Redemption.

It’s what so many books are all about. It’s one of the oldest and best-known tropes in all fiction, let alone romance. So I was a bit surprised when a Goodreads review of Erotic Amusements suggested that one of the characters, Rocky, was too flawed and had too shady a past to deserve a happy ending.

I thought, really? Now, Rocky is no angel, except maybe one of the Hell’s variety, seeing as how he’s a biker and all that. He was drafted into the service of the local Mr Big as an enforcer during his unhappy and isolated youth, and found himself unable to escape even when he wanted to – having exchanged one kind of vulnerability for another. This is something that happens to people. Most of the time, the people it happens to end up dead or in jail or escalating the severity of their crimes.

Rocky, more unusually, makes the decision to reject his criminal lifestyle. He does this knowing full well that he will be a marked man for the rest of his life. He does it for love.

The book ends before I can show Rocky making amends for his past – but he’s the kind of man that would. He’s the kind of man who’ll end up running a weekend class in motorcycle maintenance for the local disaffected youth. He’ll also probably go around the schools with a cautionary tale of how easy it is to get involved with the wrong crowd.  He’ll know that there is very little he can do to atone for his sins on a personal level – though he’ll try. But, in the end, the best he can do is to live a good life.

Again, this is something that happens in reality and whenever I hear about it, it makes the world look sunnier for a moment. Redemption, forgiveness, atonement – what kind of place would we be living in without them?

It wouldn’t be a happy ever after, I think.

On a more trivial level, Rocky looks a bit like this:

I’d give him a happy ending…

It’s available on Amazon here – but very difficult to find by searching, I’m rather alarmed to find. Also – it’s my cheapest novel-length work by far…

The day has come! After months of polishing and perfecting, the manuscript I sent off to Carina Press with a wry shrug and a ‘might as well give it a whirl’ is available.

In Goldsands, there are many amusements to be had for those willing to give in to their deepest desires…

The seaside resort town of Goldsands is a place of dreamers and transients who wash in and out like the tide. But its picture-postcard prettiness conceals some sinister realities. Coldhearted mogul Charles Cordwainer owns most of the local businesses, both legitimate and illicit, and more than a few of its residents.

Michelle, Cordwainer’s submissive: despite her loyalty, he plans to turn her over to another man. Flipp, the new girl in town: she has a dark past and a penchant for bondage. Rocky, Cordwainer’s right-hand man: a sexy biker with eyes for Flipp. Laura, Goldsands’s carnival queen: an über-bitch with her sights fixed on Rocky.

Secrets, betrayals, lovers all become intertwined—and when someone starts digging up the dirt on Cordwainer’s empire, nothing will ever be the same…

It’s available from the Carina website or AllRomance or Amazon Kindle store.

Furthermore, a copy is available to win at Erotica For All.

I’ll be chatting at the Carina blog tomorrow,  and there will also be some Twitter and facebook fun later on in the evening.

Thanks to everyone at Carina and all the great friends who kept the faith even when I had none. I was so convinced this would get the big E that I even did something I’ve never done before or since – I simultaneously subbed it elsewhere. Carina came in with the first offer, though, and I’m delighted that they did. My experience with them has been one hundred percent positive and I can’t wait to publish my next book with them in January 2012.

Publication day tomorrow! I’ll have a special separate post for that, but just for tonight I need to introduce you to my final two main characters, Rocky and Laura. Here’s a scene that’s hinted at in the book, but it takes place earlier.

Laura pressed her bottom into the bark of the tree and looked above her where the moon was intermittently visible between the swaying branches. He was already ten minutes late. Typical Rocky. He’d never dream of calling to say he was delayed either.

“Ignorant bastard,” she said to herself, but she smiled as the words twisted her lips and tightened the silken cord she’d been wrapping around her hands to pass the time. At that moment, a faint sound, almost like the keen of a mosquito at first, caused her to prick up her ears. His bike. Still a long way down the wooded track as yet, but on the way. Heading for her.

The buzz deepened to a roar, then a headlight flooded the clearing, leaves skirling about in the machine’s wake. He stopped. There was a lull, then she heard him call.

“Laura?”

She didn’t answer, holding her breath, pulling taut the rope.

“Don’t play this game again. Where are you?”

Come and find me.

“Okay, I’ve got work to do. I’ll get off then.”

“Oh, don’t!” He drew the plea from her and immediately she heard his biker boots scrunching towards her. She edged around the tree, eluding him, but he soon worked out her whereabouts.

She had the advantage of being able to see him, though, and she used it. She darted out and pushed him up against the tree, holding him in place with a hand around his throat.

“Fuck’s sake, Laura, what’s this?” His voice was hoarse and he sounded pissed off, but his chest was heaving, heart beating fast under that leather.

“You’re always the one in control, Rocky. I thought it would be fun to reverse roles for once. No, don’t move. Stay right there.”

She shoved her hand harder into his neck, pressing her fingernails into that inflexible flesh.

“If you must.” His whisper was resigned.

“Yes, Rocky, yes, I must. Now be a good boy and put your hands over your head for me.”

He complied wearily. She took her rope and began to wind.

After breaking last week to bring you news of the legendary Seducing the Myth anthology (now available to buy here and here among other places) I’m back to gearing up for next week’s release of Erotic Amusements.

Today I’d like to introduce you to a pivotal character in the story, the enigmatic Flipp, who appears from nowhere and takes an informal cash-in-hand job at Charles Cordwainer’s amusement arcade. Here’s a little snippet of her journey to Goldsands, before the novel opens…

How many CCTV cameras could one station forecourt have? Flipp dodged along the path, shadow boxing an invisible enemy, pulling her hood further over her new hairdo. Surely she wouldn’t be recognised looking like this anyway?

Entering the ticket office, she jammed the cheap plastic sunglasses she’d bought at the pound shop higher up her nose and studied the machines. If possible, she didn’t want to approach the man behind the desk. This needed to be done as inconspicuously, as anonymously as possible.

She cast a panicked eye over the machine. Where would she go? Where was the furthest place she could afford? The word ‘Goldsands’ on the button at the bottom of the first column caught her eye and she called to memory a bucket and spade holiday with her family. How old had she been? Eight? Nine? There had been a really nice ice-cream shop on the seafront and they’d watched the Carnival parade and laughed and laughed at a bus tricked out like her favourite cartoon dog. Yeah, Goldsands. That would do.

In her purse, she had five hundred quid in ten pound notes. It would only just be enough to pay a month’s deposit on a bedsit in the worst part of town. She’d have to maybe stay in a bus shelter or a squat until she got a job. Sleep on the beach even. But there would be loads of jobs in a place like Goldsands – chambermaids, bar staff, holiday camp drudges.

She fed the money into the slot and smiled for the first time in…when? She couldn’t remember the last time.

Out on the platform, she tried to melt into the shadows, attracting the minimum of attention. She could have cried with relief when the train snaked into the station, her noisy, dirty saviour.

She had no magazine to read, no food, no iPod to listen to, but she had what she needed – distance, growing with every minute, taking her away. She looked out at the fields of cows and passing pylons and watched, transfixed, until that first glimpse of blue sea raised her hopes. Hopes. She had them again.

Three weeks before the release of Erotic Amusements, I have another pair of characters for you to meet.

Charles Cordwainer rules the black economy of Goldsands from his office above the pier amusement arcade. Michelle is his submissive, a woman he initially hired to run one of his cheap hotels before luring her away from her husband. When we meet them in the book, their dynamic is long-established, but here is a scene from a little earlier in their relationship.

“I saw how your eyes lit up,” he said, “when I mentioned the idea of another man watching us. Watching you. Have you ever done that kind of thing before?”

She bent her head over the wine glass, suddenly ashamed at being caught out in yet another lurid fantasy. Was she to have no secrets from this man? Was there a neon sign on her forehead flashing the words CHEAP WHORE whenever she crossed his path?

“What’s the matter? Reinvented yourself as a coy virgin? Come on, Michelle. You can’t pull that one with me.”

“I’ve never done anything like that.” The words came out as a sulky mutter. “You know what he was like. Strictly five minutes in the missionary every Saturday night.”

“How did you stand it? With your…speciality tastes?”

“Didn’t know I had those tastes, did I? Until you…”

“Well, okay, but to stick to the point at hand. Would you do it? If I rang somebody up right now and invited them over to watch a beautiful slut get fucked, would you leave? Or would you stay?”

“I don’t know. Honestly. I really don’t know.” But a part of her did – the part that was dampening between her thighs.

“You don’t know?” He narrowed his eyes and she looked away, scared of giving him the cue he needed, equally scared of not giving it.

He looked around the miserable boarding house room, the cabbage rose pattern of the wallpaper, the slightly sticky carpet, the prim and proper bed. Then he took out his mobile phone and keyed in a number.

“Trewin,” he said. “I’ve got a proposition you might find interesting.”

Michelle looked up, unable to suppress a gasp. Cordwainer put  his hand over the mouthpiece.

“As for you,” he said. “Strip.”

The die was cast. She didn’t need to worry about decisions any more. She stood up and started unbuttoning her shirt.

Further information and a buy link can be found at NetGalley, where it is now available for members to request a free advance review copy.

It’s now under a month until the release of my Carina Press novel Erotic Amusements – I’ve been pondering a number of pre-promotional gambits, most of which turned out to be very complicated and/or time-consuming.

Instead I’ve decided to write a few short pieces during the run-up to release, introducing the principal characters. Before I get set, here’s the blurb:

In Goldsands, there are many amusements to be had for those willing to give in to their deepest desires…

The seaside resort town of Goldsands is a place of dreamers and transients who wash in and out like the tide. But its picture-postcard prettiness conceals some sinister realities. Coldhearted mogul Charles Cordwainer owns most of the local businesses, both legitimate and illicit, and more than a few of its residents.

Michelle, Cordwainer’s submissive: despite her loyalty, he plans to turn her over to another man. Flipp, the new girl in town: she has a dark past and a penchant for bondage. Rocky, Cordwainer’s right-hand man: a sexy biker with eyes for Flipp. Laura, Goldsands’s carnival queen: an über-bitch with her sights fixed on Rocky.

Secrets, betrayals, lovers all become intertwined—and when someone starts digging up the dirt on Cordwainer’s empire, nothing will ever be the same…

This little piece introduces local newspaper reporter, Jeremy Weill.

Jeremy

There’s a reason I always volunteer to cover the Goldsands Business Woman of the Year Awards. I’d be the joke of the office if I ever confessed, but I have the hots for Barbara Matravers. There, I’ve said it. Now I’ll have to rip the hard disk from this machine and bury it twenty feet deep below the pier.

“Major Barbara!” they’d all deride. “Goldsands’ answer to Mrs Thatcher, with a direct genealogical descent from Attila the Hun?”

And I’d say, “Yeah. That’s her.”

I don’t know what it is about her. Perhaps the way she carries her handbag, as if she’s about to lob it at you, Molotov-Cocktail-style, if you speak a word out of turn. Perhaps the severe hairline and the perpetually surprised-looking eyebrows. Perhaps the way she calls me ‘young man’. Actually, yes, it’s that. It’s the way she calls me ‘young man’.

She calls me it again today, when I ask her for a quote about this year’s winner.

“The marvellous thing about Judy, young man, is her failure to let anything – recession, family commitments, enormously difficult conditions within her industry, anything – deter her. She’s an example to us all. I want that quoted in full, young man.”

“Of course, Mrs Matravers,” I assure her, a pleasant thrill running down the length of my nape. “That’s a marvellous ensemble you’re wearing – would you care to tell our readers the secret of your style.”

She glares at me. I quail. Such a lovely quail. I think she’s wearing a girdle. Oh God, I need to get back to my car.

“I’ve spoken to you before about this frivolous line of questioning, young man.”

“I don’t mind if you speak to me again.”

“Well I do. Interview terminated.”

Interview terminated, I whisper to myself back in the car park. Kindly present yourself in my office after work, young man and…mmm. I love my job.