VALENTINE'S COMPETITION!

It’s Valentine’s Day and all the world is wearing its very best underwear. Whether you got a single red rose, a sackful of cards or a gas bill, your day’s about to get a whole lot lustier. Because ladies and gents, our beautiful blog is barely 2 months old and yet … drumroll, please … we’re already bringing you another glorious giveaway competition!

Yes, it’s filth for free. We’ve got 4 bundles of love on offer, each including a copy of Sex in Public, the latest short story collection from Black Lace. Sex in Public is one of the strongest hottest anthologies Black Lace have published and we’re all proud as punch. It features stories from several of your hard-working, smut-addled lustbiters: Nikki Magennis, Portia Da Costa, Mathilde Madden, Madelynne Ellis, Sophie Mouette, Kate Pearce and Kristina Lloyd (aka me). Check out Nikki’s post if you want to be tantalized by our first lines and Kate’s post for some seriously steamy words on cowboys and Essex. (Not cowboys in Essex, you understand. We’re talking Stetsons and spurs here, not dodgy builders.)

What else? All the prizes are different and some books are even signed. We’ve got a range of Black Lace and Cheek novels, an erotic memoir from Suzanne Portnoy, plus two top US anthologies – Caught Looking and Best Gay Erotica (both Cleis Press) – featuring stories from Shanna Germain and Alana Noel Voth. The one thing each bundle has in common, apart from hot characters, horny action and top-notch writing, is a copy of our newest and fantastic-est UK release, Sex in Public. (Released in the US on April 3rd which is really quite soon.)

So what do you have to do to stand a chance of winning? Easy. Just comment on this post. Say anything you want – say ‘whip me with roses’, ‘I love you, Lust Bites’, ‘moonbeams and starlight’. Basically, say 'Yes please! Me want!' You don’t need a blog account. Join in as ‘anonymous’ or ‘other’. Just remember to leave a name for us to call out when we do the winners draw in March. We’re holding the doors open till the last day of February so keep the comments coming.

And, because we care enough to blog the very best, we’re also offering you a dozen fascinating facts about all the writers in the competition. (They were clean out of roses.) Actually, it’s a baker’s dozen because we like to do things differently. Also, still doing things differently, some of the facts are barefaced lies. Can you separate truth from fiction? Who’s being honest? Who’s telling porkies? Remember, we’re writers. We get paid to make stuff up. You really shouldn’t trust us, you know.

This isn’t part of the contest. It’s just for fun! Yeah, OK, so some of you are already having fun. But remember, love doesn't come without pain and the course of BDSM never did run smooth. So here are some snippets about us, vaguely related to love, lust, Valentine's, coupledom and, err, quadrupledom. Tell us how many of the facts are true. Shout ‘J’accuse!’ and point your finger at the fibbers.

OK, lie detectors at the ready ...

True or false?

1. Madelynne Ellis (Passion of Isis) has a romantic boyfriend who once sent her a hug in the post by drawing around his hands and arms, and cutting them out of paper.
2. Suzanne Portnoy (The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker) once held a small select Valentine’s party in her hot tub with 3 other guys.
3. Mathilde Madden (Equal Opportunities) had a male escort called Mark Valentine in her novel, Mad About the Boy. (I don't mean she had him. Well, she might've done ... who knows? I'm sure she wanted to. What I'm trying to say is she created a character with that name.)
4. Nikki Magennis (Circus Excite) was once picked up by a stranger who gave her a crushed Valentine's rose he found in the street.
5. Kate Pearce (Sex in Public) struggled with long-distance love and, after getting on the wrong coach one Valentine’s Day, ended up four hours late for a date with her boyfriend. That poor, poor boyfriend is now her husband.
6. Janine Ashbless (Burning Bright) once proposed to all the men she knew on a leap year Valentine’s day. The hussy.
7. Sophie Mouette (Cat Scratch Fever) is made up of two people, Teresa Noelle Roberts and Dayle A Dermatis. One of them has single pierced ears and tattoos; the other has multiple piercings but no tattoos. If it’s true, can you guess which one's which?
   
8. Alison Tyler (Tiffany Twisted) once broke up with a boy on Valentine's Day. The last she heard, he was still holding a grudge. (Ah, young love. They were 10 at the time.)
9. Alana Noel Voth (Best Gay Erotica) has a heart ‘n’ dagger tattoo on her ankle.
10. Portia Da Costa (Gothic Blue) has a double crush: two guys, one name. Valentino is the hero of her forthcoming novel, Suite Seventeen, and is also a character played by Vincent D'Onofrio in a film called 'The Velocity of Gary'. (Yes, we know she's bonkers but we love her.)
11. Shanna Germain (Caught Looking) has been proposed to over a dozen times but only once said ‘yes’, to a guy who promptly broke her heart.
12. Kristina Lloyd (Asking for Trouble) dreamed of marrying her first serious boyfriend whose surname was ‘Fullalove’.
13. Madeline Moore (Wild Card) once hand made (yes - hand made) a shirt for her boyfriend on Valentine’s Day and he said, ‘Thanks, I didn’t get you anything.’

Whaddya reckon? Would we lie to you?

© Lust Bites

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• The image at the top of this post is Toxic Schizophrenia by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. In real life it flashes.