I'm back!
Before Christmas we moved Grandmaman from her apartment in Paris to my parents' home in the country. She's not thrilled to be living under the same roof as my mother, but after her illness a few months ago and a recent fall, the family were unanimous that she should no longer live alone.
(My mother's not happy about it either, but she would die before admitting it. British stiff upper lip and all that.)
So the holidays weren't exactly festive in the de Savoie house until baby brother Drew arrived, bringing his usual charm and energy. Thank God for Drew and my father's incredibly well stocked wine cellar.
As soon as the usual family obligations had been fulfilled, I headed back to London to party 'From Dusk Till Dawn' to see in the New Year with Amelia, Sophie, Olivia, Stu (and the usual bunch of Stu's friends) - and Drew, who spent the entire weekend with me before heading back to NYC.
Aurelie and Bastien spent Christmas with her family then New Year with his - and I have it on good authority (i.e. Grandmaman, who has decided to fill the days of her enforced retirement in the country by keeping track of all the neighbours) that they had a huge blow up fight on New Year's Eve. Not my monkeys, right?
And so that brings me to the start of 2016. Back at work in grey, dreary, (and very very wet) London.
I'm not making resolutions this year, though if I did they'd probably be exactly the same ones I made last year! But I do promise that Poppy's Caribbean Adventure will resume next week, right here on this blog.
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
Ministry of Smut
During my trip to Ireland this last weekend an exciting new project was born: the Ministry of Smut. Watch this space for more...
Thursday, 11 June 2015
My first writerly adventure
After having been away all of last weekend, in Gloucestershire staying with Olivia's parents for Polo in the Park, I'm now off to Ireland this weekend to meet a few of the amazing writers I've met online - Kitty French, Zara Cox and Tabitha A Lane, amongst others.
For the first time in forever I'm feeling a little daunted. I feel like an imposter hanging out with these accomplished writers. I'm a little out of my comfort zone here. What if they think I'm just some upstart wannabe? No matter, I'll do what I always do when I want people to like me: feed them champagne.
For the first time in forever I'm feeling a little daunted. I feel like an imposter hanging out with these accomplished writers. I'm a little out of my comfort zone here. What if they think I'm just some upstart wannabe? No matter, I'll do what I always do when I want people to like me: feed them champagne.
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Après-blogging
So what am I doing with all this free time I have now that I'm not blogging every week?
Well, the great thing about The Bet was that it forced me to carve out time very week to write the post (which is actually a lot harder than you'd think. Even when the posts are short, I usually spend ages thinking about what I'm going to put in it, then finding links and pictures to add).
Writing this blog has also forced me to be disciplined - which anyone who knows me will tell you I am most certainly not!
Now that I have a little spot of time every week and a whole lot more discipline, I'm using it to learn all about writing, 'meeting' other writers - and actually writing. And I'm getting really excited about this. I now have a completed short novella!
Yes, me! I've actually finished something. I wrote The End. And wasn't that exactly the point of why my girls made me take The Bet in the first place?
Thanks to a few of my new writer besties, I've even found a cover artist who is going to make me covers for... are you ready for this? ... an entire trilogy!
So watch this space. There'll be news and snippets and cover reveals coming soon!
Well, the great thing about The Bet was that it forced me to carve out time very week to write the post (which is actually a lot harder than you'd think. Even when the posts are short, I usually spend ages thinking about what I'm going to put in it, then finding links and pictures to add).
Writing this blog has also forced me to be disciplined - which anyone who knows me will tell you I am most certainly not!
Now that I have a little spot of time every week and a whole lot more discipline, I'm using it to learn all about writing, 'meeting' other writers - and actually writing. And I'm getting really excited about this. I now have a completed short novella!
Yes, me! I've actually finished something. I wrote The End. And wasn't that exactly the point of why my girls made me take The Bet in the first place?
Thanks to a few of my new writer besties, I've even found a cover artist who is going to make me covers for... are you ready for this? ... an entire trilogy!
So watch this space. There'll be news and snippets and cover reveals coming soon!
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Book Review: One on One
As I'm probably the least sporty person I know, and I can barely tell one side of a soccer pitch from another, I really didn't expect to be wowed by a romance novel set entirely against a football background. In fact, the football aspect gave it this book a very different, fresh edge compared to other books I've read. The chemistry between Gabe and Allegra sizzled, and I admit I found Gabe very appealing. I am after all a connoisseur of sexy male butts in tight shorts!
Release of this book is imminent, so keep an eye out for it at Amazon now.
This coming week at work we're doing an installation for a client at Clerkenwell Design Week so I'll try not to misbehave. Or at least, not to misbehave more than usual. See you next week!
More about One on One:
Rules are made to be broken…
…but not at Westchester United.
Allegra Alvarez has worked too hard to get where she is to jeopardise it all. Her one and only rule: Stay away from Gabe Morgan, the walking, talking, pant-melting temptation.
Her father, Westchester’s new chairman, issues playboy striker Gabe with a rule: touch my daughter and I will sell you. The only problem is Gabe has never been given a rule he hasn’t broken.
Which will win…his passion for Allegra or his love of the beautiful game?
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Post #33: Beautiful Bastard
I think I avoided this for so long because I was sure it would be a disappointment. After all, how could it possibly match Beautiful Stranger? But it did. If anything, I even liked this book better.
The sex sizzles from page to page without ever getting boring, and the sparky dialogue between these two had me laughing out loud.
The magic in these books lies in that quirky mix of erotica and humour - it's so intense and so clever, and these ladies' writing leaves me in awe.
It's reading books like this that makes me wonder if I should quit messing around with trying to write my own erotic romance and find a new hobby. Except this doesn't feel like a hobby. It's something I've always done, without realising it. I've been telling myself stories since I was a kid, and I've always loved working with words - and it's perhaps the only thing (aside from partying) that I do well. Which is why I get to draft all the press releases at work. Just not as well as Christina Lauren. Yet.
I'll leave you with this delicious quote from the book:
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Post #32: First Attempt
What does a girl do when her house mates are out on dates, and she's not interested in going out alone to score her own? She lies in bed with a bottle of Californian sparkling wine and her laptop, and starts to write a book.
So what do you think of my first attempt?
This was too good to be true. The doorman asleep downstairs, the usual security detail absent, and now the door to the penthouse stood wide open. She hadn’t expected to make it this far.
Lexy tapped tentatively on the door. “Mr Sinclair?”
A stifled moan answered her. Anger burned through her trepidation. Oh great, the legendary Lothario was no doubt at it again. At this hour of the morning!
A grunt.
She stepped across the threshold, shutting the door quietly behind her, and followed the sound. If he couldn’t be bothered to keep the door closed when he had company, then she wouldn’t be bothered to wait for an invitation.
Her heeled boots reverberated across the white marbled floor. The walls were white too, and the high ceiling. The only splash of colour in this vast entrance hall was the modernistic painting hanging on the far wall.
Jasper Sinclair’s art collection was almost as notorious as his love life. It was the art collection that had brought her here today. She couldn’t give a damn about his love life.
She’d come to retrieve what was hers, at any cost.
The door across the hall stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open. Another palatial room all in white, but this one she recognised. This was the living room where he’d been photographed for the article on his foundation’s charity fundraiser. The view beyond the windows was unmistakeable.
The armchair he’d posed in wasn’t in the same place, though. The photographer must have re-arranged the furniture. She frowned. The painting she’d spotted at the edge of the photograph wasn’t here either.
But at least two paintings were missing. Against the stark whiteness of the walls, the marks showing where they’d hung were unmistakeable.
Oh God, he couldn’t have moved them, could he? If he’d put that painting on display, or sold it to a gallery, she’d cut off his balls and feed them to him.
Another low moan. Closer this time. She didn’t care if she interrupted him in the middle of the throes of passion. He deserved it. And she wasn’t leaving without her painting.
She strode across the room, through double doors that stood wide into another living room, smaller, cosier but still that cold, impersonal white. Another painting had been removed in this room. She pushed open the door across the room, the final door, and froze.
Jasper Sinclair. Blindfolded and tied to a hard-backed, spindle-legged wooden chair that looked like it could be an antique, in the middle of a bedroom the size of her entire flat. The white sheets on the bed behind him lay rumpled as if he’d just got out of it.
His hair looked rumpled to, as if hands had run through it.
His head seemed heavy as he tried to lift it, as if he was just waking. Or coming around. He moaned again. It shouldn’t have sounded so sensual. It shouldn’t have sounded do arousing. But it did.
He was even better looking in person than on TV. He wore nothing but long black silk pyjama pants. His arms had been tied behind him, forcing his chest forward. And what a chest he had. Strong, tanned, almost hairless but for the dark arrow above his waistband.
As for those abs...her fingers itched to stroke across that smooth, solid flesh.
“Who’s there?” His voice rasped, dry and weak, and he licked his lips.
This wasn’t some kinky game she’d walked in on. She glanced up at the walls. Another painting gone.
He’d been robbed.
Fury bubbled up. He’d been robbed and her painting was gone. How could he keep such valuable works of art in an apartment with so little security? Did he value them so little?
“Who’s there?” he asked again, his voice stronger now. Almost cocky. Definitely more like the Jasper Sinclair she knew and loathed. “No one you need know,” Lexy answered.
He lifted his head, looking straight at her, and she was relieved the thieves had the forethought to blindfold him. She’d been afraid of what he might say, or do, if he recognised her. This way was so much better.
“What do you want?” He bit out. “I don’t keep cash in the apartment, and if you so much as touch one of my paintings, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“I haven’t touched any of the paintings.” Yet. “How long have you been out?”
He licked his lips again, a movement that drew her gaze to them. She didn’t normally notice lips on a man, but God, he had a beautiful mouth, full and sensual. She licked her own lips.
“You’re not one of them?” he asked. “What time is it?”
“A little after seven.”
Jasper shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “It was still dark when I woke. Someone was in the room. I think he must have knocked me out.” He looked straight at her again. “Untie me.”
Not if her life depended on it.
And now we're getting to the really interesting stuff... what would you do with a gorgeous, naked, blind-folded man who's tied to a chair?
So what do you think of my first attempt?
This was too good to be true. The doorman asleep downstairs, the usual security detail absent, and now the door to the penthouse stood wide open. She hadn’t expected to make it this far.
Lexy tapped tentatively on the door. “Mr Sinclair?”
A stifled moan answered her. Anger burned through her trepidation. Oh great, the legendary Lothario was no doubt at it again. At this hour of the morning!
A grunt.
She stepped across the threshold, shutting the door quietly behind her, and followed the sound. If he couldn’t be bothered to keep the door closed when he had company, then she wouldn’t be bothered to wait for an invitation.
Her heeled boots reverberated across the white marbled floor. The walls were white too, and the high ceiling. The only splash of colour in this vast entrance hall was the modernistic painting hanging on the far wall.
Jasper Sinclair’s art collection was almost as notorious as his love life. It was the art collection that had brought her here today. She couldn’t give a damn about his love life.
She’d come to retrieve what was hers, at any cost.
The door across the hall stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open. Another palatial room all in white, but this one she recognised. This was the living room where he’d been photographed for the article on his foundation’s charity fundraiser. The view beyond the windows was unmistakeable.
The armchair he’d posed in wasn’t in the same place, though. The photographer must have re-arranged the furniture. She frowned. The painting she’d spotted at the edge of the photograph wasn’t here either.
But at least two paintings were missing. Against the stark whiteness of the walls, the marks showing where they’d hung were unmistakeable.
Oh God, he couldn’t have moved them, could he? If he’d put that painting on display, or sold it to a gallery, she’d cut off his balls and feed them to him.
Another low moan. Closer this time. She didn’t care if she interrupted him in the middle of the throes of passion. He deserved it. And she wasn’t leaving without her painting.
She strode across the room, through double doors that stood wide into another living room, smaller, cosier but still that cold, impersonal white. Another painting had been removed in this room. She pushed open the door across the room, the final door, and froze.
Jasper Sinclair. Blindfolded and tied to a hard-backed, spindle-legged wooden chair that looked like it could be an antique, in the middle of a bedroom the size of her entire flat. The white sheets on the bed behind him lay rumpled as if he’d just got out of it.
His hair looked rumpled to, as if hands had run through it.
His head seemed heavy as he tried to lift it, as if he was just waking. Or coming around. He moaned again. It shouldn’t have sounded so sensual. It shouldn’t have sounded do arousing. But it did.
He was even better looking in person than on TV. He wore nothing but long black silk pyjama pants. His arms had been tied behind him, forcing his chest forward. And what a chest he had. Strong, tanned, almost hairless but for the dark arrow above his waistband.
As for those abs...her fingers itched to stroke across that smooth, solid flesh.
“Who’s there?” His voice rasped, dry and weak, and he licked his lips.
This wasn’t some kinky game she’d walked in on. She glanced up at the walls. Another painting gone.
He’d been robbed.
Fury bubbled up. He’d been robbed and her painting was gone. How could he keep such valuable works of art in an apartment with so little security? Did he value them so little?
“Who’s there?” he asked again, his voice stronger now. Almost cocky. Definitely more like the Jasper Sinclair she knew and loathed. “No one you need know,” Lexy answered.
He lifted his head, looking straight at her, and she was relieved the thieves had the forethought to blindfold him. She’d been afraid of what he might say, or do, if he recognised her. This way was so much better.
“What do you want?” He bit out. “I don’t keep cash in the apartment, and if you so much as touch one of my paintings, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
“I haven’t touched any of the paintings.” Yet. “How long have you been out?”
He licked his lips again, a movement that drew her gaze to them. She didn’t normally notice lips on a man, but God, he had a beautiful mouth, full and sensual. She licked her own lips.
“You’re not one of them?” he asked. “What time is it?”
“A little after seven.”
Jasper shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “It was still dark when I woke. Someone was in the room. I think he must have knocked me out.” He looked straight at her again. “Untie me.”
Not if her life depended on it.
And now we're getting to the really interesting stuff... what would you do with a gorgeous, naked, blind-folded man who's tied to a chair?
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