A Taste of London by Lucy Felthouse

I'm thrilled that the latest edition to the Ellora's Cave for Men line is A Taste of London by the fabulous Lucy Felthouse.

Blurb

Ryan Stonebridge and his friend Kristian Hurst are heading off on the trip of a lifetime. They’re spending their gap year traveling the world and expect lots of sun, sights and sex. The guys have a couple of days in the English capital before catching the Eurostar to Paris. Unfortunately, a family emergency means that Kristian has to head back home for a while, leaving Ryan to continue the trip alone. 

Luckily for Ryan, he’s an attractive guy and there is no shortage of gorgeous women available to help take his mind off Kristian’s family drama.

More info, trailer and buy links: HERE 

I'm also completely excited by the fact that Lucy has taken time out of her busy schedule to stop by my blog today and chat about inspiration for  this story. Take it away, Lucy...

Finding Inspiration in England's Capital

I've been lucky in the past in that I've made frequent trips to England's capital, London. It is a vast, vast place and it makes me smile when tourists think they can do it in a day. It's just not possible. You can't even do the best bits in one day—the place is large, spread out and even when you've done the things you're "supposed" to do on your first visit to London, you'll realise that there are thousands and thousands of other cool things to see and do. I probably spend 8—10 days per year in London, and I've barely scratched the surface.

What I have done, however, is found inspiration. I've written several stories based in London now, the most recent one being A Taste of London, just released by Ellora's Cave as part of their For Men range. I never set out to write this particular story. It was only when I saw that Ellora's Cave had launched the For Men collection that I decided to have a go at writing for it. I'd wanted to write for them for some time, but just hadn't gotten around to it. But as I enjoy writing from the male perspective so much, I thought this could be a good way to get started with them. So, that decided, I had to work out exactly what to write about.



Eventually, I came up with an idea for not just one story—but a series. My lead character, Ryan Stonebridge, is on his gap year and is going to visit as many places as he can before he starts University. The adventure starts in London, goes to Paris and Rome and after that... who knows? You'll have to wait and see.
Needless to say, it had to be very erotic and based in male fantasy. Which was the fun part. I don't want to give too much away, but A Taste of London takes in some of the landmarks—albeit not the most obvious ones—and has Ryan experiencing some very risky sexual encounters. However, there's no reason why women shouldn't read the books, too. I've read several of the Ellora's Cave for Men titles and enjoyed them very much.

Once I decided on my character and his journey, the starting point was pretty obvious to me, given my knowledge of London. And that's how Ryan ended up in Southwark. If you want to find out exactly what he gets up to... well, you'll have to buy the book ;)

Thanks so much to Lily for having me here!

Chapter One

“Come on, mate, let’s go and grab our travel passes from the machine,” Ryan said, his familiarity with the locale apparent by the way he marched along the train platform toward the heart of St. Pancras Station.
“What? Uh – okay.” Kristian re-arranged his bag on his shoulder and scurried to keep up with his friend.
Bypassing the huge line of impatient, muttering people queuing for the manned booths, Ryan headed to one of the ticket machines. By the time Kristian caught up, Ryan already had a travel pass in his hand.
“So, um, what do I need to buy then, mate? I’m not as au fait with all this as you.”
“Been practising your French for the trip, Kris?” Ryan punched his friend on the arm playfully. “No worries. We’re only taking one trip tonight so you just need a single to London Bridge on the Tube.”
“All right,” Kristian replied, carefully tapping the relevant areas of the touch screen, feeding his money into the machine and triumphantly retrieving his ticket.
“Okay, I’m ready to go!”
“Come on then.” Ryan hoisted his bag back onto his shoulder and walked in the direction of the Underground, with Kristian close behind.
“Hey,” Kristian said, pointing as they passed a map of the Underground, “don’t you need to check where we’re going?”
“Nope,” Ryan said, without breaking stride, “I know London pretty well, plus I double checked all this stuff when I organised this part of the trip. What can I say, it’s the Boy Scout in me.”
“Cool. I guess it makes things easier when you’re not checking a map every two minutes. So how long will it take us to get to London Bridge station from here?”
They stepped onto the escalator. Rather than standing still and letting the moving staircase do its thing, Ryan continued to walk, eager now to get this leg of traveling over and done with so he could have some fun. It had been a long day, or at least it felt like one. They’d actually only traveled around one hundred and fifty miles from the outskirts of the Peak District to the centre of London, a couple of hours on the train, but it had felt like longer. Perhaps because he’d been so eager to actually get to London and start their adventure.
“Not long mate. Probably about ten minutes. It’s a direct journey and at this time of day it shouldn’t be too busy. We can dump our stuff at the hostel then have some drinks next door.”
“There’s a pub next door? No wonder I let you sort out this trip. You’re a fucking genius!”
By now, they’d reached the bottom of the escalator. Ryan stepped off, then turned to face his friend. Tapping his head, he grinned and said, “It’s not just a hat rack, mate.”
Kristian laughed. “You’re right there.” He paused. “It’s a fucking chick magnet, too!”
Ryan frowned, looking genuinely confused. “It is?” Then he shook himself and smiled. “I wish someone had told me!”
“Are you kidding, mate? Everywhere we go, women are checking you out.” Kristian grinned. “Why do you think I agreed to go traveling with you? I’m hoping some of your apparent sex appeal will rub off on me and get me some action!”
Ryan laughed, then started walking towards the southbound platform for their connection to London Bridge. “So that’s your ulterior motive, eh? Never mind being my best mate, or seeing the world, you just wanna get laid?”

Lucy is a graduate of the University of Derby, where she studied Creative Writing. During her first year, she was dared to write an erotic story - so she did. It went down a storm and she's never looked back. Lucy has had stories published by Cleis Press, Constable and Robinson, Decadent Publishing, Ellora's Cave, Evernight Publishing, House of Erotica, Ravenous Romance, Resplendence Publishing, Sweetmeats Press and Xcite Books. She is also the editor of Uniform Behaviour, Seducing the Myth, Smut by the Sea and Smut in the City. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9