***
I’ve always loved books that created a place where I wanted to be, a place where I felt at home. When the Harry Potter novels first came out, I can’t count the number of times I heard someone say, ‘I want to go to Hogwarts!’ I certainly wanted to go to Hogwarts. For me, sometimes the place that an author creates in which to set the plot and the characters is just as much fun as the plot and the characters themselves. I wanted that to be true of my Lakeland Heatwave trilogy.
The story is set in the English Lake District, and anyone who has followed my blog for very long knows that I often write about the Lakes and my visits there. The place is truly one of my very favourite on the planet, but I’m not writing about the Lake District today, I’m writing about Elemental Cottage and the life of the witches who live there, the Elemental Coven. This is not going to be a house tour. What I really want to talk about is the sense of home, the sense of belonging that has developed for me, and I hope for my readers, as I’ve written about the Elemental Coven and gotten to know them over the course of three novels.
I think the sense of home I feel whenever the scenes in the book take place in Elemental Cottage comes from the coven’s sense of belonging to each other, the sense of family and closeness. Fiori is a first-rate cook, and a she takes the adage ‘food after magic’ very seriously. No one leaves Elemental Cottage hungry. The place always smells of baking and good food cooking. Tara Stone, the coven leader, is a skilled gardener. She raises much of the food Fiori cooks, plus the kitchen herbs and the herbs used in magic and healing. Sky is an apothecary, she puts Tara’s herbs to good use. The three own and run a herbal shop in Keswick.
Their old Victorian house has a huge library, filled with old volumes and books of shadow and other mysterious wonders. It’s well equipped with comfy chairs and a fireplace. That, and a cup of Fiori’s special hot chocolate are perfect for taking the chill off when researching how to be rid of a nasty demon. The library is Cassandra and Anderson’s domain, and a favourite hang-out of the whole coven.
When magic isn’t performed outside or in a cave especially prepared for dream magic, it’s performed in the Room of Reflection, a round room in the tower of the house. The room is surrounded by mirrors and strong magic. As Cassandra, and Marie and Tim before her, have discovered, the Elemental Coven is known for taking in strays and making them feel at home, and the Elemental Coven is a safe haven for beleaguered witches and other refugees.
But the Elemental Coven is especially known for its unique form of magic, sex magic, powerful sex magic. It’s sex that binds the coven together and sex that makes them strong. It’s also sex that gives them the power to stand against the demon, Deacon, who is hell-bent on destroying them over a long-held grudge.
As their battle intensifies against Deacon and he becomes more and more dangerous, the magic that binds the Elemental Coven together grows stronger. And the more terrifying Deacon becomes for me to write, the more I love coming home to Elemental Cottage to regroup, have a nice meal with the witches and experience the feel of connectedness before the evening heats up and the fire place is no longer needed.
Riding the Ether Blurb:
Cassandra Larkin keeps her ravenous and dangerous
sexual appetite secret until she seduces Anderson in the mysterious void of the
Ether. Anderson is the sexy, insatiable ghost who can give her exactly what she
needs and come to no harm. But no matter how steamy it is, sex in a dangerous
place like the Ether is asking for trouble. When the treacherous demon, Deacon,
discovers the truth about the origin of Cassandra’s powerful lust, he plots to
use her sex magic for his long awaited vengeance on Tara Stone and the
Elemental Coven, who practice their own powerful brand of sex magic.
Cassandra must embrace the lust and sexuality she
fears and learn to use its power. She must stand with Anderson, Tara, and the
Elemental Coven against Deacon’s wrath or suffer the loss of friendship, magic
and love, all of which she only now dares to believe herself worthy.
Anderson felt his heart swell at the
sight of her, seated on the floor of the library, the fire long gone out, still
perusing her pile of books, as she had been when he pulled her away to tell her
good-bye. On the floor next to her curled under the blanket from the chair,
Alice slept soundly, and he smiled to himself, knowing what had happened as
surely as if he had been here, knowing the poor woman’s need, and knowing his
beautiful Cassandra’s compassion. He watched her for a long moment before he
spoke. Her lust for knowledge was nearly as enthralling to him as her lust for
the pleasures of the flesh. She was stunning in her vulnerability,
vulnerability belying the power of a goddess, power that many would give their
lives for, and yet she wore it uncomfortably, cautiously, and more exquisitely
than she could have possibly realized. He watched her until he could stand the
space between them no longer, then he spoke.
‘You have not been truthful with me,
Cassandra Larkin. I have just returned from your room where I found your bed
empty and cold.’
She smiled up at him. ‘I didn’t hear you
come in.’
‘Indeed you did not. Imagine my
disappointment at not receiving the reward for which I have endured a cold
night on the fell to bring back the prize.’
‘Then you found the mirror?’
‘It is safe within the walls of
Elemental Cottage, my love.’ Before she could stand and move into his arms, he
seated himself on the floor behind her, legs spread on either side of her. His
erection pressed hard against the small of her back as he scooted in close,
running his hands up under the cashmere top to cup her full bosom, relishing
the feel of her. She caught her breath and arched back into his embrace, so
that his mouth found the hollow of her throat.
He slipped a hand up under her skirt
over the solid muscles of her thighs and found that she wore no undergarments.
She shifted and grunted softly opening herself so his fingers found purchase,
first against the soft golden nest covering her mound, and then in between the
burgeoning folds of her womanhood to the warm moist core of her sex. ‘Oh my
love, you are in need, as am I. I am full with the weight of my lust for you.
But even now I hear clattering in the kitchen. Our dear Fiori will not have it,
the two of us missing breakfast after our night of magic and your night of,’ he
nipped her neck and nodded toward the sleeping Alice. ‘Your night of magic. I
fear we will have to manage a quickie.’
She pulled away from him long enough to
reposition herself and helped open his trousers and ease them down far enough
that his manhood was free and anxious for her. Then she lifted her skirt,
giving him just the tiniest, most exquisite glimpse of her glistening sex
before she settled onto his lap, sheathed his member with delicious ease, and
wrapped her legs around him.
‘Take from me, but a little, my love,’
he grunted, as she began to rock against him. ‘It will be our secret, and it
will make me stiffen in my trousers as I sit next to you eating Fiori’s fine
breakfast, and everyone will smell your delicious sex all over me, and they
shall all long for you to take from them as you have from me. They shall all
long to be the chosen lover of the succubus.’
He covered her mouth with a probing
kiss, letting his tongue and his lips swallow back her protests, and when she
relaxed against his mouth, he spoke. ‘For that is what you are, my beautiful
Cassandra, you are a succubus, a creature of exquisite, terrible and beautiful
magic, and I long with all of my heart to be enthralled by you.’
The feel of her soft laughter against
his mouth was ecstasy almost beyond words, and the deep pall of the night
vanished in the sound of it, in the taste of it. And in her magic, he felt as
though he were walking on a rain-washed fell in the sunrise.
‘I’m not keen on facing Fiori’s wrath if
we’re late to the breakfast table,’ she said. ‘So I’ll only enthrall you a
little bit this time. She bit his bottom lip, then his throat, and his member
surged almost beyond control at the pure wonder of her. ‘It’ll be a quickie,
succubus style.’
And her womanhood tightened around him
like a glove, she surrounded him with such delight that he scarce could
remember his own name, and it mattered not. It mattered not.
It was the trembling of her sex around
him, and the shimmer of her power as she took her release that sent him
tumbling to his, and he knew that if he were not already dead, he would happily
die in the ecstasy of her love.
‘I am undone, dear woman,’ he whispered
in his convulsions of lust. ‘Each time you take me I am undone with such
pleasure as I have never known.’
‘That’s my magic, Anderson. I undo
people. Just like it says on the label.’ She nodded to the pile of books on the
floor.
He pulled her to him with such
fierceness that she gave a little gasp. ‘It is much more than that, my darling,
and you know this to be true, as do I. It is so much more.’
When he pulled away this time, there
were tears in her eyes, and his heart felt like it would burst from the sight
of her so. ‘I wish I didn’t know what I know,’ she whispered as he pulled her
tight against him. ‘And even still I need to know more.’
There was so much he wanted to say to
her, so much he wanted her to say to him, but Sky knocked softly on the frame
of the door.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but breakfast
is served and we all need to eat. There’s lots to be done.’
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K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she, cuz otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening or walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband recently walked the Coast to Coast route across England. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots.
K D has erotica published with Xcite Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review, Ravenous Romance, Scarlet Magazine, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, The Pet Shop, and her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Heatwave trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011.
Find K D Here:
Website: http://kdgrace.co.uk/
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kd_grace
Fantastic post. Lovely to find you on Doris's blog, KD.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Toni! Nice meeting you here too. Nice people hang out at the nicest places:)
ReplyDeleteAnd Doris, thank you SOOOO much for having me on your lovely site! It's been a pleasure. Hope you'll pop over to mine sometime when you get the chance! Thanks again!
KDx
You're most welcome :-D
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