Saving Grace - Hot Down Under Aussie Erotic Collection

by Beverley Oakley

I'm very proud to call myself a Hot Down Under author, one of the 14 Aussie erotic Authors published by Pan Macmillan Momentum. Saving Grace, written under my Beverley Oakley name, was released on Amazon several days ago.


Here's a little of the history. Last year a group of us planned to self publish an anthology, however Momentum liked our stories so much they published them in lots of four and five in November, December and January. You can read more on my blog about the stories,( between 6K and 10K), by authors including Lexxie Couper, G E Gilchrist, Rhian Cahill and Tracey O'Hara. They've been well received and I've been delighted by my reviews for Saving Grace which is an erotic romance about a Victorian prostitute whose next client is  the man she believes betrayed her.

In fact, I've been delighted by most of what's happened to me in my writing career just lately. Just before Christmas I won Choc-Lit's 'Search for an Australian Star' competition with a Regency Historical Intrigue under my Beverley Eikli name. The Reluctant Bride will be published in September 2013 with two further releases 6 months apart.

Here's a little about Saving Grace.

London, 1878
Reclining on the red plush sofa, Grace sipped the sickly sweet orgeat Madame Chambon insisted her girls drink and tried not to think about the night ahead. The others were gathered in companionable groups on the fashionable Egyptian sofas, their heavy scent perfuming the air.

As usual, no one gravitated towards her, though of course later, when their clients came calling, that would no longer be the case. Grace would have pre- ferred the company of a like-minded female rather than the alternative.

An expectant hush fell as the heavy draped and tasselled curtain was drawn aside and Madame Chambon arranged herself theatrically in the opening, ready to address her petites choux.

“Ravissement!” she complimented them in thickly accented English, clap- ping her hands. Grace suspected the elegantly ravaged Madame came from Lambeth rather than the Left Bank. Not that it mattered. No one in this business was who they said they were.

Least of all, Grace.

The girls, awed and anxious, straightened their rich, colourful gowns nervously. Despite her appearance of bonhomie Madame Chambon could turn on a coin. And it was she who ensured the girls did not return to where most of them had been plucked from—the gutter.

“A great opportunity awaits one of you tomorrow,” she addressed them, “for I have just been honoured by the visit of a woman of great discernment ...”

A couple of the girls tittered. “A woman?”

They closed their mouths at Madame Chambon’s beady stare, attending as she went on, “Who has requested I supply her with one of my loveliest ...”

She drew out the pause as several of the brothel’s most popular young ladies preened.
“... most hard-hearted girls.”

All heads turned towards Grace. She blinked. Is that how they regarded her? Hard-hearted?
She simply had nothing left to offer anyone once she’d earned enough to pay her keep and just survive.

Madame Chambon levelled her expectant look upon Grace, whose mouth dropped open in protest. “A woman? But—”

“The woman wants to give her son a present to remember for his twenty-first birthday. She is obviously a very fond mother—” Madame Chambon allowed herself to share the girls’ amusement, adding, “with very good sense in choos- ing our select establishment to provide him with the very best initiation—” Her smile grew cloying as she continued to look at Grace—“without fear of him being lured into a transfer of affections amidst all the other ... ahem ... transfers that take place.” Though she made a gesture with her hands to indicate the transfer of money, the girls tittered at the double entendre.

The redhead closest to Grace dug her friend in the ribs. “Grace doesn’t have
a heart to lose.” Her whisper resonated.

Nor did Grace have the heart to participate in the banter that followed. So what if she’d been selected? It was just another job and a good thing she need not worry about eliciting the emotions of a twenty-one-year-old virgin. Pleasing, also, was the knowledge that it would inevitably be over in less than five minutes. 

END OF EXCERPT

Thank you for dropping by. I hope you like this taster. If you did, here are some details about it.

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