Now for something sweet

Welcome to the Hump Day Hook blog hop for October 23rd! This is where you can find intriguing excerpts from published or in-progress works written by amazing writers who are eager to share their vision.

Some of you may know about the recent controversial culling of books from certain on-line retail bookstores due to "questionable" content. Unfortunately for me, one of my books was pulled for no reason either I or my publisher can understand.

Apparently we have no recourse, but must wait until the powers that be decided that the book in question, Cult of the Black Virgin, is in fact not subversive, obscene, illegal or otherwise a threat to morality.

Today, I thought I'd change the subject–and the tone–of my postings by sharing something from my sweet romance, Just Desserts. This is the story of Jackie, a Seattle student nurse, who falls for Sam, a former nightclub owner. She thinks she's not sophisticated enough for him, but as they get to know each other, things begin to change...

Here's the excerpt:

Of course it was partly his own fault Sam had known so few sane women, he admitted to himself. The world of nightclubs didn’t attract the most stable personalities.
And why have I always been drawn to the craziest ones?
Jackie was different. She was certainly not crazy. Nor was she vain. And furthermore, she was articulate, with a charming sense of playfulness.
He also liked that she never asked anything of him. She was real, not the least bit pretentious, and seemed to accept him for what he was. This meant he could relax around her.
She wasn’t nosey and, best of all, she didn’t talk too much. She seemed to know when silence was preferable to talking just for the sake of talking. Sam appreciated this most rare of female traits. He’d finally found a woman who didn’t fill every second of empty space with inane monologue.

Make sure to hop to the other writers participating in the Hump Day Hook blog hop.
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Is "cult" a dirty word?

Saturday, October 19, 2013.

Welcome to Week 21 of My Sexy Saturday blog hop. This is where authors, both aspiring and published, post either 7 words, 7 sentences, or 7 paragraphs of their work.

This week, I have a little grudge to confess. One of my erotic romances has been pulled by certain on-line retailers for questionable content. So I'm going to post 7 paragraphs from the "naughty" work in question. You decide if it's "pushing the boundaries...."

Cult of the Black Virgin is about an American woman, Joanna, who travels to France. There, she learns about the Cult of the Virgin popular during the Middle Ages. In this scene, she's looking at the wooden figure of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour as historians explain the significance of Black Virgins. At the same time, she's got one eye on Luc.

Here's the excerpt:


“There’s something else,” Luc said. “Some people hold the idea that the Black Virgins, as they’re called in France, are either connected to, or depictions of, Mary Magdalene. Despite being called virgins, these figures symbolize qualities that are the antitheses of those represented by the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary signifies the female virtues of purity and submissiveness, but Black Virgins signify female power.”

Ellen had stopped nodding. The group was silent.

Jo felt a flush of heat rise over her chest and up into her face. She saw that Luc was looking at her, again, and she quickly looked away. As she felt herself growing even warmer in the close air of the room, she turned her attention back to Thomas, who supported Luc’s statement by saying, “Yes, and although this idea has been suppressed by the Catholic church in recent centuries, today the Black Madonnas are believed by many scholars to symbolize a dark, dangerous, subversive female force.”

Jo began to tingle at the idea. She’d always known it wasn’t really the devil causing her body to thrum every time she thought of Luc. It was her self. Nothing or no one else was to blame. She was her own instrument of destruction. And pleasure.

Excited by this new knowledge, she embraced the idea that her own sexuality, which she shared with other women, many of whom were long dead, was seen as a threatening force. The idea made her feel strong. It also vindicated her.

She looked up at Luc, who was now smiling at the ceiling. What she’d just learned somehow made her desire for him more legitimate. She was a part of some force larger and older than her self. A member of a cult-like group of women whose very nature threatened the idea of civilization. The Cult of the Black Virgin. And, like them, she was protected by a mother figure who was not only forgiving, but who would actually enable her to sin without fear of consequence.

A slight smile spread across her face and stayed on her lips as she followed Luc through the church’s narrow doorway with a little sway in her hips.

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Longing....

 October 16, 2013

Welcome to my second post for the Hump Day Hook blog hop!

This is a bog hop for new and established writers to share bits and pieces of their work. It might be a work in progress, a new release, or an old stand-by, but each posting offers a little taste that might spur you to seek out more.

This week I've chosen a paragraph from the third book in my Black Virgin Trilogy. Gift of the Black Virgin sees Joanna travelling to France to begin a new life with her lover. But before they can marry a tragic accident causes Luc to withdraw. This snippet show Joanna longing for his attention.
Of course she'll eventually get it--but until he's ready she suffers...



 Nights were the worst. Laying beside him, and not being able to make love to him, was torture. Silently, they would get into bed, then he would take her gently in his arms, kiss her as if she were a child, and pass out cold. Sleepless with longing and anxiety, all she could do was feel him, revel in the warmth of his big, hard body, no less powerful in sleep. She would bury her face in his chest, or against his back, and breathe him in, relishing the smell of his skin through the T-shirt he insisted on wearing. He left his shorts on too, a sign that she was to respect his privacy. Even his tattoo was covered. The black and white Yin and Yang on his bicep had come to symbolize the perfect union she felt she shared with him--and now it was withheld from her. It was as if his very self was withheld from her.

Make sure to check out the other bloggers participating in Hump Day Hook by clicking on the following link:
Hump Day Hook Blog Hop.

Have fun!
Serena Janes
Tweet me at @serena_janes
Visit my website at http://www.serenajanes.com
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Yin and Yang

Welcome to My Sexy Saturday for October 12th! This is a Blog Hop where writers can share 7 words, 7 sentences, or 7 paragraphs of titillating tidbits of either published or in-progress works.

This week I offer a snippet from the second novel in my Black Virgin Trilogy, called Revenge of the Black Virgin. This story was influenced by my travels through France, Spain and Morocco, and I've tried to capture the flavours of each culture as my story unfolds.

Joanna and Luc have suffered a months' long separation. He was left behind in France after she was forced to return to the States. Many difficult decisions later, they are reunited in Canada, where Joanna realizes the depth of her bond to her lover.

The sheet had slipped down around Luc's chest and Jo noted the fineness of his strong shoulders, sharper now that he’d lost some weight. The Yin and Yang tattoo on his bicep seemed to pulse with meaning in the semi-dark. Now she knew its significance. She didn’t have to ask him, but intuited, somehow, that what was important to him was the very harmony—sexual and spiritual—that the two of them shared. A continent and an ocean couldn’t weaken their bond. The Black Virgin was right.
Jo knew that once she tasted the thrill of giving herself over to her lover, completely—to fuse with him, to become a part of him—she could never settle for anything less.

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My tribute to Alice Munro

Of course I was thrilled to hear this morning that Canadian writer Alice Munro has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I, like many Canadian women, have long considered her one of the best writers of women's lives.

One way for me illustrate her importance to me, personally, is by saying that I can remember literally dozens of scenes, characters, and epiphanies from her stories. They've stayed with me, although I haven't read most of these stories for decades. And I've read an awful lot of stuff since then.

For example, I'll never forget when Rose traveled on the bus to Powell River for a tryst that never happened. Or when she engages in a ménage with a very cool married couple who grow into the kind of people who boast of their electric towel warmer. Then there were the twin brothers and the lonely spinster looking for love. And the woman who fell into a volcano while living her life large. I could go on...

The subtle sexual awakening of young girls has rarely been presented so well. One of my favourite Munro stories is "White Swans," from the collection Who Do You Think You Are? Using this story in one of my literature classes years ago, I found its apparent simplicity confused the younger students.

We discussed Rose's response to the man who sits down beside her on the train when she makes her first foray from home. She's been warned about white slavers hunting for girls just like her, but the man who befriends her says he's a priest. In her trust, she allows his wandering hand to explore where it shouldn't. Clearly--to me--anyway, Rose has an orgasm, symbolized by a flock of white swans suddenly taking to the air.

My students didn't want to read the story this way. I suppose it offended them, or something. But I wanted to defend my reading, and I actually considered writing to Munro to ask if in fact my reading was accurate. If she wrote back, and confirmed my interpretation, I could hold it up to my students and...

Of course I didn't write. And slowly I came to learn that my reading of a story was just my reading of a story. I couldn't force it onto my poor students. But I did encourage them to look for patterns within a story, and try to make something out of them. And when you add up the recurring images in "White Swans," you get a lot of sexy stuff. Too much to ignore, in fact. Look at this language: "a stranger's hand, root vegetables, humble kitchen tools, slippery and obliging, pulsating, glided, wipe intimate stains, frolicking lewdly, floated marvellously, wakened, exploding."

I rest my case.

Congratulations, Alice Munro. Your work has enriched the lives of thousands of readers. And helped at least one of us become a better teacher.

Serena Janes
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Serena Janes: It's still there...

October 9th  Hump Day Hook

Welcome to my first Hump Day Hook Blog posting. This blog hop is giving me the opportunity to showcase a sexy snippet from one of my romance novels. Today I've chosen a passage from the second book in the Black Virgin Trilogy, called Revenge of the Black Virgin. These are contemporary erotic romances, set in some of the most romantic places in Europe.

In this scene, Lucien and Joanna are reunited after a misunderstanding and forced separation. Neither knows what to expect of the other until the moment they make love again.

My books are published by eXtasy Books, and can be found wherever ebooks are sold.


****



The song ended and Luc scooped Jo into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
The lights of the city illuminated the room. They could see the shine in each other’s eyes as he gently laid her on the bed and settled beside her. She opened herself to him as quietly and serenely as a flower, and he came to her silently, dignified.
They held each other tenderly, melding into the turning union of the Yin and Yang, touching and kissing with a restrained passion that stretched over hours. They undressed each other slowly, respectfully, then climbed under a blanket. Hands, skin and mouths were their only means of communication, yet Jo was certain they had never spoken to the other so honestly, so clearly.
At some point Luc was inside her, she realized, and she had been coming and coming but she didn’t know when it had started. Everything was no longer her but them, and she thought she’d fainted only to regain consciousness as Luc, looking down at her with his dark eyes as she rolled and moaned and whispered underneath him on the bed.

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The moment lust turns into love

My Sexy Saturday Week #19

Well here goes--my attempt at following all the rules and managing to participate in a blog hop for the first time. I've been a little nervous about sharing my work this way, because I'm new at all of this, and because I'm afraid I'll make a mistake.

I had no trouble finding seven sexy paragraphs from one of my contemporary erotic romance novels. Today I've chosen a snippet from the first novel in the Black Virgin Trilogy, called Cult of the Black Virgin.

This series was inspired by a fabulous trip I took to the southwest of France. I was blown away by the beauty of the Dordogne region--its landscapes, cuisine, wines and architecture. Then I saw the Black Virgin of Rocamadour, and when I researched the history of this artifact I was thrilled. The Cult of the Virgin that swept across Europe in the Middle Ages gave me plenty of  ideas for an erotically-charged story involving an American woman who meets a Frenchman she simply can't resist.

This excerpt depicts the moment that Joanna realizes that her lust for Lucien has morphed into something deeper. I hope you like it!

                                                                   *  *  *

  Luc carried Joanna along with him to some otherworldly place where all that she was, her very consciousness, was caught up in a rolling series of wave after wave of something absolutely primordial in its power, something that originated deep inside her. She felt she was no longer a human being, made of muscle and bone, but a sea creature, all soft jelly and fluid, pivoting around a hard stalk of such intense pleasure that she would dissolve around it and float away. She would disseminate, and be gone.
  How long was Luc able to carry them through this fluidity of space and time? She didn’t know. And eventually she came back into herself, wet and trembling, insides still rhythmically contracting, with him lying beside her, stroking her hair and telling her to get under the blankets for a few moments.
  They lay together, bodies entwined. Never had she felt such a powerful emotional and sexual connection to a man. Never could she have imagined that mind and body could work together so beautifully, to each intensify the pleasure of the other, so that it wasn’t just sex anymore. It was more than sex. Last time was fucking, amazing as it was—this was something else. She felt awe.
  I’d call it love, if I didn’t know better.
  She thought of the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang, admired the symmetry of and principle behind the black and white symbol, each side containing the germ of the other side’s qualities, halfway wrapped around each other, seeming to be in perpetual motion, a turning and rolling together that was never ending. She felt a new respect for the ancient concepts of male and female, dark and light, in their similarities and differences, in their quest for union and harmony.
  Yes. That’s it—the harmony of a perfect fit. Luc and I are a perfect fit.
  Eyes closed, she inhaled her lover, treasuring the feeling of her skin stuck to his, as if he possessed the strength of the magnet, and she was the powerless, passive metal.