Tracking Tor

  My Sexy Saturday Week #53

  Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for another round of sexy tidbits from the authors at the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. We each share either 7 words, 7 sentences or 7 paragraphs from a published or in-progress work.

   River, the third book in my erotic contemporary romance trilogy, Tracking Tor, is finally finished--and today is its release day!

  In this scene, Julie feels secure enough to tell Tor she's in love with him.

****

When she came back into the present, Julie was aware, first, of the heat of their bodies, almost fused with sweat. Her ear was pressed to Tor's chest and she could feel his heartbeat, almost hear its steady, even drumming. The strength of its regular beat made her feel secure, safe, as if he were a large, protective animal. The fact she’d spent the last few days suffering from a terrible pain caused by this same person was all forgotten now. He wouldn’t hurt her any more. He loved her. And she loved him. With a start she realized she hadn’t yet told him.
  Does he know? How could he not? 
  She pulled back to look at his face. His eyes were closed, and he wore a slight smile as he rested. “I love you too. You know that, don’t you?”
  His eyes shot open and he smiled. “Yeah. I think I figured that out a few days ago.”
  “When?”
  “In Dahab. In the hot tub.”
  Julie thought back to that night, the night he’d told her about his failed relationship back in Denmark, and his floundering business. “How did you know?”
  He shrugged. “I guess it was just something about the way you looked at me. The way you responded to me. It was pretty intense, if I remember correctly.” He moved his hand down along her side, over her hip and thigh. “Everything we did was charged, somehow. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
  She leaned up and kissed him with all the tenderness she could express. “Yes. It was sort of charged with something, wasn’t it? But I think I fell in love with you long before that.”
  “Really?”
  “Yeah. Like the moment I first set eyes on you.” She laughed and rolled on top of his big body, pressing her nose on his. “I thought I was hallucinating when I saw you walk up to your bike, throw your leg over it and drive off into the desert. You were the best thing I’d ever seen, and you disappeared right in front of my eyes.”

****

Remember that this is a blog hop, so hop on over to the other participants here.

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The Lion Man

My Sexy Saturday Week #50

  Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for another round of sexy tidbits from the authors at the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. We each share either 7 words, 7 sentences or 7 paragraphs from a published or in-progress work.

    My latest WIP, the third book in my erotic contemporary romance trilogy, Tracking Tor, is almost finished. But this week I'm offering a snippet from the first book in the series--Mirage.

  In this scene, Julie has just met Tor among the beautiful ruins of Palmyra, Syria. She can hardly wait to get to know him better.

Here's my 7 sentence excerpt from the first book in the tracking Tor Trilogy: Mirage.
 In the courtyard of Palmyra's museum, Julie spotted a weathered bas-relief carving of a lion propped against the trunk of a palm tree. Full-maned and regal, he seemed the very symbol of power. She began to snap some photos from different angles, thinking about Tor, the man she would be meeting at dinner. He had leonine qualities, certainly. Her body began to thrum as she thought about what it had felt like to sit behind him on the bike, the big motor hurling them both through space, its vibrations ricocheting through her body.
  Maybe he'll want to do more than take me riding tonight? 

Tracking Tor, Book Three is titled River, and will be released by eXtasy Books in August. 

Remember that this is a blog hop, so hop on over to the other participants here.

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Still Tracking Tor

My Sexy Saturday Week #49

Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for another round of sexy tidbits from the authors at the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. We each share either 7 words, 7 sentences or 7 paragraphs from a published or in-progress work.

    This week I'm offering a peek at my latest WIP, the third book in my erotic contemporary romance trilogy, Tracking Tor. Julie and Tor meet while touring the Middle East and enjoy a one-night stand. But Julie can't let him go so easily, and takes on the challenge of tracking him down through the deserts and oases of Syria and Jordan. 

In this scene, the tables have turned, and it is Tor who tracks Julie up the Nile as far as Aswan. 

Tracking Tor, Book Three is titled River, and will be released by eXtasy Books in August. 

Here's my 7 sentence excerpt:

  Julie laughed. “ I was afraid you’d think I was some sort of stalker.” She rubbed her breasts against the hair on Tor's chest and kissed him again. Her tongue slid out of his mouth and along his jawline, down his salty neck, muscled shoulder, to trace the outline of the multi-colored tattoo on his bicep.

  She closed her eyes and smiled. “I didn’t really want to stalk you. I wanted you to come to me.”

  “And now look what’s happened,” he said, embracing her. "You chased me until I caught you."

Remember that this is a blog hop, so hop on over to the other participants here.

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Voyeur

My Sexy Saturday Week #28.

Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for another round of sexy tidbits from the authors at the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. We each share either 7 words, 7 sentences or 7 paragraphs from a published or in-progress work.

    This week I'm still thinking about what my characters find sexy in each other. A man like Tor in Book One: Mirage of my erotic contemporary romance trilogy, Tracking Tor, is irresistible to Julie. In this scene, they've just made love and since Tor has fallen asleep, she takes the opportunity to feast her eyes.

Tracking Tor, Book One: Mirage will be released soon by eXtasy Books.

Here's my 7 paragraph excerpt:


  When the adhan woke Julie a few hours later, she saw the sun's rays slanting through the shades at a softer angle. One of her arms was asleep, and she extricated it from under Tor's neck, causing him to stir. But he didn't wake up.
  That gave her a chance to study him. His hair had come loose from its tie, and the afternoon light made it glow in golden strands. His lashes were long and dark, the smooth skin of his face brown against the white sheets of the bed.
  She pulled away a little to admire his long back, the dimples on either side of his tailbone, the symmetry of his round buttocks. His legs were long, too, but well-defined, and covered with downy hair.
  She shifted again so she could see the front of his body-- his belly, the hair between his legs, and the now-sleeping penis. Then she looked up to his abs and chest, the symmetrical pattern of soft hair, his corded neck.
  And then right up into his open eyes.
  She blushed.
  "And what do you think you're looking at?" He rolled onto his back, raised his arms and bent them back behind his head, lacing his fingers together. A playful smile teased her as he exposed himself fully to her scrutiny.

Remember that this is a blog hop, so hop on over to the other participants here.

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My tribute to Doris Lessing

When I heard today that Doris Lessing had died, I didn't feel sadness at her death as much as gratitude for the life she lead. After all, 94 is giving it a pretty good good run. I guess I'm a little sad that now I know I'll never meet her. But I can take solace in my autographed copy of her novel, Ben, in the World.

Mind you, I don't think I'd have been up to meeting her anyway. She was too much of a lion to my mouse, too much a literary and cultural giant to my provincial attempts at thinking and teaching. But just because she's dead doesn't mean she's gone. She will always be a part of me because she helped form me. For better or worse, I am who I am because I read The Grass Is Singing, the four Martha Quest novels and dozens of her short stories while I was in my impressionable twenties.

Her words taught me that I could say "no" to the sacred institutions of marriage and motherhood. And as I grew through my thirties, and tackled The Golden Notebook, The Four-Gated City, some of her science fiction, and more short stories, I learned about politics. I learned about politics on a micro level--relationships between men and women, friends, family and community members--and I learned about macro politics on national, global and universal scales.

But the most important thing I learned from Lessing was to be oneself. My self. And if people don't like me as I am, I hope she has taught me to accept that gracefully, and carry on.

Lessing was a brave woman. Maybe she wasn't the most gracious, nor the most likeable. Maybe she was a bad mother, a failure as a wife--I don't know. And maybe, as I've read more than once, her novels tended to be long, rambling, confessional and self-important. But because of her I feel I know a little about Africa, a little about marriage, mental illness, love, jealousy, rage, friendship and loneliness.

I've also learned a little about what it takes for a woman to march to the beat of her own drum.

And the fact that some people might be pissed off? So what?

Thank you, Doris Lessing.

Sexy top to toe

My Sexy Saturday Week 25

   Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for another round of sexy tidbits from the authors at the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. We each share either 7 words, 7 sentences or 7 paragraphs from a published or in-progress work.

    This week I've been thinking about what my characters find sexy in each other. A man like Sam in my sweet contemporary, Just Desserts, might seem aloof, at first. But he's sexy from top to toe and poor love-struck Jackie can't help but find even those toes desirable.

Here's my seven sentence excerpt:

   Every once in a while Jackie snuck a peek at Sam, astounded that he was actually sitting there in her room, watching her TV.
   He's so incredibly sexy, sprawled out on my furniture like that. Those luscious lips wrapped around the mouth of his beer bottle. His body so strong and fit. Even his feet look good in those clean white socks. 
   She had to force herself to look away—she knew he knew she was checking him out.
   As soon as the program was over, he abruptly put his shoes back on and jumped up, saying, “Thanks. I’m off.”

This is a blog hop, so click here to keep hopping and see what the other participants have to say about Sexy.


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That awkward first meeting

 It's time for the Hump Day Hook blog hop for November 13th, where writers tempt readers with a few lines from either a published or in-progress work.

  I've been thinking about hooks--they're first impressions, really. In romance novels, first impressions, like in real life, are often false, or misleading. One convention in romance is the hate-at-first-sight-despite-being-wildly-attracted meet. I wanted to do something a little different in Just Desserts, my sweet romance set in Seattle.

In this scene, Jackie meets Sam for the first time since she was twelve, so she has previous experiences to draw on. But she's also grown up hearing the stories about his wild past. His reputation as a ladies' man has her scared, but she's also curious. The contrasts between what she expects--and what she finds--are set up here.

Here's the excerpt:

  When Jackie got downstairs she saw a black Dodge SUV idling in front of her building. It was immaculately clean, its chrome trim glinting in the morning sunshine. The driver leaned over and opened the passenger door from the inside, his one concession to helping her aboard. Hesitantly she pulled at the door handle and an empty plastic water bottle fell on her foot and rolled onto the pavement. She picked it up, and then found herself staring into the messiest truck cab she’d ever seen.
  It was filled with magazines, newspapers, paper cups, binders, mail, books, food wrappers and more water bottles. She must have wrinkled her nose in distaste because the first words out of Sam’s mouth were, “Don’t worry. It’s not garbage. It’s my office. Come on in.”
  Jackie’s anger dissolved as her curiosity grew stronger. He was moving books and papers from the seat to the floor to make room for her. So she climbed in, then looked from the chaos of the office to the man himself. He was—how could she describe him—exceptionally good looking. Of course he was. He couldn’t be the man she’d heard so much about all these years if he hadn’t been attractive to women. His reputation was intimidating enough, and now she was unnerved even more by his appearance. Anxiety and excitement replaced any residual anger she was feeling. 

Keeping hopping by clicking here: Hump Day Hook.

View Just Desserts on Amazon.


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Doesn't he smell good?

It's Week #24 of the My Sexy Saturday blog hop. I'm finally getting the hang of this hopping thing. I haven't double-posted by mistake for awhile. And I've remembered to include the links to the other participants. Well done, me!

In celebration of having my novel re-instated on Amazon (after its dubious disappearance over a problem with one of the words in its title) I'm going to share another slice from Cult of the Black Virgin.

This week we're posting excerpts that show a character succumbing  to what he or she finds sexy. I've been thinking about the sense of smell lately, and the role it plays in arousal.

Recently I visited my alma mater, and although many things had changed in the years since I last set foot in its halls, one thing was exactly the same--the smell. It transported me back to the past with a speed and vividness that astonished me.

I'm trying to use the evocative power of smell in my fiction, too. And I'm not talking about the smell of musty hallways, or dewy roses or sizzling steaks--I'm talking man sweat here. In this 7-paragraph passage, after Jo is seduced by the way Luc looks, speaks, behaves, her nose gets in on the action. As soon as she smells him up close and personal, she's a goner.

She's just made a phone call from a stone turret converted into a phone booth. Luc 
follows her...

Here's the excerpt:

  “Luc! What are you doing here? Do you need to use the phone?”
  “But of course. Why else do you think I would be waiting here?” His eyebrow arched and a playful smile flit across his face. He moved towards her.
  Jo grew flustered. In her silliness she assumed he’d followed her for some secret purpose of his own. It was embarrassing to have been caught off guard, projecting her own desires, although he couldn’t have known what they were.
  “Oh. Well, then. L-let me get out of your way.”
  As she tried to leave the small tower, not daring to meet his eyes, he moved towards her again, effectively blocking her exit. Then he slowly raised his arms and grabbed the sides of the stone doorway, trapping her inside.
  “Um,” she said, “what are you...?” She knew very well what he was doing. He was playing with her. She didn’t know if she found it juvenile or fun. Until she smelled him.

  Now he was literally looming over her, his long body pushing closer still, almost touching her own. The smell of his sweat aroused her instantly, intensely. Her nipples sprang to attention, rubbing against the rough lace of her bra. She became afraid, backing up a little. 

This is a blog hop, so keeping hopping here: My Sexy Saturday Blog Hop.
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Hello stranger

Wednesday, November 6, 2013.

 It's that day of the week again--time for the Hump Day Hook blog hop. This one's for November the 6th. The weather's turned dreary out here on the west coast of Canada, and I've been happily working on my latest series, which takes place in the deserts of Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

Hump Day Hook is a blog hop where authors post a tempting little piece of their work in the hope of catching a reader's eye.

This week I'm sharing a few lines of my soon-to-released erotic romance, Tracking Tor. Book One is titled Mirage, and in this scene, our protagonist Julie first sees the man who will capture her heart. But he disappears so quickly she wonders if she's hallucinating.

She's having dinner in a restaurant in the desert city of Palmyra, Syria when her attention is distracted by a dusty motorcycle parked across the street...

Here's the excerpt:

 As dusty as his BMW, the rider wore a red and black padded jacket, black riding pants and heavy black leather boots. Looking every inch a true road warrior, he strode out of the hotel adjacent to the restaurant and threw a leg over the bike. He was tall, with wide shoulders and strongly-muscled legs. His long hair was light brown, almost blonde, and tied back with a thin piece of cord.
  Julie had only a glimpse of his face before he pulled on his helmet. Handsome, clean cut but
rugged--a fascinating combination. He was just her type, she thought as she watched him start the engine and drive off with a roar.
  Wouldn't he be perfect? Just what I need to get my mind off Richard fucking Wakeman.
  She didn't want to be this far from home and still be thinking about her ex.

Remember that this is a blog hop, so hop on over to the other participants here.

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Sexy senses

November 2, 2013.

Welcome to My Sexy Saturday for Week #23!

This is a fun blog hop where writers post either 7 words, 7 sentences, or 7 paragraph of their work. It's open to both new and veteran authors, who are encouraged to share from either published material or works in progress.

This week, we're being asked to share some of the things our characters find sexy in each other.

I've chosen 7 short paragraphs from the first novel in my Black Virgin Trilogy. In this scene from Cult of the Black Virgin (which, by the way, has been reinstated on Amazon after being banished for mysterious reasons) Joanna is being seduced through her senses. Unsure about committing to her American boyfriend, she finds herself falling for a Frenchman while touring the beautiful Doedogne Valley in south-western France.

Luc stimulates all 5 of her senses, and whenever he's near she becomes hyper-aware of everything else around her. And then she looks at him...

Here's the excerpt:

Now, twenty-four hours after tearfully kissing James goodbye at the Gare du Nord train station, Jo took a deep breath of country air and sneaked another peek at Luc.
I feel good. I feel really good.
In fact, she was beginning to feel better than she’d felt in months. And that, she knew, did not bode well for a future with James.
Lying on the soft riverbank after her meal, she closed her eyes and moved into the present moment. She concentrated on listening. She could hear the rushing water of the river. Intermittent birdsong. The bark of a dog in the distance. A murmured conversation from one of the married couples sitting close by. Then she focused on trying to discern different scents. The warm grass smelled earthy and alive. The air moving over her from the flowing river was heavy with sweet moisture.
Ah, it is indeed good to be alive in this wonderful place, full of beauty and promise.
Suddenly she picked up a new scent—the deep, musky smell of a male animal. Her eyes shot open and she saw Luc crouching near her on the grass. Her entire body quivered as she studied the muscles of his legs, then quickly looked up to his teasing eyes. He was smiling at her again.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Joanna, but some of us are going to take a little dip before getting back on the trail. Will you join us?”

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Halloween Costume

October 30, 2013.

Welcome to the Hump Day Hook blog hop for Halloween! This is a blog hop where readers can jump from blog to blog to see short excerpts posted by some great writers in a variety of genres.

Because it's Halloween, I expect this week's postings will be of the scary sort. Not mine, though. I don't do scary.

But I did do a little Halloween in my sweet romance, Just Desserts. In this scene Jackie is getting ready to go to a Halloween costume party with her best friend Annette. She hopes to have fun, and try to forget about her unrequited love for Sam.

She's a busy student nurse, so has to throw something together at the last minute. Little does she know that Sam will see her all tricked out in her costume, and that he likes what he sees.

Here's the excerpt:

Jackie, pressed for time, fell back on the same costume she wore the last time she went trick-or-treating when she was twelve—she was a gypsy girl, draped in scarves, bangles and gaudy jewelry.
This time she covered a low-cut black nightgown with a lace tablecloth tied sarong-style around her hips. Then she wrapped colorful silky scarves around her waist and neck, and affixed every piece of costume jewelry she could borrow.
She blackened her eyes with kohl, painted her lids with shiny green and purple shadow, and applied lots of mascara so her lashes were spidery. Next she teased her hair until it was huge, adding layer after layer of hairspray so she looked tousled and wild.
When she was done, she checked out the finished look in the mirror.
 Excellent. I look like I’ve been dragged backwards through a bush by a band of rogues. 
It was exactly the look she was after.

Make sure to check out the other participants in this week's Hump Day Hook blog hop.Click here. 

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Love among the Roman ruins

October 26, 2013.

Welcome to my posting for My Sexy Saturday for Week #22. This is a blog hop where writers share either 7 words, 7 sentences, or 7 paragraphs from one of their works. It's open to published and unpublished authors, and the excerpt can be from a published story or a work in progress.

This week I want to share a snippet (about 7 sentences) from my soon-to-be-released erotic romance, the first in the Tracking Tor Trilogy. It's called Mirage, and takes place in Syria. In this scene, Tor and Julie come together for the first time under the stars in a deserted Roman theatre in the ruined desert city of Palmyra. Their verbal game excites them both, and this is the moment Julie begins to fall in love.

Here's the excerpt:

"And now," Tor said as he slowly began to raise and lower her body onto his, "just think how many couples have sneaked into this place to do exactly what we're doing right now. A thousand years, or more, of clandestine fucking. Under the stars. Queens, concubines, emperors, slaves."

  "Bakers, lawyers. Murderers. Thieves," Julie said just before she thrust her tongue into his mouth. She rolled her hips and snaked her fingers through his hair. Grabbing fistfuls, she whispered near his ear. "Oh Tor. I think you're going to do it to me again."

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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.
Click here. 

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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
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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.


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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.

Amazon link

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.

Kindle by campfire

We just got back from a two-week road trip across British Columbia and into Alberta. The plan was to see the most scenic parts of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, do a little camping, and visit the acclaimed Tyrell Museum in Drumheller to view the amazing fossils and dinosaur bones.

Everything went as planned, but I have to say I'd forgotten something about sleeping under the stars. It can be pretty boring, once the stars actually come out.

It's dark out there in the wilderness. And because it was mid-to-late September, those stars came out pretty early. And once it gets dark, there's not a lot to do for the next twelve hours. That's where the Kindle, Kobo, iPad, or whatever reader you have, comes in handy.

E-readers take campfire reading to a whole new level. No more need for awkward flashlights, over-bright head lamps, or dangerous candles. In fact, e-readers actually made us look forward to nightfall so we could hunker down and get back to the books we'd been thinking about all day as we trekked along icy rivers and around turquoise lakes, dodging rutting elks and mama bears with their cubs.

I have to admit I'm not a great camper. I prefer motels. But for a few days, every now and then, if the rain and frost hold off, and my e-reader is fully charged, it's good to be out in the bush with more than a campfire for entertainment.