Catching up with all my news!

Hi folks, I hope this finds you greeting the new week with a smile. We've just had the most amazing weekend here in the north of England -- sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, and even some (gasp!) heat. A taste of summer! Some of our neighbours even ventured as far as lighting barbecues... of course some of our neighbours have been known to light barbecues in the freezing cold rain, but that's another story. The unexpected glorious weather put me in a good place to start the week. Yay!

I've been busy learning a lot of new software recently and I have to say my brain hurts, but in a good way -- i.e the kind of way that helps to keep it in shape. ;) Writing wise I've got a short story and a novelette on the go at the moment, as well as working on scene outlines for FAYE'S SPIRIT (the novel I will be working on during May.)

I've also had some more terrific news about RAMPANT. Following on from the Passionate Plume finalist listing, I am able to share the news that RAMPANT has been listed as a finalist in both the CRW 2011 Award of Excellence and the Write Touch Readers' Award. I'm blown away about the positive response this novel is having!

Meanwhile, judging by the UK Kindle charts, people are giving my work a try and downloading the free version. Yay! If you are one of those readers and you're new to me, thank you so much for picking up the book. I hope it's been a good read for you.

In other news a lovely new review came in from You Gottta Read Reviews for UNASHAMED, my most recent collection of short erotic stories. Here's a snip!

"I have said it before and I will say it again, Saskia Walker is the queen of steam and she does not disappoint her readers with this compilation of short stories in Unashamed. This time she has assembled eighteen of what have to be the hottest, most explicit and completely unusual tales that I have read in some time, stories that I am sure will become favorites after reading this book. The stories range from the macabre, to the strangely innocent, to D/s and anything in between; each one completely different from the next, illustrating Ms. Walker's mastery of the written word. This author is not presenting her readers with “cookie cutter” versions of the same stories over again, each one is its' own entity. Was I surprised? Certainly and, I was also more than pleased."

Big grin from me! Happy readers make me happy! :)

My work plans for the near future are to finish up working on these two shorties I have on the go at the moment. I need to do that soon because we're having a bit of a break around Easter time for some house maintenance and chill time, followed by a quick trip to Wales to visit Portmeirion in early May. Portmeirion is the place where the cult TV series THE PRISONER was filmed and I've always wanted to visit. I'm very excited about being able to do so at last! I plan to blog about that after the event, so if there is anyone else out there who is a fan of the series and hasn't been able to visit the location I'll have photos and reports.



Have a great week!

Back at the desk, thumbscrews, and a bargain or two!

Hey folks, I'm back at the desk after a few days in Edinburgh. I'll post about our trip later in the week -- because it was partly to do some research for one of my 2011 projects, THE LIBERTINE, (the sequel to THE HARLOT, which is due out at the end of May) and I'll share more details about the research trip and the Taskill Witches soon.

As a taster, here's a photo of me in the fabulous National Museum of Scotland, a collection we visit every time we head up because there's so much to see it's impossible to take it all in on one visit. I'm standing with some of the artifacts from the time of the witch hunts in Scotland (check out those thumbscrews in the display case! Can you see me twitching?! ;-) Anyone who has read RAMPANT knows about my fascination with Scotland in the time of the witch trials, and I continue to write in that setting in the Taskill Witches series. More news on that soon!

Meanwhile, are you looking for a bargain read? My Smashwords books are 50% off through to March 12th. Go here to find the four books included, and the discount code is given on site when you click on the book. This offer includes two collections of my erotica short stories: UNLEASHED and UNASHAMED.

New publication: UNASHAMED, an erotica anthology

Let Saskia Walker take you on an erotic journey of discovery with eighteen red hot stories of love, lust, and blatant seduction. Titillating, tantalizing, and totally explicit, UNASHAMED delivers diverse sexual scenarios from first love explorations to forbidden rendezvous, raunchy threesomes to playful committed couples. The characters in these stories revel in their sexuality-with delicious and climactic results.

This is a collection of my short stories from across the time I’ve been writing, a follow up/partner book to UNLEASHED. This one includes (amongst 17 others) my very first ever paid sale, “In Pursuit of Knowledge,” which has been out of print for ages. It was the first erotic short story I ever wrote, my first paid sale, and it appeared in the first ever erotic short story anthology published by Black Lace, a book called SUGAR AND SPICE (1997). I recently had rights returned by Black Lace/Random House and I was delighted to be able to include it.

Also included is one of my early reader favourites, "The Welcome Home," which appeared in a Penguin Dutton book edited by Lonnie Barbach in 2000. This one is hard to find nowadays, but I discovered that I was contractually able to publish it in an anthology of my own work, which meant I could include it. It's a very early work in which I break all the rules...cos I hadn't learned them yet. ;o) But people loved it all the same. Weird, huh. ;o)

Available from Excessica, Kindle US, Kindle UK, ARe, Fictionwise (with 15% discount this week!) and in print from Amazon.com. It will shortly also be available in print from Amazon UK.

Let it snow?

It went like this: snow, snow, ice, freezing fog, mist, more snow and more ice… It was Christmas card pretty, yes, especially when it wasn't foggy because we had glorious blue skies, but the weather wiped out a lot of our holiday plans. We had a good one nonetheless. Hope you did too! We’re making ready to welcome in the new decade now.. and the weather looks to be very wintery again. Brrr.

In writing news I’m delighted to announce I have another erotica anthology on the way from eXcessica later this year. UNASHAMED is a collection of short erotica focused on characters pushing boundaries. From first love explorations to raunchy threesomes and committed couples, this one is going to be a very naughty collection indeed! It’s set to be published in August. Mmm, August sounds good, it sounds hot. ;-) Meanwhile, on the work front, I’ve got several small projects left to finish up before January begins, when I’ll be totally focused on THE HARLOT.

Here’s a holiday smile for you! One of the best TV shows I caught over the holiday was a collection of internet virals, many of which I hadn’t seen. If you haven’t already seen it, I guarantee you’ll smile if you check out the sneezing panda clip!

Keep warm!