Hot Down Under Release Day

Today is release day for the final five wicked and original short stories by the Hot Down Under Aussie erotic writers. In total there are 14 stories which were released in November and December, and I'm proud to be in such excellent, diverse company.

Saving Grace, my 10K story, was a pleasure to write as it combines so many themes and elements which fascinate me. Set during the early years of photography it's about a rich man's hobby which becomes a poor girl's road to ruin.

Below is the blurb, followed by a brief run-down of all the stories which can be downloaded at Amazon.

Saving Grace by Beverley Oakley.

It’s 1878 and London’s most beautiful and hard-hearted prostitute, Grace Fortune, is preparing for her next job. She’s the special initiation ‘gift’ procured by a mother in fashionable Mayfair for her son’s twenty-first birthday. When Grace discovers she is to be servicing the man whose secret she’d guarded at the cost of her once-secure position as a housemaid and whose betrayal has plunged her into this hated life, she wants revenge. That is, until the re-emergence of malevolent forces that destroyed the couple’s young love. Now David and Grace must reconcile the past and fight for a different kind of justice to salvage their dignity and find happiness.

Business with Pleasure by Keziah Hill

For sculptor Lottie Williams, entering her sculpture, Triumvirate, in the Carve the Wind exhibition is the culmination of her career.

What she doesn’t count on is the incendiary lust between her and the curators, James and Magda. While she’s at first happy to play, she rapidly gets out of her depth when she confuses business with pleasure. Against the wild backdrop of the Pacific Ocean her work is displayed to great acclaim.

But all she wants, all she can think about is being back in the bed of the two people who have laid claim to her heart and soul.

This story is rated "Very Hot" (5 out of 5 flames) and contains F/F/M pairings.

Midsummers Eve by Shona Husk.
When Zoe walked out on the dare-devil photographer Sam Lincoln she never expected to see him again. Now he is here covering the reopening of a winery that nearly burned down, the one where they’d planned to marry. Seeing Zoe is a shock. Five years ago Sam hadn’t been able to refuse the job of a lifetime, but in exchange he lost the love of his life. With a little help from the winery’s lusty patron spirit Zoe and Sam might be able to put the past aside and rekindle what they’d thought lost.

Hidden Passions by Marianne Theresa.
When a guy falls in love with a mate’s girl, there is only one thing he can do … leave town. When Chad Whittaker receives a frantic call for help from the woman he loves he’s on the next plane home to Sydney. But will he get there in time? Cally Foster just kicked her boyfriend’s no-good, lying, cheating ass out of her apartment and her life. That’s what a girl gets when she falls for the wrong guy.

Powerplay by Lexxie Couper.
Sam and Nicky White are a typical contemporary power couple. She’s a ball-busting vice president at the country’s leading bank, he’s the trophy husband she wears on her arm at executive dinners. Except when they are in the bedroom. In the bedroom, their “games” of sexual domination have Sam firmly in the position of power. Nicky, however, is ready to bring the game to an end but Sam has other ideas. During a night of domination and submission in their isolated country cottage, an unexpected guest drops in on the couple. A dangerous guest. And for Sam and Nicky, nothing will ever be the same again.

Hot Down Under releases first 5

Pan Macmillan's new digital imprint, Momentum, will release the first 5 erotic short stories in its Hot Down Under series on November 1st. The second four will be released December 1 and the next five - of which Saving Grace is one - will be released January 1.

Read more about the innovative, exciting, sexy new series at http://tinyurl.com/cy9trep

Saving Grace cover

Ta da!! Here's the cover for my January release - Saving Grace - written under my Beverley Oakley name. It is one of fourteen short stories and novellas which Pan Macmillan Momentum will be publishing in November, December and January and I'm now allowed to reveal it to the world. I'm delighted with it!
     Set in 1874 during the early years of photography it's about a rich man's hobby and a poor girl's road to ruin.
     You can read about the story behind the story on the Hot Down Under blog, here.

Revisions are so Hard!!

BTW - I'm introducing myself as Beverley Oakley at the Hot Down Under site together with my fabulous 13 fellow authors whose upcoming titles will be released by Pan Macmillan Momentum in November, December and January.

I'm also at Manic Readers discussing managing risk and taking care are school holidays are upon me and so is the pressure to finalise revisions for A Little Deception. (There's also an extract there.)

Anyway, the intrigue is so multi-layered that it's a huge task to stay on top of how much the innocent heroine knows as opposed to the sister-in-law and her lover who've gone to such lengths to blacken her name, as opposed to the heroine and sister-in-law's grasping cousin who's been lured into the scheme with the promise of sexual favours as opposed to the hero who must sort all this out before realising the wife who deceived him into marriage is innocent of all but loving him. (Sigh....)

No, there are no spoilers here. It's all in the intrigue and the sexual tension - and getting it all just right. The book was published in hard cover two years ago but I'd had to cut 15,000 words and a plot tangent  to fulfil the publisher's word count. Now I can add that necessary extra layer.

It should have been on Amazon a week ago and it definitely will have to be before I go camping next week! I've made too many promises and this is one I just have to keep.

Hot Down Under Cover Art - and new Amazon release

The first mock-up of proposed cover art in the Hot Down Under erotic short stories has just hit our inboxes with Mel Teshco's 'Under the Light of the Silver Moon'.

Joel Naoum, Momentum's publisher, is asking for input - a refreshing change when as an author one usually has little say.

I had a dream the other night I got the cover art back for Her Gilded Prison, my forthcoming release with Ellora's Cave. The previous evening I'd sent off the Author Art Information in which it makes it quite clear that once the author has provided the essential details to the artist, that's where communication regarding the cover ceases.

Well, my dream was that I received the cover art for my erotic Regency Romance and it featured ... yes, wait for it ... a woman sharing a sleeping bag with three men in the back of a fighter jet.

What turned it from dream to nightmare was 'knowing' that I couldn't change it as the fault 'obviously' lay with me in failing to communicate the essential details.

And now it really is time to wrap up the evening. Mel's cover is looking absolutely fabulous with its Hot Down Under Momentum branding - the red stripe down the side. And I know my Ellora's Cave cover is going to look great too - and be true to the period. (So, no, I'm really not worried.)

I had a great day's teaching Short Story at Vic Uni today, and now I must prepare myself for a busy day editing and preparing to upload to Amazon my previously hard cover Regency Romance, A Little Deception.

It was nominated Favourite Historical Romance in 2011 by ARRA (Australian Romance Readers Association) however now that I have the rights back I'm going to up the heat level. I had so many readers complain that they got left behind at the bedroom door. It was one of the reasons I moved on to writing for Ellora's Cave and Total-E-Bound. However, my neat little experiment is that the hard cover will be for 'your elderly aunt' while 'you' can read the e-book and paperback version with all the heat and steam between hero and heroine which some readers felt was missing.

Then you can discuss the plot surrounding the diamond heist and the dastardly plotting sister-in-law with auntie rather than the heat level. That way, hopefully everyone's happy and I, too, will have had a little extra fun.

So look out for it. It'll be upon Amazon in the next few days.

New Corsets and Contracts

Here's the beautiful corset I wore for the Harlequin 'Diamonds are Forever' cocktail party last Friday at Romance Writers of Australia's conference on the Gold Coast.




The highlight, however, was my new contract with Pan MacMillan Momentum and the breakfast (right) I enjoyed with our new editor, Joel Naoum, and the other Hot Down Under erotic romance authors at the QT Hotel.

The collection will have short stories released in November, December and January. My short historical romance, Saving Grace, is about a prostitute whose hated way of life is thrust upon her as a result of her safeguarding the secret of the man she loved and whom she believes betrayed her. Here's a link about the Hot Down Under venture from Bookseller and Publisher.

Here's the Momentum Press Release about the collection: • Commencing in November, Momentum, the new digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan Australia will be releasing a series of 13 erotic short stories by new and established Australian romance writers • Contributing authors include Rhyll Biest, Rhian Cahill, Kasey Channing, Cate Ellink, C.T. Green, S.E. Gilchrist, Keziah Hill, Shona Husk, Beverley Oakley, Kylie Scott, Tracie Sommers, Mel Teshco and Marianne Theresa. • Each volume will be competitively priced and available globally Hot Down Under – 13 red hot stories by 13 talented Aussie authors guaranteed to make you sizzle.

Each story has an Australian setting. Some are rural, some are fantasy and some even have zombies. Announced just ahead of the Romance Writers of Australia Conference (August 16–19), the project was the brainchild of Tracey O’Hara, who will be contributing a story under the name Tracie Sommers.

‘I have loved being part of the Hot Down Under project. It originally started out as a way to help mentor new writers and soon became much more. We were all extremely thrilled when Momentum came on board. Erotic fiction has been huge long beforeFifty Shades of Grey came along. Erotic romance has been selling like hotcakes in the US for many years now and I published my first erotic short story in 2009. It is great to see an Australian publishing company supporting some great genre fiction.’ – Tracey O’Hara

Five of the authors are previously unpublished and were mentored by the established authors during the writing process. The resulting stories combine a fresh approach with years of experience. ‘Tracey O’Hara invited me to contribute and I loved the idea of being part of a solely home grown erotic romance anthology. It also gave me a great excuse to revisit the Australian post-zombie-apocalypse world of Flesh [due out from Momentum in October], only toying with the lives and loves of a different set of characters this time.’ – Kylie Scott ‘We had always planned to publish extensively in genres like romance and erotic romance when we first launched Momentum. However, we weren’t expecting such a gifted collection of new and established authors to approach us with such an accomplished project.

More than anything, this proves that there is a vibrant and talented community of genre writers in this country who are looking for support from their local publishers. We can’t wait to get this project up and running and to help connect these stories and their writers with their audience.’ – Joel Naoum, publisher at Momentum

For any further information about the series, register interest in obtaining review copies, or to arrange an interview with the publisher or one of the authors, please contact Mark Harding, Digital Marketing Executive, Momentum. mark.harding@momentumbooks.com.au +612 8021 0705