I have a guest today and it’s none other than my friend and esteemed editor Cheyenne Blue whose book Never-Tied Nora was just released. Congrats, Cheyenne and take it away!
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There are many reasons why, until recently, I’d never written anything longer than 8,000 or so words. Lack of time, a love of short fiction, the sweet rush that comes from a short story acceptance. The challenge of being concise and compact, yet still telling a tale with meaning. The little slice of life. All of those are part of it. And yes, I’ll admit it, there was also a little introverted wibble about fear of failure holding me back.
I’d often toyed with the idea of writing something longer, but it was actually a throw-away comment from a friend that kicked me into it (Clue: you’re reading this on her blog). Harper probably doesn’t remember her comment, but I do.
In 2014, I had the commute from hell. A 30 minute drive to the train station. A 2 hour train ride to Brisbane. A 10 minute walk. And then back again in the evening. Luckily, Queensland’s trains aren’t that busy, and so with my little netbook, and a Kindle, the 4 hours of daily train travel wasn’t too bad. What it did to my neck is another matter, but 4 hours of reading and writing time was an amazing luxury of time. Most days, I managed to write around 4,000 words.
Harper said, “You could easily write a novel if you’re writing 4,000 words a day. Why don’t you?”
Well, good people of the interwebs, it seems Harper was right. Not quite a novel (this time), but my first novella, Never-Tied Nora, came out recently from Ylva Publishing.
Nora is also the first in a series, with the second, Not-So-Straight Sue, arriving in June 2016. That one is a full-length novel.
I hope you’ll check out Never-Tied Nora, which is available now direct from Ylva Publishing Amazon and all the other usual suspects.
Before I give you the blurb and an excerpt, because this is Harper’s blog and she is big into her fantasy casting, I’ve just spent a very entertaining 30 minutes fantasy casting Nora and Geraldine from Never-Tied Nora.
Geraldine was easy. In my head, she’s like a young Julianne Moore:
But with hair like this:
I wish I had hair like that.
Nora was a little bit harder. But in the end, after much research, including way too long watching her videos on Youtube, I’ve decided that Nora has a Courtney Barnett vibe going. (I have a huge crush on Courtney Barnett. Check out her music. And her girlfriend. ☺)
I don’t think Nora has that adorable scruffy fringe though.
I’m signing off now. Time to watch a few more Courtney Barnett clips. I leave you with the blurb and an excerpt from Never-Tied Nora.
I very much hope you check it out, and that you enjoy it.
Blurb
Nora Kelly loves her carefree London life where there’s always a new woman to seduce. Her big Irish family tease her about her footloose ways, but she knows she’s in no danger of losing her heart.
Her family has only one rule when it comes to dating: Nora can date any woman she wants—as long as she’s not a Flannery. The Kellys and the Flannerys have been feuding ever since both families arrived in London from Ireland sixty years ago, and time has not lessened the hatred.
But never-tied Nora has just met the woman of her dreams, and suddenly commitment isn’t a dirty word. Trouble is, Geraldine is a Flannery.
Can Nora convince Ger that, despite their families, they are meant to be together?
Excerpt
The Korean place was modern—tiled, cold, and echoey, but I didn’t care. We were shown to a table at the back where huge potted plants muted the worst of the noise. It was far enough from the kitchen that the service was beyond woeful, but I didn’t care. I sat opposite Ger once again and watched her expressions and gestures—the quick smile that lit her face like lightning over the ocean, and her small, white fingers with their short, blunt nails as they pointed to a menu selection.
We ate sizzling beef brought by blank-faced waiters, and if I’d been with Sue I’d have been whining about the price of everything and how that should at least get us a smile. But with Ger, complaining didn’t cross my mind. Indeed, I welcomed the awful service as it meant more uninterrupted time to look, to flirt, to touch her hand, to dream, to imagine, and to fantasize about an outcome between us. We finished the bottle of wine but didn’t order another. Instead, we drank water, and played the getting to know you guessing game.
“You’re a professional women’s hockey player,” I said. “Or a coal miner. Final answer.”
Her sigh was theatrical. “You’ve caught me. Want an autograph? Actually, my sister plays hockey. She says I should learn—I might meet someone. She reckons she’s the only straight woman on the team.”
I picked up her hand again. “Tell her you’ve already met someone.”
Her gaze clung to mine. “I might do that. Or I might let her set me up with Big Betsie, the goalie. I love a woman with muscles.”
I pushed up the sleeve of my jacket to show my forearm. “I have muscles,” I said in pretend affront. “All the typing I do, how could I not?”
“You’re a writer,” she guessed. “You ghostwrite autobiographies of the rich and famous. Or you’re a PhD student, four years into the world’s longest thesis.”
“I wish. Think dull. Think of the jobs that send you to sleep.”
“Hypnotherapist? Is that how you’re so successful with women?”
“You don’t know that I’m successful. I could be Never-Laid Nora, the unloved.”
Her expression sobered, and she shuffled her chair around the tiny table so that she was next to me. She was so close I could smell the spices from the meal on her breath. She moved her chair enough that it was angled toward mine, her legs capturing one of mine between them.
“Nora, look at me.” The laughter fled her voice. “If you are the unloved, if you are the unlaid, then—”
“Then what?” I was trapped. Caught in the intensity of her eyes and the steel of her thighs.
“It’s my lucky day, as you must be desperate.” Warmth radiated from her fleeting smile.
She leaned forward, enough that I could see the dark flecks in her sea-green eyes. “I won’t lie to you, Nora. I’ve gone home with women I’ve just met. Met them in a club, or a pub, or at my sister’s hockey game. And I’ve spent a night with them, and at the time it was wonderful. Sex, out of this world. But afterwards? Not so much.” She dragged a deep breath, sat back, and took a gulp from her water glass. “I’m tempted. I’m tempted to lean in and kiss you. Learn your taste, the sigh of your breath. See if your hair is as soft as it looks. I want to know you. Learn what your skin feels like. And in the morning we’d have coffee, and kiss, and swap phone numbers, and then I’d leave, or you’d leave, depending on where we were, and I’d wait for your call. Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d have written you off as just another one of those women, and I’d go into work, and maybe I’d cry on my boss’s shoulder over you. Maybe not.”
Her quiet words held me spellbound, and even the tardy waiter arriving to clear away the dirty dishes didn’t interrupt.
“What do you want from me, Nora?”
My voice was a croak worthy of any frog princess. “Everything. I want everything you’ll give me.”
Never-Tied Nora is available now from:
– Ylva Publishing
– Amazon
– Amazon.co.uk
– Amazon.com.au
– Amazon.de
– Smashwords
Cheyenne Blue’s erotic fiction has been included in over 90 erotic anthologies since 2000, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, All You Can Eat: a buffet of lesbian romance and erotica, Sweat, Bossy, and Wild Girls, Wild Nights. She is the editor of Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire (Ladylit) which is a Lambda Literary Award finalist and a Golden Crown Literary Award finalist, and First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings. Her collected lesbian short fiction is published by Ladylit as Blue Woman Stories – volumes 1 to 3. Under her own name she has written travel books and articles, and edited anthologies of local writing in Ireland. She has lived in the U.K., Ireland, the United States, and Switzerland, but now writes, runs, makes bread and cheese, and drinks wine by the beach in Queensland, Australia. Check out her blog at www.cheyenneblue.com, on Twitter at @IamCheyenneBlue and on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/CheyenneBlue
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Note from Harper: Of course I remember saying that and listening to me is always a good idea! 😉
