South Africa, 1798: in the chaotic aftermath of Britain's annexation of the Cape Colony, career diplomat Sir James Emnett is tasked with establishing the loyalties of noted Huguenot vintner Pierre Wibaut.   While these men bond over a shared desire to hunt the elusive 'Blue Buck', their respective wives - Bailey and Colette - embark upon a tentative rapprochement of their very own.

What secret passions lurk beneath the respectable veneers of these two power couples?   And do they have the power to rock the very foundations of the mighty British empire?

EXTRACT:

     Her knock upon Colette’s door was so feather soft it was all but inaudible – and yet the door opened.   A fluttering night candle illuminated the boudoir, but not Colette’s beauty – that seemed to emit its own light, as she stood there, swathed in a satin shift.

     “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she murmured.

     “I don’t know why I did,” replied Bailey, honestly.

     Colette beckoned her inside, and closed the door.   Candlelight softened the room’s brightness, turning it cream and grey.   They stood regarding each other for several awkward moments.

     “You said,” Bailey at last spoke up, “You said I should consider an affair.   Did you mean, with you?”

     Colette nodded gravely.   “Does the idea disgust you?”

     “I...” Bailey hesitated.  “No, but – is such a thing even possible?”

     “Would you like to find out?”

     A hint of the old cool smile, but there was a hunger burning in those emerald eyes; and Bailey found herself responding to that, her chest suddenly tight, her pulse quickening.   She took a step forward, raising her chin a little to brush her lips against Colette’s, a cautious exploratory gesture.   Colette encircled her with long, slender arms, drawing Bailey close so their bodies pressed softly; a strange, illicit thrill through fabric.   Colette stroked Bailey’s hair, stirring its thick darkness, studying her face at close range – Bailey had never known such a gaze; it seemed to flood her with verdant light, illuminating all her secret selves.   She touched her fingers to Colette’s cheek, aware as she did so that she was trembling.

     “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.   “I don’t know if I can stand it.”

     Colette’s second kiss started soft, bowing her lips a little so that Bailey felt the fullness of it, so different from James’s tight-lipped dabs.   The novelty of kissing a woman, of holding a woman so close – Bailey knew she should be disturbed, but at worst she felt a touch unreal, still slightly dizzied from wine.   Regardless, her pulse was still rising, a warm blush creeping across the base of her throat.   The kiss lingered, becoming deeper, sticky and moist.   Bailey gave a little subconscious gasp as Colette’s lips blossomed open, forcing her to follow suit.   Colette’s tongue probed gently into her mouth, a true French kiss, bringing a sudden wet sweetness; it drove all else from Bailey’s perception, save the thudding of her heart and the white-hot pulse within her.   Breathing frantically through her nose, she held Colette’s tongue with her lips and touched it with her own, tasting it, savouring that quivering, yielding invasion.  They kept the kiss until it felt as though their lips might chap, until their tongues ached and they were all but breathless.  And when they broke, Bailey knew for certain that the affair was not only possible, it was inevitable.   Colette’ eyes shone at her with pure jade desire, and she felt the blush spreading out across her whole body, making her tingly, making her ache.

     “I want to say something French and romantic,” Colette breathed, a little sorrowfully.   “But the words do not translate.”

     “Then just say what’s on your mind,” replied Bailey, and her own voiced seemed strange to her, like a little girl’s.   Like a little girl who, long ago, had fallen in love with her teacher, never dreaming that love might one day sag into boredom and frustration; might be overridden by something new, and raw, and irresistible. 

     Colette smiled, actually a little shyly.   “I should very much like to fuck you, Bailey Emnett.”

Iceland in 1844 struggles under the unwelcome dominance of Denmark, and into this fervid atmosphere steps Ansel, a Danish naturalist seeking the last surviving specimens of the 'Garefowl' or Great Auk.   He finds them, but he also finds far more: in particular, a bizarre situation involving a maiden aunt, a widow, two young girls named Cariad & Kristabel, and a proposed 'marriage' in which no males are involved.

Can Ansel assert his authority and prevent perversion as well as carry out his mission?   Can true love blossom amid the permafrost, in spite of the myriad obstacles placed before it?

EXTRACT:

   A massive sense of longing and inadequacy dragged at Cariad’s heart.   She had imagined this night, pictured it in her most secret fantasies, but now it was here she seemed unable to make it happen.   She gazed at the body beside her, so vibrant and so enticing, and felt helpless.   Perhaps Gerda was wrong – what pleasure could be gained from awkward fumbling?   Kristabel seemed to sense her despondency, for she raised herself suddenly, strong arms enfolding Cariad, as kissed her with a passion that was like raking a fire.   Spittle like honeydew filled Cariad’s mouth; she breathed in soft pale skin and wild blonde waves, and fell in love all over again.

   Kristabel, unaccustomedly forceful, rolled her onto her back, kisses smothering whatever protests or questions she might frame.   Golden hair like spun sugar splashed across her breasts, making them ache monstrously.   Kristabel lowered her head, soft lips nuzzling the dark fringe of one areola; the tip of her tongue skittered over the straining teat.   Cariad could not stop herself crying out, eyelashes fluttering wildly.   She put her hands to her head, unsure what to do with them, as Kristabel gently but ruthlessly suckled her yearning breasts.   Then Kristabel shifted lower, kissing her way down Cariad’s sumptuously fleshy torso: Cariad’s ache surged ahead of her, plunging down from her bosom to erupt in a slash of sodden fire below her belly.   She was wet now; wetter than Kristabel, wetter than she could have imagined: and the thought of what her lover was about to do only added to her inner flow.   She raised her pelvis slightly, letting her knees part: Kristabel paused nervously, one hand upon Cariad’s stomach, her cheek pressed against the tawny satin of a thigh; gazing upon the abundant thicket of silver-black curls, and the scarlet seam that glistened through them.   She breathed deeply.

   “The sea,” she whispered, voice awestruck: “you’re just like the sea.”

   She dipped her head decisively, and raw sensation flared out from Cariad’s loins, making her cry out in an involuntary gasp.   It was so strong that Cariad’s immediate urge was to squirm away – she grit her teeth and braced herself as though fighting some great silent gale.   Kristabel’s tongue, around and in her vulva, felt massive, a flaming torch probing her vitals: each delicate lick transmuted into a voluptuous tremor of nigh unbearable feeling.   Cariad tried to stop herself moaning incoherently; when that failed, she tried to come up with words, but all that flickered across her diminishing consciousness were vague, unformed obscenities.   Her arms flailed stupidly, wrists thumping the headboard and pillows, fingers tangled in the damp tendrils of her own hair.   The back of one hand trailed idly across a swollen breast, and the sensation was so acutely harmonised she could not resist pursuing it.   She ran her fingertips across her distended nipples, and found herself shivering uncontrollably.   She couldn’t tell if what she was experiencing was pleasurable or not: it was consuming her, and it had to be indulged.   Before long she was openly playing with her breasts, almost revelling in the feeling of bloated massiveness.  

   The change was so fast and subtle she barely noted it: a delicate switching, like a musical key.   The aching fire in which she burned seemed to change direction, flowing out instead of in, accelerating like a loose boulder tumbles down a cliff.   Without realising, she had lifted her whole body clear of the mattress, pushing up against Kristabel’s relentlessly intruding tongue.   It was almost upon her before she could appreciate what was happening, and somewhere in a dim corner of her mind she knew that Gerda had been right, as ever: it was more fun to find out.   The event – how else to describe it? – was beyond her articulation; but not its adored authoress.

   “Kristabel,” she cried, and felt she should say more in the seconds left to her.   But only one word could speak of the utter decisiveness that filled her: “Yes.”

The Falklands, 1853: amid anti-Argentinian fervour, the dour existence of young Juliene Gricer is upended by the arrival of famed explorer Sir Lynton Gransden - or, more precisely, his enigmatic wife Mariella.   When the latter proposes an expedition of her own, in search of the elusive 'Warrah' or Falklands Fox, it touches off a train of events that not only threatens Juliene's innocence, but also her sanity and perhaps even her life.

Just who or what is Mariella Gransden?   And how is she connected to the Warrah, a creature Juliene's mother asserts is vampiric in nature?

EXTRACT:

   And now Mariella drew down the coverlet, slowly and stealthily, and though Juliene could feel herself being exposed she had no voice or will to protest.   Cool air flowed about her thighs and waist, only heightening the heat concentrating at their conjunction: a pulsing, shameful ache such as she had never known before; overriding all sense of chastity, all fear, all reason.   Light yet percussive kisses sparked below her ribs, across her stomach, around her navel: Mariella in slow, controlled descent, hair like golden feathers trailing, the coverlet swept before her like some departing tide.   Juliene’s heartbeat surged, fuelled by terror-tinged anticipation: she shifted, drawing her legs slightly up, locking them together in a last gesture of defiance, though she knew not what she defied, or why.

   Fingertips, precise as a thief’s, alighted upon her knees: she could not resist looking as with slow, infinitely gentle persuasion Mariella parted her thighs, inserting herself into the chevron thus formed.   Light glowed in her gilded tresses as she paused, firing one last bolt of blue at her, a glance that made Juliene simply blossom, down there in that secret spot, become all raw wet outpouring.  Then Mariella lowered her head, lips parting as though to sup water, and Juliene could bear to look no more.   She fell back, eyes once more closed, incisors involuntarily biting into her lower lip as she braced herself for the unknown.   

   At the first soft slide of tongue between labia she moaned gutturally, her whole body suddenly clenched before just as quickly snapping back to relaxation.   Mariella took her time, long sustained laps along the seam of Juliene’s vulva, from clitoris down towards perineum and back, light kisses interspersing each satin sweep of her tongue.   Juliene quivered and bucked, her body riding the slow rhythm of its own accord; she cried and gasped, shivered and moaned; she did not, could not, resist.   Gradually the tension ebbed: Mariella’s steady stroke, spacing out the white-hot surges of electric sensation, lulled her into a slowly rocking stupor.    Her sighs became high-pitched ululations that were almost harmonic, to accompany the music Mariella made of her body.   But like a virtuoso, Mariella soon began to improvise.   Her tongue, which had worked to swell and separate Juliene’s inner lips, now stabbed deep inside her, once and again before curling back to swirl about the seething, shameless nub of her now rigid clitoris.   The rhythm shifted, accelerated, and beneath the fine high tune a dissonance began to emerge, a building undertone of abandon that progressively eclipsed all else: an impending crescendo.

   Panting now, panting hard and raucous, breath hot in her throat, Juliene at last found employment for her hands.   Everything was building, building; every sinew tightening in anticipation of some unimagined, ultimate release: she put her fingers to her breasts, caressing her own nipples as they too yearned for conclusion.   Mariella’s tongue fluttered savagely against her clitoris, touching off the spark that set her whole body alight, that annihilated her sense of self, sundered the final barrier; thrust her, in one momentous convulsion, into womanhood.

   “Oh Mother, why?” she cried, as the first spasm took her, “why didn’t you tell me?”   And as wave crashed upon ecstatic wave, and her body twitched and writhed with climactic adoration, her plaintive lament continued, “Dear God, why did you never say?”

   But for once, Mother was not there: instead, ‘twas Mariella’s arms enfolded her, sweeping the coverlet over them both as she sobbed and quivered, overwhelmed by the sweet agony of her premier zenith, her inaugural apogee, her very first climax.

On Jamaica in 1872, the Rev Horatio Smythe takes charge of the 'paradise parish' of St James, bringing along his beautiful but troubled wife, Dinah.   There he meets the local worthy, Councillor King, his lovely if withdrawn wife Nancy, and his enigmatic adopted daughter, Verna.   But all too soon Horatio realises that paradise is a nest of vipers, ensnaring first Dinah, then Nancy, and ultimately himself in its dark coils.

Why does Rev Smythe carry about his person a short length of rope?   Just what is the true story behind the dusky, seductive mystery that is Verna King?

EXTRACT:

 Nancy’s look was faintly pitying.   “I was just like you when I arrived here – full of love for everything and everyone.   But if you stay, you’ll find Paradise is like a fruit: over time, it inevitably spoils and corrupts.   And I fear there is none more corrupted than I.”

   She returned to the illicit drawer, drinking deep and uncaring; gazing hollow-eyed at the unreachable world outside.   Dinah watched her, and as she did so the panther sprang, fully formed, devouring all other thoughts.   Her pulse raced, her throat dried, and she knew she was about to do something unconscionable.   Within her, the shining blue note sang, eager for action: she ignored it as she too rose, implacably.   She touched Nancy lightly on the top of her head, and as the woman turned, in a smooth decisive motion swept the nightgown once more from her shoulders.

   “Give me your hand,” she commanded.   She put three of Nancy’s fingers to her mouth, liberally moistening them with her lips and tongue.   She watched emotions pass across Mrs King’s face, a mosaic viewed in differing lights: astonishment, perplexity, fear.   Under skirt and petticoats her own body seethed, a damp demonic Sirens’ call: touch her, it crooned, touch her bare flesh – it doesn’t matter she’s a woman, all you need right now is to feel another’s skin.   She fought down the song, her discipline restored, her will unbreakable.   She tried to smile reassuringly as she guided Nancy’s silvered digits downward, but could not.

   “I shall show you something,” she said sorrowfully.   “I fear it is another vice - but it, too, might help you cope.”

   Nancy drew breath sharply as Dinah guided her hand between her bare legs; she shivered as she touched herself.

   “Go slowly, gently,” Dinah whispered, working the dainty wrist.   “Trace the outline with your fingertips; feel yourself opening to the touch.”

   The room had turned oppressively warm, its silence magnifying the harshness of their breaths.   Nancy King wore a faintly ludicrous expression of studied intensity, like a schoolchild puzzling over sums.   Then, in an instant, her aspect was transformed from merely pleasing to unutterably beautiful: her eyes closed, her face softened, her mouth became a sweet bow of bliss.

   “Oh God,” she breathed, a leaf trembling in the wind.   She sagged against Dinah, clinging on with her free hand.   Dinah put her arms around the pale form, fighting down the urge to kiss this stranger, this virgin wife.

   “Push your fingers deep,” she murmured.   “Go faster, harder; don’t be afraid.”

   Vicariously she felt it all: the frantic working of the delicate wrist, the pounding of Nancy’s heart and pulse.   Mrs King moaned, articulating her body’s inner fugue, each successive sound more intimate, more abandoned, more animal.   Then she threw her head up suddenly, eyelids snapping open, and Dinah gazed into deep brown portals of perfect bliss.   There was an epic, extended exultation of release, and then she seemed to become almost insubstantial, soft and floating as a daisy seed in a summer breeze.   Dinah guided her limp, quivering form to the bed, laid her down, and covered her tenderly with the nightgown.

   “You must be careful,” she whispered.   “This is a terrible thing I have shown you – do not let it take control, or it will destroy you.”

The Bonin Islands in 1875 are awash with religious fervour and the fear of Japanese expansionism.   Tamsin Vauxhall, a naive but eager recruit to the circle of the charismatic Brother Jacob, begins her ministering by seeking to convert local harlot Delma de Villiers.   But Tamsin finds the path to Glory in this strange new world beset with dark twists and darker motives, and all too soon she is questioning all the certainties of her young life.

Who, if anyone, 'owns' Delma de Villiers?   And what are Brother Jacob's true intentions towards his ingenue acolyte?

EXTRACT:

   Tamsin pursed suddenly dry lips, the baldness of the invitation catching her utterly off-guard.   Her hand felt strangely disembodied as she reached across, her fingertips alighting on silky smooth, softly yielding flesh.   The curious tension between buoyancy and pliancy was innately fascinating; she tried to focus on that, rather than the disturbing intimacy of the situation.   It was a game, she told herself, as might be played between best friends or sisters.   But if this was all, why did her heart beat so?

   Delma inclined her head, sweet breath escaping her lips.

   “Your touch is soft,” she murmured, “gentle - nothing like those animals.”

   Emboldened, slightly flattered, Tamsin intensified her stroking, gently kneading a voluptuous curve that rebounded endlessly, pleasingly.   Her palm inevitably brushed the broad russet mesa of one nipple: it too yielded, but then seemed to swell and stiffen beneath.   Delma sighed, eyelids fluttering, and for all her excitement Tamsin knew she must stop, before it was too late.   But too late for what?

   Delma’s open robe slid slowly, inexorably off her shoulders, creeping down to expose her slender midriff.   The sudden sight of a vicious bruise upon her ribcage arrested Tamsin’s caress – her fingers flowed to the spot, as though she could somehow draw it out with mere touch.   Delma winced.

   “I’m sorry,” Tamsin whispered, biting her lip.   “She beat you badly, didn’t she?”

   “It was worth it, just to go outside for a while.   It was worth it, to be with you.”

   Tamsin stared deep into the grey eyes, encountering nothing save her own uncertain reflection.

   “What can I do?”

   “Perhaps you could… kiss it better.”

   Delma lay back on the covers, her breasts flattening into soft ellipses flowing from the sweeping chasm of her sternum.   As she drew up her knees slightly the rest of the gown fell away, exposing dainty midriff and the subtle contours of her hips and thighs.   Letting her head fall to one side, she fixed Tamsin with a look that both beckoned and challenged, the faintest twist of a smile at the corners of those luscious lips.   There was a throbbing in Tamsin’s temples, a dry ache in her throat: she was no longer certain if she was in control of her actions.   But nonetheless she leaned across and lightly kissed the patch of spoiled skin, earthen and salted.   Trying to tell herself that Jesus would so the same, she likewise put her lips to a smaller blemish just above Delma’s navel; and another, linear welt below her right knee.   Yet it seemed Jesus had long since departed a room heavily silent save for the faint dab of dry lips and the sweet sighs of a woman, naked and soothed.

   “ Tamsin,” Delma’s voice was almost a purr, “you’re making me wet.”

1875 Ecuador is reeling after the assassination of its authoritarian leader, Moreno.   Senor Gallo, a businessman of dubious political leanings, flees the chaos by heading to the Galapagos, with his fiery daughter Valentina in tow.   There he meets a local priest, Padre Piosa, and the beautiful and mysterious Kasta, a novice nun fleeing her controversial past.   And there are also the huge, ancient, reptilian denizens of the islands, themselves key to one of the fundamental mysteries of life itself.

Does the Padre have a hidden agenda, and if so, where do Kasta & Valentina fit?   Can senor Gallo obscure his political leanings well enough to ensure not only his own survival, but that of his daughter?

EXTRACT:

   Kasta tossed her head back and laughed, a sound wide and open as the ocean itself.   She swished out of the water and across the sand to an invitingly smooth rock.    Valentina followed, settling beside her newfound friend.   She thought of Kasta, swimming naked, and again found herself wondering what body lay under the all-consuming sackcloth: and as Kasta restored her veil she fixated upon the only part of the would-be nun that remained exposed.

   “You have the most beautiful feet I have ever seen,” she suddenly said, shocked to blushing at her own seriousness of tone.   She leaned forward, unashamedly studying Kasta’s elegantly elongated toes, her serpentine arches; the taut ligaments of her ankles.

   “Don’t be silly,” Kasta giggled uncertainly.   “Nobody’s feet are beautiful.”

   “Yours are,” replied Valentina, glancing briefly but meaningfully into Kasta’s face.   She reached down, and her fingers brushed the soft flesh of an instep, dislodging a fine rain of dried sand.   Kasta shivered, slightly but perceptibly: she pulled her foot back, but it was only to cross it atop the other, revealing more.   Valentina knelt, dusting sand from the sole with gentle fingertips, the underflesh pliant like ruffled velvet to the touch.

   “That’s just like Jesus,” Kasta whispered, “washing the feet of His disciples.”

   But Valentina had never felt less like Jesus in her life – there was a roaring in her ears unconnected with the tide: her temples throbbed dizzily.  She stroked the rippled skin from heel to toe in slow, trailing caress, and Kasta’s contented sigh carried on the breeze.

   “I once read” Valentina murmured, “that in some philosophies, the sole of the foot is considered a map of the entire body – touch the right part, and you can stimulate the whole of one’s being.”

   She lowered her lips to brush the marble-smooth web of skin just behind the toes, tasting saltwater, and flecks of clean sand.   She had an urge to put her tongue to the tip of Kasta’s big toe, but at that moment the foot was withdrawn.   Kasta stood up.

   “We have to get back,” she said.   “There is a meal to be prepared…”

Petoskey, Michigan, 1878: rustic, naif Patsey Barsham returns home from college, accompanied by her sophisticated best friend, Petra Davidson.   Her tales of the Midwest's natural wonders come spectacularly true with the simultaneous arrival of a huge flock of Passenger Pigeons; but this event triggers a series of emotional and ethical dilemmas that threaten the futures of both young women, and are poised to split a family asunder.

How far will Patsey go to protect her friend, and the world she loves?   And what dark attitudes lurk beneath Petoskey's rural facade?

EXTRACT:

   Strangely enough their lips were dry as they brushed together, adhering ever so slightly as they touched and receded, like the stray droplets running down their backs; now merging, now flowing apart.   They pecked delicately, heads in constant motion like cooing doves, sometimes missing each other, bumping noses and rubbing chins.   Patsey had no idea why she found such a simple act so alluring, but it seemed part of an inevitable progression: she was sweet on Petra, she was in the tub with Petra; she was kissing Petra.   It felt slightly deviant and utterly delicious.

   In due course Petra rose, drawing Patsey up with her.   As they stood the cooling water surged off them in a torrent, determined wisps of foam clinging about their forearms and knees, their nipples and pudenda.   They smiled shyly for a moment, then eased into another kiss, this one silken, relaxed lingering.   And in its throes Petra gently inserted the cloth between Patsey’s thighs, rubbing delicately and tenderly.   As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

   Patsey gave a little involuntary cry, sagging slightly, for her knees had turned to jelly.   The warm rush of sensation, like melted caramel, was stronger than anything she’d ever known.   She found she was clinging to Petra’s shoulders for support, her head hanging forward, dizzily swamped in her own matted hair.   She seemed suddenly breathless.

   “Petty,” she panted, “I don’t think you should be doing that…”

   “Why not?   Don’t you like it?”

   Patsey couldn’t summon an answer: the cloth remained where it was, diligently cleansing, and she shuddered with bewildered delight.   Though her skin was steadily chilling, between her legs and somewhere deep within her there was heat: a melting glow of joyful incandescence.   It seemed to render her light, floating, insubstantial as a soap bubble; she thought of the pigeons spiralling above, and she too seemed to rise, a fluttering climb.   She was making sounds, mewling and sighing; she couldn’t help herself.  

   The tension within her built so imperceptibly she was barely aware, and when it broke it was shock: a shuddering, snapping release at once blissful and unnerving.   It was like waking from a doze one hadn’t realised you had fallen into.   She was curiously, absolutely aware of everything; especially that fact that Petra was holding her, supporting her, smiling with kindly concern.

   “Was that nice?” she whispered.

South Africa, 1878: amid the political fervour of the newly-conquered Transvaal, British administrator Theodore Petroch struggles to contain dissident elements, chief among them the Boer activist Pieter Nimegen.   Into this power-keg he invites his niece, Daliah-Neale Sladen, who immediately forms an intense connection with Nimegen's wife, Tilly, whilst the men attempt to settle their differences during a hunt for the rare 'Quagga'.   But the war of nerves between Brit & Boer threatens to spill into actual violence, and Daliah and Tilly in turn run the risk of becoming collateral damage...

What are the fearful secrets that keep Daliah marooned in Africa?   And how does Petroch intend to use them as a weapon against his bitter foe?

EXTRACT:

   In the midst of another cascading kiss Tilly was suddenly aware that Daliah’s hands had moved: now they pulled, none too stealthily, at the bow securing the neckline of her dress.   She gave a stifled yelp of shock and fear, her hands reflexively snapping upward to repel this intrusion.   But things became confused then, Tilly’s hands tangling in Daliah’s and as much abetting as denying her efforts.   Wordlessly they wrestled, bent somehow upon the same objective: the bow yielded, the neckline loosened; Tilly’s bodice became slack about her shoulders.   The lacy edge of a chemise appeared: under Daliah’s implacably picking nails it stretched and sagged.   Like a harvest moon emerging, Tilly’s breast spilled into the light.   To her own eyes it seemed so pale, a soft creamy tumulus upon which the nipple sat proud, a wide heraldic disc, already taut and tingling; yet to Daliah’s hungry gaze it was as tanned and toasted as the rest of Tilly’s skin – Africa’s ochre tattoo.   She kissed the nipple, lightly sucking its teat with her lips, then sweeping her tongue tip around the aureole’s coppery fringe.   Tilly moaned, suffused with a feathery bliss, at once erotic and deeply maternal – her breast seemed to strain upward, the nipple eager to engorge into soft, warm mouth.   She thought of wet-nurses; knew the secret pleasures of their craft.   Lulled, she was but dimly aware of Daliah’s hands descending, fumbling in the fading light, seeking the heavy hem of her dress, the attendant silky froth of petticoat.   Slowly fabric slithered up her legs, over her knees: Tilly held herself passive, no longer resisting, but determined not to encourage, even inadvertently.   As her shame was exposed, so its need seemed to intensify: a shrieking, slithery ache, a ravenous want for something beyond naming.   But with need came fear, of pain inculcated from a score or more of difficult, disastrous nights, each one a bitter wedding sequel.   Her long, slender, stockinged legs were being gently but decisively parted, and she knew what that meant.

   “Please,” she whispered, averting her face, “Be gentle with me…”

   Yet, the first touch of her vulva was like nothing she had felt, or imagined, before.   A light, seamstress stroke with a single fingertip: curling up between dewy labia, softly tugging the stiffened nub of her enraged clitoris.   A concentric, shimmering wave of raw ecstasy surged through her, making her shudder and sigh, wringing the tension from her muscles, leaving her gelatinously pliant.   One stroke: it opened her like a flower, like ripened fruit; sundered the partition between outer flesh and inner self; left her mindlessly, ineluctably feminine.   Were there a man, she thought dreamily, he would penetrate her with ease; fill her with vibrant seed; make a mother of her.

   But Daliah was not a man: her agenda, her intentions were quite different, though no more or less honourable.   She drew back a moment, surveying in the last slanted rays of sunlight the conquered field: beneath a delta crown of bristling black curls the fiery red labia flourished swollen, parted, all but dripping with fluid desire; the clitoris a shy shining jewel ‘neath its silky scarlet hood.

   “My God,” she breathed, “But you are so beautiful down there…”

The Nebraska of 1880 is still a wild frontier, marked by clashes between natives and settlers, not to mention the ruthless exploitation of the region's natural resources.   Into this tumult arrives Kirstina Hanssen, previously a victim of the conflict, in search of her long-lost sister Marelda.   That search becomes an epic trek into the West, as Kirstina risks all for a newfound love, and has to call upon the unlikeliest of allies to save the remnants of her past...

Given a choice, would Marelda opt for savagery over civilisation?   And how can a pair of conniving brothel-keepers save Kirstina from the attentions of the Union Army?

EXTRACT:

  It was not quite daybreak.   In the powder blue pre-dawn light a low mist caressed the grass that drooped slightly as though still in slumber.   And there, rising up from the ground like she was integral to it all, stood Marelda.   She was utterly, gloriously naked, her tanned flesh surrendered to the dawn chill.   She stood sideways to Kirstina’s viewpoint, face and outstretched arms pointed to the far horizon where a crimson flare presaged Sol’s imminent appearance.   Absorbed by her ritual, she was unaware of her silent, entranced witness.   For the moment Kirstina had forgotten her thirst and hunger, forgotten her aches and the peril of her situation.   She gazed awestruck upon her sister’s lithe form: the strong lines of her cheek and jaw bones; the lilting fall of flaxen hair down her narrow back; the teasingly protruding curve of her high, tiny breast; the more generous curve of her pale buttock; the gentle swell of her stomach; the long, lightly muscled legs.   In a movement that was as near as possible unconscious, her hand slipped beneath the shredded remnants of her skirt and petticoat, penetrating the waistband of her drawers to nestle in the familiar cleft, already moistly humming in anticipation.   With knowing fingertips she kindled her pleasure, watching all the while.

   The Sun broke free of night’s moorings.   Golden light spilled across the land, picking out Marelda’s form as a brilliant burnished statue.   She raised her arms high, letting the sunlight flow over her, and ululated in spiritual abandon.   It was the perfect moment, and Kirstina could not resist either it or her body’s dark, abyssal needs.   The cold air stabbed deep into her lungs in perfect counterpoint to the molten pulse that travelled through her, the silken whorls of inner flesh contracting about the welcome intrusion of her fingers.   Again a moment’s undiluted bliss, and then the shame like a riptide sweeping into her soul, leaving her shaking and wretched.

Though thousands of miles from the Mother Country, Chatham Island in 1891 is close to being the perfect English pastoral.   Here Tuesday Lyle lives blissfully with her young family, until the unwelcome arrival of one Suki Schmidt, wayward daughter of a local missionary.   Suki's presence threatens to upend every aspect of Tuesday's  comfortable life, and lead her to uncomfortable, irrevocable choices.

Just what is the 'trouble' that has Suki moved from mission to mission?   And how can Tuesday choose between the divergent demands of family and love?

EXTRACT:

“Take off your dress,” Suki said commandingly, her smile poised between child’s innocence and harlot’s wickedness.   Tuesday grinned indulgently and complied without hesitation; no thought now of any potential witness to their assignation.   She dragged the garment up over her shoulders and flung it provocatively aside, feeling more part of this land than ever as she stood nude amid the grass and lowering sunlight.   Suki gazed upon her exposed white flesh with what seemed wholly inappropriate awe: the girl’s hands trembled as they alighted upon the teardrop swell of her breasts, still firm and tender despite two scions’ worth of suckling.   A thrill like a sudden breath of winter air shuddered through Tuesday as the expansive ellipses of her nipples bloomed and hardened into straining ovals the colour of harvest sunset.   She moaned soft as the breeze that caressed her back.

   “Mein Gott,” Suki whispered, “so beautiful.”

   And she knelt before Tuesday, reverent as a pilgrim; and before Tuesday quite understood what was occurring, she pressed her face into the humid delta of the woman’s groin.   Suki’s tongue, wet and hugely inexorable, curled up between Tuesday’s eagerly parted labia, then rolled back to quiver against her engorged clitoris like a thunderhead pregnant with downpour.   Tuesday threw her head back and shrieked, raptor like, as her pelvis seemed to liquefy and gush.   For a moment it was as if her feet no longer contacted the ground: Suki’s hands clamped upon her snowy buttocks were all that kept her tethered.   Her own hands flailed wildly in space, coming to rest upon Suki’s shoulders where they gripped fierce as talons.    And as that honey tongue paddled in her dilated, eager depths she had a vague maternal urge to inquire where a missionary’s daughter might learn such wicked tricks, but awful unadulterated pleasure overwhelmed the notion.  

   Slowly, Tuesday let herself fall, coming to earth gentle as a feathered seed, her progress cushioned by unexpectedly strong, cradling arms.   She lay, half sobbing, half giggling, in a gossamer tangle of her own hair.   Now free of restraint, she opened her thighs and lifted her hips to receive Suki’s divine oral ministry, for she understood at last what was happening.   It was something elusive and magical; something that had occurred only rarely in her couplings with Lyle; something she had longed to master and define, to bottle like a preserve for future use.   Suki knew: Tuesday’s head swam with the implications, and her breathing was out of control.

   “Yes,” it was the only word her engorged lips could form.   “Oh, yes…”

An island-hopping epic charts the political and ecological crises that beset the Hawaiian Islands near the close of the 19th century.   Chieftain's daughter Aloula Oahela becomes swept up in native nationalist fervour, until an encounter with the enigmatic mulatto artist Lorelei Milne causes her to begin questioning all her inbred preconceptions.   Together, the pair embark on a 'grand tour', but each destination only offers new temptations, new mysteries and new perils - all tied to the lingering legend of the fire goddess, Pele.

What is the true purpose of the so-called 'New Mahele'?   And  does the creeping American influence portend disaster in the islands' future?

Extract #1:

   As the dance built Lorelei swayed closer to Aloula by almost imperceptible degrees, so that their bodies touched fleetingly.   Just as gradually, Aloula retreated, all the while in thrall of the unheard rhythm that seemed to be coming from inside of her.   She could feel perspiration beading on her brow; flecks of hair fell across her eyes, but she was too bound up in the dance to brush them back.

   “What else did your mother teach you?” she asked, a trifle breathlessly.

   “She taught me all about Pele, the fire goddess,” came the matter-of-fact reply.   “She taught me some of Pele’s magic – how to set fire in the blood of others, and bend them to your will.   She imagined I would use it to conquer men, but from an early age I had something different in mind.”

   Aloula’s back bumped against the cabin’s cool wall.   She stopped moving suddenly, left panting in the aftermath.

   “I think I'd better go now,” she gulped.   “I must say goodbye to Leola.”

   Lorelei ceased dancing with a controlled, precise slowing of motion, like an automaton winding down.   She gave a peculiar half smile.

   “Very well.   But if you leave now, you’ll never know what happens next.”

   She stepped close to Aloula, so that their breasts were touching ever so slightly.   Aloula gazed up at her with wide eyes, her mouth open in puzzlement.   Lorelei dipped her head a fraction, and kissed her.

   Aloula was momentarily stunned, her senses overwhelmed as if she had just looked straight into a blinding sun.   She was aware of nothing save the faint brushing of lips: the dryness fringing into tangy moisture.   Heat seemed to rise from deep within her, rushing up to fill her breasts and cheeks, making her lightheaded.   She couldn’t move, couldn’t think; even breathing seemed a lost skill.   And then Lorelei raised her hands to Aloula’s breasts, gently lifting them with her fingertips and stroking her thumbs across the bronze orbits of her nipples.   Aloula could feel them readily engorging, and the sensation was at once shocking and strangely comforting.   She made a faint, birdlike sound in her throat, but any words that might have issued were stolen by that luscious mouth still pressed relentlessly upon her own.   Lorelei’s tongue ran slowly along the seam of her lips, pushing wet and unstoppable as a Waikiki breaker.   Aloula let her mouth open, yielding to the warm honeysuckle intrusion.   Behind her closed eyelids a vermilion glow flared like a tropical sunset: the breath through her nostrils was hot and laboured as a colt’s; her temples throbbed to unheard drumbeats.   All the while the implacably soothing touch was on her breasts, melting and moulding her to the spot as though she were carved from candle wax.

   The kiss seemed to last an eternity, and when it finally ended Aloula felt physically drained, stranded by a tidal wave of unearthly emotion.   She clung to Lorelei in trembling helplessness, hands pressed tight to the smooth marble of her back, face wedged into her shoulder, gasping for air.

   “What are you doing to me?” she panted.

   Lorelei’s catlike eyes burned fiercely into her, making her quail inside.

   “I would have thought that was obvious, my darling – I’m seducing you.”

Extract #2:

   Aloula lifted her head.   A thin shaft of moonlight, as if on cue, had penetrated the roof and now bathed Elise and Lorelei in a shimmering glow.   The atmosphere in the building had shifted – it seemed faintly charged with a building energy, like static.   Just for a moment, Aloula wavered in her disbelief, but then she divined just whose power it was that Lorelei invoked – it was the power of Pele.

   Very gently, Lorelei put her hand to Elise’s chin and lifted her fhad softened into an expression of awestruck joy.ace to the light.   Her eyes were still tearful, but her expression had settled into a complex synthesis of religious ecstasy tempered by fear: silent, invisible energy still crackled about her and Lorelei – Aloula felt it as a pressure upon her eyes and ears.

   “Am – am I forgiven?” she breathed.

   “Of course you are,” said Lorelei, leaning forward and lightly kissing her brow.   “You are absolved, you are free: I will prove it to you.”

   And with the deftest of motions she slipped the robe from Elise’s shoulders, exposing milky breasts of unexpected fullness, the nipples dainty nubs of pale fawn.   With a connoisseur’s eye Aloula studied Mrs Tusker’s stout neck; the taut hollows formed by her throat and collarbone.   She was no Alissa Doleman, but properly turned out she would be an exquisitely ethereal beauty.   Her expression had settled into a complex synthesis of religious ecstasy tempered by fear: silent, invisible energy still crackled about her and Lorelei – Aloula felt it as a pressure upon her eyes and ears.

   “Now you are as Eve,” Lorelei was continuing, “before the serpent tempted her.   You are naked, pure in heart and mind – all that happens now will be full of joy, and free from sin.”

   She put her hands full on Elise’s breasts, and the woman shivered with a protracted exhalation.   A bead of perspiration slithered into Aloula’s eye, and she could feel excitement pulsing in her lips, belly and groin.   She recalled the immensity of her own seduction, and jealousy flared flaming green in her heart.   With epic tenderness Lorelei moulded Elise’s bosoms with her fingertips, stroking the nipples to firmness with featherlight touches.   Elise offered no resistance, merely quivered faintly with shallow breaths, her eyes closed and her face still poised twixt exultation and revulsion.

   “Do you feel the spirit?” whispered Lorelei.   “Is it seeping into every fibre of your being?”

   Elise nodded frantically, her expression anguished.   Sensing her moment, Lorelei moved with the inexorable grace of a turning tide, lowering her head and tenderly uplifting one etiolated orb.   Her tongue glistened as it slowly extruded to contact a nipple that seemed to bud eagerly forth to meet it.   Aloula watched Elise’s body quiver at this attention; heard the faint moan that issued from her; saw her face soften; and knew her fire goddess had claimed another soul.   Reflexively, Elise put her hand to the back of Lorelei’s head, drawing her mouth onto her breast as though she were a nursing a child.   Lorelei duly suckled both breasts in turn, her relentlessly moulding fingers complementing and substituting.   The room was silent save for soft wet sounds and Elise’s faint mewing: Aloula, throbbing down below, resisted a strong urge to finger herself.

   Gently but firmly, Lorelei lowered Elise down onto the mattress, almost simultaneously shucking off her nightdress with the familiar catlike flex of those strong shoulders.   Eyes wide, Elise gazed up at the taut splendour of that perfect form – oh, how Aloula begrudged her that thrill of revelation.   If there was any vestige of decorum and doubt in Elise’s face, it was extinguished as Lorelei descended upon her, forcing her mouth to the woman’s slender lips, driving out all trace of resistance with her sinuously winding tongue.   Their breasts impacted softly, pale gold coalescing with cream.   Elise’s hands were knotted at Lorelei’s neck, barely touching: just enough to signal her abject capitulation.

EXTRACT #3:

   Aloula was in a quandary – in younger days she had slept with her sister in just this fashion, but all her recent female embraces had been purely sexual.   She was no longer sure if she could tell the difference between an affectionate gesture and a proposition.   She felt the warmth of the ebbing fire seeping into her, heard its timid crackling, and knew that beyond it lay unreachably her lover, her oracle.   And beyond her, still purring gently, was Vereas, the man she had vowed to cuckold.

   “Your heart is beating really fast,” said Concha, resting her cheek on Aloula’s shoulder.

   “Yes,” replied Aloula, relieved that she was able to articulate a word.   “It’s because I – I really like you.”

   “Oh, I’m so glad,” the girl effused.   “That makes it so much easier.”

   “Makes what easier?”

   “For me to ask you, will you be my chaperone?   I fear that I have teased Vereas too much on this trip, and that he thinks he can take me whenever he pleases.”

   “Don’t you want him to take you?”

   “Of course – I yearn for his manhood inside of me, but until we are wedded it would be improper.   You will protect me from him, won’t you, Miss Oahela?”

   “Please, call me Aloula – and of course I’ll protect you.”

   “Aloula,” Concha breathed, and snuggled ever closer.   At the sound of her name from this lovely creature Aloula suppressed a shudder of pure passion.   And then inspiration blazed across her mind, bright as any meteor.

   “Concha,” she whispered, “you say you yearn for Vereas – do you yearn for him right now?’

   “Mm.   Whenever I think about him, I feel so strange.   Ever since Papa announced we are to wed, I’ve had this strange tingling feeling inside – it’s most distracting.”

   Aloula took a deep breath – it was now or never.   “I could – take those feelings away, if you wanted me to, at least for a while.”

   Concha, considered, silently, for what seemed an eternity.   “How?” she asked.

   “I know secrets, dating back to when Pele lived on this island – secrets so old they have become taboo, and yet are being rediscovered along with our other traditions.”

   “I don’t know, Aloula – I have never broken any of our taboos.”

   “It will be our secret,” Aloula cooed, unable to stop herself stroking the girl’s hair as it gleamed russet in the campfire’s glow, “a secret between the bride-to-be and her chaperone.   Do you trust me?”

   “You are Chief Oahela’s daughter – of course I trust you.”   She considered further, but only for a moment.   “What do I do?”

   “Simply lay back, part your legs a fraction, and relax.   Dream of Vereas, if it pleases you.”

   Aloula’s hand trembled as it delved into the smooth chasm between Concha’s open thighs.   Her fingertips crackled in a nest of wiry hairs, then touched simmering, silky wetness.   Concha shivered, her body rising and undulating deliciously, and a moan escaped her lips.   Aloula pressed, and the wetness yielded eagerly to her touch.  Concha gasped, feverishly tossing her head, and Aloula was momentarily panic-stricken lest Vereas overhear his intended’s cries of passion.   Decisively she forced her mouth down upon Concha’s, smothering her with lips and tongue as three conjoined fingers probed deeply.   Then she slowly withdrew, feeling the girl’s pelvic muscles flexing around her in retentive eagerness.   Concha’s breath rasped in her nostrils, and she mewled as Aloula pushed again, hard and deep, and her body opened easily, all soft and stickily pliable.   Just a few more, slow, controlled thrusts and Concha climaxed, clinging desperately to Aloula’s shoulders and kissing her in supplication as deeply as she was herself being kissed.   Her body tautened momentarily, as if all her muscles had flexed at once, and then a quivering, rattling wave swept through her, leaving her lax and panting in the aftermath.   Tenderly, Aloula sipped sweat from her brow.

EXTRACT #4:

   Lorelei reclined into a chaise-long, with no clear memory of leaving the dinner table.   They had finished a second bottle of wine, and everything, including herself, was becoming pleasantly blurred at the edges.   Honor settled beside her, looking on with amusement.

   “Tell me about your native friend,” she said, pleasantly.

   “Aloula?” Lorelei found she had difficulty articulating the name.   “She’s no friend of mine, not anymore.   Her head is stuffed full of all this Mahele nonsense, purity of blood and suchlike claptrap.   Basically, she’s a snooty, self-absorbed bitch.”

   “That’s a rather uncharitable assessment, considering you’ve been sleeping with her.”

   “I beg your pardon?”   Lorelei came close to sobering up, though not close enough.

   “Oh come now, Miss Milne – if there’s one thing you’re incapable of, it’s acting innocent.   When I said you were notorious, I wasn’t lying: your indiscretions with other women are legendary in all the lowest circles.   You have an appetite for female flesh that could shame Lothario.”

   Lorelei’s attempt at righteous indignation produced nothing more than a hiccup.   She giggled helplessly.

   “’S true, Miss Howard – I am a harridan of the first order.   And Aloula, she was wonderful, at first: so willing, so eager to come into my world.   I had hoped to mould her into something special, but she has spurned me, the ungrateful wretch.”

   A filled glass had magically materialised in her hand, and she downed it aggressively in one.

   “So,” said Honor, with studied nonchalance, “are you seeking another woman with whom to share your bed?”

   Lorelei looked at her intently, if a trifle cross-eyed.   Her face had an Old World, noble kind of beauty: her eyes were mysterious and faintly mocking mirrors of Lorelei’s own.

   “Are you propositioning me, Miss Howard?” she asked slowly.   Honor raised one voluptuous eyebrow.

   “That depends, Miss Milne – do you wish to be propositioned?”

   She leaned across, braced three fingers across Lorelei’s cheek, and kissed her very softly.   Her lips were warm and lush, like moistened pillows drawing Lorelei in.   She kissed back, finding this sweetness even more intoxicating than the wine.   Their mouths opened in unison, like flowers at the dawn; their tongues were writhing serpents, hungrily probing.   Lorelei found herself clinging to the woman while a universe slowly rotated about her.   She pulled away, gasping for breath and feeling faintly queasy.

   “Do you want me?” Honor whispered.

   “Yes,” Lorelei panted, closing her eyes against the relentless spin.

   “Then say it.”   Miss Howard’s voice had hardened; her free hand was rhythmically clenching, slowly drawing up the hem of Lorelei’s skirt, uncovering her lacy vulnerability.

   “I want you,” Lorelei breathed, burying her face in the silky, perfumed darkness of Honor’s hair.

   “Not good enough, Lorelei – I want you to beg.    For all your pretensions, you are nothing but a shameless halfbreed whore, and you are going to beg me to fuck you.”

EXTRACT #5:

   Gently yet overtly, Aloula put her hand to the back of her sister’s head and pressed Leola’s cheek into her bosom.   Leola looked momentarily nonplussed, but did not resist.   Aloula fired a darkly limpid glance over her sibling’s head – it struck Lorelei like a tongue of lightning, filling her with a surging flame.   For the first time in many days, she began to feel her old powers returning.

   “Oh, that’s very good,” she murmured, “but I’m still not sure it’s quite affectionate enough to please your father.   Perhaps if you faced each other, and not me…?”

   Aloula’s hand drifted to Leola’s strong chin, tilting it.   Leola smiled, a trifle uneasily, as she was obliged to gaze up into her younger sibling’s eyes.  

   “O but you are beautiful, my sister,” Aloula whispered, her voice as dark and deep as any crater on Mauna Kea.   “Do you not agree, Miss Milne?”

   “I do,” Lorelei sighed, stepping around the canvas and coming close.   As she did so, Aloula lowered her head a fraction and kissed Leola’s lips.   Consternation flashed in the elder sister’s eyes as their mouths met – the kiss was in itself a work of art, superbly controlled and executed.   Dry-lipped, soft, it was sweet and sisterly, yet sustained.   Lorelei reached out and ran the crook of her finger down Leola’s cheek to the base of her neck.   Consternation turned to fear: Leola snapped her head away.

   “I do not see what this has to do with our portrait,” she said sullenly, in English.   “It feels…inappropriate.”

   “My apologies, Miss Leola – I was merely appreciating the way your profile was lit when Aloula kissed you.   Perhaps your sister should have warned you how much I become bound up in my subjects.”

   “I fear that you intimidate my darling Leola, Miss Milne,” Aloula said, looking at nobody, her remark seemingly addressed to the room itself.   “Perhaps it has something to with the improper nature of your dress.”

   “Oh, of course,” Lorelei replied, warming to the game.   “Please forgive my impertinence – the slight was not intentional.”

   And deftly, without any overt sense of occasion, Lorelei began to divest herself.   She felt Leola’s bewildered eyes upon her as she stripped to the waist, her full bosom thrust provocatively forward.   At her side Aloula was breathing heavily, her excitement almost tangible.

   “There: does that make me more acceptable?” Lorelei asked, idly cupping one breast with her fingers.   She relished the spectacle of Leola rendered speechless, staring and immobile as a honeycreeper steeped in lime.   Aloula sidled close, slipping a too friendly arm around Lorelei’s waist.

   “It seems my sister is still affronted by your appearance, Miss Milne,” she purred heavily.   “Perhaps the only solution is to remove all your Imperial accoutrements.”

   And she pulled and pushed and stretched, and in a trice all of Lorelei’s skirts and petticoats had crumpled to the floor like abandoned tents of Bedouins.   For the first time, real fear flashed lantern-like in Leola’s eyes, as Lorelei stood nude and taut before her.   In trying not to look, she couldn’t help seeing everything.

As the 20th century dawns, four mismatched people find themselves all but stranded on bleak Guadalupe Island: Rocky Benstead, a game hunter with a dubious past; his capable but determinedly wayward daughter Leigh; his untrustworthy manservant Manuel; and the enigmatic Rosenda Varga, a widow with dark secrets.   As each of the four seek to advance their own agendas at the expense of the rest, their behaviour increasingly begins to emulate the island's savage predatory birds, the Quelilis...

Who are the predators, and who the prey?   And do any of the quartet realise the consequences of their schemes?

EXTRACT:

   By the time Rosenda had sloshed her way back onto dry land, Leigh had let the rifle drop, but her gaze was still fixed on the distance.   Dripping and shivering, Rosenda went to her side, and gazed also.

   “Why didn’t you fire?”

   “I think they might be a pair,” said Leigh softly.    “You know, lovers - kinda like you and me…”

   And she turned, quick as a pouncing cat, her lips upon Rosenda’s, her hand driving up into the slender gap between her thighs, rubbing gently but insistently.   Friction begat heat, melting Rosenda’s chill, and as her flesh yielded she knew all her pious efforts were transient as droplets on her skin.   Her mouth softened, acquiescing to Leigh’s imploring tongue; her body softened, letting itself sink down onto the powdery volcanic earth that adhered to her damp skin like grey flour.   Under the insistent abrasion of Leigh’s fingers she was becoming moist and warm and open, and no liquor to be blamed.   Deep within she felt the first faint tremor of abandon: she quivered, moaned softly, knew that she was conquered, a plaything, all her words reduced to flesh, and her flesh become but one word: entrega.

   “Say you want me,” Leigh’s whisper was hoarse, a drying wind

   “I…” Rosenda had no words for this feeling; couldn’t articulate them if she had.

  “Say it.”   Leigh’s voice snapped like gunfire.

   “I want you,” Rosenda gasped, her excitement swelling like silent applause.   As if in response, she finally dilated down below, engorged lips parting to allow curling intrusion of two joined fingers into the sticky, moist vent that was at once resistive and utterly enfolding.   Rosenda felt her tummy muscles flex; she drew up her knees, curling like a brown autumn leaf, toes pointed with the thrusting tension of it all.

   Leigh ignored her breasts, and Rosenda was already sufficiently knowing to realise this was deliberate.   Leigh levered herself up on her knees, rocked back and snagged one of Rosenda’s slowly oscillating feet in her free hand.   Ankle secure in her grip, she drew it to her mouth, twisting it slightly so she could run the tip of her tongue along the sole, from heel to toes in one long, spiralling lap.   Rosenda had no idea she could be so sensitive there: she shivered wildly, emitting a long, guttural moan that nearly crumbled into ticklish laughter.   She clutched her arms about herself, elbows crooking the weight of her breasts, holding them taut, quivering and perspiring as the sun beat down upon her willing violation.   Distracted by Leigh’s tongue flickering maddeningly between her toes, she did not immediately notice a change in the angle of the thrusting fingers, an increase in their tempo; a deep, sustained driving that verged upon the painful.   A third digit, ‘til now idle, slipped enticingly in the crease of her buttocks, worming and probing, its tip brushing the delicate crevice of her anus, lingering to rub and press determinedly.

   Rosenda was properly shocked, and gave a little cry to express it – a cry all-too easily misunderstood by Leigh as encouragement, especially as Rosenda simultaneously drew her knees up a little further.   The contrast was savagely stimulating: two fingers, hard and hot, plunging in foaming wetness; the third cool, slow but equally implacable, intruding into a dry fissure that somehow yielded of its own accord, just like the rest of her.   Yes, she was properly shocked: might even have complained, save that the climax building since Leigh’s forward kiss, since she had taken off her dress to bathe, since she had awoken this morning, perhaps all her life – was upon her.   Her whole body clenched like a fist, then pulsed liquid, then clenched taut again: she clutched her own bosom for comfort from the storm; her breath was fire in her nostrils as she closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and prayed.

   “Padre, forgive me,” she cried, as tears of joy spangled her lashes.   “Forgive me, Dios…”

1918: the peaceful, isolationist existence of remote Lord Howe Island is shattered when a freak storm washes the MV Mokamba onto its shore.   Aboard are businessman Herbert Carreway and his wife Jane, a silent-screen actress; they soon become the guests of island worthy Dr Romer Grundy and his adopted daughter, Melina.   But there are cracks in the Carreway's outwardly perfect marriage, just as Grundy's relationship to his ward is not all it seems.   Furthermore, the Mokamba has brought with it a most unwelcome cargo, one that threatens the entire island's future...

What is a 'Rat King'?   And can Jane overcome male machinations and be free to follow her heart?

EXTRACT:

     With a motion as silent and graceful as a gliding gull, Melina slipped the robe from Jane’s wide, strong shoulders.   Jane knew that she was beautiful, but under the girl’s unyielding gaze she became almost diffident: her bare arms were goose fleshed with sudden exposure; her full, pale breasts felt strangely stretched and heavy.   Between her legs there was a warm seeping, and she realised wonderingly that never before had she felt so aroused.   She smiled shyly, blue eyes lowering, and her soul was lifted like a feather on the breeze when that smile was returned.

     Melina clung like a dancing partner as Jane fumbled with the dainty bows and buttons of her combination.   Exposed, Melina’s body was lissom, athletic; her breasts high and pert.   The dance became in intimate waltz, lips and tongues darting and sipping like hummingbirds; hands sliding freely over smooth back, pausing hesitantly, teasingly above the waist.   Their breasts touched, the curves coalescing innately like jigsaw edges; their hearts were a thunder of wing beats in the night.

     Jane let her hands slip lower, cupping the taut circles of Melina’s slight buttocks - the girl leaned into her embrace and sighed like a curlew keening.   Taking the lead, she swept her partner to the bed and they descended with perfect control, the thin mattress groaning faintly beneath their combined weight.

     Jane felt the slender body beneath her, marvelling at its yielding softness, such a contrast to Herbert’s solidity and stiff protrusions.   It dawned on her, fully, that she was making love to a young woman: more, that it was all she had ever wanted to do.   Crushing her mouth upon Melina’s she thrust herself between the girl’s lean legs, and wherever their flesh touched was thrilling friction: the aching contact of engorged, heavy nipples; the cool press of taut stomachs; the electric brush of tawny curls and the occasional, volcanic stab of pooling vulvas.   Long and elegant as a swan’s neck Jane flexed her body, pressing down with all her strength as Melina clung to her, feverishly shivering.

     “Jane,” she gasped, voice shredded and hoarse, “Oh Jane, I - what’s happening to me?”

     Jane knew, but could not answer, for one look at that angelically sweet face contorting in ecstasy was enough to finally trigger her own crisis.   With the innate cunning of the illicit lover she fused her molten lips once more to her amour’s, and they smothered each other’s moans as mutual climax pealed through them, a silent eruption like songbirds lifting into a perfect dawn.   It left them spent, trembling, huddled together like infants in triumphant, sweat-slicked embrace.

1923: at Konetta, SE Australia, famed naturalist Professor Treesmith and his young assistant Wilson Reader are engaged on a desperate mission to save the last surviving Toolache Wallabies.   To succeed, they need the help of local sheep farmer Joe Gilcross; but they also need to negotiate the major distraction of Gilcross's beautiful daughters, Rue & Stockard.   As their efforts begin to unravel, so the young women become a fixation to rival that of the animals, resulting in revelations that threaten to ruin the live and reputations of all present.

Why is Stockard a 'flawed diamond'?   And if Reader loves Rue,  how can he be sure that love is reciprocated?

EXTRACT:

   It went like this: first, they fell for Rue, and then, a little later, they fell in love all over again, with Stockard.   That was how it had always been, until Reader.   Reader had fallen in love with Rue, and somehow stayed there.   But that left a vacancy, a void: someone had to fall in love with Stockard…

    “You never let them get close,” Rue whispered, and she seemed to be having trouble talking, even breathing.   “Never a one: you just palmed them all off like they were nothing to you.   Why?”

   “N-not g-good enough,” came the soft reply.   Stockard gently put a hand to her elder sister’s cheek.   “C-couldn’t help c-comparing them t-t-to one I’ve always l-loved…”

   With trembling hand Rue mirrored her sister’s gesture: Stockard’s cheek radiated heat and longing.   Someone had to fall in love with her – that was the way it went.   The way it always went.

   The second kiss seemed to manifest almost of its own accord, without conscious intervention from either of them, and it lingered.   Knowing full well she had no right to such enjoyment, still Rue savoured the sweet succulence of Stockard’s lips, ripe and plump as cherries to the taste.   Her idly straying fingers tangled in the gossamer of her sister’s hair, trapping her – or so she wished to believe.   She was filled with a longing so utterly profound it was almost like pain, spreading down from her face through her breastbone to the pit of her stomach.   It was a tight, clenching feeling that shaded fear, and need, and desire and serenity and all the myriad senses between.   The conclusion was inescapable: she had finally done it, finally fallen irrevocably in love.   With her own little sister.

   The kiss broke, and a sigh came out of Rue that felt like it was expelling her very soul – all this time, without realising it, she had been holding her breath.   They stared at each other, breathless, faces flooded cerise, brown eyes desperate mirrors of anxiety and hope, demanding impossible answers to questions unvoiced.   Something pattered lightly against the windowpane, and Rue started as though it were gunfire.   She crossed to the glass, disappointed yet secretly relieved that the spell had been broken.   Stockard followed, and for a moment, again, they were simply two sisters looking out at the world.   Tiny droplets began to pepper the window; the horizon was receding under a slab of heavy grey.

   “It’s raining,” Rue observed.

   “Yes,” replied Stockard.

   “They could get stuck out there.   Stranded.   Maybe for hours.”

   “Yes.”

   Casually, Stockard slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close so that their bodies contacted.   The feeling flared within Rue once more – in truth, it had never gone away.   She turned to meet Stockard’s pleading eyes, and a moment later her mouth again found her sister’s sugared lips.