that to her, because she had taken oath. His hands gripped the saddle tight enough to leave finger marks in the leather.

Her hand reached out and took his fingers in hers. She smiled through her tears, a smile that might bring him to his ruin in its sorrow. He returned it as best he could and she reached up to brush his cheek with her fingers.

Fresh pain ripped at his heart and he almost looked down to see the blood that must surely flow from his chest. He had a sudden foreboding that this would be his last chance; there would be no other time to talk to her, to say all he had wanted to say since he first met her. Tell her he had never married because of her, that compared to her all women came up wanting, that he loved her. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and tell her it would be all right. And could not. He may have broken one oath but he’d be damned if he broke the second.

There must be a way to protect her.

FOOTER
“Links to other Excerpt Monday writers
Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

Soooo Ilfayne’s Bane is out in print today, and Love Is My Sin is up on the coming soon pages. Yay! I even made it onto Publishers Weekly.

To celebrate, I’m giving away two signed copies of Ilfayne’s Bane. To enter, just go to the Coming Soon page for Love Is My Sin, read the excerpt and tell me who is getting married

Entries to julia@juliaknight.co.uk, winner to be picked 5th November

I’ve never been good at following rules. Someone says I can’t do something, I turn round and do it. And I thought, oh the writing world – it’s all so creative and freeform, right?

Wrong.

Now admittedly there are somethings that might not be advisable. Writing a bestialty scene in a book aimed at five-year-olds.  You can write it – but I doubt it’ll get published.

But there seems to be a surfeit of ‘rules’ floating around that many writers think are set in stone, when really all they are is something to consider.

And sadly, some new writers get the impression that they can NEVER do the things these ‘rules’ talk about. They adhere so rigidly to them they stifle any experimentation,  strangle their own style and voice and then wonder what went wrong.

So take this: Never use adverbs.

What never? Make an entire group of words out of work? What will they live on? Okay, you don’t want them every sentence. Not even every page. But sometimes an adverb will fit the bill perfectly. <—Like just there.  Saying ‘Never use adverbs’ is like saying ‘Never use herbs in cooking’.

As a guideline ( make sure every adverb carries its weight and is necessary) it’s fine. But it’s not a rule.

Show don’t tell

Most writers will have this engraved in their heart. Most of the time it’s right. Don’t tell the reader your character is angry. SHOW them. Have him chew his lips in frustration, bang his fists on the desk and kick the cat. However, there are times when it’s better to tell. Your characters are going on a long journey where nothing much happens. A short tell ‘Three weeks and a lot of saddle sores later…’ saves a lot of words, and boredom in the reader. Also, you know if your character has a stomach bug, I probably don’t need to be shown all the ins and outs of it. Just say ‘My arse was welded to the toilet for three days because I didn’t dare stand up’. Do NOT paint me a picture.

This one is somewhat akin to a saying of Hitchcock’s: Film is life with all the boring bits taken out. Books are the same. Don’t show the boring bits – tell quickly and get to the interesting stuff. This goes for diarrhea too, unless you’re writing for a very specific audience.

Never open with dialogue

The supposed reason behind this is this – If you start with dialogue, the reader will have no context of who is speaking. Why care about them if you don’t know them? Plus, it’s hard to do well.

Thing is with this reasoning, is that every single opening line has no context – because context means the surrounding text, and your first line is, well, first. An opening narrative line has no context either – it’s just a way to get you to read the next line, and the next, until you do have context.

From Rebecca: Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.

This isn’t dialogue but it has no context. We con’t know who is speaking, what ( or maybe even who)  Manderley is. We don’t know where or when we are.

There’s a heck of a lot of non-dialogue openers with no context, and they work just fine. There’s also a lot of published openers that are dialogue, and they work just fine too.

Of course, this is something you have to comsider when decideing an opening line – unattributed dialgoue can be confusing. But plenty of good writers start with dialogue. As with any opener – it will work if done well. Dialogue may be more difficult – unless you’re a whizz with it, or you happen to have a real zinger pop into your head. And if you never try dialogue at the start – well you’ll never get any better at it will you?

So, consider the effect of your opening line might be this guideline.

You must have tension on every page.

Now I can see where this one is coming from. You don’t want pages of empty dialogue – Hi Bill, want a coffee? Yeah, two sugars. How’s the kids? Same as always, yours? How about that game last night…..zzzzzzzzzzzz

But of course, sometimes, especially after a big scene full of unimaginable tension and conflict ( OMG THE WORLD JUST EXPLODED!) the reader ( and the characters) need a little time to reflect. Sometimes the pace of your book is so fast, you need to slow it, just a little. Not for long, but just to let the reader catch his breath. Too much tension, or putting tension into every little thing, means melodrama. I can’t find my socks! Woe is me! I can’t go on any more, goodbye cruel world!

So this consideration might be: Consider the pace of the surrounding pages ( or even paragraphs) How much tension is there already? Do you need more? Sure, pop it in ( not over lost socks though) Or does your reader need a little breather?

The rules ain’t really rules. None of them, except maybe the bestiality in the kids book.They’re guidelines. Write your first draft with little regard to them. Experiment. You can always change it later. And you might be surprised at what you end up with.

And the one rule ( okay guidleline )that trumps all others?

If it works, do it.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

So here we are again. To be honest I struggled to find anything to post! It’s been a busy month. However, this is from a WIP on the back burner, A Wish for the Dying.

Brimeld and Jaron have rescued a young girl from the beasts that have kidnapped her and kept her underground for…well no one knows how long at this point. The beasts used magic to make her forget who she was – or even how to speak the language. She’s slowly recovering, and learning how to speak. But the two cousins find she comes between them in ways they didn’t expect. Brimeld has noticed she loves to watch the horses, so has arranged for her first trip outside to be a ride.

The thaw was well on its way when Riga was well enough to ride. Jaron escorted her to the stables where Brimeld waited with the horses. His favourite, a bay stallion, was almost jumping from his skin in his eagerness for a run. He snorted and stamped and jigged, pulled at the rope that tethered him. Jaron’s bad-tempered chestnut was tied up far enough away that the two wouldn’t clash. Each had too much pent up energy on such a fine spring morning and they’d tear holes in each other if they could.

A stable boy brought an iron-grey gelding as Jaron and Riga came into the yard. Her odd eyes glowed with anticipation. She was dressed for riding in breeches, tunic and a warm fur-lined cloak, all coerced from Jaron’s younger sister. Brimeld wondered if she knew how to ride, but as Riga sat in the saddle and gathered the reins she was instantly at ease, as if she had spent her whole life on the back of a horse.

They rode out of the castle and into the city proper, through the vast Temple Square with its market, loud hawkers, throbbing crowds and pulsating noise, to the main gate. Riga absorbed every sight and sound, though she kept her horse close to Brimeld and Jaron and her hand was on the haft of her knife. All sign of anxiety disappeared as they rode through the gate and looked down on the rolling hills and farms that surrounded the city. Ganberg was built on an outcrop of rose pink granite and the road switched and curved away beneath them, winding down to fields still covered with snow and slush, though emerald green patches of grass shone out in places. Their horses puffed white clouds in the sharp wind.

Riga gasped and Brimeld saw his country’s beauty through new eyes. The sweep of the hills, the wind of the river as it rushed around the outcrop far below them. The wide sky above scrubbed clean of clouds, as fresh as if it had been made for them that morning.

Riga took a great breath, excited maybe to be outside the city at last. ‘So blue. So bright. I not knew was like this.’

‘What was?’ asked Jaron in puzzlement, but Brimeld knew. She was free.

She kept her gaze on the sky. ‘Sky, sun, wind, world. No remember them.’

Jaron and Brimeld exchanged a look over her head that she didn’t see, full of shocked pity. Jaron recovered from his speechlessness first. ‘Where would you like to ride today?’

Riga laughed, a sound Brimeld had begun to think he might never hear. A laugh of pure, undiluted pleasure. She laughed, it seemed to him, because the sky was blue, the sun was bright, the wind was keen. Because she was free and all the world seemed laid at her feet. She was innocent of any remembrance that might colour her feeling, her delight clean and fresh.

‘Everywhere,’ she said, and caught them by surprise. She kicked her horse into a canter, and deftly steered around the others on the road. Her hair and cloak streamed behind her. Brimeld laughed too, and Jaron, and they kicked their horses after her, glad themselves to be free of the castle again after the long winter.

She rode recklessly and though their horses were larger and faster, the route she chose hindered them. She guided the grey through small gaps in the throng they couldn’t manage, until they reached the bottom of the switchback. She turned from the road and urged the horse over a hedge Brimeld would have sworn the horse couldn’t jump. Yet it did, and Jaron and Brimeld goaded their horses forward, racing now, a silent challenge to each other to catch her.

She rode as though the Bitter Dark beckoned and she could outrun it, as though everything would be blown from her mind by the speed of her wild chase. They caught her in the end but only because she pulled up her horse on top of a knoll that over looked the river. The horse blew and steamed in the cold. Riga’s hair billowed in the wind and traced across her face in waves. She looked half-wild and inescapably free.

Brimeld slowed his horse at the foot of the knoll and Jaron pulled in his own mount beside him.

‘Gods, Brimeld, look at her.’ Jaron’s face was full of a stunned admiration. ‘I swear, I’d do anything to have her mine. She has you too, cousin, doesn’t she?’

Brimeld turned, his mind foggy as though he woke from a spell. Jaron looked at him with a crafty expression that Brimeld didn’t recognise. Jaron was usually too blunt for slyness. ‘I think I’ve the answer to my father’s punishment. That’s the one girl.’

Brimeld stomach filled with a cold, sick dread. Jaron slid his eyes towards Brimeld again. ‘You’ve no chance at her. No chance at all.’

It was true. Jaron always got what, who, he wanted. Brimeld wouldn’t blame her. Jaron was bolder, more handsome, more charming, and heir to the throne. What woman would take him over Jaron? Brimeld clenched his lips shut, and Jaron gave him a self-satisfied grin.

Riga nudged her horse down from the knoll. Her milky eyes flamed as though every emotion was scoured from her with the recklessness of her ride and she was an empty shell waiting to be filled with new experience. She looked warily from one to the other, a worried frown puckering the skin on her forehead. ‘Should not have?’

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ Jaron said with his most charming smile. ‘Let’s ride back more slowly though, so we can talk.’

He led her back towards the road along a narrow track and forced Brimeld to ride behind, left to contemplate his inadequacies. Jaron tried to coax another smile from her, but she said nothing, just rode with a look on her face as though she’d had some great revelation.

They dismounted in the stable yard and on impulse Brimeld held the reins of the grey to her. She looked up at him questioningly as she took them.

‘A gift,’ he said. Jaron’s face clouded, as though he kicked himself for not having thought of that himself.

‘Gift?’

‘He’s yours, for you to ride when you wish. Whenever you want to see the blue of the sky.’

She looked at the reins in her hand as though they were the greatest treasure he could have given her. ‘Nothing to gift back,’ she said, her eyes worried.

He shrugged. ‘If to ride gives you pleasure, that’s gift enough.’ A heated flush crept up his neck and he left to try to untangle his thoughts.

“Links to other Excerpt Monday writers
Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

So I finally got round to it! I decided to go for the epic feel – I may yet do a lighter version, as and when I can find some pictures of exploding turnips

Anyway, until I can figure out how to embed the video on my damn blog, here it is.

Not only have I just returned from the most fabulous week away in Marrkech ( staying here, somewhere I can most heartily recommend. It is even better than it looks). Not only did I have a splendid idea for a new book while trekking in the Atlas Mountains. Not only did I suffer an unexplained seizure on the return flight – tests and more tests ensue, but fingers crossed it was just a bug, so no repeat performances – but also!

The blurb editor has once again managed to gather something quite wonderful from the incoherency that I submitted Yes, I have my finalised blurb (and release date – 12th January)

Love Is My Sin

Break his oath, he loses his soul. Keep it—and he loses his heart.

Oathcursed, Book Two

Devastated crops force regent Lord Hunter to do the one thing he always swore he’d never do: form an alliance with the neighboring tribal kingdom. The oath to offer his beloved foster son in marriage, however, begins digging holes in his heart the moment he meets the intended bride. He can’t afford to fall in love with the alluring Reethan Chieftain, not if he’s to keep his oath—and his soul—intact.

Nerinna has always used her charms to manipulate her tribal chiefs, as tradition demands. But Lord Hunter’s honest, passionate nature intrigues her like no other man’s has before, challenging her cynical notions. Her wiles have no effect on him. In fact, her every action only seems to alienate him more.

Although their desire hangs thick and heavy in the air, Hunter keeps to the letter of his oath—until the god of justice decrees that Hunter must die. Nerinna knows of only one way to save him: offer herself in exchange. It’s a sacrifice Hunter can’t allow her to make, but to defy the priest means he must choose a side.

With his god—or against him.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

And today, I’m sharing something a little different, for me anyway. It’s not fantasy, it’s an historical romance, and still very much a work in progress. With pirates! Tentatively titled The Wicked Lady

Cecily. She had to remember she was Cecily today. A certain prim way of walking, a shy look from under her lashes and a soft, quiet voice with a hint of uncertainty to it. She had to remember to try and blush every time a man looked at her.

It took some effort, because Cecily was all the things Catherine Harcourt wasn’t, but it got easier with practice. Catherine strolled along Broad Street in Bridgetown, and tried not to sweat too much in all the layers of clothing she had to wear while being Cecily. The unfamiliar weight of the wig made her head itch. A faint hint of wind cooled her skin and brought the tang of the sea with it. God knew she’d rather be out there sailing, cool as a breeze in a shirt and breeches with the wind in her hair.

Not long now though, and she’d leave Barbados and both Catherine’s and the imaginary Cecily’s lives behind her. Not long and she’d finally be free of this god-cursed island that had plagued her since her arrival. Just one or two more things to do….

She wandered down towards the harbour, intent on finding her mark. Poor Lieutenant Matthew Fincher. Such a dear man, and as gullible as they came. Like the rest of them here. Not half as intelligent as pigs most of them, and less than an ounce of red blood between the lot, for all their bluster.

A new ship had just docked, and Matthew stood on the jetty to meet it. She could tell him even from this distance, with his sharp, quick movements and shock of dark hair. The ship had finished unloading and her crew came ashore. The ratings good-naturedly bantered with each other and cat-calls echoed around the harbour as they made straight for the more disreputable parts of town. It was a long journey from England to Barbados, and most newly-arrived crew had a powerful thirst when they arrived. For beer and other things.

She paid them no attention and manoeuvred her way through a small crowd of giggling girls towards Matthew. Always the same when a new ship came in. The girls would come down and size up the officers, see if they could find themselves a good catch. Catherine despaired of her own gender sometimes. They couldn’t see that life without a husband was so much freer!

A few officers came ashore, but to little interest from the girls. Too old, or too fat or too ugly, though one or two of the girls would do well even to catch one of these. Finally the Lieutenant who commanded the ship walked down the gangplank and Matthew strode forwards to meet him with a clap on his shoulder. Now this one was a much better prospect.

Two women behind her twittered as he strode onto the jetty before they hurried to ‘accidentally’ meet him. Cecily had to admit he looked very dashing. Not only tall but broad across the shoulders with a chest that made her wonder what he looked like with his shirt off. His hair was a sun-bleached blond under his hat, worn long and tied back, showing a strong face. But it was the way he walked that held her attention. Bold and purposeful but with a hint of arrogant swagger. She smiled as the two women intercepted him with a flutter of fans and a bob of skirts. Imbeciles.

The new Lieutenant smiled at them as though the blatant adulation was only his due and kissed hands with a flourish and a devilish grin. As Catherine got closer, she could see why the girls were so excited. He was really rather handsome, in a bold, rough kind of way. Not his face as such, though that was pleasing enough, but the way he held himself, as though all the world should bow to him. The sheer confidence that radiated from him was very attractive.

Catherine stopped a moment to gather her thoughts. She’d been cultivating Matthew for weeks now, and this must be the friend he kept talking of, the one who had Matthew so excited about his coming. What was his name? Ambury wasn’t it? Maybe the plan should change a little. After all, cheating Matthew would be like kicking a puppy, an especially stupid and adoring one. This new Lieutenant looked much more to her liking. More of a challenge to start with. And the arrogance, she could really use arrogance like that. His first command Matthew had said, and his first time in the Caribbean with a crew just as green as to the state of play. Young, single, and no doubt pent up after several months aboard, which is why the girls would crowd round him, though he’d get nowhere with these women without a wedding. It’d be a shame to waste a body like that, too. She could do a lot to take him down a peg or two, and enjoy herself while she did it.

Yes, Lieutenant Ambury might do very well for what she had in mind. Time for demure little Cecily to go back in her box. This was a job for Catherine.

***

Lieutenant Paul Ambury was thrilled to be here, finally. At last, him and Matthew doing what they’d always dreamed of, catching pirates, and doing it together. He kissed the hand of some pretty young thing that Matthew introduced, favoured her with a slow smile and an intense look and laughed inwardly at the flush that crept up her neck.

From all that Matthew had written, Barbados was a very different affair to England and that thought thrilled him just as much.

‘Ladies, if you’d be so kind?’ Matthew said as he made a path through them. ‘Let the poor lad get his land legs at least!’

Paul winked at the little blonde as they passed and for a moment he thought she might faint. Barbados was looking as though it might turn out very well already. He suppressed a laugh and followed Matthew.

Once they were out of earshot, Matthew clapped him on the back. ‘It’s good to see you, finally. Sorry about the harpies. But a new arrival, single and headed for promotion – you’ll be getting a fair bit of that.’

Paul grinned at him. ‘I expect I’ll cope. But it’s been a long voyage. I don’t need all these highborn women simpering at me. What I need is a good drink and some bad women.’

Matthew laughed. ‘I know just the place!’

They turned a corner and Matthew stopped so suddenly Paul almost ran into him.

‘Cecily!’ Matthew called, and a lady further up the street half-turned and waved.

‘Can’t stop,’ she called back. ‘Lady Catherine has me on an errand.’

She hurried off with her head down, prim and proper. Matthew sighed right up from his boots. ‘That, Paul, is the girl I hope to marry.’

‘Marry? You, the second worst rake in the county?’

Matthew snorted with laughter. ‘Second after you, yes. And yes, marry.’

‘Good God man, has the heat turned your head?’

Matthew turned down a side-alley. ‘No, not the heat. You know my father’s always on about making a good match. Having the Atlantic between us only means he does it by letter now. And, almost I tire of all this carousing. Cecily is the sweetest, most innocent thing you can imagine, she’d blush if a man even looks at her. I want to see if she blushes all over. The timid ones are always the she-bears in bed!’ He flashed Paul a grin. ‘Besides, she’s got fabulous tits.’

Matthew stopped outside a discrete doorway set into a wall. ‘And here, my dear chap, we have the magnificent Mrs Quinn’s, an establishment where the brandy is excellent, the ladies, if not of class, at least cultured. And with filthy minds.’

‘Just what I need after that long with only the smell of the Bosun to lull me to sleep. Lead on Macduff.’

Matthew laughed again. ‘You’ve been watching too many plays.’

‘Watching too many actresses,’ Paul said with a wink, and Matthew led them in.

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

So here I am, knee deep in edits for Love Is My Sin. I’m in heaven and hell at the same time.

The hell is going through the story ( again) and wondering why I thought it was a good idea to sub this. I think there’s a whole one page with no red on it. Obviously I’m crap, right? I can’t seem to get over my obsession with typing colloquially ( using that instead of who is my biggest problem by the looks of it). A couple of scenes I seem to have lost concentration and passived the whassname out of them. How did I miss that before I subbed? Why did I ever think I could write? Will I manage to finish this before my eyes start bleeding?

But then, then we get to the heaven part. Cos my editor rocks ( Hi Deb!) and I can see just how much better she is making my baby. She’s spotted things that my trusty betas ( no matter how vicious) have missed. Her additions and comments have , and continue, to tighten the whole thing. I’m learning so much here, as I did on the edits for Ilfayne’s Bane. It’s going to be sooo much better when it’s done. And I learned a new thing too ( parallel construction. I had to look it up mind. Damn those trendy Seventies teaching methods where they didn’t both with grammar in case it ’stifled the little darling’s creativity’).

So the heaven outweighs the hell. Or it will right up until I have to do the blurb and tagline…which may well melt my brain. Or what’s left of it.

Oh, and to pimp a good book….Jinxed by Inez Kelley has , quite rightly, been getting rave reviews. If you like it steamy, this could be right up your alley.

Excerpt from Ilfayne’s Bane

Hilde pushed the door open a crack. It took a moment before her eyes adjusted to the brighter light, and then she saw a windowless octagonal room with abundant flickering torches and a spiral rune in the centre of the floor. On the rune was a heap of grubby red. She opened the door wider and stared at the ceiling, which flickered with colour and half-seen images.

The heap moaned. It was a man. She put her back to the wall and drew her knife.

He sat up and dislodged the large, stained yet still crimson cloak. With an almighty groan, he patted himself all over as if to check he was all there. Jet black hair fell over his face and shoulders. The man with the strange accent? Maybe. A small seed of suspicion wormed its way to her notice. The flaming face of the beast. No, it could not be. She was not about to start believing in tales.

Apparently satisfied all was in order, he got to his feet with a groan. He was flamboyantly dressed, with a red waistcoat over a voluminous white shirt, stained leather breeches, and a belt slung at a rakish angle across his hips. Various ornaments, tassels and bangles quivered and clinked as he moved. Trinkets hung from his waistcoat on coloured threads. They sparkled and glittered in the torchlight, with all manner of gemstones caught in wire mesh and filigree. The bangles were of even finer work. The one that caught her eye, a glimmering gold ivy, curled and climbed his arm, the leaves the deep green of jade. He picked up a battered hat with a round crown, checked the jaunty red feather on it and put it on.

She would not have called him handsome, exactly. He looked nothing like any other man she had seen. Striking in a dishevelled kind of way, with tanned skin and eyes so dark as to be black, now rather unfocussed as he tried to peer around him like a ten-pint drunk. A gash across his forehead dripped blood down one cheek. His face had few lines, and his hair and neatly trimmed little beard held no grey, so she could not tell his age. It could be anywhere between thirty and fifty.

He spotted Hilde, grinned a wolfish sort of grin and held out his hand. “Hello, I seem a bit lost. Do you know where we are?” A soft voice, with a syrupy accent she had not heard before.

She took another step back, but he was the first man she had ever met who did not make the sign of Kyr’s Ward when he saw her eyes, and that decided her.

“No,” she said. He squinted at her and swayed so hard he nearly fell. Anyone that concussed should be no threat. She lowered the knife. “Ten minutes ago I was on the plains of the nomads. So were you, I think. Er, you’re bleeding quite badly.”

He held his hand to his head and raised his eyebrows at the blood on his fingers.

“How did that happen?” He fished in a pocket, drew out a grubby cloth and mopped up the blood. “Are you all right? Is any of that blood yours?”
She looked down. The bruises on her arms had faded to a deep bluish-yellow and her face still felt swollen. Her dress was ripped and covered in blood, though at least her shoulder was no longer bleeding. “Only about half.”

She slid down a wall, her legs unable to hold her. Wherever she was, this man was no threat, at least at the moment. Besides, he and his friend had saved her from the beast. The beast that knew her name.

“I don’t know where I came from.” He frowned, and more blood dripped into his eye. He wiped it away absently. “I appeared about ten feet up in the air. The fall seems to have made me a little groggy. Have you any idea where here is?”
A good question, one she had been about to ask him. She stood up and held out the pendant at arms length. “You used this, there was a big flash, and then we were here. Where’s your friend?” She was quite glad the soldier was not here, the way he had loomed over her in the dark.

The man took the pendant and ran his thumb over it. “Friend?”
“The big soldier. He was with you.”

“No idea.”

He steadied the moonstone with his left arm, before now hidden under his cloak. The arm was there but the hand was missing. A one-handed wizard. Foul-tempered and given to melting eyeballs.

Ilfayne.

He did not look anything like she had imagined a wizard to be. She had expected him to look older, for a start—he was said to be older than the Kingdom of Ganheim. This befuddled man looked more like a peacock. One of the rich merchant’s sons or idle nobles who occasionally passed through her village and did little other than preen themselves, drink, gamble and try to talk the girls into bed.

Yet he had only one hand, and there had been that flash of fire on the beast’s face. He did not seem too foul-tempered—the soldier had sounded far angrier—but then again he was addled from the blow to his head. With luck, he had forgotten how to melt eyeballs along with everything else.

So, to kick it off, your hosts:

Mel/Alexia Reed, Urban Fantasy (R)
and
Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG)

Joining us this week:

AJ O’Donovan, Poetry (PG13)
Stephanie Draven, Paranormal Romance (PG 13)
Heather S.Ingemar, Dark Fantasy/Poetry (PG13)
Babette James, Fantasy Romance (PG 13)
Cynthia Justlin, Romantic Suspense (PG 13)
Kaige, Historical Romance (PG 13)
Julia Knight, Fantasy Romance (PG13)
Ansha Kotyk, Middle Grade Adventure (PG13)
Adelle Laudan, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Jeannie Lin, Historical Romance (PG 13)
RF Long, YA Paranormal (PG13)
Caitlynn Lowe, Epic Fantasy (PG13)
Shawntelle Madison, Paranormal Romance (PG 13)
Crista McHugh, Contemporary Erotic Romance (PG 13)
Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG)
Leigh Royals, Historical Romance (PG 13)
Megan S., Paranormal (PG13)
Dara Sorensen, Historical Paranormal (PG 13)
Bethanne Strasser, Historical Romance (PG13)

Melissa Aires, Futuristic Romance (R)
Melissa Blue, Contemporary Romance (R)
Jax Cassidy, Contemporary (R)
Christina DeLorenzo, Furturistic Sci-Fi (R)
Maya Doyle, Parnormal Romance (R)
Ginny Glass, Paranormal (R)
Amber Green, Romantic Suspense (R)
Cate Hart, Paranormal YA (R)
Kinsey W. Holley, Erotic Romance (R)
Ali Katz, Erotic Paranormal Romance (R)
Aislinn Kerry, Fantasy (R)
Inez Kelly, Fantasy Romance (R)
Cherrie Lynn, Contemporary Erotic Romance (R)
Mel/Alexia Reed, Urban Fantasy (R)
Rebecca Savage, Romantic Suspense (R)
Fae Sutherland, Contemporary Erotic Romance (R)

Stephanie Adkins, Paranormal Erotic Romance (NC 17)
Evie Byrne, Erotic Historical Romance (NC17)
Ella Drake, Erotic Contemporary (NC17)
Dawn Montgomery, Erotic Paranormal Romance (NC17)
Lauren Murphy, Erotic Romance (NC 17)
Kim Knox, Erotic Paranormal Romance (NC17)
Emily Ryan-Davis, Historical Western Romance (NC17)
Kirsten Saell, Erotic Fantasy Romance (NC 17)
Jeanne St. James, Contemporary Romance (NC 17)

So, you can see which one won the poll!

Anyway, after a week of chewing my lip so as not to tell anyone before the contract was signed…

I signed!

Expect men falling for unobtainable women (again), a sly priest, a woman prepared to sleep with anyone to get what she wants, the occasional judicious fireball, a poison that makes wizards go *poof* in a puff of smoke, and last but not least a religious war.

Excuse me while I burst with excitement

*burst*