This is a great day...
Not only have I started blogging again, but I have a special treat for everybody too.
A special interview with a fabulous author, Kay Berrisford! She's got a great new book out and a lot to share with all of us.
I'm sure you've done the usual interviews again and again, so I thought we'd do something fun Kay. I'm going to take you for a walk. ^_^
You're walking toward somewhere, describe the world around you.
I’m walking down a green lane. I love green places, but it’s not all the same shade of green, and it’s not all bright. There are leafy trees, which form a canopy above me that grows so thick in places it becomes like crawling down a rabbit hole. Some of the trees have long, tendril-like leaves, which I don’t quite trust. There are swamps nearby too, treacherous ones that look like soft moss but start undulating beneath your feet if you step on them. They can swallow you whole.
Describe the path you're walking.
The path is muddy, but in the higher places there are small pebbly stones that roll beneath my feet. There are patches of wildflowers sprouting out between the mud and stone, white and blue with little black seeds at the heart, like the pupil of an eye. It’s safe enough for now, as long as you don’t step from the path. I tread on some flowers, and feel kind of bad.
Are you alone?
Right now, yes. It’s pretty quiet, can’t even hear any birdsong, which is odd.
Someone is there, who is it?
I don’t know her very well. I’ve seen her once or twice before, although I can’t recall where. She’s tall and blonde, with delicate facial features and gray eyes, and she looks kind of angry. I’m desperate to please her. I want her to hold my hand but I daren’t ask.
There is a wall in your way, what does it look like?
It’s a dry stone wall, made of gray, slate-like rock. It looks kind of fragile close up, but it’s at least six foot high, and the stones are piled thick toward the base. The trees here are sparse, and I can see the wall stretches for miles either way like Hadrian’s Wall, or even the Great Wall of China. In one direction, it eventually plunges into a dark forest. The other way, it weaves through open down lands.
What do you do?
I don’t much like climbing, but I guess I’ll have to, as I can’t see any other way to get by. It’s easier than it looks, because the other girl helps and she tells me where to put my feet. She’s good at knowing where the stones are loose and might slip out and make me lose my footing. She doesn’t come with me, though. I jump down the other side, and the impact jams through my knees.
Beyond the wall you're walking a long time, after a while you see a house, what does it look like?
That’s not a house, that’s frickin’ great castle. It’s ruined, the outer walls broken down and blackened in places, as if it’s been bombarded in a siege. I can see beyond that the keep on its motte is crumbling too, but there’s a great hall in the bailey—built in brick, so it’s more recently constructed than the rest of the castle—that’s still got its roof on. I can’t quite make out for sure, but I think the windows of the hall are smashed.
What does the lawn look like, the space around it?
Not much lawn, just a lot of mud. The track leading up to the castle has been carved into deep grooves by dozens of cartwheels and is pockmarked with the hoof prints of horses and cattle. But there’s nobody here now. Weird.
Behind the house is water, what is it? Describe it for us.
It’s the moat. It had silted up around the front side of the castle but is still half-full here, where it’s fed by a narrow channel from a river a hundred yards off. The water is pretty stagnant and murky, though, and the scent is putrid.
How does this place you've found feel to you?
I love it. I could play here for a little while, as long as nobody comes, except for perhaps that blonde girl. She could do what she likes to me here, and I really wouldn’t mind.
Wow! That wasn't a walk, it was more of a dream sequence! Thank you for sharing it with us!
Now for those who don't know Kay very well, she's got a bio for us above and beyond our walk about.
Kay is a freelance historical researcher, who realized it was even more entertaining to make stories up and add a ton of fantasy, sex and BDSM fun. She loves writing stories set in any time and place where she can indulge her love for research while imagining two hot guys getting it on, but has a particular passion for fairies and English folklore. Her first novel, Bound for the Forest, was published by Loose Id in September 2011. Her second novel, Bound to the Beast, is published on 10th April 2012.
She lives near the New Forest, in Hampshire, UK, with her beloved ‘other half’ Chris. When they aren’t both madly working, they enjoy drinking wine, visiting castles and gorgeous countryside, and stalking cats and greenfinches.
As for that great new book, here it is!
Bound to the Beast (A Greenwood novel) by Kay Berrisford. Published by Loose Id. Art work by Anne Cain.
Genres: m/m, paranormal, fantasy, BDSM, historical. Novel, 68,000 words.
England, 1588. When a fairy betrothal ritual goes wrong, village lad Tam is bonded to Herne the Hunter. Warrior, legend, and Greenwood spirit, Herne once led the terrifying Wild Hunt, an army of the undead who rode as harbingers of doom. When his passions are stirred and his blood is up, Herne sports the antlers of a mighty stag.
Herne could be the lover Tam secretly craves, but Herne’s past makes him fear the brooding warrior will enslave or kill him. While Herne admires Tam’s toughness and humor, he has rejected love—as he has sworn off leading the Wild Hunt—and wishes only for solitude. To break their betrothal, they must travel into the Greenwood, a realm of magic and bondage where their desires for each other grow dangerously irresistible, and the Wild Hunt bays for their blood.
As the threat rises, Herne’s mastery and compassion realize Tam’s darkest sexual fantasies. Soon he’s no longer fighting for his freedom, wishing to be bound to this beast forever. But can Herne’s tortured heart be reawakened? And if so, will their love destroy them both, or prove Herne the Hunter’s greatest weapon?
Herne could be the lover Tam secretly craves, but Herne’s past makes him fear the brooding warrior will enslave or kill him. While Herne admires Tam’s toughness and humor, he has rejected love—as he has sworn off leading the Wild Hunt—and wishes only for solitude. To break their betrothal, they must travel into the Greenwood, a realm of magic and bondage where their desires for each other grow dangerously irresistible, and the Wild Hunt bays for their blood.
As the threat rises, Herne’s mastery and compassion realize Tam’s darkest sexual fantasies. Soon he’s no longer fighting for his freedom, wishing to be bound to this beast forever. But can Herne’s tortured heart be reawakened? And if so, will their love destroy them both, or prove Herne the Hunter’s greatest weapon?
Excerpt:
A roar shattered through the clearing, obliterating Tam’s final words and setting the green fire spurring. A dark figure of a man—no, surely this being was too large to be a man—reared through the flames, picked up Calleagh as if she weighed no more than a kitten, and tossed her from the circle. Then he rounded on Tam.
Moonshine glimmered on the newcomer’s bold features that contorted with fury, his square jaw shadowed with beard. Tam had felt tall amid the fairy company, but this goliath had him edging backward, feeling small.
And naked.
Tam grabbed at his sagging breeches, tightening the laces before they descended about his ankles. The newcomer’s gaze impaled him, making him shudder as if he’d been stripped entirely. The great man’s brow was broad, and from his wild mane surged a pair of enormous antlers split into many twisting branches, each flashing like ivory blades. Tam’s passions raced, his every sinew stiffening where just moments ago he had labored halfheartedly beneath Calleagh’s touch, and terror crippled him.
He knew this beast.
He may never have seen him before in his waking life, but Tam faced a legend among Greenwood spirits, one who could truly make him suffer for his mistake.
“Herne the Hunter?”
Herne narrowed his midnight-blue eyes, fury smoldering, and thrill vied with Tam’s dread.
Herne’s thighs were as solid as the oaks framing the dell, while the laces fastening his sleeveless surcoat drew tight to contain the mass of his shoulders and chest. Tam urged his feet to carry him away, even if the ring of fire scalded him, but too late. Herne grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard his head ached.
“Are you the reason I have been called? Did you trick her into wedding you?”
“I take nobody against their will,” shouted Tam, doing his best to sound brave. He stared awestruck at the man’s antlers. “You…you had no right to interrupt us. You do not understand.”
Herne leaned over him, sniffing his hair like a cat would a rat to determine whether it was fit to eat. “Honey and spice. You reek of vanity, boy. Stealing a fairy maid from her family is the cruelest act of all.”
“I didn’t steal anyone. She wanted me.”
Tam wriggled but couldn’t break free. Herne clamped his wrists, holding them fast. Nausea rolled though Tam. Was this part of a trap laid by Calleagh and her sisters? Before God, he’d heard enough of the wiles of fairy folk, and Herne possessed the strength to rip his limbs off and see his blood drain for the foul spirits of Niogaerst. Or would Herne impale him on those frightful antlers? Maybe that had been Calleagh’s true sport all along.
Desperation cracked his voice. “I’m the one who’s been tricked. Yes, that’s it, tricked! Please. Let me go, sir.”
Herne tilted his head, confusion passing over his hard features. “Do I…know you?”
The relentless emerald flames pressed them closer, Herne’s tightening grip prompting so many fuddling sensations that words failed him. His mind demanded he kick the beast in his balls and make a run for it, but once again his body refused to obey. He stared up at Herne’s smoldering eyes, his skin weather-beaten and browned yet marked only by the finest of lines.
A further revelation struck.
Now I understand the true meaning of beauty.
Herne growled, pulled Tam to him so their bodies pressed flush, and smoothed his thumb along the line of Tam’s cheekbone. Tam flinched as if he’d been branded with an iron, yet the contact sent blood coursing through his veins and rushing straight to his loins.
When Herne’s mouth claimed his, Tam yearned to be dominated, to be consumed in his flames like a helpless moth. He parted his lips, letting Herne devour him, balling his fists into the leather of Herne’s surcoat to urge him on, and relishing the scrape of Herne’s coarse beard against his chin. Herne tasted of herbs and the verdant depths of the forest. Amid the rage of life, Tam sensed also the stillness of rock, the brute strength of ages, and savage, tearing pain.
He kissed back, his tongue slick against Herne’s, letting the passion of their union quash the remnants of his alarm. If this was the means by which Herne punished him, then he would not resist a jot. He did not even care if the man kissing him bore the antlers of a stag or the cleaved hooves of the devil. Not when Herne cupped Tam’s arse with his massive hands, dug in his fingers, and squeezed so hard his flesh sang. Tam’s arousal jutted against Herne’s thigh, and—oh sweet spirits—Herne’s huge cock pressed into Tam’s tight belly, setting him awhirl with desire.
Herne tore his lips away from Tam’s as quickly as he had claimed them. Tam gazed up into his dark blue eyes, reading boundless suffering, insatiable yearning—and a glimmer of reflected gray light, too dull to be moon or enchanted flame. Indeed, both moon and flame had fallen away. The first light of morning crept from the easterly edges of the dell.
Herne relinquished Tam from his embrace. Still trembling in the aftermath of the kiss, Tam stumbled back, but not far. The green ribbon that he’d tied about his wrist now entwined Herne’s too, binding them together, and it stopped him short.
He stared anew at Herne the Hunter, who appeared equally perplexed by the ribbon pulled taut between them. He looked at Herne’s huge, ragged antlers. His awareness of everything that had happened prior to their kiss trickled back, and a sickening realization overthrew his desire. The question escaped his lips before he comprehended its full horror.
“You kissed me and bound me to you in the circle of fire before dawn. Does that not make you and I…betrothed?”
Buy it now link: http://www.loose-id.com/The-Greenwood-Bound-to-the-Beast.aspx
Kay’s blog: http://www.kayberrisford.com
Kay on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Kay-Berrisford/e/B006JLQ4L8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Kay on All Romance: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=Kay+Berrisford
Kay at Sony e-book store: http://ebookstore.sony.com/author/kay-berrisford_263537
Kay at Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/kay-berrisford
Kay at Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/a67995/Kay-Berisford/?
Thank you so much Kay, for sharing yourself with us today.
May your path be ever enchanting.
