Face/Off

Okay, so I had to come up with an avatar for my author page over at the Riptide website. And then it occurred to me that you know what...all of my little pictures for everything should be the same: Goodreads, Twitter, Google, Amazon, the whole shebang. So I ran through the house looking for something cool I could take a photograph of, and I found this: 

This is a Venetian mask. I got it years ago in Venice, while backpacking. And even though it's just a paper mask, to me it will always represent something else: the power of positive thinking. Or possibly the power of denial. 

"Yes," my sister and I said, "yes we can get these masks through the next eight weeks without crushing them." 

I don't know how many of you guys have backpacked, but there's not a lot of room for delicate souvenirs. Particularly if you're already lugging around a Turkish carpet you bought off some guys in Selçuk, and a tiny statue of Priapus that is wholly inappropriate. 

But I really, really wanted that mask. 

By the time we hit the UK, we had it down to a fine art. 

"Got your carpet?" 

"Yep." 

"Got the masks?" 

"Yep." 

"Got the posters?" 

"Yep."

"Got the gargoyles?" 

"Yep." 

And since I was the first one coming home, guess who got bring everything back to Australia?  I looked like a pack camel. My credit card may have melted when I had to pay fees for extra baggage. I almost had a break down when I woke up in the middle of the flight with my boots jammed on top of the mask bag. 

But I did it. 

The gargoyles look fantastic in my brother-in-law's bar. The vintage posters in my sister's study are just beautiful. The dog has only vomited once on my Turkish carpet, and my Venetian masks are still hanging on my wall. 

Lisa 1, Common Sense 0. 

Booyah. 

Let's Talk About the Weather

Wow, it's September already, and the first day of spring here in Australia. Not that spring counts for anything in the tropics. None of the conventional seasons do. We have two seasons in northern Australia: the dry season, and the wet season. Or, if you're a local, just The Wet. You have to give us points for brevity at least. 

The dry season roughly corresponds to winter. It doesn't rain, and for about two weeks we all have to dig around in the back of our cupboards to find our warm clothes. And because we only use them for two weeks every year, they're at least a decade out of date and we all look like refugees from charity shops. 

For a few days this winter I was wearing jeans, thick woollen socks with holes in the toes, the one long-sleeved t-shirt I could find, and a fleecy jacket I last wore when I was backpacking around Europe. I have mixed feelings about that jacket. While it's great in cold weather, when I  first tried it on in a tropical summer, the zip got stuck and I almost died of heat exhaustion. 

Spring means two things in the tropics. 

The first is that it's time to clean the dust out of the air conditioner. 

The second is that it's time to get ready for The Wet. This mostly means clearing up my yard in case of cyclones, but most of us have that down to a fine art. It all comes down to years of practice that you hope you'll never have to put into use. Except for that one time... 

"Hello," I said to my neighbours. "I don't think we've met. I'm Lisa from next door. That's my tree on your roof." 

I took this photo last wet season. It's my front yard. It doesn't really capture the luminescence, or the fact that my front path is actually raised.  

There's been no rain yet this year, but when it comes it will stay for weeks on end. We won't see the sun, but we'll feel it every time there is a respite in the rain. The air will be heavy with humidity so thick that air conditioners can hardly touch it. There will be so much rain that the water won't have time to drain away between deluges. I won't be able to hear my television because of the barrage of rain on my tin roof. When it gets like that -- loud, monsoonal -- I'll take a glass of wine and go and sit on the veranda and watch it, because there's nothing else to do. 

Except sometimes I'll dance in the rain. Everyone should dance in the rain, right? 

What's your favourite season? 

Tell me about snow! Snow is incredibly exotic to me! 

Happy Kissy Glittery Love. And then what I wrote.

After Tribute and The Island, my third book wasn’t going to be dub-con or non-con. I can write happy kissy glittery love, I promise I can! I just…um…I just haven’t yet. And given that my third book turned out to be set in Ancient Rome, well hell, there was just no chance, was there?

Source

Because there is one rule in Ancient Rome: might is right.

Life in antiquity was hard. Hell, life is still hard in a lot of places. You don’t have to look too far back (or too far away) to see that.

Slavery is a fact of life in the ancient world. Fortuna is a bitch, right? And a slave is a tool, or a possession. A truly valuable slave, one who can read and write or calculate, might be treated with dignity and respect, but for the most part a slave's fortunes depended on the temperament of his master. 

In He is Worthy, Aenor's master is a man called Tigellinus. Tigellinus is from history. He was an important man in his day, but very little is known about him today. One thing that has survived is his reputation for cruelty and depravity. And given his competition in those stakes -- the emperor Nero -- that's saying something. 

And hell, once you put Nero in the mix, consent flies right out the window. So there was no escaping the non-con in He Is Worthy. But, I swear, I have a reserve of happy kissy glittery love inside me, and one day I'll let out! 

Just not this time. Um. Or the next time. But after that (*hastily rearranging projects in my head*)...er... maybe there will be some light at the end of the angst-tunnel after that. 

Maybe. 

Drumroll please...

Check out the completed cover for He Is Worthy.

How fantastic does that look? I love the red so much!

Those are my boys Aenor and Senna, by the way, plotting to kill Nero. 

He is Worthy is available on November 12, but if you pre-order now, you get it two days early. You also get the chance to win free books from Riptide for a year. A YEAR! 

Check out this link to the other books in the Warriors of Rome series at Riptide.

  

And, if you order the entire Warriors of Rome Collection (and check out the blurbs on the other titles because they look awesome!) you get 20% off the total cost.

As the Romans would say: Hoc ei propinabo! 

(I'll drink to that!) 

History Nerd

Today I'm outing myself as a total history nerd. And why not? What is history except the biggest library of stories you could ever imagine? Want intrigue? Romance? Adventure? Want danger and death defying stunts? Want comedy or tragedy, or both? History has it all. 

Ancient history has always been my favourite. Roman history, in particular.  If ever a submissions call was written for me, it was Riptide's Warriors of Rome. And that's how He is Worthy was born. Hot guys, check. Ancient Rome, hell to the yes. 

My sister and I have an ongoing argument about this. We're both history majors. She thinks Victorian England is the best: 

Ban Barnes as Dorian Gray

To which I offer this: 

James Purefoy as Mark Antony in Rome

And here he is having a bath: 

Despite my overwhelming evidence, my sister and I have agreed to disagree. Meanwhile, she said the other day, just imagine what you could do with revolutionary France. 

Jamie Dornan in Marie Antoinette

Oh god yes.