Giveaway: To help celebrate the launch of Landscapes, KD is giving away a $30/£20 Amazon gift voucher. Enter via the Rafflecopter for chances to win!
Landscapes: A First Time for Lots of Things
Thanks so much for hosting me on Day 5 of my Landscapes blog tour and giveaway! It’s always a pleasure to spend time at yours, Lily. I’m especially glad to be chatting with you today, because Landscapes wouldn’t have happened without your coaxing and encouragement.
I remember that lovely October day at your place while we sat over a nice glass of wine doing the usual writerly dreaming and scheming. That’s something the two of us, as well as all of the Brit Babes, have always been good at doing. You encouraged me to do an MM novella for a book bundle called Brit Boys: On Boys put out by a group of writers I nearly drooled over when you told me who they were – yourself included, of course. The fact that it was a real honour to be included in such a great group probably influenced me as much as your pep talk, but at any rate I left your house having agreed to do my first ever MM novella and wondering just exactly how I’d pull it off, since I really had no idea where to begin. As the deadline drew closer and closer, I really had no idea where to begin. While I’d written MM scenes in some of my novels before, I’d never tackled a story that would involve not just an encounter, but a romance between two blokes and, let’s face it, all of my stories involve romance, so I knew it would be more than an erotic encounter.
As the deadline got scary-close, and I knew I had to get on with it I sat down and began my novella with these three sentences:
It wasn’t that Reese Chambers made my cock hard – though he did. It wasn’t that he was beautiful in a rugged, leather and stone sort of way – though he was. It was that Reese Chambers moved me in ways I had not been moved in a very long time, in ways that I, who never lacked just the right words to express myself, found my vocabulary inadequate to the task.
It wasn’t until I’d written that much of the first paragraph that I realized my hero was a vampire – another first for me. I honestly didn’t think I could write vampire stories. By the time I’d written the next couple of paragraphs, I knew that Alonso Darlington would be one of the most intriguing characters I’d ever written. I never dreamed that Landscapes would only be the beginning of my stormy relationship with Alonso Darlington and that he had way more secrets than how he met landscaper, Reese Chambers.
There was another first in this novella. I’ve skirted very close to dubious consent. The trouble is that mortals aren’t safe with Alonso. At the end of the day, Alonso, for all of his civility and charm, is a monster. He’s not a safe person, so he sends a succubus to seduce the Reese Chambers, the mortal with whom he is obsessed, and bring back the details of him making the story very much a vicarious ménage that’s not quite totally vicarious either.
The relationship that develops between Alonso and Reese is one of the most complex, and the hottest I’ve ever written. But a novella is not nearly enough to tell the whole story behind Alonso and his entourage living in the remote Lakeland fells in his ancestral heap. Alonso and Reese’s tale is just the beginning of this vampire’s story, the continuation of which will be out later this year with the novel, In the Flesh, which is the first novel of the series, Medusa’s Consortium.
I can hardly wait to see what schemes and inspirations we dream up next time we’re together, Lily! Thanks so much for having me over to talk about Alonso.
Landscapes Blurb:
Alonso Darlington has a disturbing method of keeping landscaper, Reese Chambers, both safe from and oblivious to his dangerous lust for the man. But Reese isn’t easy to keep secrets from, and Alonso wants way more than to admire the man from afar. Can he risk a real relationship without risking Reese’s life?
Buy links: http://kdgrace.co.uk/books/landscapes/
Landscapes Excerpt:
The moonlight was bright and Reese’ night vision was good, but the path was rocky and steep. He stumbled and went down on his arse, catching himself on one elbow and cursing as the sensation of pins and needles shot up his arm. He forced his way to his feet slipping and sliding the last hundred meters on the dew-drenched stones. He was just about to call out, just about to shout Alonso’s name when the man moaned softly and Reese stopped in his tracks. Not only was Alonso no longer curled on his side, but the man was naked. He lay flat on his back, his knees bent, bare feet resting on the bench, one arm flung over his face, the other curved down low across his belly, his fisted hand moving up and down the length of his cock.
Reese froze, unable to move, unable to breathe. Alonso Darlington was beautiful, like no one he’d ever seen. His body was sculpted, not like polished marble, but with the ruggedness of the rocks of the fells, like he labored to be free from himself, like one of Michelangelo’s prisoners. The muscles of his belly tensed and relaxed and convulsed and relaxed again in response to his stroking. The movement of muscle beneath skin on his biceps and his forearms, on the rise and fall of his chest, on the tensing of the chorded muscles in his neck and throat as he swallowed was like a hypnotic dance. The muscles in his thighs twitched and bulged as he rocked and arched upward until Reese could see the clenched half-domes of his buttocks. He could smell the nutmeg and yeast scent of his heat, charged through with the crackle of ozone. He stood frozen on the spot, his own cock responding to the sensory overload, even as his brain demanded he give the man his privacy, demanded with a sense of half-frightened urgency that he leave as quietly as he could, but it was too late.
Alonso’s arm fell away from his face and Reese could feel the nearly physical press of his gaze.
I’m sorry,’ he managed around a tongue that felt too big for his mouth. ‘I saw you, and I thought that … I’ll go now,’ but even as he said it, Reese stepped forward, feeling reeled into the man like a fish on a line. Alonso eased himself up on one elbow, not taking his hand off his cock, not taking his eyes off Reese. ‘I should leave,’ Reese croaked, but instead he stepped nearer.
In a move that was not quite human in its grace, Alonso sat up and nodded to the bench next to him.
Cautiously Reese sat down struggling to keep his eyes off the man’s cock. He could still feel Alonso’s gaze on him as though he were the one who was naked. ‘I thought … When I saw you out here, lying on the bench at this hour … I was worried.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Reese, but there’s nothing wrong with me. My … afflictions, don’t trouble me much. I’m not ill. In truth, I’m the epitome of health. I’m just … different.’
‘I’m sorry. Of course you would be out after dark. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll go now.’ But before he could stand, Alonso’s hand shot behind his head with lightning speed, fingers curling in Reese’s sleep-mussed hair, and in that instant of reaction, the second Reese gasped for his breath, the man’s mouth was on his, warm and hard and terrifying in its command, a command Reese could do little but respond to. Even as fear battled lust low in his belly, he parted his lips, opened his mouth, welcomed the search and conquest of Alonso’s tongue, his own the white flag that instinctively yielded all else beyond the breach, all territories beyond the invasion.
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
KD has erotica published with SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace,Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, To Rome with Lust, and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.
K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition, Interviewing Wade are all available.
Find K D Here:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KD_Grace
| Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/kdgraceauthor/ | |
| | |
| |
*****
GIVEAWAY!
Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://www.writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/k-d-grace-9/
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you SO much for hosting Alonso and me. It's always so much fun to have a chat and a cuppa at yours. xxx
ReplyDelete