Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

I’ll admit it. I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life. The day when a book I wrote would appear on the shelves of bookstores. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. And while I’ve spent many years writing things–academic papers, technical documentation, training materials–none of them satisfied that deepest impulse. To create characters and a story that people would read, not because they had to, but because they wanted to.

Tomorrow, the day I’ve looked forward to since I was old enough to know what a book was will arrive. Well, actually, it’s officially a bit anti-climactic. Because, from what I hear, the book has been shipping from online retailers since Monday, and I’ve had reports of it on bookstore shelves since Thursday.

Which does sort of make one wonder what the point of an “official” release date actually is. The official date has been May 26, 2009 for, like, forever, but it doesn’t seem anyone pays attention to it. And I’m not complaining. I’m happy the book is out there. That’s all, in the end, that really matters!

As one more teaser, here’s an excerpt from the last novella in the anthology, Scandalously Ever After.

“Please, Mrs. Upshaw. My betrothed is well-known for his vast experience and varied appetites. To hold him, I must be both—a lady of quality and a lady of the night. And you are my only hope to achieve that. So if there is anything you can tell me, anything you can show me, that might assist me in making him—and myself—happy, I promise it shall be our secret.”

The madam’s mouth pressed into a thin, disapproving red line, and Jane feared she’d lost her plea, but then the older woman sighed and a wistful smile spread across her lips. “You’re very much in love with your young man, aren’t you, my lady?”

At the words “in love,” Jane’s heart pinched. Oh, how she wished she wasn’t! How she wished she could have been sensible and fallen for any one of the half-dozen or so suitors who’d courted her since her coming-out three years ago.

Men who found her comely enough to flatter her by calling her, if not beautiful, then at least pretty. If she were truthful with herself, she would admit it was more than likely they found her dowry and bloodline more attractive than her face, but at least they desired those qualities enough to pretend otherwise. In truth, there had only been one thing wrong with them.

None of them were Gerard Everett.

“With every beat of my fool heart,” she admitted sadly.

The soft, faraway look in the older woman’s eyes said she, too, had once loved unwisely . . . and while it had not turned out well, she did not regret her folly. She squeezed Jane’s hand gently and nodded. “Then we had best see to getting you a more thorough education. And while the best method is to learn by doing, the next best is to learn by watching.”

“Watching?” Jane repeated the word stupidly, incredulously.

“Yes.” Mrs. Upshaw dropped her hand and crossed to a cabinet on the opposite side of the library. From it, she withdrew a hooded cloak and a black mask, which she brought back and handed to Jane. “Put these on and come with me.”

Jane knew she shouldn’t. It was reckless and wicked. Unthinkable for a well-bred lady. But then, this entire enterprise was unthinkable for a well-bred lady. What did it matter now?

In for a penny, in for a pound.

She donned the proffered items and followed the madam out of the large but cozy library and down a narrow, dimly lit corridor. At the end of the hallway, Mrs. Upshaw paused and opened a door, which swung inward. On the other side, Jane could make out a large landing with stairs leading in both directions. On the opposite side of the landing was a double doorway into a room from which the warm glow of large lamps shone.

Jane knew, without being told, that the landing, the flight of stairs, and the room were inside the brothel. The implications of what she was about to do hit her fullforce.

This was a mistake. If she were seen and recognized . . . She ought to beg off, ought to stop herself from committing the most grievous breach of propriety imaginable, but the peculiar blend of curiosity and excitement that had infected her since she’d first opened the book of cards propelled her forward.

As the madam turned and mounted the first stair, Jane caught a glimpse of a figure standing just inside the double doors. She paused in mid-step and squinted.

Surely it wasn’t. Couldn’t be.

But it was. The shock of recognition twisted in her gut and burned a path of acid up to her heart. She stared through the slitted eyeholes in the mask she wore, heedless of the possibility that he might turn away from the woman to whom he was speaking—a gorgeous, flame-haired creature wearing a diaphanous green gown whom Jane hated on sight—and see her standing there, watching him.

The woman ran her fingers under the lapel of his green jacket—the one that matched perfectly the cast of his eyes—and he covered her hand with his. He smiled and responded, saying something that made the redhead trill with laughter.

How could he? He had asked her to marry him only two days ago. And he had been at her house this very morning, claiming to be so overcome with desire to see her, he’d failed to wait for the footman to announce him. And yet here he was, hiring some strange woman—some strange, beautiful woman—to slake his lust.

How dare he?

An emphatic tug on Jane’s arm drew her up short. Without conscious effort, she’d been walking toward the double doors, toward Gerard, though to what end, she didn’t know. She knew only that seeing him here, with another woman—and knowing what they might do together—was more unbearable, more intolerable than any insult or injury she’d ever suffered.

“No, no, not in there. This way . . . why, what is it, my dear?”

Jane shook her head, despair and outrage thickening her throat.

“Not what.” Tears stung at her eyes, and she blinked to clear them as she turned to look at the older woman’s kind, concerned face. “Who.”

I hope you enjoyed that excerpt and that, if you pick up your own copy of Behind the Red Door, you enjoy the rest of of the book just as much.

It’s just one week and one day until my Kensington Aphrodisia debut, Behind the Red Door, hits bookstores, and I’m so excited and apprehensive, I can barely stand it. I’m excited because I really adore the three stories in this anthology and can’t wait to share them with readers. But I’m also apprehensive because…well, I bet you can imagine why!

That said, the book has already gotten a couple of very complimentary reviews, and that has made me just a tad less worried.

From the June issue of Romantic Times:

RT Rating: 4 Stars

Barbosa heats up the Regency in novellas that are as yummy and steamy as a Sally Lunn bun. Readers may want more erotic encounters between the well-drawn characters.

-M.H. Morrison

(Me: Always happy when a reviewer expresses a desire for more, so I’m taking that last as a compliment! Also, click the link if you want to know what Sally Lunn bun is.)

From Coffee Time Romance (entire review will be posted in May, I believe):

Rating: 4 cups

Wickedly Ever After…is a playfully passionate and tantalizing read. Eleanor and Nathaniel are simply lovable characters.

Scandalously Ever After…is a healing for two scarred souls. They come together in a most beautiful and intimate way.

Gerard and Jane [in Sinfully Ever After] are great fun as they go about discovering each other’s hidden secrets. It is so true that some of the most interesting things come in the plainest of packages.

Behind the Red Door is chock full of passion and pleasure. All of the characters are witty, intelligent, and sweetly sinful. It is a fantastic read, and will warm you up quite nicely.

-Lototy

In honor of these two very nice reviews and my receipt of my author copies, I’m posting an excerpt from the last novella in the anthology Sinfully Ever After below. I’ll also be giving away a copy to one lucky reader, But you’ll have to get to the bottom of the post to find out what you have to do to be eligible to win! 

Three startled pairs of eyes set in three guilty countenances fixed upon Gerard as he strolled into his betrothed’s private sitting room on the third floor of the Duke of Hardwyck’s vast and elaborate town house. The ladies sat around a small table laid with tea and cakes. Though their plates were empty and the tray in the center was still piled high with sweets, steam no longer rose from their cups, indicating they had been doing a great deal more talking—and, to judge by their expressions, plotting—than eating or drinking.

And his masculine intuition said whatever they were up to, he was the target. But then, when it came to scheming members of the fairer sex, he usually was.

To his admiration, Jane was the first of the three to gather her wits and find her voice. “Ger—Lord Ch—Chester,” she stammered, her cheeks flushed, eyes bright. “Wh-what b—brings you here this morn?”

She looked, he thought with some surprise, downright pretty when she was caught off guard. It was a pleasant, if somewhat alarming, discovery. On the other hand, the mild tug of attraction that pulled at his groin would make his task of appearing the besotted bridegroom and thereby appeasing her brother that much easier.

He grinned and pressed his hand dramatically over his heart. “You wound me, my darling. Surely a man requires no motive to visit his future bride other than that he desires the pleasure of her company.”

Ambling round to her side of the table, he knelt next to her and took her white-gloved hand in his. He raised it to his lips, the delicate scent of her lilac perfume teasing his nostrils and causing another unsettling twinge low in his belly. He did his best to ignore the sensation, which he had never before associated with Jane, and forged ahead with his performance. Even though he was no longer entirely sure it was a performance.

“Or have you forgotten that you agreed only yesterday to be my bride? Must I propose again this morning before an audience so there may be witnesses to remind you?”

Jane snatched her hand back and swatted playfully at his. “Oh, do stop putting on, my lord. You know very well I haven’t forgotten. It is only . . . I was not expecting you, and it is customary to have oneself introduced by a footman.”

“You know I never learnt to stand on ceremony, what with being raised a poor relation. I suppose I shall have to rely on you to keep me in line now that you are to be my countess.” He gave a careless shrug and leaned in a bit closer, unexpectedly entranced by this vantage on the rise and fall of her generous bosom. “Tell me, what other transgressions must I account for this day?” Aside from the almost overwhelming urge to bury his face in the hollow between her breasts and breathe in her tantalizing scent.

His cock gave an impatient twitch, and the fall of his breeches grew decidedly tight. Gerard realized that, should he come to his feet, his semiaroused state would be evident to all assembled.

“You mean aside from interrupting my private tea, failing to properly acknowledge my companions, and remaining on one knee for so long you are like to be stuck there?” Jane teased, her intelligent eyes sparkling with merriment. To his relief, she seemed blissfully unaware of his predicament, but he feared her ignorance was destined to be short-lived. “Do stand up, my lord, lest we require the assistance of a crane to restore you to your feet.”

Think fast, Everett. And for the love of God, stop staring at her tits as if you’d never seen a pair before.

The self-admonition served to ease his budding erection just enough to allow him to stand without humiliating himself. If the ladies noticed at all, they’d likely think him a well-hung young stallion rather than a randy old stoat. With an exaggerated groan, he rose to his feet, then executed a deep bow toward Lady Jane’s guests.

“Lady Grenville, Lady Innesford,” he said, using the moment he was bent at the waist to make what he hoped would be an imperceptible adjustment to his nether parts to further disguise his dilemma. “I apologize for my earlier discourtesy, but I am afraid I was quite overwhelmed by my eagerness to see my betrothed.”

Not to mention by the startling discovery that the emotion he’d thought to feign had somehow become real.

Okay, curious. Want more? Before May 26, perhaps? All right, here’s what you need to do. Click here to send me an email signing up for my newsletter by Monday. That’s it. No public commenting on the blog, no hoops to jump through. Easy-peasy, right? C’mon, you know you want to!

I’m much later getting this post out than I’d hoped to be, but I’m blaming it on my head cold and its propensity for making me brain-dead. (Translation: I forgot!)

So, my first Aphrodisia release, Behind the Red Door, will be released in June of 2009. And that seems like FOREVER from now and very, very soon, all at the same time. It seems like forever because seven months is a while in the scheme of things, especially if (like me) you’re accustomed to the shorter turnaround on e-books. But when you think of all the things that go into getting a book into print, it’s almost overnight.

I’ve found there are a lot of wonderful milestones on the way to a book. The best, of course, is the first: THE CALL. There’s nothing like that moment when your agent or editor first tells you you’ve SOLD. But really, that’s just the beginning. There’s signing the contract (although I must admit, the reading it part isn’t so much fun), getting the email from your editor accepting the manuscript, and even (believe it or not) going through the copy edits.

But of all the milestones I’ve experienced so far since “the call,” none really compares to the moment I saw this:

This is a page from the Kensington catalog for May-August 2009 and it was my first (and so far only) glimpse of my book’s cover. And, even though it’s black and white and low resolutions, I LOVE it. But not only do I love the beautiful cover they’ve designed for me and the rather flattering introduction (yes, I blush easily!), seeing this has made it all seem so real. The call, the contract, the copy edits–they were all “evidence” that this is really happening–but none of them seems as concrete as an actual page in an actual catalog.

My editor tells me he’s sent hard copies of the cover to me and my agent, so I’m hoping to see this in all its full color glory soon. (I am checking my mailbox these days as obsessively as I used to when I was expecting rejection letters, only without the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.)

The next “milestone” will be galleys–when the publisher sends a mocked-up version of the manuscript after it’s been set by the typeseter–and then…it all goes to the print and gets released a few months later!

Can I just say…WOW!

Since this is my first post, I suppose I ought to begin by introducing myself. I’m Jackie Barbosa, and Kensington will be releasing my single author anthology (currently titled BEHIND THE RED DOOR, but we’ll see if that sticks) in the summer of 2009. I have a few ebooks out with Cobblestone Press and a couple more coming out later this year, but my Aphrodisia release is my first sale to be “big” New York print publisher, and I couldn’t be more thrilled (or daunted, lol) by the opportunity.

So, since my debut is being published in the Aphrodisia line, I probably don’t have to tell you that my book contains numerous explicit sex scenes. I love writing these scenes of intimacy, discovery, and, most especially, vulnerability and consider them an essential element of a good love story, but I do sometimes wonder what readers think about the sex lives of the writers who craft such scenes. How much of what we write do they attribute to experience and how much to fantasy?

Of course, it would be crossing well beyond the boundaries of TMI for me to actually tell you my personal answer to that question. You don’t really want to know about my sex life, and I don’t have any intention of actually telling you. But as I was chatting the other day with my friend and critique partner, Emma Petersen, the subject of a particular sexual variation that I’ve included in more than one story came up, and I had to admit that it’s something I don’t care for in real life.

That led me to ask myself why I enjoy writing about this particular activity (and I do!) when I don’t enjoy doing it? The answer, I think, what draws me to writing about sex (and, honestly, nearly everything else that goes into a story) is the opportunity to experience things I either can’t or won’t do in real life. Whether it’s engaging in a threesome or attending a Regency era ball or committing a murder, what makes writing fun for me is also what makes reading fun: the fantasy that we are living someone else’s life. And when it comes to sex, I find that the less likely I am to experience something myself, the more likely I am to find it thrilling to read or write about.

What about you? Do your tastes in reading/writing fall more toward experience or fantasy? Or is that just TMI?