Tuesday 18 August 2020

Sexy Stories 20 - Reunion: Dancing with the Spirits - Sensual magic

 Sexy Stories 20 - Reunion

The Sexy Stories Podcast 20

Reunion: Dancing with the Spirits

by Ariana Lovelle

Hi All. I have a new alter ego, Ariana Lovelle, an erotica author who is guesting on the Virginia Waytes Sexy Stories blog and podcast this week. Virginia narrates my story, Reunion: Dancing with the Spirits. It is a sensual tale of magic and love set in a fantasy world where having power is not always safe.

See below for:

  • the podcast with all the lovely naughty bits
  • the eBook links with the full plot and delightful background story

Thank you so much to everyone who purchases any of the for sale eBooks, it really helps up keep things running.

 


Sexy Stories Podcast


Sexy Stories 20 - Reunion
Escaping torture and imprisonment, Manu has been healed by the water spirits and in turn has used his magic to partially restore their remote home. Now he is reunited with his husband and their love and sensual union will bring more than just healing.

Transcript available at the Transcripts page.




Please be aware, the Podcast has ADULT content.Do not press play unless you wish to hear it.

Books


Book of this week's episode:
 

Reunion: Dancing with the Spirits by Ariana Lovells

Reunion: Dancing with the Spirits

by Ariana Lovelle

Magic can mend, but only love can heal.

Dying, broken, his identity lost, one man has fought his way out of the hands of his kidnappers. Tortured by the Collectors for control of his magic, he has only one goal left: to heal the place they had ripped him away from. He remembers that pool and the spirits living within its waters. Yet Owen has been hoping and praying for the return of this man, and he is determined to wake Manu’s memories.

Love has to be stronger than the pain both of them have been through, but will it be enough to mend all the damage the Collectors have left behind?


Amazon Kindle Smashwords Apple Books Kobo Nook Google Play

Thursday 31 October 2019

Free Halloween eBook

Free Book - Trick or Treat Blog Hop

Free Book - Trick or Treat Blog Hop


Greetings and welcome to my blog on the spookiest of spooky days. It is a tradition of Tasha and I that we always produce a free eBook at Halloween. Usually it is for AllHallowsRead, but they don't seem to have updated their website this year, so just think of this as a trick or treat that is better for your teeth.🎃

Beyond Death - Tales of the Macabre

Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

Two tales that look past death into the terror beyond.

The Cup Runneth Over by Natasha Duncan-Drake
You have been tempted into places unknown and there are things lurking in the shadows.

The Promise by Sophie Duncan
When a person makes a commitment, they should stick to it. Carol is determined to stick to hers no matter how scary it may become.


The book will only be free until Thursday 7th Nov - so get in there quickly.

Friday 23 August 2019

Book Review: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

The Dark Is RisingThe Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A classic that can be read again and again

I first read this book when I was doing by gcse English and that is when I fell in love with it. Susan Cooper has a wonderful sophisticated way with words that weaves image and feeling together while still being able to appeal to both the adult and child in me. There is wonder in these pages, and magic and mystery all set in the backdrop of English countryside. As Will learns the truth of himself and the rising Dark, Cooper compells us to read on and discover with him. Don't be put off by him being an 11 year old boy, he needs no ageing up (like the terrible movie) to make him relatable, Cooper's storytelling does that.

A great read for children and adults alike.

View all my reviews

Friday 2 August 2019

Haunted Words! #FreeFictionFriday Exclusive Free Short Story

A piles of books

Haunted Words! #FreeFictionFriday Exclusive Free Short Story

It's Friday and we're now in August, which means it's Free Fiction Friday.

This month's story is a short about a haunted book.

Haunted Words 

by Sophie Duncan

Haunted Words Sophie Duncan background a pile of books and flowersWhen a bibliophile finds a book of awful love poetry, she has no way of knowing where Wilbur's purple rhymes will lead her.

It's easy to get a copy even if you're not already a subscriber - just join the Wittegen Press Newsletter and the links are included in the final welcome email.

Our promise to our subscribers: we never spam and we promise to never use you email address for anything else.

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Sunday 10 March 2019

Review: Fire Devil - Ellie Jordan Ghost Trapper #11

Fire Devil (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #11)Fire Devil by J.L. Bryan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the second of a pair, and I will say upfront, this killed much of the enjoyment for me. I gave the first book in this pair, The Monster Museum, a 1 star review, because the split just left it without a substantial story, but you can read that review separately. I am not being as caustic about this book, but my rating is low compared to most of the Ellie Jordan books, and here's why - it was too 'big'.

I don't mean in length, I mean in scope - like Terminal, which is #4 in the series, I felt the widening of the geography and the sheer number of ghosts detracted from the story - not to mention, it's finishing off the story that I think should have been in The Monster Museum. There's a whole mini story in the middle about a haunted hotel that could have been a book on its own, and it was the bit I enjoyed the most, and I loved the outcome of that bit. The actual climax of the main story I found overly large and therefore a bit anti-climatic, and I thought it was missing bits.

This book is the culmination of the long running arc featuring Anton Clay, and, as an aside here, I will mention the bits of the story that were written from Anton Clay's POV - I skipped every single one of them and it didn't matter a jot to the story - they were totally unnecessary and interrupted the flow of the plot, which has always been from Ellie's exclusive POV before. Okay, back to the finale - given how long we've been waiting for this showdown between Ellie and Clay, I knew it would be bigger than the 'villainous ghost of the book' encounter, but I was also expecting the climax to pick up other references from throughout the other books. Some it did, some it didn't, and the big one I think that was left out was Ellie's ability to skip out of her body, which seems to have just been dropped in the last few books - was it too useful? I can see why it was left out, because so much was thrown in that the climax was overstuffed anyway, but it's a talent I found interesting, so I was a bit disappointed when it didn't get used. For the climax itself, the use of an entire town full of ghosts had the same effect as in Terminal, it spread out the threat and it was just a distraction. Greta and Clay were the only two ghosts who made much impact, even Amil from Monster House was just a sidekick with a few mentions, diminishing his threat in my head - his ring was more important than him in the end. I did enjoy how Clay and Ellie faced off though - that was a well written bit of drama.

So, in summary, this is not my favourite book of the Ellie Jordan series, in fact it's my second worst, just coming in better than The Monster Museum, but unlike that book, I did not want to throw my kindle across the room after 'finishing' it, and I used quotes, because The Monster Museum didn't finish. It was an adequate conclusion to the Anton Clay arc, and I want to read more Ellie Jordan books, where I hope to be raising my review scores back up to 4's and 5's again.

View all my reviews

Friday 4 January 2019

Newsletter Exclusive - Free Fiction Friday - Two Free Stories for the New Year


Free Fiction Friday


Happy New Year everyone! To wish all our Newsletter subscribers the best this year, and to thank you all for sticking with us, we have 2 stories instead of 1 this month: a fantasy story of a young girl taking her first steps into magic and a contemporary fantasy m/m short about a young man, his dragon, and his best friend. You can find both of these for Free Fiction Friday over at Wittegen Press.

These stories are exclusively for subscribers of our newsletter, but anyone can join and it's really easy.

It is completely free to become a member and all you need is a valid email address. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and you’re done. Don't worry if you join after the 1st Friday, the password for the month will be included in the welcome email after you subscribe.

What we WILL DO for our subscribers:

  • Send you an email on the 1st Friday of the month to remind you about the short story and give you the password for the month as soon as the story goes live.
  • Send you information about new books, competitions and events, so you don’t miss anything.
  • Give you two Free eBooks just for joining.

What we WON’T DO to our subscribers:

  • Spam you with loads of random advertising.
  • Reveal your email address to anyone else.

This Month's Short Stories

The Wand
by Sophie Duncan
Genre: fantasy
Length: ~3.5K wds

Description:
Aelwin is a Maker, like her mother before her: she knows this in her heart, but will the fae Match her to her calling? When a hostile Shadow Coat arrives to perform the New Year Matching Ceremony for her and her friends, disaster threatens. 
Only Aelwin can stop it, but she doesn’t know how.



Mark of the Dragon
by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Genre: contemporary fantasy, m/m, adult
Length: ~3.5K wds

Description:
Luke has always known he has a destiny, after all he has the manifestation of a dragon on his skin that moves around as it pleases and a book in his head that explains all about it. However even dragons can't help with relationships, or can they?


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Thursday 6 September 2018

Book Review: The Monster Museum by J.L. Bryan (Ellie Jordan 10) - well, that was disappointing

The Monster Museum (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #10)The Monster Museum by J.L. Bryan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I have been known to rave about Ellie Jordan novels, frankly I love them, and I had this one on pre-order. Unfortunately, I found this one disappointing and frustrating, let me tell you why.

I love Ellie Jordan novels because they are exciting and mysterious spook hunts with a side of personal tension for the main characters, each adventure has a beginning and an end, and then there may or may not be a background arc that continues into the next book or two. Well, in this one, I was left with an impression that it's more personal angst for Ellie with a tiny side of ghosts.

Each story focuses on a haunted location, with Ellie and friends solving the mystery of who the ghost is and how to get rid of them and the important bit - they solve the problem, that's the satisfying ending. Well, in this book, that gets lost in two things:
- Ellie obsessing about her attraction to two men - now Ellie has a tendency to brood about relationships, but this goes way beyond that and just gets frustrating, it doesn't really have a point, or take the plot anywhere and doesn't get handled realistically at the end
- so that brings me to the second thing, the end, which is swamped by a huge drama mostly unrelated to the haunted location that diminishes the build up and mystery to a point where I thought it was all rather pathetically handled, undervaluing the trauma and drama of the haunted location and its inhabitants .

This felt like a good story (The Monster Museum piece) sacrificed to the 'background' arc, which took control (not very originally IMO - spotted it from the moment it was hinted at and just hoped throughout the book we weren't going in that repetitive direction, but we did) and left a cliffhanger that really got me annoyed (I don't like cliffhangers at the best of times, but when it undermines any satisfaction in the solution to the mystery at the heart of the title of the book, I get stompy).

Please, please, please, make the next book better, I don't want to stop reading what is one of my favourite series ever.

View all my reviews