Valentine’s Day Gift Hop: An Ode to Thorns

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amazon gift card, and evermore rose, blog hop, romantica, roses, Valentine's Day Gift Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Valentine’s Day Gift Hop! Keep reading for instructions on how to win a $5 Amazon gift card and the other grand prizes.

Valentine’s Day is fast upon us. A time for red roses wrapped in tissue paper and sticky chocolates. For those of you who need a break from Cupid’s saccharine smile, I provide this bit of bitter as a counter note to the sweet, and give the rose back its thorns when I consider some less savory facts about this famous flower.

Heliogabalus smothered his guests in them

In an attempt to one up the famous sensualist and politician Cleopatra, Heliogabalus showered his guests in roses. Only, there was such a profusion of flowers, his guests suffocated under the heady blooms. Please note: this little factoid comes to us from the ancient equivalent of the National Enquirer.

The Cherokee rose is anything but

It’s from China. Yup, that’s right, you heard me. From China. Not native at all. Just like those goddamn stinkbugs.

Red roses are for love

Yellow roses are for infidelity. What? A Japan rose is for someone who’s just a pretty face. Okay… A dried white rose for “death is preferable to loss of innocence.” And thank you, Lucy Hooper. Not sure when I would need that one.

Dr. Livingston presumes…

To complain to London’s Horticultural Society about William Kerr’s pittance of a salary.

Who’s William Kerr? Only a young Scottish man who sent 238 new species of plants (including his namesake, the Kerria japonica) back from China during his eight and half years there. Shipping plants overseas in 1803 was quite difficult. It took Kerr five months to travel from England to China, and the plants that he brought with him mostly perished. Three at least made it to China, though what happened afterwards can only be guessed (cough cough dead cough).

So, of the 238,000 plants young Kerr packed up and shipped back to England—I’m going off of Livingstone’s math here—238 made it, including the white Banksian rose, a flower still much admired and grown today.

So, what’s sad about this story? I’ll quote Jennifer Potter’s The Rose here: “So Kerr was drinking and perhaps worse, ground down by poverty and loneliness.” At this time in history, China restricted the movement of European traders in their country, isolating them, and according to Livingstone, Kerr didn’t even have enough money to buy new clothes and spent much of his time navigating congested streets instead of working. Eventually, his employers decided to make him superintendent at the King’s new botanical gardens in Sri Lanka. It sounds lovely, except he died shortly after arriving. While Potter indicates a fever, Wikipedia suggests opium.

Now you need some sugar, I know. In honor of all the flowers getting ready for their big day, I’ve dropped the price of The Love of Violetta from $2.99 to $0.99.

Violetta learns the bitter truth that, like the roses in the garden, young love fades. What sweetness can she find treading the halls where her love once walked? Who will kiss her, now that he has refused?

Available at Amazon and Smashwords. You can read the first part here for free.

To enter to win the Grand Prizes:

And the $5 Amazon gift card, comment  below with your email address and the bouquet you’d love to receive for Valentine’s Day (mainly your email address though). After you’re done, don’t forget to comment on other blogs for more chances to win the Grand Prize! Every comment equals an additional entry.

Click here to get back to the list of participating blogs!

As far as what bouquet I’d want, it would be full of messy old garden roses, cabbage roses and dog roses and moss roses. I’d also like to thank Jennifer Potter for her lovely book, The Rose, which has helped me to natter at family members about an even wider variety of plants.

Out now: The Love of Violetta

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17th century France, duc de lauzun, French, historical romance, Opera, romance, romantica

Violetta loves Roland, and he loves her. Violetta knew their love was foolish when she was fourteen, but over the years she forgot. When Roland tells her they cannot be wed, she’s heartbroken. Desperate, attempts to seduce him, proposing that she become his mistress.

The Duc de Lauzun wasn’t the same after his wife died. He drank. The women of the manor bore babes stamped with his chin. The maids who valued their virtue avoided him, while others sought their sport in the halls. Violetta always shied away from him, though he’s had his eye on her, ever since she changed from a girl to a woman.

Violetta:

For a moment, Roland’s blue eyes met mine, and my heart gave a mournful shudder, like a clock sounding out the witching hour. It did not stop, but for a moment it slowed, as if its cogs were gummed with all our youthful promises and stolen embraces.

The Duc de Lauzun:

“I shouldn’t,” he said and again savored my lips.

“I shouldn’t,” he said as his hands made themselves again familiar with the heft of my curves.

“I shouldn’t,” he said and pressed his hardness against my hip.

Excerpt:

“I don’t want a husband, I want a kiss.” I took his hands, put them at the small of my back, and wrapped mine around his neck.

“Violetta,” he whispered, bending over me.

I closed my eyes, and his lips touched mine and moved, gently, slowly. He reached up to tangle his fingers in my hair. The tip of his tongue traced the seal of my lips, and I opened my mouth to him. He was hot and wet inside me. I pressed my tongue against his, and he purred.

“Will you sit on my lap and kiss me?” he asked.

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Call me Antoine,” he said. He raised my hair to my face and inhaled.

“Antoine, you have some curious habits,” I said.

With a growl, he pulled me against him, and I squealed. He sat on the bed, and holding me in his arms, he joined his mouth to mine again.

When he opened his lips for me, I traced his teeth, his tongue. I pulled his bottom lip, then his top, into my mouth. He was hot and hard beneath me, and he moaned as I stroked the fine fabric of his clothes. It was like being consumed by a strange fire, my body pressed against him, my nipples hard in my chemise as if I were cold. He combed his fingers through my hair, his nails tracing over my scalp, and I clung to him. Something firm poked my hip, and he shuddered each time my weight settled against it.

We kissed until my lips were swollen and my head dizzy. I pressed my thighs together and squirmed in his embrace. Each of his breaths moved through me and pooled between my legs. His grip tightened on me, one hand lost in my hair, the other hard on my waist.

The Duc—Antoine—pulled away from me, his chest heaving. “If I wish to leave you with your innocence, I must go, dear. Needless to say, I shall tell my son you will be staying here, with me.”

I smiled, touching his wonderful mouth, and he kissed my fingers.

“Do you want to stay here and be with me?” he asked, my fingers still in his mouth.

“Yes.” I pressed my lips to his brow.

Amazon/Smashwords

Free Promotion On Amazon!

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fetish, Free erotica, free kindle, golden shower, romantica

My fellow smut writer, Lindsey Flinch Bedder is running a free promotion on two of her books, the sexy and romantic Trapper and Emmeline, and Yellow Summer: The Adventures of a Pee Slut. Now I know the last thing you want to hear after “pee-slut” is “hand-holding” but Lindsey tenderly takes you through Lanna’s adventure through the most perverted night club I’d like to look at but not touch. Our hero, Gael, has an interesting way of communicating, and I realized, I haven’t read all the sex scenes I told Lindsey to put in… so I’m getting myself a copy now.

Hurry up head over to amazon, they’re only free until 1/8/13!