Part I: MY SELF-PUB LIFE or How I learned to love new aspects of publishing

Stepping into self-pubbed world!

Am I ready this week finally to put up a 99-center at Kindle? As a self-published author?

Oh, dear reader and author, I AM! Do come to my blog for Part One of My Journey into digital publishing!

http://cerisedeland.blogspot.com 

4th in my best-selling Regency series debuts Wednesday

THE BASTARD'S PASSIONATE PRIZE comes out 3.30.11. ! This is the last of the STANHOPE CHALLENGE series, which has led 3 best-seller lists for more than 9 months. 9. months.

HAPPY SNOOPY DANCING that so many like these books.

This story was a challenge to write.

Why?

Mark Stanhope is a clipper ship owner out of Baltimore, the bastard of the Stanhope clan, and he is impressed by the British into their Navy just before the War of 1812. I had to do A LOT of research about impressment, release, and of course, I had to add Barbary pirates!

Of course, he and his stowaway are captured. And of course, since this is erotica, the pirates have dastardly things in mind, donchaknow.

How to save our heroine's virtue?

How to remain a noble hero?

How to prove to her family (nobility of course) that he is worthy of her?

How to build her so that she can endure all that and come out heroic herself?

Do come see!

Wednesday at www.resplendencepublishing.com and soon to be elsewhere, too, one would expect.

A nibble for you?

NOTICE HERE for readers: This story includes, among other things, M/M/F and F/F exhibitionism.

A taste?

(Copyright 2011, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.)

This scene occurs in a Barbary pirate's castle on the coast of north Africa, 1811.

"Another procession now came through the far door. This time, two caretakers, aged maids from the seraglio, led in two younger women. These last were clothed in kaftans of red and gold brocade. In the center of the room, they paused, bowed to the pasha and gave him a salaam, then held out their arms. Their elderly maids rushed forward, unclasped the hooks on their garments, and viola!

The men gasped in pleasure.

The two young women were completely naked.

Sirena sucked in air. Save for rings on their fingers and toes and strands of pearls threaded into their waist-length raven hair, these girls were nude. Polished, their dark olive skin glowed in the brilliant refractions of the sunlight on the alabaster tiles. Gracefully, aware of their power to enflame to lust, they strolled the perimeter of the room, dangerously close to the men who watched them with covetous eyes.

Sirena was left now to wonder if she was to perform the same promenade. Yet, no one spoke to her. All eyes, all attention went to the two women who strolled now to the center of the room, stood upon the smaller couch and pillows, then sank down gracefully to the silken bed.

Close enough to see the two women’s expressions, Sirena gasped at the smiles they gave each other. One rose on her hands and knees, the other rolled to her back. Like a beast of prey, the first woman crawled over the second, a feral grin of domination spreading her plush red lips. The one on her back spread wide her legs, her mound cleanly shaven, smooth, glistening with moisture that could have come only from inside her.

Sirena reared back. They were to make love to each other. How could that be?

Yet it was true. The woman on her back, Sirena could well see from this angle, bore a tattoo on one inner thigh. Her mate, the dominant one, reached down to her cunny to stroke her seam with one long index finger. The men in the crowd shuffled. One moaned.

The dominant woman arched, her firm buttocks in the air, then she bent and put her mouth to the woman beneath her. The two of them gave themselves up to the pleasures, the one licking and sucking. The other, grabbing up handfuls of purple silk, twisting in her euphoria.

Sirena felt her own body gush in appreciation of the two. She shifted, pushing her thighs together to stop the throb that had begun and made her wish for Mark to ease the hurt. But the two women had no inclination to cease their pleasure, nor did the men on the sidelines. Some of them stood as the dominant woman bit the dark pebbling nipples of her partner. Some men slumped in their chairs, their hands to their groins, or leaned toward the women for a better view. Meanwhile, from beneath the shallow bedding, the dominant woman produced an ivory rod. Perhaps six inches in length, the implement made some in the audience laugh, a few applaud, other gasp, but most flared their nostrils and growled. The houri held it aloft for all to view like a prize, a promise. This ivory rod, Sirena could now see, was shaped like a penis. A marvelous stiff, thick cock.

Sirena licked her lips. It was just like Mark’s."

Nibble of LADY RAMSEY's RIBALD CHOICES

LADY RAMSEY'S RIBALD CHOICES is a free read included in the back of the book, LADY FEATHERSTONE'S FERVENT AFFAIR.

LADY FEATHERSTONE is the 2nd in my STANHOPE CHALLENGE series, which has been in the top 10 best-sellers on 3 different sites for more than 8 months! (yeah. you read that right. 8 months. 3 lists.)

Color me tickled.

So. You need a nibble of Lady Ramsey's story, don't you? After all, she is a part of the Stanhope clan, their half sister, in fact.

Copyright 2010, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.

Here you go:

At twenty-eight, Lady Ramsey had the distinct privilege of possessing her two deceased husbands’ fortunes, a house in Grosvenor Square, two in the country and a set of race horses who had served as stud to so many mares that she had begun to hire them out to service her neighbors’ breeding programs.

Just before the demise of her second husband, she had broached a novel idea with the old roué. To her surprise, he agreed that for her excellent service to him and his appetites for her cunny and her breasts, she should secure some kind of continued joy for herself after his passing. She did not want to breed. No, no. But she did wish to enjoy herself before she lost her lustrous blonde looks and healthy buxom body. Thus the old man had immediately set about interviewing and hiring staff who would aid her in her quest.

With one butler and his assistant, plus a male cook who also served as man-of-all-work, her masculine household’s uniqueness was noted by the ton. Indeed, her household became a notorious topic and a bane to her more conventional half-brothers, Adam, Wes and Jack Stanhope.

But she told herself she could not care overmuch. Her dear brothers were not exactly paragons of sexual virtue and in fact, lived up the demands of the males in the family that they be accomplished lovers. She, too, was a Stanhope, after all, and could flaunt convention as her ancestors had. True, too, she was also a by-blow of the eighth earl, Lord John, and thus not only on the other side of the blanket but entitled to act like it if she wished. And she did sincerely wish. Plus, like her brothers, she would never find happiness in love or marriage. She was a victim of the family curse that damned all love affairs within the family bounds. So why then should she not give herself what happiness she might take?

Thus tonight, after burying her husband in July and allowing herself two more months to train and be trained by her new staff, Clarice shivered in anticipation of her initiation into a new world of carnal delights. A world described to her by her butler and his assistant. A world she craved for the lonely days of her existence. For if love was not her destiny, if marriage an impossibility and a prison of its own making, if children not her goal, then pleasure would be.

Tonight was her first evening. She trembled deliciously as she rose from her bathtub, stepped over the porcelain rim to the floor and allowed her butler to wrap her naked body in a heated bath towel.

“Thank you, Robert,” she smiled at the man whom her husband had hired for her to embark on the search for her own ecstasies. She adored the man’s luscious swarthy looks, the breadth of his shoulders, the bulk of his arms and his experience as a colonel in the Iberian Campaign. A colleague of her brother Wes, Robert had acquired a leg wound that left him with a slight limp.

“Madam,” he said in homage with that baritone she felt stroke her spine in velvet tones. “You may want to use the French lavender perfume this evening.”

“Really?” she admired his sculpted mouth and allowed her praise to emanate from her eyes. “Where would you suggest I apply it tonight?” she asked. He always had ideas that titillated her senses.

“For the Baron DeVere, I would say the hollow of your breasts.” His voice rumbled as his umber gaze traveled from one areola to the other and sank to the valley between.

“And for Lord Landover?” she asked, recalling that Robert and Landover were childhood friends.

“The hollow between your buttocks.” Robert’s hell-dark gaze locked on hers.

“He likes a woman’s nether place, does he?” she pressed her thighs together as cream flooded her cunny at the prospect.

“Very much. He can show you the joys of it like no other man. You are prepared for this?” he asked, his muscular arms embracing her as he circled and ran his hands down her backbone to cup her cheeks, define the cleft between them, and press inside her asshole with one long index finger.

“I am.”

7 Ways to create a New Lover!

Tall, Dark and Handsome.

Blond, Big and Buff.

Muscular.. and Mean.

Whoa! Mean?

Lately, I've read a few where the hero comes off as too mean to be a lover. My lover. Your lover.

Now, I like my men strong, emotionally and physically, but I like them rational, too.

Except when they are falling in love, of course.

As we find in our real life that people are more rude, our children are bullied, and some just want to hog everything from the road to the airwaves to the political stage, muscle seems to be the modus operandi.

I like fortitude and bravery, but I also like my men smoothly conquering the challenges in life, not intimidating others, especially their women.

ENUF!

Here is a nibble of my new cherry, out this Wednesday from www.resplendencepublishing.com , MISS DARLING'S INDECENT OFFER is #3 in my best-selling (drum-roll) regency series on 3 different sales sites! (Whodathunk?)

(Copyright 2010, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.)

She held tightly to his hand all the way home to Durham Manor. A short ride of ten minutes, the journey seemed to take ten years. But snuggled against Jack’s chest, Emma listened to his heart beat and the pace resounded with her own yearning. To make love to him, to be loved by him for just one night seemed so impossible days ago that she had feared to make this last request in her offer. But he had agreed and now he seemed as eager as she.

Do not delude yourself, Emma. Men love rarely. That was her mother’s warning.

Emma fought back the dour words, so daunting to her fortitude. But you do not wish for love from him. Only the deflowering.

She squirmed in her seat. Be honest, Emma, don’t you want more?

“You are sad. Why?” Jack lifted her chin. “If you have second thoughts on this, I can—”

“No!” She tried in vain to smile at him. “I was thinking of people who have nothing to do with us.”

Jack’s silver eyes seemed to look straight through her. “Who?”

“My mother.”

“She has to do with you. So tell me.”

“She has a jaded view of men. Thinks none worthy of her. Thinks few can honor a woman’s affections.”

“Do you believe her?”

Emma examined his earnest features, so intent on her. “I always thought her a little…extreme.”

“Parents often appear that way.”

“They do. After a while, it becomes imperative to rid yourself of their notions.”

He hooted. “How true. I’ll tell you about my father sometime. His notions are notoriously odd.”

“I have heard.”

“Really? I wonder that they did not deter you from approaching me,” he said with distaste for the subject.

“They were, I am ashamed to say, the very reasons that I did,” she admitted, felt her cheeks flush with color and turned her face toward the coachman who pulled open the door and let down the steps. “I think of you differently now.”

He cupped her face with one hand and led her to look at him. “Do you, darling? How encouraging,” he whispered as he bent and kissed her slowly, his mouth blessing hers time and time again and creating a craving for more. “Come,” he said breathlessly as the barouche rolled to a stop and he broke away. Quickly, he stepped out, offered his hand and led her up the broad stone steps.

CIAO, BELLA!

Books you would have loved to author

There are those books that stay with me in my heart. Most are fiction, some non. But what have they given me?
Anya Seton gave me a love of well-written romance mixed with superbly wrought history. Katherine, especially, was definitive for me. I recently gave a copy of all her books to my daughter who is a devotee of all things Anne Boleyn and English queens and mistresses who conquer, mostly themselves.
Jacqueline Winspear writes a beautifully wrought series about a British nurse in World War I who becomes a detective and savant. Maisie Dobbs is every woman who survives tragedy and makes herself a better person for it. This interest in Winspear's World War I series complements my own fascination with it. Foremost among the non-fiction I prize is Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War and the memoir by VAD nurse Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth.
An author of mysteries myself, I prize those authors who give the reader the best of their talents and their research into forensics and procedurals for the period. Minette Walters, also British, writes complex mysteries. And Elizabeth George, an American who writes startlingly accurate mysteries set in Britain, always gives me a rush of excitement with her finely drawn characterizations. Do let's add Ariana Franklin, also British (am I on a kick here?) who pens a marvelous medieval mystery series set in Henry II's reign about a Spanish woman trained in medicine at Salamanca--and who becomes Henry's Mistress in the Art of Death. I am into her third in the series as I write...and applauding both women's talents!

What books do you treasure?

And why?

I would love to hear.

Places that wind up in my stories

Looking back at all the places I've lived and traveled, I KNOW so many of them wind up in my fiction (of course, my non-fiction, too...yep, of which there is A LOT).
(FYI: PIX here is mine taken from the corridor window of the Doge's Palace in Venice, looking across the Lagoon. Inhale. Appreciate. Dream.)
I thought for the hell of it, I'd list some of the places I've been, just for fun and reflection. Next week I am off with 2 other couples to a Shakespeare Festival in Utah (where I have never been before) and thought, hmmm.
Here's my list, if for no other reason, than my random day-dreaming and yours (not in any order, either!):
New York, Brooklyn, Long Island, Syracuse, Watertown, Binghamton
Pennsylvania: Scranton and Peckville, Lancaster, Phillie, Pittsburgh
Washington and all points north and south within 100 miles radius
BALTIMORE! Hated Charm City growing up and then they CLEANED IT UP and as an adult, I adore it.
Virginia: Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia Beach
London
Paris
sigh.
Florence, Montalcino, Montepulciano, San Guistino. CAN I LIVE HERE, please?
Venice. Live here, too, please.
Bonn, Cologne, Munich. Ja vohl, Ich bin eine Deutsche Madchen. I need to return, reconnect to my roots. In September, I think I will!
Japan: Tokyo and Okinawa. Where I taught university level Chinese and Japanese History. Yes. I did. And I taught foreign army officers how to speak jargoned English.
Boston, Cape Cod.
Maine. York Beach. wow. I wanna go eat lobster. Want to come with?
Chicago.
Seattle.
Greece, Athens and Mykonos. Athens and Mykonos. Can I go back??? Soon?
Israel. Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Inhale deeply.
Hmm. There may be more.
One note: I hate tours. (THAT IS IN BOLD.) Repeat with me. Too fast, too simplistic. your life is run by guides who have their own preferences--and sometimes their own misinformation! I can speak German and Chinese, but I can get along otherwise.
WHAT HAS TRAVEL done for YOU?
Changed your life, your thinking about who you are? What you want? How you live?
Mine has.
How? I live more and more with good food, fine wine, dining with friends who have marvelous perspectives on life, an education and intriguing careers and endeavors.
AND...
I LIVE for my annual (sometimes) bi-annual now, trips to Europe. AND I AM SAVING MY SHEKELS for China. And Egypt.
Ciao, bella!

The Clit That Time Forgot.

I’ve done a very foolish thing and now I must pay the price.

I wrote a historical but before my editor digs in with a pitchfork to remove my unintentionally humorous errors I must first fumigate the manuscript for anachronistic words.

Please don’t think I’m completely naïve. I did a lot of research and I was very careful about terrain, clothing items, personal titles and “internal dialogue” but I completely forgot about clits! I didn’t even think to look for them. I assumed clits had always quietly worked behind the scenes bringing people together. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine a fictional world in any time or place without clits and cocks. I allowed clits and cocks to slip under my radar because I wrote an erotic adventure and I didn’t want to force contemporary readers to wade through swampy purple prose right in the middle of the hot stuff.

I thought perhaps we could just let it go… Sadly we can’t. Shame on me. I was wrong clits didn’t exist in ancient Gaul and they can’t exist in my manuscript. The actual word “clit” is getting the boot. Pardon me, I didn’t mean to say, “boot” I meant to say heavy-soled caligae with leather ankle straps and brass embellishments…Now what about that other matter?

I’m banned from using “cocks” and “clits.” Now what do I do? I love those words and I use them a lot. The ancient terms sound stilted and odd. I’m just going to make up body parts and hope they don’t sound foolish.

Some people are great at this kind of thing and are completely capable of creating descriptive euphemisms. I’m not convinced I’m one of them.

The British naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson wrote his mistress Lady Emma Hamilton requesting she prepare “The dear thatched cottage” for his return. Can you imagine having to write that phrase again and again and yet again in a love scene? Neither can I.

I love U2 and the 1991 classic rock album “Achtung Baby” has at least nine references to oral sex that I can think of. The best of which comes from the fifth track “Who’s gonna ride your wild horses.” Bono’s line “Who’s going to taste your saltwater kisses…” Is my favorite cunnilingus reference in all of rock ’n roll. I can’t do better than that.

The worst is also from someone I love. He’s a wonderful artist, performer and humanitarian but Peter Gabriel’s reference to a woman’s vagina as being a “Fruit cage” is as heavy handed as a “Sledgehammer.”

So I ask you as writers, readers and interested citizens of the world, if you were stranded in ancient Rome and had a scorching hot Roman lover thrust on you, what would you call it and it?

Help me please! I’ve lost my clit… lol

(That’s Steve Reeves in his prime bending wrought-iron yard furniture with his bare hands. Dig that crazy pompadour!)

XXOO Kat