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Once upon a time, a naughty girl called Tansy stole a very precious manuscript from a kindly antiquarian. But all of the world’s ancient and powerful magic, lost for centuries, has returned...and now there is much more at stake than a few sheets of parchment.
Thus begins a rude and rugged fairy tale, the likes of which you NEVER read when you were little! Poor Tansy is led though the most pleasurable trials and the most shameful tribulations as her quest unfolds before her. Orgasmic joy and abject humiliation are laid upon Tansy in equal measure as she straddles the two worlds of magic and man.
Fantasy and BDSM slither together to make Named & Shamed the consummate adult fable. Immerse yourself in this dark and depraved fairy tale, and may all your endings be happy ever after!
Thank you for having me on your blog, Erzabet!
1. What
inspired you to write erotic fairy tales?
I’ve always loved fairy tales, folklore and mythology. And when I was 17
or so I discovered Angela Carter’s collection The Bloody Chamber, which
opened my eyes to their eroticism. My contemporary fantasy novel Wildwood
ends when the heroine releases all the trapped magic back into the world, so years
later I sat down and wondered what it actually would be like if that happened –
how would we cope if there really were trolls under the bridges and ogres under
the bed? The answer was “Not very well!” That’s where Named
and Shamed came from – it’s a completely separate book from Wildwood,
but shares the same world.
2. Tell
us about the toughest scene you ever wrote? Why was it hard? Was it the sex or
something else?
I’ve written a few scenes that have been censored by my editor, and I’ve
been forced to rewrite (That’s really
hard, because I know what I want to say and why I’m saying it, and I’ve been forced
to compromise my principles): a couple of them where I made the hero bisexual,
and this was considered “not masculine enough” back in the day before m/m was
all the rage. The publishers denied they were being homophobic, but I didn’t
believe them then and I don’t believe them now. Oh – and one scene where the
heroine has sex with a minotaur ... and the poor editor nearly had a nervous
breakdown because unless it had “a human head” I was obviously promoting real-world
bestiality (Huh?).
Storm-in-a-teacup stuff, honestly, but a pain in the butt to deal with
at the time.
3. Taco
Bell or salad?
I’m a low-carb vegetarian, so it’d have to be salad, I’m afraid! With
grilled halloumi cheese and walnuts and artichokes and mayo. Yum.
4.
Margarita, beer or water?
You, know, I’ve never tried a
margarita? What the heck have I been doing with my life? Make me a margarita right now, barman!
5. What
are some of your pet peeves in erotica?
Oh goodness. Bad grammar and bad spelling and bad writing generally –
erotica shouldn’t be throwaway rubbish just because it’s about sex. Erotica
should be hot and gripping and mind-blowing. So you do need to appeal to my
mind as well as my other bits!
But I hate “literary erotica”
— and by that I mean the stories where the heroine staggers passively from
miserable unfulfilling sex-scene to miserable unfulfilling sex-scene for no
reason except ennui, until she finally ends up killed in some sadomasochistic
game because she hates herself/existence so much that she can’t be asked not
to. This seems to considered the only acceptable way to approach erotica
amongst the highbrow. They really can’t admit that happy, healthy people do
BDSM for fun.
Personally I don’t think sex is about boredom or existential angst – I
like my erotica to be sex-positive. I like my protagonists to enjoy themselves.
My only other real grouse is with authors who don’t know their anatomy.
Clits are not self-lubricating. The hymen is NOT located inside the vagina, but
at its opening. It’s not rocket science, folks.
6. Open
up Named and Shamed and tell us what
is going on.
Okay, I’ve opened it to page 266 which (in the paperback version, not
the Kindle one) features an outrageous full-page illustration! My heroine
Tansy, her cousin and the cousin’s boyfriend, have been chased by a nasty rural
gang and she calls in a favour with the Elder Tree Witch who rescues them. But
now they’re trapped in Fairyland at the witch’s whim. Tansy suddenly finds
she’s living out the Hansel and Gretel
story – her friends are being fattened up for the pot, and she’s being kept as
a skivvy and sex-toy for the witch and the witch’s three monstrous sons. It’s
looking rather rough for my heroine!
7. What
are your favorite types of characters to write about? What are your least
favorite?
I like writing about men. I find it easier to get an authorial grip on male
personalities and motivation than I do with women. I guess I’m not very
feminine myself, so I don’t write “normal” women terribly easily.
8.
Pantster or plotter?
Pantser.
E. L. Doctorow said “Writing is like driving at night
in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the
whole trip that way.”
So trust the muse — and drive carefully.
9. What
types of things do you love in an erotica novel?
Power play. Shame and embarrassment that titillates but doesn’t sicken.
Fear and overcoming fear. Seduction. Pushing of boundaries. Heroes and heroines
with intelligence and wit and empathy.
10. It's
time for dinner: Where would your main character go and what would she have? Is
she a salad eater or does she love a great big cheeseburger?
Oh dear
– Tansy in Named and Shamed wouldn’t eat either! She’s under a deadly
Fairy Curse, which makes her both crazyass-horny and unable to stomach solid
food. It’s supposed to kill her by making her waste away “for love,” but she’s
smart enough to find her way around it by consuming, um, liquid nourishment ...
11. What
one thing would you tell someone just starting out in the erotica genre?
You’ve got to like writing about sex. If you’re doing it because it’s
the Latest Thing and you think you’re going to make a ton of cash, you are
going to be soooooo disappointed. You have to write erotica because it’s what you love to write. Period.
xxx
Janine
Excerpt:
“Do you want to see
the Bour Tree?”
I hesitated, running my tongue-tip
across my lip. “Okay. But I thought elder trees were bad luck.”
“Not this ’un. She’s a good ’un.”
He led me out into the garden. This
was where all the women were, I realised: watching indulgently as their kids
ran riot. Aaron took me over to the bush, which had three big trunks and a host
of lesser ones. Hanging from the twigs was a glittering array of kids’ tat:
plastic key-rings and fuzzy little animals, transforming robots, a toy
aeroplane, a necklace made of sweets.
“See?” said Aaron. “You make her a
present and she gives you a wish.”
I could hear some of the kids
chanting as they skipped rope on the grass nearby:
Bour tree, bour tree: crooked
wrong
Never straight and never strong
Always bush and never tree
Since the Christ was hanged on
thee.
A Christian gloss on a much older
warning, I thought.
“Hmm,” I said, noncommittally. I didn’t want to
offend the man. Or the tree.
“Go on,” he said.
A
lock of my hair swung down across my face as he reached up without warning to
my temple, pulled out the hairclip there and snapped it over a twig. My mouth
fell open.
Aaron
grinned. “Make a wish.”
The hairclip was a cheap one with a white
fabric flower on it. Even if it had been silk and diamonds, I wasn’t sure it
would have been wise to snatch it back. Gifts to the Fair Folk should never be
rescinded.
I made myself relax again. “I don’t
need to. Mine’s already come true,” I said, letting him know I could be just as
cheeky and forward as he was.
His eyes held mine, dancing. “Take a
flower then.”
I
lifted an eyebrow and sought out one of the white clusters with my hand. “Give me of your wood, old girl,” I said
softly. There are traditional formulae for turning aside an elder’s malice, and
that’s one of them. “And I’ll give you
mine when I grows into a tree.”
“Ah,” he said, eyes narrowing.
“You’re a smart ’un.”
He
took the flower from my hand, blew on it to remove any stray insects, and
tucked it gently into the V of my shirt neck. His fingertips brushed my bare
skin, setting it off in electric sparkles.
“I
should take you to meet my gaffer,” he said.
“Is he as cute as you?”
Aaron drew himself up, laughing. “No
one’s as cute as me. Do you play pool?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“Come on then.” He walked me round
to another door at the back of the inn, and as we crossed the grass he put his
hand casually on the swell of my ass and kept it there. I didn’t object. Once
inside the door, in the corridor within, he drew me up against him and kissed
me. It was a slow, soft and deeply dirty kiss, his tongue teasing its way past
my lips and one hand drifting to squeeze my left breast and tweak my nipple. I
responded to that in a manner far from ladylike — pressing up against him with
eager, breathy mews of pleasure and sucking his tongue deeper into my mouth. I
wanted him to push me up against the wall and ram his cock into me, there and
then. The knot of flesh in his trousers grew hard as I ground myself against
it, and his other hand tightened on my ass even as his mouth deserted mine.
“Oh, you’re hot,” he growled under his breath.
He rubbed my nipple between finger and thumb, pinching it until my knees nearly
gave way. “I bet you’re a real goer.”
“You won’t know till you try,” I
whispered, running the tip of my tongue over his lips.
“Hh.” His eyes glittered with
secretive speculation. “Be patient. Come on through.”
With one hand around my wrist he
drew me through another door. The smell of beer and cigarettes rolled over me,
a sweet pubby aroma I found very pleasant. This was another bar room. The space
was dominated by a pool table and it was full of men standing about with pint
glasses in their hands — they seemed to have a real gender segregation thing
going on here — and everyone stopped and stared as we entered.
“Look what I found,” said Aaron,
putting his arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. It might have been
meant to be reassuring. Or it might have meant something else altogether, like
preventing me from turning tail and running. “She’s real friendly, like.”
There was no way I was leaving. I
looked around and grinned, understanding very well. The men here were of all
ages from eighteen up, dressed casually or in country style with flat tweed
caps. Not an urban metrosexual sophisticate among them, and they were all
openly ogling me. Someone whistled. I could feel their gazes like so many
groping caresses on my tits and thighs, and it filled me with heat. I thrust my
breasts out a little further, reveling in the attention and feeling my nipples
swell to hard points.
“Come and meet the Gaffer.” Aaron
let go long enough to pat my ass, then steered me round the table. The Gaffer
was one of the guys in the tweed caps, big and middle-aged and paunchy. He
stood surrounded by a little knot of men who looked like they’d been hanging on
his every word. He might not have had prepossessing looks, but it was clear he
had status, and I that was being presented for inspection. His pale blue gaze
slid over me.
“This is Tansy,” said Aaron, running
one finger down my spine, making me gyrate and squirm.
“A pleasure to meet you, Tansy.” The
Gaffer lifted his gaze from an unabashed consideration of my boobs and looked
me in the eye. Without blinking, he added. “You’ve done well for yourself there
boy. She’s pretty. Magnificent knockers.”
It was a test, of sorts. A
calculated slap in the face, to see how I would react. I flushed and giggled,
dropping my gaze with a strange instinctive coyness. I could feel my pussy
swelling at the compliment. Because it was a compliment — degrading and crude
and offensive, it was still an acknowledgement of my desirability by the most
important man in the room. I got it. In times of trouble, scared people look
for leaders. It just so happens that the sort of guy who wants to be a leader
is usually a tool of the first order, but that doesn’t matter to them. Even if
he chooses to impose some sort of weird elder-tree cult it doesn’t matter, as
long as he leads. I knew that with a single word from this man I could be on my
knees in this back bar, tugging open his flies and sucking his cock while he
sipped his pint with a complacent smirk and everyone looked on.
I wet my lips.
Buy Links:
The paperback version of Named and Shamed includes 19 interior illustrations
by John LaChatte:
Amazon UK:
Named
and Shamed is also available on Kindle (via Amazon sites), but without interior
illustrations.
Janine Ashbless bio:
Janine Ashbless has written
books for Black Lace, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, Mischief Books and Sweetmeats
Press, as well as short stories for Spice, Cleis, Nexus and others. Her erotica
has been described as “hardcore and literate.” Violet Blue called her “one of the hands-down masters of erotic
writing.”
She lives in England with
her husband and rescued greyhounds, and is currently writing a novel about
fallen angels for Cleis Press.
Thank you Janine for being on the blog today! Named and Shamed is on my Kindle app and from what I have read so far, I am loving it!!!
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