The Sweet Spot

Sweet Spot – A New Lesbian Sports Romance by Lucy Felthouse! (@cw1985 @8britbabes) #erotica #romance #lesbian

Blurb:

A Raw Talent book.

Virginia Miller is an up-and-coming tennis star. She’s gone from a ratty tennis court in a park in south London, England, to the world’s top training facility—Los Carlos Tennis Academy in California. In awe of the talent around her, Virginia is all the more determined to make the most of the opportunity and show that she’s worthy of her place there. Her mentor, Nadia Gorlando, has every faith in her.

But Virginia finds herself distracted—Nadia, as well as being a top-notch tennis player, is seriously sexy, and Virginia’s mind keeps wandering where it shouldn’t. Will her crush get in the way of her career, or can she find a way to push the other woman out of her mind before it’s too late?

Buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/sweet-spot/

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21521972-sweet-spot

*****

Excerpt:

Nadia Gorlando and I had just gotten off the exercise bikes in the gym when one of the academy’s coaches, Peter Ross, headed over to us, all smiles.

“Hey, Nadia,” he said, his all-American grin widening and his blond hair flopping down over his forehead, “I need a huge favor.”

I flicked my gaze to Nadia. She raised one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows and waited for him to continue. He did.

“I totally lost track of time just now and I have an appointment with Travis Connolly. Would you mind wiping down my machine for me? Or maybe stick a note on it saying it’s out of order? I don’t want to leave it all sweaty for someone else. You’ll be doing me a real solid. I’ll owe you.”

My jaw almost hit the floor.

Now Nadia rolled her eyes, looked over at the offending machine, then back at Peter. “Sure, I understand,” she said, as cool as ice. “The world’s number one can’t wait. Go right ahead—I’ll fix it for you.”

He babbled a load of thanks, then jogged out of the gym.

I gaped at her. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

Nadia chuckled. “Of course not. He may be coaching Travis Connolly and Rufus Lampani for the US Open, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to clean up his mess.” She pointed with her chin over to the machine Peter had just vacated. “Come on, V, I’ll show you how I’m going to deal with this.”

I followed her, grinning. Her tone told me that it was going to be something fun. Well, for us, anyway. Probably not for Peter.

Sure enough, when she returned from the room off the side of the gym, she had a pad of paper and a pen in her hands. Deliberately shielding the pad from my view, she wrote something down, then pulled off the top sheet. Folding it, she then propped it on the sweat-slicked seat so the writing was on view to anyone who happened past.

When I’d read and absorbed the words, I turned to Nadia, impressed. Her smile lit up her face, showing dimples in each cheek, and her brown eyes gleamed with amusement.

It was in that moment that I decided I had the serious hots for Nadia Gorlando.

The sign read,

PLEASE EXCUSE THE STATE OF THIS MACHINE. PETER ROSS, TENNIS COACH SUPREMO, “LOST TRACK OF TIME”.

*****

Author Bio:

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100 publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house. She owns Erotica For All, is book editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. 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

Dear John I Love Jane

The new buzzword in female sexuality is “sexual fluidity”—the idea that for many women, sexual identity can shift over time, often in the direction of same-sex relationships. Examples abound in popular culture, from actress Cynthia Nixon, who left her male partner of 15 years to be with a woman, to writer and comedienne Carol Leifer, who divorced her husband for the same reason.

In a culture increasingly open to accepting this fluidity, Dear John, I Love Jane is a timely, fiercely candid exploration of female sexuality and personal choice. The book is comprised of essays written by a broad spectrum of women, including a number of well-known writers and personalities. Their stories are sometimes funny, sometimes painful—but always achingly honest—accounts of leaving a man for a woman, and the consequences of making such a choice.

Arousing, inspiring, bawdy, bold, and heartfelt, Dear John, I Love Jane is an engrossing reflection of a new era of female sexuality.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dear-John-Love-Jane-Leaving-ebook/dp/B00440D84C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402374365&sr=1-1&keywords=dear+john+I+love+jane

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8352940-dear-john-i-love-jane?from_search=true

1. How did the concept for Dear John I Love Jane come about?

When I ended my marriage and was trying to meet women, I felt a lot of suspicion from lesbians in my town who wondered if I was just experimenting. That was understandable. But, it made me feel another layer of being an “other.” I knew there must be others like me, but I didn’t know how to connect with them or to learn from their experiences. There were a couple of anthologies that were decades old and didn’t resonate with me. t decided to put together an anthology that would include modern stories of women leaving men for women, or coming out in midlife.

2. Tell us about your adventures in cooking. What are some of your favorite types of foods to make?

I love to cook big feasts during the holidays, or for dinner parties. Some of my favorite things to make are osso buco, risotto, roast chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, baked eggs and polenta in ramekins. Many of the recipes are in Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity, (my foodie memoir) which came out from Seal Press after Dear John, I Love Jane.

3. What is one thing you want readers to get from your work?

Whether I’m writing about family or work or motherhood or sexual identity, I want readers to feel a sense of connection, recognition, that they’re not alone, that they’re well within the commonalities of being a human.

4. Are there any authors you feel have inspired your writing?

Absolutely! Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Mona Simpson, Donna Tartt, Jonathan Lethem, Theo Pauline Nestor.

5. Do you write to music? If so, what?

I like writing to Maria Taylor, Natalie Walker. and Harold Budd (the latter provides low-key white noise kind of music that doesn’t jar me out of my flow).

6. Heels or flats?

Platform heels are fun. I have a desk treadmill at work, so I wear flats there. But it’s a lot of fun to wear heels for special occasions.

7. If I were your favorite cookie, what flavor would I be (and what would you dunk me in?)

My favorite cookies are: Milano from Pepperidge Farm, linzer tarts from Long Island Italian bakeries. I am not a dunker. I am very rigid about that!

8. Favorite place to vacation:

I love going to new places more than I like returning to familiar places. I want to go to Greece and Cuba; my maternal grandmother was born in Cuba, and my maternal grandfather’s parents came through Ellis Island from Crete. But I also want to go someplace relaxing that doesn’t have any cell phone or internet reception, where I’d be forced to unplug and really connect to the present moment.

9. Favorite movie:

I really enjoyed Hugo.

10. What project are you working on now?

I am writing a novel about two young women who have a profound, but unknown to them, connection.

The review:

This book blew me away. That is a wonderful thing. I can still remember seeing the cover and going …wow. DJILJ is going to be a powerful book. It was. It is. It made me laugh and cry and snort through my nose at times but one thing it did was show me a completely different side of lesbian life that I hadn’t really considered. Women can change who they love. They do it every day. It isn’t easy-for anyone. Especially if you are married to a man, have a family and all of a sudden your life shifts on its axis. There are “rules.” Even now with the world changing, if you step outside the line of what is social and politically accepted, there is a price to pay. These women paid it. Blood, sweat and tears…but they came out the other side and they are still standing.

These are the stories housed within this amazing book. It is funny and sad and so very, very real. This book made me realize that as women we have the power to be so much. To love who we choose and be the woman we are meant to be-whether that person is a man as society dictates, or a woman because it is a choice we have made.

The authors and contributors of these experiences deserve the highest marks for courage and the fortitude as they share their stories with the rest of us. You are the modern day heroines. You took your life and made it your own.

5/5

 

About this author

Candace Walsh is the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Seal Press, 2012). She is also the editor of two anthologies, Dear John, I Love Jane; and Ask Me About My Divorce, both by Seal Press. She writes the Good Taste column at AfterEllen.com, and is the managing editor at New Mexico Magazine. She was the features editor at Mothering Magazine for 6 years. She lives with her family in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Book Review: Erzabet Bishop’s New Novel, _Sigil Fire_

Queerly Reading Lesbian

Paranormal fantasy, as a genre, often falls into a rather cheesy place, where vampires and weres exist in a real-world setting, beset with magic, yet those things merely mask a basic romance novel.   Given my wary disposition toward the genre, I was pleasantly surprised by the story crafted by Erzabeth Bishop in Sigil Fire. In fact, Bishop’s characters, an intricate weaving of action, and overall descriptive style caught me off-guard and left me wanting to read more.  While I am familiar with her novel, Beltane Fires,which I enjoyed, I found Sigil Fire to be much more compelling a tale.

Within paranormal setting of layered worlds of magic, cast with dark shadows and intrigue, Erzabet Bishop creates a thrilling detective tale, complete with strong female characters, a largess of succubus sexiness.  If, as Bishop writes, “sigil and blood magic will be the path that sets you free, ” then

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