Fabulous Start to an Exciting Year Ahead...

By Beverley Oakley

Hi everyone,

We're enjoying beautiful summer weather  here in Victoria, Australia, now that the summer heat - 44C - has dropped to the mid twenties.

I write historicals with lashings of romance and intrigue under two names - Beverley Eikli for my historical romantic intrigues and Beverley Oakley for my erotic historical intrigues.

These past few weeks have been amazing ones for me, under both my names.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was announced the winner of Choc-Lit's Search for an Australian Star competition for The Reluctant Bride, a romantic historical intrigue about a war hero returning from the Napoleonic Wars to deliver the news to the woman he's always loved that her fiance has been killed. When he discovers she's pregnant to her now-dead fiance he impulsively offers her marriage which she accepts in order to salvage the reputation of herself and her family - and so she can keep her unborn child.

Choc-Lit will be publishing The Reluctant Bride, and two other novels of mine this year and next.

Meanwhile, this year started off in high style with the release, on January 1, of my erotic Victorian historical romance, Saving Grace. It's about a proud and beautiful prostitute who's confronted with the man she once loved and whom she believes betrayed her, condemning her to this hated life.

Saving Grace is also about early photography and how a rich man's hobby was a poor girl's road to ruin.

Below is the premise, followed by some reviews.

Saving Grace is one of 14 short erotic stories by the Aussie Erotic Hot Down Under Authors, published by Pan Macmillan Momentum.

It’s 1878 and London’s most beautiful and hard-hearted prostitute, Grace Fortune, is preparing for her next job. She’s the special initiation ‘gift’ procured by a mother in fashionable Mayfair for her son’s twenty-first birthday.

When Grace discovers she is to be servicing the man whose secret she’d guarded at the cost of her once-secure position as a housemaid and whose betrayal has plunged her into this hated life, she wants revenge.

That is, until the re-emergence of malevolent forces that destroyed the couple’s young love. Now David and Grace must reconcile the past and fight for a different kind of justice to salvage their dignity and find happiness.

This story is rated "Medium Hot" (3 out of 5 flames) and contains F/M pairings.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprising little story 4 1/2 stars January 3, 2013

By Fiona

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am working my way through the Hot Down Under short story series and this was a lovely little historical amidst the more contemporary works. The story of a tragic romance between a high born young man and the maid that is his soul mate is beautifully told. Grace suffered a fall from grace when her beloved David's mother and cousin conspired to tear them apart. Three years later, on his 21st birthday the innocent young man is confronted by a fallen woman who reminds him of his lost love.

This is quite a sweet story, despite the fairly high level of explicitness required for an encounter between a courtesan and the young man she is to instruct. The stories of the two young lovers in the years they are apart are heartbreaking. The ending is satisfying in spite of the limited nature of the story length.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Historical and hot January 3, 2013

By Rhyll Biest

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

A well-written and sensual read and I enjoyed the novelty of reading about a male virgin hero. Those into historical romance will appreciate the attention to historical detail.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully sensual January 1, 2013

By Miss Catherine Evans

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a gorgeous story, told in a most sensual style. Grace is strong, dignified and a truly worthy heroine. David is is unexpectedly strong, and an honest man - in a time when many of the richest men were not. Two people worthy of love, have a chance to find it... but they're taken to the depths of despair first.

Beverley Oakley is a beautiful writer and story teller. I'll be looking for more of her work.

END OF REVIEWS

Thank you, everyone, for dropping by. I hope you like the sound of Saving Grace. The story just flowed for me and I loved writing Grace and David's tragedy followed by its redemptive ending.

BUY

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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.

BUY

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