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Portia Da Costa
I love to read linked books and ever since I started writing, I've often tried to create mini series and books that have characters and settings in common. Back in 2005, I wrote a book called Entertaining Mr Stone, and with it I established what I call Stoneworld - which is the 'universe' in which that book, and several others, as well as a few short stories are set. Stoneworld is an un-named Northern Borough and its environs, very much like the area I've lived and worked in all my life. Entertaining Mr Stone was set in the Borough Hall, where the heroine Maria had a clerical job and met the deliciously sexy Mr Robert Stone, the Borough's Director of Finance. A key scene also took place at the Waverley Grange country house hotel, and the next book - Suite Seventeen - featured the hotel as its main location. And now, In Too Deep takes place in the Borough's Library Headquarters, with walk-on appearances by several characters from both EMS and S17 and some of the action occurring at the Waverley too.
In Too Deep is the story of Gwendolynne Price, a readers' advisor in the Borough Library, much as I once was a readers' advisor in a Public Library Headquarters. The Borough Library is an old fashioned place in some ways, and has a traditional 'suggestion box'. The story opens just as Gwendolynne has started receiving suggestive notes, via the box, from a mysterious and rather verbose pervert who calls himself 'Nemesis'. At the same time as she's getting her socks blown off by these deliciously kinky letters, she's also falling in lust big-time with a visiting celebrity academic, Professor Daniel Brewster, who she privately calls Professor Hottie McHotstuff. He's researching his latest book and television history series in the Borough Library archives. Cue much friskiness down in the stacks and an escalating exchange of increasingly explicit letters, emails and internet chats, when Gwendolynne launches into a daring and sexy relationship with *both* men!
Read an excerpt here
Available from Amazon.com
In Too Deep isn't the end of Stoneworld however. I'm currently writing my next Black Lace novel, Kiss It Better, which features a heroine who owns a café in a small town on the edge of the Borough. And guess which country house hotel the mysterious hero just happens to be staying at? ;)
So, gentle readers, do you like books that are part of a series, or which are set in an over-arcing 'universe' or locale?
On Friday 26th September, I will be posting an excerpt from In Too Deep here at Lust Bites. Leave a comment here today, and one on the 26th as well, and your name will go into a draw, in which the prize is a copy of each the first two Stoneworld books - Entertaining Mr Stone and Suite Seventeen. Hopefully, by the time the winner's read those, he or she will be champing at the bit to read In Too Deep!
*nb... you'll notice that Prof Hottie appears to be rather a dab hand at maths too. This is because his real world 'template', a fictional mathematician, is one of my fantasy writing coaches. Confused? I think I am... LOL
