Hi everyone–
RELEASE DAY at Loose Id for both me and my friend Kay Berrisford! Congratulations, Kay. Kay’s new novella, Catching Kit, sounds elvishly, kinkily marvelous and i’m going to let her tell you about it! But i have to brag about her contest! Kay will give one commenter who leaves their email a copy of BOTH Catching Kit and one of her bestselling Greenwood novels, Bound for the Forest or Bound to the Beast. How’s that for a great prize? (And as soon as you read Kay’s great post and excerpt and enter to win, hop over to Kay’s blog where she is featuring my new release, Genetic Celebrity — a MMF menage with FOOD!) Take it away, Kay!
Elves, Olympics, and the London Underground!
Last time Tara was on my blog, she wrote a great piece about how real life experiences and settings are great inspiration for her writing. I totally agree with her, although having set my first two novels, Bound for the Forest and Bound to the Beast, in various historical periods, a ton of old-fashioned book research was needed to get my settings right. Not that I’m complaining. I love history. But after Bound to the Beast, I decided it was time to take the plunge into the present. The end result, my first contemporary m/m paranormal novella, Catching Kit, is published today.
Catching Kit is set in London – which is one hell of an exciting place to be right now. This week, after a 70 day tour around the country (which a bunch of GLBQT writers have been following on a collective blog http://wecarrythetorch.wordpress.com/) the Olympic Torch arrives in the stadium in Stratford for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The city has been abuzz with preparations (and grumblings about the disruption and cost – hey, we like grumbling !) for months. It was fun to set my first contemporary story in a city with so much life and history, and though there’s no reference to the Olympics in Catching Kit, it does start with a chase. We first meet our hero, government agent and elf hunter, Denny, on the London underground, where he’s had the misfortune to spot a target “Ethereal Being” he’s supposed to catch…and instantly fancy the pants off the guy. But the elf, Kit, is as quick as he’s hot, and the race is on.
It was great fun setting Kit and Denny’s increasingly kinky adventures in and around the places I grew up, though maybe because London is steeped in so much history, I couldn’t quite keep the past out of the present. While the novel is set solely in 2012, Kit claims he’s been hanging around since at least Shakespeare’s time, an era visitors can still vividly imagine when they visit the rebuilt Globe Theatre. Though it didn’t make it into the final draft of the story, I ended up doing a ton of research about what London was like during the Second World War Blitz, when the city landscape was dramatically altered forever, and the time when Kit was last in town – or so he says.
I’m going to be honest with you, though. Love London as I do, I’m going to be avoiding the place with all the crowds over the next few weeks. But I hope a few of you would like to drop by and share a little slice of life in London and the suburbs – with a touch of the paranormal – in Catching Kit.
Thanks Tara for letting me blog here today. It’s an honor to share a release day with one of my fave authors! Tara is blogging today over at my place – http://kayberrisford.com/– where you can win Genetic Celebrity and other awesome prizes. If you would like to win a copy of Catching Kit, plus your choice of either of the Greenwood novels, Bound for the Forest or Bound to the Beast, please leave a comment here!
Links:
Kay’s blog: http://kayberrisford.com/
Kay on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Kay-Berrisford/e/B006JLQ4L8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Kay on All Romance: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=Kay+Berrisford
Kay on Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/a67995/Kay-Berrisford/?
Kay on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kay.berrisford
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KayBerrisford
Livejournal (please do friend me!): http://kayberrisford.livejournal.com/
And here is a delightful excerpt from Kay’s new book–
Catching Kit, my first m/m contemporary BDSM paranormal, is available from Loose Id on 24th July, 2012. Novella, 36,000 words approx.
He was supposed to trap him—not fall in love.
When government agent and Ethereal Being hunter, Denny, has to imprison an elf in his garage overnight, his life spins out of control. Caught and cuffed on the London underground, Kit shatters everything Denny’s been taught about elves. How can Kit be a dangerous, mind-reading cipher who preys on human emotions? Kit’s gorgeous and funny, he’s got a cute arse. He even shares Denny’s quiet kinks for bondage and cross-dressing. Or so Kit claims.
When Kit wiles his way into Denny’s house for a session of mind-blowing sex, the elf seems too good to be true–till reality strikes. Denny’s fucked an elf. A prisoner in his charge. If he doesn’t take Kit to the containment depot he’s in big trouble, and Kit’s about to drop an equally devastating bombshell. The elf’s been searching a thousand years for a bloke like Denny. He ‘gets’ Denny’s kinks, adores role play and women’s panties, and now he needs Denny’s love to survive.
I
s Kit preying on Denny’s emotions, or can Denny trust him? If so, dare Denny break the law and gamble his life to save the Ethereal Being in his bed?
Denny picked up his mug and took a sip of the remaining mulled wine. It seared like a flame on his tongue, spicy and faintly sweet. It was good. Damn good. He smoothed his lips together.
“Elves don’t even have names,” he said.
“Yes, we do. Although I suppose your sort would say I stole it.” Kit’s words grew garbled, as if he knew he played for time. “I…I borrowed it from a man I once met in a tavern, a very interesting man who used beautiful words and gave beautiful kisses, although he was a little…fierce sometimes. In, uh… I think the year was 1592.”
“Fifteen-fucking-ninety-two?” Taking another sip, Denny glanced at the clock. It read 10:55 p.m. When the time reached eleven o’clock, he’d get rid of the elf.
“Yes, that’s what they said. Well, not fifteen-fucking-ninety-two. The year of our Lord 1592 was a nobler choice of words. And the man from whom I borrowed my name—he was called Kit Marlowe.” The elf balanced a saucepan on the draining board and reached for a chipped Crystal Palace FC mug.
Kit Marlowe.
Wasn’t that Christopher Marlowe, some playwright, a bit like Shakespeare but less famous? And wasn’t he gay or something? And murdered? “Pull the other one. You can’t expect me to believe you were about in Shakespearean times.”
“Oh, I had a ball back in my theater days, in the reign of good Queen Bess.”
Theater? Kit hadn’t been leeching this crap off Denny. History wasn’t his subject, and neither was Shakespeare. The elf must have bugged some West End actor before he’d been caught.
Denny scowled into his mug. The EB mustered a bright smile, took off the yellow gloves, and turned to spoon the pasta bake onto two plates. It was now 10:57 p.m.
Nearly time to get Kit back to the garage, although Denny twitched with indecision.
And his stomach grumbled.
“You must be starving.” Kit placed one of the plates in front of Denny. Then he sat down opposite, pronged two tubes of pasta with his fork, and popped them into his mouth. He slowly licked white cheese sauce from his lips, and Denny fought a faint ache in his groin. “Yeah, elves do eat. At least we do when we need to. And this isn’t bad, is it? It’s better than gingerbread and those little sets of dried herbs. I ate those for a month. Oh, and boiled sweets.”
And Kit still had such shiny teeth? Okay, that had to be rubbish. Denny wouldn’t listen. But he was bloody hungry. They’d eat the pasta, and then he’d put Kit out.
He couldn’t help but hear what Kit said as they dined. The elf claimed he’d materialized just after Christmas in the bargain basement of a department store among all the leftover festive items, of which he’d grown fond.
“So lovely to see Christmas still going on,” said Kit. “That’s the thing with moving on all the time; sometimes customs just vanish. I miss St. Bartholomew’s Fair, you know.”
Kit had grown so attached to the bright Christmas decorations that he’d wasted no time removing Denny’s tree from its box under the stairs to remind him of his most recent home. He’d remained in the store several weeks, chatting to staff and customers and reading his way through any books and newspapers he found lying about. “Working out how the world works these days, what laptops are, and what all the new words mean.”
Then his body grew solid enough to set off the alarms at night, and he’d had to leave. He’d spent his days and nights after that busking on the Underground network, as the great outdoors freaked him a bit at first.
“After last time I was in London
“Right, that’s it.” Denny pushed his half-eaten meal away and got up. Swallowing a mouthful quickly, Kit rose too, turning to drop his plate in the sink behind him. Denny hurried about the table, grabbed him by the elbow, and spun him around. “Why do you keep going on about bombs?”
Kit furrowed his brow, and that strange look glazed his eyes, whispering of memories. Shouting of pain. “I was here in 1941.”
Denny shook him. “You’re telling me you were in London
Kit drilled his gaze into him and fluttered his long lashes. “No. I think you’re horribly messy. Apart from your underwear drawer. You keep that neat enough.”
Denny froze. “You’ve been poking around my things?”
“I loved your things. They were beautiful.”
A hot flush spread from the base of Denny’s neck to his brow. The elf had been messing with his most intimate possessions.
His women’s underwear. His sex toys.
Yet his humiliation burned out quickly. This elf had cut to the heart of his “disgusting habits” and didn’t seem bothered at all.
Kit arched a brow, overtly flirtatious. “I hope you don’t mind. I, uh, tried some on.”
“You what?”
“Your lace thong.” Kit dropped his voice to a sexy growl. “I’m wearing it now.”
Kit grabbed Denny’s wrist and pushed Denny’s hand down the back of those scruffy black trousers. Next thing Denny knew, he was grasping one of Kit’s buttocks. Smooth flesh yielded to muscles hard as nutshells beneath. Then Kit steered Denny so his fingertips slid up the elf’s crack. He felt the delicate thread of lace spreading Kit’s arse, slicing down that warm, vulnerable cleft between.
Denny had never sprung into full erection so quickly in his life. He yanked his hand away.
“You had no right to mess with my stuff.” Although that particular thong had always been a bit small for him and didn’t quite suit. It felt hot on Kit. It must look hot on Kit. “Y-you’re going straight back to the safe.” He grasped the elf’s shoulders as if they’d been fused together, acutely aware of Kit’s breathing, hot against his neck. Of the hard line of his hip brushing intimately close to Denny’s groin.
“What are you waiting for?” murmured Kit.
Denny had no idea. The tap dripped, water smacking against metal the only interruption to the buzzing of the light and the relentless pounding of Denny’s blood.
He felt as unsteady as he felt horny. The deeper he scrutinized Kit’s face, the more emotions he seemed to read there. Every trace of mirth on the elf’s lips died, replaced by a firmly set line, a smoldering sincerity. His eyes spoke of joy, hope, desperation.
And raw hunger.
Kit rose onto tiptoes, lifted his chin, and it seemed electricity arced between them. Delicately he brushed Denny’s mouth with his own. The elf tasted of wine, cheese sauce, and something heady and enticing that might have been the spices. Or might just have been Kit. Whatever it was, Denny needed more.
He grabbed Kit by the collar and kissed him hard.
*********
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