Cranberries and Spice Giveaway - Seasons Greetings and Help Each Other

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Courtesy of Flickr user Chiaralily

The holidays. The Silly Season. The Festive Season. A time for festivity and merriment, family, friends and good memories. For the most part. There are many, however, for whom the holidays are a dark time. I know our Christmas last year was a rough time. This year isn't exactly easy either, but we don't have it as bad as others. We are working it so that there are some presents, we have family, a roof over our heads and, most importantly, we have each other. So in the grand scheme of things, as grim as I feel with the impending holidays and forced cheer, we are lucky.
I especially feel lucky, not just for having my small family, but for my writing family. I know I can always count on help of some sort from one or more of my writing family. And writing itself is something I can always turn to. The publishing community, as a whole, is a great society to be part of. As with any group, there are those only out for themselves, who do play dirty or won't do a thing to help their fellow authors, seeing them only as competition. That's quite sad, and I've unfortunately come across quite a few. However, overall, I've found it to be such a wonderful community to be part of. Blog hops like this serve all who get involved. It's a network of authors, often not all know each other, linking their blogs to help support each other. And with the holidays coming up, what is just fun for some, is deeply meaningful to others.

Participate in the Rafflecopter to win
yourself one of my titles. 2 of each to giveaway!

So I guess my point is this. Don't take anything for granted. What may just be light entertainment for you might just mean the world, or be quite painful, for someone else. Celebrate the holidays in your own way, but take some time, even just a moment, out of your busy festivities to shine a light for someone who might not be feeling the merriment. You'll make them feel so much better, and it'll brighten your own holidays as well.
May you have a peaceful and blessed Thanksgiving, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Chanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Saturnalia, Happy Yule, and a joyous festive season, whatever way you choose to celebrate. Stay wicked and naughty in the right ways, and I hope to see you all again!

To see who else is participating in the Cranberries and Spice Giveaway, check out the link here! There are loads of awesome giveaways from 44 authors, including myself.

Promo Monday with Gemma Parkes and her Christmas Delights

Today, on the second last author Promo Monday for the year, I'm pleased to welcome back Gemma Parkes, this time to talk about her own Christmas anthology, Christmas Delights!

Thank you for having me over today!

I want to tell you about my new release ‘Christmas Delights’. As you know, l love to write Erotica and as Christmas is my favourite time of the year, it seemed a perfect opportunity to combine the two!

I have written five short stories with Christmas as a theme guaranteed to warm up the coldest of winter nights:

Synopsis:

Christmas is a time for giving. One of the most important things we can give is love, how we express that love is up to us. In this anthology, Christmas is expressed through erotic journeys of lust and discovery, making it a very special time of the year for all the characters within. Lie back and enjoy these five erotic tales of Christmas written from the naughty pen of Gemma Parkes: 

• Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wear lingerie that really made you feel beautiful? Danielle is reluctant until she feels super sexy in her present from Michael. A story bound to warm even the most reluctant of lovers.
• A Christmas shopping expedition to England’s capitol city ends up with a visit to a live sex show. An erotic author and her boyfriend are about to view the action from very close quarters. Will it be everything they expected, or more?
• Leanne is bored with the commercialism Christmas invariably brings. Will new employee Mike encourage her to get into the spirit of things by allowing him to spend the season with her?
• Adventurous couple Clare and Jake have wonderful imaginations that run riot around this time of year. Even the dullest of Christmas decorations can become erotic in the extreme. What else do they have hidden away in their ‘Naughty Box’?
• Penny is listening to Christmas Carol singers outside her window, when Jack arrives to spend the night. A lazy preparation of finger food won’t be enough to satisfy either of these passionate lovers.

Excerpt:

Penny sat beside the fire and muted the sound from the TV. She could just make out the faint voices singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

Jack would be calling round at 6pm. She could hardly wait and closed her eyes to think delicious thoughts about what the evening might entail.

Penny had prepared a meal of sorts, finger food her mother would call it whilst her best friend Zoe called it ‘lazy’. There were chicken wings, spicy and plain, sausage rolls and three different quiches, some breadsticks and dips and a few other nibbles, crisps mainly.

Anyway Penny didn’t want to spend the evening eating, it had been a difficult week at work and her stress levels were higher than usual. She was planning on an evening of unbridled passion and had prepared the bedroom accordingly with warm red sheets and scented Ylang Ylang candles waiting patiently to be lit. All there was left to do was immerse herself in a deep bath of softening, sensuous bubbles that would guarantee velvety skin just begging to be stroked.

At 6pm Jack arrived wearing a huge grin and holding out a bottle of chilled chardonnay.

He gathered her into his arms almost immediately, placing the bottle down on the nearest surface so that his hands were free to roam over Penny’s warm body through the silken robe she was wearing. Her curves yielded to his touch as his mouth found hers covering it with his full, soft lips and drawing from her a low groan when he eased his tongue inside her receptive mouth.

“I’ve waited all day for your body.” Jack muttered against her lips as he started to ease the robe from one of her silken shoulders.

“Good.” Penny murmured in response and her fingers set about undoing the buttons on his pale blue shirt.

They backed up into the room, their lips still searching and nibbling, Penny’s robe was left behind them in a pool on the floor as Jack’s hands explored every soft inch of her body with wide palms, stroking and squeezing her sensitized flesh.

Jack turned Penny around in one movement and bent her forward with her hands against the wall as he loosened his trousers, pulling them down to his knees along with his under shorts.

“I love your ass,” he breathed, “God I love your ass.”

Buy Links:

Amazon US

Amazon UK


Author Biography.

Gemma Parkes is a freelance writer from the UK who specializes mainly in Erotic fiction. Her writing covers a variety of sexual genres.

Previous publication credits:
Anthology inclusions:

Train Whore - Girl fever – Cleis Press
Access all Areas –Back Door Lover – Ravenous Romance
Cassandra – A Wicked and Wanton All Hallows Eve – Naughty Nights Press
Scarlet – Behind Stone Walls – Yellow Silk Dreams

Novellas:
Pleasing Mia – Rebel Ink Press

Plus many self published titles, including:
Making Waves
Park ‘n Ride
Submit to Me… and many more.
You can contact Gemma by visiting her blog, following her on Facebook or Twitter:

http://gemmaparkes.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/parkes.gemma

https://twitter.com/GemmaPar

Have a wonderful December everyone and a hot, hot Christmas!

It shall certainly be with this read!