Welcome, fellow Luminosity Author, Jennifer
Denys.
Q .Can you tell my readers a little about yourself?
Jennifer is a bestselling author in various genre (BDSM, contemporary, sci-fi, paranormal, with historical and fantasy in her works in progress) with several different publishers.
An Englishwoman through and through, she lives in a beautiful historical city and is game to try most things once. She’s had a tattoo done on her calf, flew down zip wires 100 feet up in the trees, and was photographed nude by a professional photographer. All of which have taken place since she turned 50!
Many of her experiences end up in her books… but you will have to read them to find out what!
Q: Can you tell our readers a little about your
writing? What genres do you enjoy writing?
I like to dip in and out of several
genres. I have written BDSM (and elements of this are in many of my stories!),
contemporary, romantic comedy-type stories, paranormal (werewolf), sci-fi, MM,
MF and ménage. I love writing a funny scene but I also love more intense
scenes. The one genre all my friends thought I would write is historical as I
am an historian. However, I know how much research I would do to ‘get it
right’! However, there is a bit of history in my Work In Progress… read further
on.
HC. A girl after my own heart, I love the freedom of writing cross genre as well :-)
Q: Do you write on a schedule or when the Muse
decides?
I refuse to have a daily word count as
that would take the fun out of writing, and as I have a full time day job I
don’t always have the energy. So I tend to write when I am rested and relaxed.
Q:
Can you tell us about your writing process, for example, do you write an
outline first?
My writing process is to come up with a
story idea. From there I break it down for the outline into likely chapters –
but very broadly, eg, ‘BDSM Scene’. This is because I enjoy the freedom of
seeing what happens to the characters and the plot as I write it – and often
what I had originally envisioned changes as I write. For instance, I didn’t
know the paddle was going to be carved with a rose in ‘Kink After Dinner’ – in
fact, I didn’t know, my characters were going to use a paddle until they picked
it up!!!!
Q: What qualities do you instill in your heroes?
Oh, that would vary, depending on the
story so some might be very dominant with little humour but sexy with it. Some
might be push overs with a lot of humour! All of them have to be good looking,
though! It’s a requirement. LOL
Q.
Coffee or tea?
I’m English – of course it’s tea!
Q.
Beach or countryside?
Countryside. I am a nature lover.
Q.
Do you write about the places you know or prefer to take your readers to exotic
places?
Actually I’ve never set any of my
stories in a specific place (unless it is a sci-fi). So the readers can make up
their own minds if it is in the UK or the US. I have used place names taken
from those my friends live in, but that’s as far as it goes. ‘Kink After
Dinner’ is the first one I have deliberately placed in England (but in an
un-named town). This book is a ‘teaser’ for a longer book which is set in an
English country manor. I had fun studying a map of England looking for a wood
or green area that I could site my manor.
Q:
Where do you get your inspiration?
Could be anywhere. My (non-writing)
friends and work colleagues have stopped talking to me because I included
several items they told me about their personal lives! ‘Kink After Dinner’ is
about people who live the ‘swinging’ lifestyle and this came from writing
friends who introduced me to swinging – before them I didn’t know anyone who
did it.
Q:
Would you change anything in your life to make writing easier.
Yes, don’t have a full-time job!
However, I don’t make enough from the writing to pay the mortgage (and feed the
rabbit!)
Q:
We have all suffered submission rejections. How do you cope? Do you have any
advice to other writers on coping with rejection?
I have only had two rejections –when I
tried to submit to a particular publisher and they turned me down twice (oh,
and one for an anthology). So each time I re-wrote and submitted it elsewhere
and it’s been accepted. I won’t be submitting to that particular publisher.
Don’t know why they rejected me but it could just be that my style didn’t suit
them. Who knows. Don’t get bogged down. Just move on. My advice to other
writers if they have repeated rejections is to get a friend (preferably another
writer) to read it and give an honest opinion.
H.C. I think this is the case with many authors. I know many who have been constantly rejected from a particular publisher, then had their story picked up by another and it ends up a bestseller. Horses for courses. Yes, having another published author to work with is a great idea.
Q:
What do you like to read and who are your favourite authors?
My favourite genre to read is sci-fi and
my favourite book of all times is ‘Lord of the Rings’ by J R R Tolkien.
Favourite authors from the world of erotic romance include: Roxie Lee, Tatum
Throne, Susan Laine, Jan Bowles, Mari Carr, Janine Ashbless, Debra Glass…. The
list is endless.
Q:
Do you write one novel at a time or do you move between works in progress?
I am a one novel at a time person,
although I have a few others I have done a vague outline for.
Q:
Do you have times when the Muse is away on holiday?
I wish the muse would go on holiday. I
have too many story ideas and not enough time to write them all up!
Q.
What motivates you to write?
Hard question! Umm. A need to create, I
would say. I work as an administrator in my day time job and am OCD about being
organised so it is nice to balance out that side of my brain by utilising the
other, less rigid, side!
Q.
What advice would you give to unpublished authors approaching an e publisher?
1. Read the publisher’s requirements
that will be on their website.
2. Read what ‘head hopping’ is and try
to avoid it before submitting your story. In fact, read up as much as you can
about the writing techniques before you submit.
3. Be professional in your cover email,
eg, they don’t want an emotional author saying ‘they will die if the publisher
doesn’t accept their story’.
H.C. Great advice :-)
Q:
Is there anything you would like to share with us about upcoming releases?
‘Kink After Dinner’ was fun to write
because it has a heroine who is a similar age to myself so I included things
like throwing off inhibitions later in life and taking up BDSM, how wearing a
basque keeps the expanding stomach in, and how you might worry what the
neighbours think. Is any of this autobiographical? To a certain extent. LOL
Q:
Can
you tell us a little about your current novel? What inspired you to write this
story?
The story I am
working on is untitled as yet, but as I said earlier, is set in an English
country manor that holds BDSM events. It struck me how many double-entendres
there were that are associated with a manorial estate, eg, there will be a ball
in the ballroom with the emphasis on ‘balls’ (and I am not talking dancing
here!). ‘Paddling’ takes place in the boathouse, the riding crop is used on the
submissives and not the horses in the stables, and so on.
Blurb: Kink After Dinner. 8pm. Usual place. Wear the new purple basque – no knickers. Expect some SERIOUS (!) paddling. No touching until then. Master.
Beth hurriedly hides the note she has received so her family won’t see it.
Her daughter regards her parents as stuck in the mud. If only she knew! When Beth decided to throw off her inhibitions she was able to thoroughly enjoy her middle years, despite the usual body issues, including attending a BDSM event and starting a relationship with a Dom.
Putting on her purple bustier and high heels as ordered, and covering up with a coat, she leaves her husband engrossed in his carpentry workshop to walk to a neighbour’s house. This is the home of swinging couple, Alistair and Helen, with whom she’s had several encounters over the past year. And this begins a wonderful evening of kink—bondage, spanking, paddling, handcuffs, and orgasm denial.
Then her husband turns up.
Reader Advisory: This book contains a heroine throwing off her inhibitions, taking a lover and having fun with BDSM in her middle age.
Excerpt:
Beth Sheridan quickly glanced up from the note she was reading. She bit her lip as she looked around the breakfast table, fully expecting her family to be staring at her, as her nipples hardened in response to the suggestion in the note.
Both her husband and daughter were at the table with her. Amazingly, no one was looking in her direction, and she breathed shakily in relief. Her daughter was playing some game on her phone and her accountant husband, Tom, was reading his usual Saturday newspaper, half-turned away from her. She glared at the back of his dark head. Here she was planning a secret assignation and he wasn’t taking any interest. Instead, he was engrossed in the financial section of the paper.
Her inclination was to stuff it hurriedly back in her pocket, but that might look suspicious. Not that her family would think she was up to anything untoward. No, her son, Simon—now away at university studying media production—and her eighteen year old daughter, Elin, both thought she was a boring, middle-aged woman of fifty-two married to a boring, middle-aged man of the same age whom she had met at school. She had a very comfortable marriage.
She sighed and slowly folded the note she’d found on the doormat earlier.
“Shopping list, Mum?” Elin looked up from texting, making Beth jump.
More like a naughty list.
Smiling secretively to herself, Beth placed the decadent evidence in the pocket of her apron.
“Hmm. No. An invitation actually.”
Oh, yes. An invitation to sin.
Tom snorted, startling Beth. “Not another one from the neighbours.”
Elin’s chin dropped, her green eyes shining with excitement. “What, the ones who’re swingers?”
Beth was horrified her baby knew about such goings-on. “What exactly do you know about those things, young lady?”
How has she found out?
“Oh God, Mum. Get real.”
“Elin, that’s rude.” Tom frowned at his daughter. Her husband had always been strict with the children, a job she found difficult herself.
Her daughter rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows the Hardings do wicked stuff like that.”
“And what they do is none of your business.” Tom’s voice held a note of stern authority.
Elin shrugged. “Whatever.”
Beth was still worried about exactly what Elin knew. “Alistair and Helen are very nice people. Anyhow, the invitation isn’t from them.” At least, not directly. She hoped that would divert her daughter’s attention.
But Elin just continued. “As if either of you would do anything so cool. You are both stuck-in- the-mud. Never go anywhere. Just work in a boring office or stay home and watch repeats of CSI. You probably can’t remember the last time you had sex.”
She gasped. If only her daughter knew. Beth might work as a personal assistant in a bank, but in her private life, things were anything but routine.
Her very private life.
“Elin!” roared Tom.
Before he got a chance to say anything more, Elin noisily flounced out of the room.
Her husband swore. He glanced over the top of his glasses at his wife and gave her an intense look. “I’ll certainly be glad when she goes off to university and we can have some peace and quiet.”
Beth nodded in reply. Tom loved the kids dearly, as did she, but they were looking forward to having the house to themselves. She could get her toy box out and not have to hide it away—Tom knew about her vibrators.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts Beth missed what Tom was asking. “Hello! Are you listening?”
“Sorry, darling. What did you say?”
“What was the invitation for, anyway?”
Beth was hard-pressed not to smile broadly, as she tried to avoid her husband’s probing eyes. “Just a reunion.”
Tom raised his eyebrows. “Oh, anyone I know?”
She shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “An old friend from school days. Can’t remember if you knew him or not, you were in a different house than me. He’s married these days.”
“Are you going to meet him?”
As she paused, trying to think of an appropriate response, Tom went back to his paper, shaking it to straighten it out, seemingly uninterested in her answer.
Elin came back in the room at that point, and Beth held her tongue. Her daughter hurried to the table, grabbed her phone, and rushed out, furiously texting while totally ignoring her parents.
“Where are you off to?” Tom asked his departing teenager, his head still buried in his newspaper.
“Staying over at Millie’s,” was the passing shot.
Beth shook her head wondering if anyone ever looked at each other anymore. They were almost like a reality television programme showing a normal, middle-class family, married for over two decades, settled, contented, and loving.
Almost.
Tom did look up then to peer over the top of his glasses in the direction Elin had disappeared as he raised his voice, “How long will you be gone?”
Their daughter said something that was almost incoherent before the door slammed.
Her husband sighed, and looked at Beth. “Did you get that, my dear?”
Beth smiled at the long-suffering tone in his voice. “You’ll be pleased to know she is out until tomorrow evening.”
“Good. Peace and quiet at last.”
“I imagine you are going to work on that new model airplane I saw arrived in the post yesterday.”
“Hmm. Maybe. I also have a couple of other things I need to finish first.” Tom loved tinkering around with wood, quite frequently making things from scratch as well as kits he bought on-line. It wasn’t just model planes. He liked toys of all sorts.
Beth stood up to clear the table.
“You didn’t answer the question, my dear.”
As she lifted the teapot, Beth froze. Her hand was shaking and she quickly put the pot down again. “I’ve forgotten what it was.” She stuck her hands in the apron so he didn’t see.
“Are you going to meet your friends?”
She felt herself flush as he looked intently at her with his brown eyes. Her high colour was something that had annoyed her all her life. At least she could put it down to having a hot flush these days. “Possibly. Not sure I’ve got anything to wear.”
Tom was clearly getting bored with the conversation as he looked back at his newspaper once more. “I’m sure you’ll find something in your cavernous wardrobe.”
Despite her husband being deep in his paper, Beth still responded, her tone slightly sarcastic, “Hmm. I seem to recall a purple outfit. I might wear that.”
Author’s
links:
HC. Thanks for dropping by today. Happy sales :-)
Sir Degare Aucourte’s heart belongs to the Black Knight, Sir Alano, the formidable warrior who taught him all a man could give to another. Degare becomes a slave to his handsome lover’s erotic punishment and craves no other but after a month of bliss, Alano returns to Spain with his regiment.
