Kristina Lloyd - UNDONE

I'm currently half way through reading Kristina Lloyd's new release UNDONE and I'm totally loving it. It's sexy, dark, brilliantly written and I'm hooked on the unusual characters and plot line. So please join me in welcoming Kristina to my blog today to chat about the heroine of UNDONE - Lana Greenwood.

Undone and Lana Greenwood

You know how it is: you’re mooching about on Facebook and, for some reason or another, a friend of a friend snags your attention? Maybe they have an interesting profile pic, or perhaps they said something smart or funny in a thread. Either way, you click on their profile and, woah, they’re one of those people with zero privacy settings. And the next thing you know, you’re going through the wedding album of a total stranger, grinning at photos of them as a kid in pigtails, and gawping at that wild night out they had in a fetish bar Berlin in 2003.

No? Just me then? 

Lana Greenwood, the central character in my forthcoming book, Undone, was born from a Facebook mooch. The FB woman I spontaneously spied on had a classic ‘English’ beauty: pale, fine featured, hair in a blonde bob, but she seemed devoid of the fragility often associated with the look. She had a clear interest in clothes, design, music, the arts, and was always well presented, mixing vintage with contemporary fashions, her lips permanently scarlet red and impeccably painted. She had a couple of young kids, no partner in sight but plenty of friends, and was, at a guess, in her early forties. I liked her. She seemed happy, creative, vibrant and fulfilled, and her wardrobe was to die for.

She became the basis for Lana, a forty-one year old divorcee with her own cocktail bar and a vintage handcuff collection.  Lana is smart and sophisticated, a former interior designer with a keen sense of style. Undone begins when Lana has an MFM threesome at a party in a manor house. On the morning after, one of the guys is found dead in the swimming pool. Lana embarks on a relationship with the second guy, Sol Miller, an ex-New Yorker and a compelling dom, despite fearing he may be implicated in the death. 

While the book features a central couple, it’s also a thriller. I wanted the story to have a noirish feel : a low-lit, claustrophobic, urban mystery, steeped in tension and shot through with anxiety, lust and suspicion. I think of Lana as having a touch of the silver screen about her. She’s a latterday Grace Kelly or Lauren Bacall, albeit one who’s super kinky and into being handcuffed.

Lana’s old-fashioned glamour is echoed in the actual narrative, with the story being relayed to us via her handwritten diary. She’s a woman who likes order and control but, troubled by the mysterious death and by doubts about Sol, she fears she’s losing her grip. The diary is her attempt to regain control and, she reasons, may prove a useful record of events should the Police call her and Sol in for questioning. 

Here’s a brief excerpt: 

“Last night, I woke from a fever dream of jackboots thumping down a corridor, black, glinting, vicious. They were coming to get me as a lay in my own bed, alone in the dark. When I opened my eyes, I was desperately confused because I was lying in my own bed, alone in the dark. Fact and fantasy swam in a whirl. I strained to listen above the pounding of my heart. I was wet with sweat. At the juncture of my thighs I was wet too because I knew when they found me, my oppressors would be merciless.

All these men are Sol, and Sol is all these men.

I fear authority and I crave it. 

I can’t allow the truth to rise up like this. This diary will help me stay sane.”

A short while later, we’re shown Lana in the act of writing. It’s late at night, and she’s sipping a brandy and soda, a drink for the upper classes from a forgotten era. 

“It’s nearly 2 a.m. now. I’m sitting in bed with my journal propped on my knees, ink-blue handwriting making veins on the page as if I’m bringing something to life. Monsters and magic. Dr Frankenstein, I presume. I’ve tilted the slats of the bedroom blinds so stripes of silver-white light from the lantern in the courtyard pattern the room. The noirish illumination is negligible but at this brandy-steeped hour, writing by the glow of my reading lamp, the reminder of the ordinary, outside world brings a comforting stability.

I take comfort too from being analogue. I feel more truthful when writing longhand, forming shapes on the page unique to me, the words flowing from my fingers rather than appearing on a screen in the tap-tap uniformity of Calibri or Times. And a brandy and soda, for shame! I ought to be wearing a Vanity Fair bed jacket in peach chiffon and lace while sipping from lead crystal. But I’m distilling my story, and the drink matches my mood: a sparkle of alertness with an undernote of hot, sweet darkness.”

If you’d like to know more about Undone’s hot, sweet darkness, please hop over to my blog for an excerpt, and check out the other stops on my Sexy September blog tour.

About Kristina

Kristina Lloyd writes erotic fiction about sexually submissive women who like it on the dark, dirty and dangerous side. Her novels are published by Black Lace and her short stories have appeared in dozens of anthologies, including several ‘best of’ collection, in both the UK and US. She lives in Brighton, England.

About Undone 

When Lana Greenwood attends a glamorous house party she finds herself tempted into a ménage à trois. But the morning after brings more than just regrets over fulfilling a fantasy one night stand. One of the men she's spent the night with is discovered dead in the swimming pool. Accident, suicide or murder, no one is sure and Lana doesn't know where to turn. Can she trust Sol, the other man, an ex-New Yorker with a dirty smile and a deep desire to continue their kinky game?

Undone is published on Sept 11^th, 2014. Pre-order with Amazon: Amazon UK paperback :: Amazon UK Kindle :: Amazon US Kindle :: Amazon CA paperback :: Amazon CA Kindle