Giveaway: To celebrate the release of The Tutor, I’m giving away a $30/£20 Amazon gift voucher. Enter via the Rafflecopter for your chance to win!
Thanks so much for having me on the Book Lovers 4Ever blog to share a bit about my latest novel, The Tutor. It’s a pleasure to be here and to celebrate with you and your readers.
Q : What’s the hardest part of writing a book?
A : For me the writing of a book is always a total pleasure. I don’t care if it’s the rewrite with all of the editing and rethinking or the fast and furious rush of the first draft. I love every bit of it. The hardest part for me is eeking out the time to actually write. As most authors will tell you, we spend nearly as much time on PR and marketing as we do on writing, and as most authors will also tell you, it’s quite often the hardest thing of all to actually find the time to sit and write and immerse ourselves in the story. So much to write, so little time !
Q: What is for you, the perfect book hero?
A: The perfect book hero is one who is interesting as a person, which means one who is not so perfect. I don’t want stereotypical broad shouldered, washboard abs cardboard cut-outs. Sadly, that’s too often what I find in novels these days – usually alpha males with a penchant toward dominating. I don’t mind dominant males, but I do like males that pull me in with who they are not how they look. I want to know what makes them three-dimensional. I need something beyond the way they look before I want to spend more time with them. I want flaws, character, humor and depth. I seldom pay too much attention to looks in a novel – unless they play a major role in the plot. I reckon it’s the reader’s job to picture how the hero looks in her mind.
Q: Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
A : I adore Diana Gabaldon. I love her Outlander series and have for years. I was over the moon about the recent television series based on the books and, though it’s not as good as the novels, (They never are) it’s still pretty damned amazing. What I love about the books is that they’re not like anything else I’ve ever read. They’re genre crossing romps that have romance, sex, fabulous world building, drama, suspense and grit all rolled into books long enough to sink my teeth into. Yes, I do love a good doorstop. I love that her characters are beautifully flawed – all of them, even – pant, pant, gasp, gasp, my all-time favourite book hero, Jamie Fraser.
Q : Favorite foods/colors/music?
A : I LOVE taco salad – preferably with my own home made salsa. My favorite color is blue and my favourite music is classic rock and classical – I adore Beethoven. I think he is the ultimate drama king and a romantic to the core.
Q : What is the best gift you ever received?
A : For our second Valentines Day together, my husband woke me up with a single red rose and a poem he’d written himself. Now my husband is a chemical engineer. Poetry is not usually in his job description, but he acquitted himself very nicely, succeeding in bringing tears to my eyes – even when I read it all these years later. It’s framed on the wall of our bedroom, and it’s still my most treasured possession.
Q : Tell us something that people would be surprised you know how to do.
A: Being raised partially on a farm, I know how to butcher and dress a chicken – a skill I hope never to have to use again. Urgh ! And having been a girl scout, I know how to build a fire from scratch, a skill much more pleasant than dressing a chicken.
Q : Will anyone in your family read this book? What kind of feedback do they provide?
A : My husband will read it. He tells all his colleagues I use him for research. My sister-in-law and my niece might possibly read it. My whole family is proud of what I do, and they brag about the writer in the family, but my genre is a bit much for some of them.
Q : Do your characters ever take over your writing and make the story go somewhere you didn't originally have in mind?
A : Absolutely. And when they do it’s always with way better results than what I had in mind to begin with. If they want to be in charge, I let them. It’s their story. They know best, and I trust them completely.
Q : Best line you ever wrote?
A : Well, I like to think that every line is the best one I ever wrote. Honestly, it’s hard to think of a single line that stands out because so many of the good ones depend entirely on the context their in, and out of context they mean nothing. Here’s one I really like from The Tutor though.
“a woman, well a woman feels like nothing you’ve ever touched before.”
Q : Can you share something about your works in progress?
A : At the moment I’m working on Blind-Sided, the second novel of my Medusa’s Consortium series. The first novel, In The Flesh, has just been released. The series is urban fantasy/paranormal romance. It’s deliciously dark and very sexy. And yes, Medusa is at the center of the series. She’s intrigued me since I wrote a short story about her called Stones, for the anthology, Seducing the Myth, edited by Lucy Felthouse. The story was only four thousand words long, but it raised so many delicious possibilities that I knew I wanted to write more. I just never imagined it would turn into a whole series. It’s basically based on the premise that Medusa AKA Magda Gardener is alive and well and living a reclusive life in the English Lake District – or at least that’s what she wants people to think. I had no idea Medusa had so many wonderful, and sexy stories. They’re not all her stories. She is the mover and shaker in the novels, and her consortium … well think of her as a female Nick Fury in dark glasses whose Avengers are monsters, demons and supernaturals who owe her majorly. I’m enjoying every minute of it.
When physical touch is impossible, intimacy may become a powerful work of art or a devastating nightmare—but, above all, it’s an act of trust.
The Tutor Blurb:
The press feeding frenzy forces Kelly into hiding at Lex’s mansion where he convinces her to be his private tutor just until the press loses interest, and she can go back home. They discover quickly that touch is not essential for sizzling, pulse-pounding intimacy. But intimacy must survive the secrets uncovered as their sessions become more and more personal.
Buy links: Amazon UK / Amazon US / B&N / iBooks UK / iBooks US / Google Books / Kobo / Totally Bound Publishing
The Tutor Excerpt: First Contact:
For a long moment they sat in silence again, both wrapped in matching terry robes, both looking slightly worse for the wear. He was okay with that. He could have sat there with her all night, but she broke the spell. “Lex, you’re exhausted. Do you think you could try to get some more sleep?”
“Stay with me.” The words were out before he could stop them. “If you stay with me, I can sleep.”
She stood and looked back at his bed and, for a dreadful moment, he though she was going to say no. “All right then, but your bed’s a train wreck. Why don’t you come to mine? It’s virtually undreamed in tonight. Besides I only allow good dreams in my bed.” She nodded to the open French doors and gave him an encouraging smile.
Back in the Meadowlark Suite she went to work on their sleeping arrangements, putting a barrier of pillows down the middle between them. It was a huge bed, just like his, so there was still lots of room. “There are enough cushions and pillows and throws for a herd of elephants to have a slumber party,” she said. “I don’t move much when I sleep, but this will make sure that I don’t accidentally touch you or you me.” She pulled back the covers and nodded to the space. “Get comfy and I’ll tuck you in.” He did as she asked, wishing desperately that they could lose the pillow barrier and he could take her in his arms and hold her all night and wake up with her still pressed against him. The thought made his chest ache with longing, but that she was here, that she was next to him, sleeping close, that would do. That was so much better than anything he’s ever been able to imagine for himself.
When she was settled in on the other side of the pillow barrier, he couldn’t keep from smiling. She was in his bed, well technically it was his bed, wasn’t it? She wore his engagement ring, and she did! She still wore it. She hadn’t taken it off. At least for the moment he could almost imagine the two of them as a normal couple climbing into their bed together after a hard day, lying close to each other before they both drifted off to sleep. What must that feel like? Would he ever know? If he ever did, at this moment he couldn’t imagine anyone he’d rather share his bed with than Kelly Blake. And just before he drifted off to sleep, he remembered that she had found him, she had followed him and come searching for him, both the other night in the sculpture garden and tonight. She had rescued him from the dream world and she hadn’t been repulsed by his neediness. She had stayed with him.
Kelly woke with a pillow tossed carelessly over her face and a heavy warm weight on her body. It was only when she moved slightly in an effort to dislodge whatever it was that she realized the heavy weight was Lex Valentine. She froze, heart summersaulting in her chest, right exactly where his head rested, dark hair tickling her chin. All around them she could see nothing but mounds of pillows, but there were none between them. There was nothing between them. His head lay between her breasts with one hand cupping her. One well-muscled leg was thrown over her body just above her hip, which his morning erection prodded enthusiastically. What the hell should she do? If he woke up like this, he would pass out or throw up or both, at the very least he would have a panic attack, but she hadn’t moved. He had found his way to her in his sleep, and he clung to her like he would a lover. Like he would a lover! That thought focused her enough that she made an effort to relax. It was human contact. The cost, from what she had seen yesterday -- at least between the two of them -- the cost was worth paying. His unconscious had known exactly what he needed, what he desired. So why not let his unconscious take care of the need he couldn’t yet take care of consciously. Did she believe that he would be able to at some point? She desperately wanted to believe that, and she wanted to be there when it happened. She wanted to be the one he took consciously into his arms.
His thumb brushed her nipple and she battled to hold still in the bed as it stiffened and rose against his stroking. The satin hardness of his erection surged where it pressed trapped between her hip and his body, and he began to shift and slide against her. She swallowed back a moan, feeling the rush of heat down low where her legs were spread. Had she slept that way, or was it an unconscious response to the nearness of him and his obvious need of her. She couldn’t help it, she wriggled slightly beneath him until she was a little more open and the rhythmic clench and release, clench and release, of her pelvic muscles mirrored his slid and shift, slide and shift. He squirmed and moaned and she froze, for a moment fearing he was waking up and once again at a loss as to what she should do to make it easier for him. But instead of waking up, he shifted more fully onto her until he was almost, but on quite on top of her. His cock pressed up against the inside of her thigh, and still he shifted and slid and moaned softly and, God help her, she found herself wriggling and grinding in an effort to get more fully beneath his body, in an effort the get him inside her. Jesus, she wanted him inside her! She wanted him inside her like she’d never wanted anything as his fingers curled around her breast kneading in rhythm to his shifting, in rhythm to the undulation of her hips. Then he took his hand away and she all but cried out in her frustration, catching herself just before there was any sound other than a heavy intake of breath. But there was very little time to dwell on the absence of his hand as he moved splayed fingers down the flat of her belly and wriggled his way into the top of her panties, there he rested his hand only for a moment on her pubic curls and she arched against it, effectively willing him to seek out the place where she needed to be touched. And thank fuck, he did! He found that place, and memories of the slippery pear half flashed through her head as he carefully, but urgently fingered her open and began to stroke and probe.
This was insane. He was asleep. She absolutely had to wake him before it was too late. If he woke up like this he’d be embarrassed as well as panicked. If he woke up like this he would think she was taking advantage, which she was. And then he found her clitoris, and she held her breath and dug her heels into the mattress to keep from moving as he circled her -- first with his thumb and then with two fingers slick with her own lust. Then he found her rhythm and he thrust and scissored, circled and probed, exactly as she had told him she liked it, as she had demonstrated on the pear.
There was nothing she could do but let him touch her, let the feel of him wash over her in waves, the incredible sensation of being caressed so intimately by Lex Valentine. Her haze of arousal was sharply punctuated by his moans and grunts, not the sounds of distress, but the sounds of a man about to ejaculate. Though her own shifting and rocking had become almost entirely internal, she was there with him, right on the edge as he stroked and touched and tweaked. Christ, how could anything feel better than this? He stopped breathing. His whole body was one tightly clenched muscle, the shifting and sliding had become outright thrusting, and the moans and grunts had escalated to guttural growls. At some point, she didn’t know when it had happened, she grabbed onto the headboard to keep back the overpowering urge to touch him, to take him by the wrist and hold his hand down where she needed it, to grab him by the cock and stroke him until he came, or even better to guide his erection down between her legs where she wanted him most of all. But before there was time to think about it, he grunted, then grunted again, and she felt the warm wet of his release against her thigh. That was enough to send her over the edge. Try though she might, she couldn’t lie still, and Lex woke up.
“Kelly? Fuck!” His words were followed by a hard thud and a barely swallowed string of curses as he rolled off onto the floor.
“Christ, Lex, are you all right? Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do. I should have woke you up.”
“You did wake me up,” he managed between gasps for breath. “Christ, woman, no one has ever woken me up like that before.” He groaned and rolled onto his side.
“Are you okay?”
“Never better.” He said with a soft laugh that sounded somewhat painful. “I’ll be even better still if I can get the room to stop spinning. For a long moment there was no sound but the sound of his breathing. She wasn’t breathing at all, though she desperately needed to. She was too busy trying to listen to him, to make sure he was okay.
At last he spoke. “Did I just … Did we just.”
She couldn’t help the giddy little laugh. “Your fingers aren’t sticky from fondling canned pears, big boy, and I’m gonna need clean sheets.”
About K D Grace/Grace Marshall
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, 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 is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
KD has erotica published with Totally Bound, SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, To Rome with Lust, and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.
K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition, Interviewing Wade are all available.
Find K D Here: Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest
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Thank you so much for having me over to share a little about The Tutor with your lovely readers.
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