Bookstores Are Sexy! #Bookshop #Giveaway #EugeneOregon @SadiraStone

Image by Louise Dav from Pixabay

By Sadira Stone (Guest Blogger)

Romance novels are often set in exotic or glamorous locales—tropical beaches, haunted castles, space stations, Miami nightclubs, New York skyscrapers, snowed-in mountain cabins. But for the Book Nirvana series, I chose a more mundane setting: an indie bookshop in Eugene, Oregon. No one’s going to jump out at my characters wielding a sword, a ray gun, or a magic crystal, but I’ve loved creating the bookshop of my dreams. One of the benefits of writing fiction is trying on all those dream careers you never pursued. In an alternate universe, I run a bookshop, a café, a dance studio, an art studio…

Who doesn’t long to spend time browsing the aisles of a quirky bookshop, discovering new stories, lounging in a cushy armchair while sipping your favorite coffee or tea? Audiobooks and eBooks are great, but there’s nothing like that lovely, vanilla-ish scent of books, nothing like discovering a new author I never notice in my online browsing. Even though my home bookshelves are overflowing, I’m still a bookstore junkie.

Here’s an excerpt from Through the Red Door, Book One in the Book Nirvana series, in which the hero gets his first glimpse of the heroine’s bookshop.

****

Nick pressed his back against the red door and blew out a long, shaky breath. He’d heard about Book Nirvana for years, but nothing prepared him for what he found inside. The shop was aptly named, that was for damned sure.

From the first jingle of the brass bell over the doorway, he knew this place was something special. The sweet, almost edible scent of books, both new and used, wafted out to greet him. The early-summer sunlight bathed the shop in a welcoming glow and highlighted the colorful posters on the walls—Peter Max’s psychedelic sunset pointing toward the art books, the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine above the music section, and a lush still life of fruit, bread, and wine for the cooking section. Further down the long, narrow space, comic superheroes, a futuristic spacescape, an armored knight charging into battle, and, above a lacquered red door at the rear, Ingres’s La Grande Odalisque threw a languid glance over her bare shoulder—at once an invitation and a dare.

But the jewel of the collection was Clara herself. His friend at the University of Oregon told him about the pretty shop owner, but “pretty” hardly did her justice. Her unruly dark hair glimmered with just a hint of red fire. Those eyes—dark, like the Pacific on a stormy day, somewhere between green and gray—eyes a man could get lost in. Something about this woman set his pulse to revving like a race car at the starting line. Caught off guard by her startling beauty, he’d behaved like a horny teenager, ogling as her delicate fingers fiddled with the locket between her breasts. She noticed, too. Damn.

****

Beneath that sexy poster and behind that red door is what brought Nick, a cultural anthropology professor, to Eugene: a collection of historical erotica—artwork, photography, erotic stories, studies of sexual practices. Furnished with a plush Persian rug and an antique settee, this little jewel-box room is stuffed floor to ceiling with sexy books. Clara keeps it locked, only handing over the key after approving each visitor. But she hasn’t stepped through that red door since the death of her husband Jared, who curated the collection. Too many painful memories of passion lost.

Each book in this steamy contemporary romance series features a different member of the Book Nirvana staff. Runaway Love Story, coming June 24^th, features Laurel, a new shop assistant who sparks hard and fast with—well, let’s say the character from Book One who didn’t get his HEA. I’m currently writing Book Three, which features Margot, Clara’s youngest shop assistant. Of course, every couple in the series has a steamy encounter behind that red door.

Giveaway

I’m giving away one eBook copy of Runaway Love Story, Book Two in the Book Nirvana Series. To enter the drawing, pop over to my website and sign up for my quarterly newsletter. Then comment below that you’ve signed up. On Friday, June 7, I’ll choose a random winner.

And please remember, we authors live and die by reviews. So if you enjoy a book, take a moment to leave a review on Goodreads, Bookbub, or your favorite book vendor site. Thanks!

From May 31 through June 13, Book One in the series is just 99 cents (eBook) on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple/iTunes.

Blurb for Through the Red Door, Book Nirvana Book One:

Letting him inside could be her salvation…or her undoing.

Clara Martelli clings to Book Nirvana, the Oregon bookshop she and her late husband Jared built together. When rising rents and corporate competition threaten its survival, her best hope is their extensive erotica collection, locked behind a red door. In dreams and signs, her dead husband tells her it's time to open that door and move on. When a dark and handsome stranger's powerful magnetism jolts her back to life and he wants a look at the treasures of that secret room, she can't help but want to show him more.

Professor Nick Papadopoulos is looking for historical erotica. Book Nirvana's collection surpasses his wildest dreams, and so does its lovely owner. A widower, he understands Clara's battle with guilt, but their searing chemistry is too strong to resist. Besides, he will only be in town for two weeks, not long enough for her to see beyond the scandal that haunts his past.

Amazon Barnes & Noble Google Play Kobo iTunes 

Blurb for Runaway Love Story, Book Nirvana Book Two
Coming June 24^th.

She hates average...he's as average as they come.

High school history teacher Doug Garvey is trying to enjoy his last few weeks of summer vacation, but receiving his final divorce decree hits him harder than expected. After a brief fling fizzles, he fears love just isn't in the cards for him. If only he could find someone who's real, someone interested in something beyond herself…maybe a new running partner who can keep up with his more carnal appetite. When sexy, straight-talking Laurel runs across his path, he dares to hope again.

He's done with social-climbing posers...she's ambitious and has big dreams.

Fired from an art gallery, Laurel Jepsen shelves her pursuit of an art career in San Francisco to help her beloved great aunt Maxie move into assisted living. While out on a morning run, she's harassed by a group of teens until a tall, broad-shouldered hottie steps in, pretending to be her boyfriend with a kiss that makes her wish it were true. But she's only passing through, not looking for a relationship.

Their fierce chemistry burns up the sheets—and the couch, the shower, the forest—but falling in love would ruin everything. Laurel can't stay in Eugene, and he can't leave. Doug's only hope is to convince her the glittery life she's after could blind her to the opportunities already in her path.

Preorder on Amazon Preorder from Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Ever since her first kiss, Sadira’s been spinning steamy tales in her head. After leaving her teaching career in Germany, she finally tried her hand at writing one. Now she’s a happy citizen of Romancelandia, penning contemporary romance and cozy mysteries from her home in Washington State. When not writing, which is seldom, she explores the Pacific Northwest with her charming husband, enjoys the local music scene, belly dances, plays guitar badly, and gobbles all the books. Visit Sadira at www.sadirastone.com, or on Facebook Twitter Goodreads Bookbub Amazon Author Page

Pinterest Instagram

Review Tuesday: Whispers of the Flesh by Louisa Burton - #ReviewTuesday #erotica #historical

Whispers of the Flesh by Louisa Burton

Bantam/Dell, 2008

Whispers of the Flesh is the third volume in Louisa Burton’s Hidden Grotto series of erotic novels. The series is set in the mysterious valley of the Grotte Cachée, hidden in the mountains of Auvergne, France. Despite its isolation, the valley has been inhabited for long ages by a variety of peoples. It houses sacred altars among ancient oaks, a marble bath house decorated with outrageous erotic sculpture, a volcanic cave with a healing spring and psychotropic vapors, and the medieval chateau where generations of seigneurs have lived out their lives over the centuries.

The valley is also home to a quartet of immortals whom the seigneurs have sworn to protect and serve. Inigo the satyr is a happy-go-lucky ambisexual with prodigious genitalia and a libido to match. Lili is a stunningly beautiful Mesopotamian goddess who requires sexual congress with mortals in order to survive. Elic is Norse demon who can assume the shape of either male or female in order to couple with humans of either sex. Finally, Darius is a djinn with the power to assume animal shapes and to heal. He is cursed with an irresistible sensitivity to human emotion; if he senses a human’s desire, he cannot help but fulfill it.

The earlier books were structured as a series of vignettes jumping back and forth through time. Through privilege or chance, humans would visit the chateau and be drawn into the sexual games and intrigues of the four “follets”. The follets need a continuous supply of human lust. The lord of the Hidden Grotto is committed to providing this. Across the centuries, the chateau has played host to innumerable seductions, orgies, slave auctions, and mock satanic rituals. The humans involved rarely come to understand that their primary role is to fulfill the sexual requirements of the immortals. Nevertheless, they usually leave sated, and often wiser, for their experiences

Whispers in the Flesh offers a slightly different structure. The action occurs in three time periods: the eighteen twenties, the early nineteen seventies, and the present. However, the stories are intertwined. Back in the nineteenth century, a rigidly chaste Jesuit arrives at the chateau, ostensibly to complete a landscape design plan but actually to investigate persistent rumors of demons and black magic.

At the height of the hippie era, a clot of young pleasure seekers converge on the valley for a week of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Among them is the future wife of the current administrateur, the seneschal whose descendants over the ages have organized life for the seigneur of the Grotte Cachée.

In the present, the adminstrateur Emmett Archer lies on his deathbed, suffering from aggressive pulmonary fibrosis. His daughter Isabel has arrived at the chateau to spend what are probably his last days, and to contemplate how to refuse the responsibility of taking over his hereditary position. She cannot bear to spend her life serving the young seigneur Adrian Morel, for whom she harbors an impossible passion. Also visiting is Hitch, an old comrade of Emmett’s from the days of the Vietnam war.

Each thread of the tale influences future events. To avoid revealing to much, I won’t say anything more about the plot. However, the new structure of this novel gives it a different rhythm than the previous books, in some ways more effective.

When I reviewed the earlier books, I commented that the characterizations of the follets seemed less fully realized than those of the humans around them, partly because they do not involve themselves emotionally with their “victims”. I found Whispers of the Flesh more satisfying in this regard. Both Darius and Lili reveal themselves more fully, especially in their interactions with the priest David Beckett. Elic and Lili, lovers who cannot physically consummate their passion, suffer from jealousy and remorse. And Isabel, a woman from the outside world despite her familiarity with the follets, has some serious conflicts with them.

Although it delves somewhat deeper into the immortals’ history and motivations and even has intimations of tragedy and death, Whispers of the Flesh still struck me as a light-hearted romp, full of extravagant sexual excess enjoyed mostly for the pleasure of it. The two exceptions are Lili’s seduction of Beckett, who struggles against his own vows of chastity, and Isabel’s apparently doomed coupling with Adrian. Both of these scenes offered an emotional intensity lacking in most of the sexual interactions.

Ms. Burton’s sex scenes are a lot of fun. Also, the entire attitude of this series is emphatically sex-positive. Sex almost always produces favorable outcomes, though not necessarily happily ever afters.

On the other hand, my personal notion of eroticism requires something more than just mutual pleasure. For me, a story needs to have some sort of edge to be erotic. Something more important than a climax needs to be at stake. Thus, though I found Whispers of the Flesh to be entertaining, it was only occasionally arousing. This of course is a personal reaction. For some people, the very notion of unbridled sexual activity is exciting. The follets gleefully violate taboos left and right. For some readers, this will be a turn on. I may just be jaded.

In any case, Whispers of the Flesh offers safe, sane, diverse and diverting sex, set in an historically-convincing environment laced with just the right amount of magic. If this sounds appealing, I recommend the book highly.

Night Moves (#erotica #historical #memories)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Writing at My Own Risk (#erotica #history #giveaway)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.