Alpha females

by Olivia Knight

My favourite heroines – to write, to read, to watch – are alpha. In A bluffer's guide to… Paranormals, I said this of the heroines, “Alpha-females to a woman: there’s no time for simpering flowers when you’re locked in a battle against forces what man was not meant to wot of. These chicks are tough: they’ll gut ex-lovers, eat snakes to survive, lead armies, face down the devil, catch werewolves, exorcise demons, endure bitter physical hardship, and wield insane amounts of power. They’re queens, time-travellers, priestesses, sorceresses, reincarnated witches, and goddesses.” But before humbly kowtowing to their acknowledged superiority, let’s be clear what alpha females are – and what they are not.

These are NOT the heroines who prove “women are strong too” – been there, done that, inherited my grandmother’s t-shirt on the subject. These are not heroines who have to be a tougher cookie than the men to survive in a gritty dog-eat-dog man’s world (the New York Bronx accent is creeping up on me already) but get them home and they’re not only tough but warm-hearted, loving and sincere; voted most likely to be a waitress and single mum in a touching comedic drama. Above all, it is not heroines who achieve the ends of success with womanly wiles / tact / delicate social manipulation / et cetera / ad infinitum – the oh-wow-the-company-has-more-profits-with-this-compassionate-firm-but-fair-woman-at-the-helm notion. Probably nothing wrong with that, but it’s not alpha. The alpha female isn’t a feminist recuperation of strength or even palatable to most feminists. I am not singing Sisters are doing it for themselves or Independent Woman (although, if you want to know what Independent Woman would sound like if sung by kittens from the north of England, click here).

Alpha rules. Automatically, intrinsically, very often literally, albeit sometimes at the end of a sword.

‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’ he murmured. His cock was stirring against her. The room was silent, the onlookers tense and bewildered. She strove to think of something which would give her strength, some concrete talisman against the spell which held her. Thomas was a blur – the castle, a shell – the country, just land – then her mind landed on the mandala. The two teardrops interlocked; in the gold, a drop of silver, and in the blue, a drop of green. His hands roamed her back and rump, guiding her to nest his erection between her thighs. Lust swelled. She fixed the mandala in her vision as her hand ran up his chest, down his arm, and onto her sword-hilt. As she stepped back and swirled around, she drew the sword in one fluid movement and completed the circle with its blade raised and level, running smoothly across his neck. He staggered back, clutching the wound, his eyes agape. He tried to speak, but blood hissed and bubbled at his throat. The choker strangled her like a noose. She could neither breathe nor utter a word, but she stepped back neatly as Thomas had taught her and ran the duke through. His wild eyes stared down at the new wound. When she pulled the sword out, he fell, and she stamped hard on his heart. Blood sprayed through both cuts; his eyes rolled up. As his head fell back, the choker fell open and tumbled off, its curse broken. Her sword tip on the ground, her dress splashed with Kardan’s blood, she looked up at her counsellors.
‘Remember this,’ she said. ‘This is how I deal with traitors.’

– The Three Riddles in Enchanted

Alpha heroines are Not Nice – they’re not the ones you want to be your best friends, they’re the ones you want to be. The ones who leave you ten foot tall, walking as if you’re doing the ground a favour, swanning through grateful air, eyes burning as you plan your world-domination. These women are powerful:

Abruptly, she was above the surface again, imbuing her body with the furnace-heat of that furious, determined spark. As her arms rose, the gargantuan power flowed upwards into them, a borrowed force that could tear down heaven and hell by simply outlasting them, that had existed long before them and would continue after.
She saw the Devil again, with her own eyes and with the Mother’s, no longer as the most powerful and ancient of evils to confront humanity but as an upstart. … Her mouth opened in a roar, and the words that rolled like lava from her tongue, the Mother’s words and her own, were ‘Leave my child alone!’
The sound rolled outwards from her, in concentric waves across the meadows, out onto the river, up the avenue, rebounding off the tall college walls and crashing back across them. Her body shone with radiance, her human eyes could hardly withstand the brilliance of Adrian. He stood upright, beyond the Devil, no longer needing support as the silver core of him coalesced into a whole once more and his luminous eyes met hers. A net of light spun itself between them, a spider’s web, a canopy, of pure silver. Spears of power passed between them, from eyes to eyes, forehead to forehead, breast to breast, groin to groin, each a lance through the crumbling edifice of evil between them. As the old man’s shape drifted into dust, the flaming giants rose up from them at last, again, reached out, and held each other close.

– The Ten Visions

These heroines fight back – with scorcery and swords, with arson and armies. If there’s a village under attack, they don’t get rescued, they gallop in with sword whirring. If there’s a country, they rule it. If there’s a battle, they lead it. If there’s an enemy, they fight it. With the power, you see, comes the responsibility:

‘Can you even begin to understand what you’ve done?’ His voice resonated, shaking the tree she hung onto. ‘We are the guardians of fate. But you thought you knew better – you! Who can’t see the consequences of even one of your actions!’ His scorn slashed through her. ‘Thanks to you, the whole fabric of fate is creaking with strain. The further it goes off course, the harder to realign it. It was so simple – one tiny act – and for that, a man’s heart broke, another man died. And still, you wouldn’t listen to us! Now whole towns are laid to waste, whole countries teeter.’

– The Three Riddles in Enchanted

‘Let them die,’ she screamed. He was close enough to see her face glistening with tears, contorted. ‘They deserve it!’
‘Nina!’ he bellowed.
She spun around to face him, blazing. Her eyes were wild and thick with tears. ‘My children are killing my children!’

– The Dragon Lord in Magic and Desire

Alpha females don’t get an easy time, as heroines: they must be strong as iron, endure without complaint, and never even whimper. I thought I put Nina through her paces, in The Dragon Lord – she suffers such unbearable pain that she habitually throws herself onto a stone floor to knock herself out, she hikes naked through rough terrain for days, hallucinating, she scrapes off her own skin with a rock – and then I wrote The Three Riddles, and learnt how to really punish a heroine. Having lost one lover and gutted the other, Pearl gallops off on her trials: alone on horseback in midwinter, eating snakes and field mice to survive, finding the burnt corpses of her subjects piled in heaps, tormented by a vulgar little being, fording freezing rivers, dragged across frozen ground by her horse, tapping its veins for nourishment, swimming an icy lake, and when she’s bleeding, malnourished, hypothermic, emotionally drained, and weak as a kitten, she gets attacked by a wolf. And that's why she's Queen: because giving up is not an option.

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Featured alpha heroines from left to right: • The Bride in Kill Bill, played by Uma Thurman • Pearl in The Three Riddles in Enchanted • Queen Elizabeth I, here played by Cate Blanchett • Nina in The Dragon Lord in Magic and Desire • Angelina Jolie, here as Mrs Smith in Mr and Mrs Smith • Sarah in The Ten Visions • Officer Aeryn Sun in Farscape, played by Claudia Black

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So who are your favourite alpha females? What do you most love about them? And how do they make you feel?

Samhain: the time which is no time

by Olivia Knight

I’m an atheist, not a pagan, but as Pratchett points out there are advantages to belief: “When you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, ‘Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!’ or ‘Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!’” So I’m an atheist with a creativity altar, a well-used deck of tarot cards, a shelf of occult books, and a wealth of Wiccan info – mostly thanks to writing The Ten Visions. What I can’t believe, I can write.

Paganisim or Wicca (I won’t go into the denominational differences) are all about the rhythms of nature – which sounds as floaty as a wannabe-witch dress, until you realise how much counting it involves. (Sex also involves counting, and not just the good old one-two – at least, not if you’re trying to trick nature by taking the prize and not paying your due.) Planning my heroine’s life around moon phases, the name of the moon, the sun sign, the sunrise and sunset times, her own cycle, the Esbats, and of course the Oxford terms, not to mention the Qabbalic chapters, quickly became as complex as organising the Prime Minister’s diary:

“No, I’m afraid Ms Kirkson won’t be able to have sex on the 17th – yes, it’s in Netzach with a waxing Snow moon, but new moon energy is still dominant, she has her period, and the Scorpio energy is too negative… how about the 1st, under Saggitarius? It’s a full moon, so I’ll have to squeeze you in with any ghostly visitors…”

Sarah quickly learns how events are governed.

She felt sick, stubbed out the cigarette on the chilled, pocked stone next to her feet, and immediately lit another. When had she seen Jo?
She’d met him when she was walking back from dinner with her supervisor. She’d felt an odd urge for a cigarette, and asked him for one. She’d wanted one because her supervisor’s rudeness had upset her. Well, his rudeness and his attractiveness, to be honest, but the attractiveness didn’t count because she’d been ovulating. It had been dark – no, not quite dark; she remembered the clouds whipping past the full moon, a ghostly galleon indeed.
She’d seen him the night of the All Soul’s party; he’d persuaded her to run away from the party and convinced her that she’d been talking to the devil, just because she’d been horny enough to find an old man sexy. They had dashed home in the bright moonlight. He said she’d been fed a lust potion. She’d counted afterwards, and realised she’d just been ovulating; the lust potion was nonsense.
She’d been ovulating. She ovulated with the full moon. She hadn’t wanted sex last night; something in her body had felt calm, quiet, and safe; something in her had said wait. Wait until you’re fertile. When was full moon?

Welcome to the Wheel of the Year. Paganism means patience. The year is carved into the twelve sun signs of the Zodiac and the thirteen moons. Each month’s moon has its own name and energies and the full moon is the Sabbat. (One month gets two full moons – so the second is the Blue Moon, as in “once in a…”) The eight Esbats are the major festivals: two solstices, two equinoxes, and four other special occasions: Ostara (Easter), Beltane (May Day), Lammas (31 July, still celebrated with corn sheaves in many churches) and of course Samhain – Halloween, Feast of the Dead, All Souls, call it what you will.

Most of the Esbats are what we politely call “fertility rites”, from the Imbolc planting of seeds (phner phner) through the Ostara eggs & bunnies (nudge nudge) to Beltane’s giant phallus round which the merry maidens dance, all the way to the Lammas fairs and tumbling in haystacks. Not so Samhain.

The only pagan festival to hold tight to its occult origins, it’s not a time for sex or magic – it’s the beginning of the time which is not a time. The Ten Visions has ritual sex scenes and Samhain scenes, but not the two in combination: that would be dark magic and the good Wiccan Sarah (an’ it harm none, do what ye will) doesn’t do that. (Her professor, on the other hand…)

Samhain is the day that Jo accuses Sarah of being a witch, after the eerie Halloween party in the graveyard of St Mary's. As sensible as her author, she doesn’t believe him.

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘This is the twenty-first century. No-one believes in witches. They don’t exist. Well, some silly little pagan-wannabes do, but they get it all wrong, I’ve read the manuscripts and they haven’t and –’
‘What do the manuscripts say, then?’
‘Witches joined covens – they were invited in, by female relatives or close friends – and the devil appeared, a local devil usually, and they all drank and danced around widdershins and naked, and sometimes the devil had sex with them. Every evidence suggests he was just a man from a nearby region, in a mask.’
‘Evidence taken down in witch trials?’ asked Jo, pointedly.
‘That’s the only written evidence, yes, –’
‘And what does your knowledge of Church doctrine, and interrogation methods, and manuscript-making, tell you about these manuscripts?’
‘That they’re unreliable!’ Sarah snapped. ‘That it was confessions taken from tortured prisoners, stupid ordinary women terrified of the Church’s power!’
‘So the devil really did come and sleep with them?’
‘The devil doesn’t exist,’ began Sarah.
‘Then would it surprise you to learn that earlier tonight you sat next to him, drank with him, and considered having sex with him?’

Thus begins the time which is no time, the dark hinterlands of the year. From Samhain to Yule, the wheel doesn’t turn. The veil is thin. The world lies dead, and the dead walk. This is where we now stand poised in the Wheel of the Year and here’s a snapshot of the wheel’s energies…

At Samhain, light candles for the dead, set food out for them, leave honey and cakes for the fey, and leave windows open on both sides for the roaming souls to enter and leave freely. Better that than that they rattle the panes and rush down the chimney flus. Leave a candle burning all night. We’re under the Blood Moon, making vivid the cycle between life and death, hunter and hunted. It reached its zenith on 26 October and is now waning – the only spells to perform are for cleansing and banishment; rather learn and meditate. The sun in Scorpio is also suited to study – its smouldering, dark and ruthless energy peels back mysteries. Its sexual pleasure is intense and ruthless. Today is ruled by Mars but Samhain, on Wednesday, will be ruled by Mercury – the messenger, the trickster, the ancient Alchemical tease. For the next fifty-one days, the rhythms of life recede and the world belongs to the others – until Yule.

She lay, drained and sated, feeling the warm weight of his body upon her, staring dreamily at the uneven ceiling above her. She thought of the stars and planets spinning beyond them, unimaginable distances away but really there, held in orbit by gravity, imposing their strange forces as they swung past.
‘The ritual said for seven days…’ she murmured quietly into his ear. Her voice was soft, half-lost in thought. ‘In two days time we move from Sagittarius to Capricorn… Fire to Earth…’ she added. ‘And it’ll be Yule, and we can marry for a year and a day…’
His warm arms clasped her close to him.

Smut slot: The Ten Visions

Add a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of the whole book!

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“Perhaps once in a lifetime, if you are lucky, you will live in a house with a history.”
So begins The Ten Visions, set in an Oxford of sinister professors, lovers who claim to be ghosts, irrational fears, dreams of witchcraft, harsh betrayal, and one very special house.

To celebrate its release, here's a satisfying chunk - so grab your morning coffee / evening wine, and curl up...

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The book blurb
The moment she starts her doctorate in Oxford, Sarah is beset with mysteries. An old portrait in her rented house bears an uncanny resemblance to her. A new lover insists he's a ghost. Her attractive, sinister supervisor obstructs her research at every turn. An ordinary hill on the meadow fills her with fear - and not just her, but also the man with whom she falls in love. And every time she has sex, she hallucinates strange places and other times.

With her own life and soul at risk, Sarah uses sex-magic and a sequence of visions to travel between different times, worlds and places. On an epic journey, she battles an ancient evil to solve a mystery dating back centuries - a mystery that holds the truth of her origins and purpose.

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Just before this bit...
When Sarah meets Adrian, a gradute botany student, on Port Meadow, his jealous girlfriend promptly throws him out. Sarah offers to put him up in her massive rented house and in return he takes over the cooking. It’s only temporary, until his girlfriend relents, but after a few nights under the same roof and an aphrodisiacal meal, their resolve is crumbling.

‘I’m not sure we should be doing this,’ he muttered huskily.
In reply, she reached for the edges of his t-shirt and pulled it slowly over his head. She watched in fascination as his smooth chest was exposed, his muscles tight and compact, his own nipples crinkled. She bent down, and took one in her mouth, exploring the small hard nub of flesh with her tongue.
‘Sarah, please…’ he whispered, ‘I don’t want to take advantage… of… uh… the situation…’
His words faltered as her lips nuzzled. The smell of his skin made her hungry for more, and she suckled more eagerly, tasting the edge of salt and arousal in his pores. Pushing his hips away from her, she lay along the sofa, her mouth clasped to his breast, her own breasts invitingly close to his face. He blasphemed softly as he pressed his cheeks between their inviting softness. Lifting her mouth a moment, she murmured, as she remembered Jo saying, ‘Neither god nor the devil can touch us here… They have no rule in this house…’
‘Who does…?’ His words were a muffled groan against her firm, yielding skin.
‘I do,’ she said, sinking her teeth onto his chest, nipping him lightly. He wailed in shock, and then she squealed, as his teeth found her nipples. All carefulness, all gentleness, was forgotten. Savagely, they bit into each other, rubbed their faces over the aching sensitive flesh, and suckled as hungrily and fiercely as babies, remembering long-forgotten rhythms. She needed him, her veins thrummed with longing. The intensity was too much to even tear off his clothes and pull him into her. She had to take everything she could now, give everything she could, as they were…

Curled in the foetus position, in mirror images, their mouths were drinking straight from each other’s hearts and still it wasn’t enough. Her nails dug into the small of his back to pull her along his body, and sink her face into the heat of his crotch. Her hips lay in front of his face, and he groaned deep in his throat. Clutching handfuls of her long skirt, he hauled it above her hips and her cleft lay bare to his view. She scrabbled at his jeans as she felt his mouth close on her full lips. The scent of his groin was intoxicating her. She could see the tight seams straining around the hard protrusion, as she fumbled at the buttons. At last, she ripped them open, pulled his boxers down, and his cock sprang out. His tongue was running over the length of her slit, up and down, again and again. His hips strained towards her mouth. With one movement, she pushed his jeans down his thighs and lowered her mouth onto him. As he felt the succulent warmth engulf him, he slid his tongue inside, to touch her delicate bead. Her clasping lips and busy tongue slithered up and down him, tasting the sweet stickiness at the top and coating his shaft with slippery saliva. He was lapping deftly at her, gliding his tongue between her lips to taste her juice, and returning to the sensitive tip. She kept her thighs close together and relished the slow agony of lust building inside her. Even so, she pressed her hips closer and closer to him, and with each movement took him deeper. She tipped her head, the better to swallow his thick member. Wrapping his arms around her legs, he forced his palms between them and slowly spread her open.

For a few moments, he lay still, his senses overwhelmed. His nostrils and taste buds were full of her juice, his cock strained in the slick grip of her throat, her flowery folds were exposed to his eyes, her intermittent whimpers of bliss sounded in his ears. He lowered his mouth slowly again. His hand fanned, and two fingers probed at the small, moist aperture. As the opening yielded to and clutched at his digits, her mouth released him and she howled in delight. That animal sound sent a new wave of lust rolling over him. Swiftly, he swung astride her and lay pressed against her, feeling her breasts crushed under his hard stomach. With his mouth drawing furiously on the sweetness of her clitoris, he dug into her with his hand, and played her screams of bliss like a violin. Wild with ecstasy, her lips darted all over him. She licked at his balls, tongued his shaft, nibbled his glans, clutched his thighs, and wailed. Her flailing hand found his shaft and grasped it. It felt as firm as a rudder against her palm. While her mouth lapped and sucked at his tip, her fingers slid along the sticky length in a perfect echo of his fingers’ rhythm within her. Her thighs spread as far apart as they could, the inner muscles drawn tight. Her hips bucked in time with his.

She could feel the shining ball of gold deep inside her, spreading along her veins like a spider’s web. For once, she did nothing to hurry it, just felt it spread and savoured the taste of him wantonly. The pitch of her wails rose. All her body, every vein and muscle and particle of soul, seemed to shimmer in anticipation. Slowly, his fingers withdrew, his mouth lifted. Her mouth and fingers stilled. In silence, he shifted from her. She lay motionless and breathless on the sofa, her thighs still parted, as he stood. Now that the moment was upon her, she felt a thrill of fear that she had never felt before. Her skirt, she realised, was still bunched around her waist. He dragged his jeans off his feet. Bending over her, he pulled her skirt over her head. The intensity of his eyes made her tremble when she met them. Both he and she seemed to be wading through dark gold air in slow motion. The very walls of the room seemed to hum with tension. She watched, frozen and burning, as he knelt between her widespread legs and leaned slowly forwards. His mouth touched hers as that blunt, blind tip touched her entrance. In unison, his tongue and his staff nudged at her different lips. She shuddered, feeling the suspended, shimmering frenzy returning. His lips pressed hard against hers as his flesh fought against the straining passageway. He seemed to be dividing her in two, as his thickness pushed gradually and relentlessly inwards. Her pussy felt as if it were screeching with ecstatic need, her breasts heaved against him, his lips had not yet left hers. Her hips bucked against the unyielding rod, unable to wedge it deeper. Kissing her deeply, he clasped her shoulders tenderly in his hands, and with one hard shove sank fully into her. The uncontrollable yelling of her orgasm was caught in that first, long kiss.

When at last she subsided, they were kissing still. Their tongues entwined languorously. Slowly, he withdrew to half his length, and pushed gradually into her. She received him, deep inside her, with a sensuous moan. Again, he pulled away, and unhurriedly sank to the hilt in her again. Her legs closed beneath him, leisurely, enclosing him even more tightly. Their thighs pressed; their arms wrapped around each other. With each motion, all the skin on her body rubbed smoothly along his. A rich ache built inside her as he kept on grinding slowly. Their breath came faster, they began to pant, their hearts beat furiously against each other’s breasts, and still he maintained the same, steady pace on top of her. Each time he drove slowly into her, he seemed to fill her more. All her body was glutted with him, every cell crammed and ready to burst with intensity. Her head swam as she drowned in his kisses. The raging passion was unbearable, his barely controlled thrusts dizzied her. His gasping breath was hot on her cheeks. The pounding of his veins echoed in her ears. She felt something deep, far down in the depths of her, awaken, as she approached the excruciating crux, she began to scream as he did, the sounds lost to her passion-deafened senses. Her whole body clenched his as she reached the summit with him, and sank into unconsciousness.

The room was small and built of rough, untreated wood. Daylight hardly penetrated the gloom. A forest of drying herbs hung from the ceiling, brushing her hair as she pulled her thick skirts up to avoid the thick mud around the doorway. Despite the dimness, she knew the exact shape of each bunch and each of its leaves – the long, trailing leaves, the tiny spear-like ones, the small serrated ones. Stray fragments crumbled into her hair as she passed, imparting their dusty perfume. She shaded her eyes against the brilliant sunrise with one hand, the other dangling by her side, holding the water jug. Warm, southerly wind lifted tendrils of her hair. Far in the distance, squinting in the light, she could see the breast-shaped rise of Round Hill, and silhouetted against it on the far side of the river, the gilded silhouette of her darling. As she watched, two horse-riders cantered up the meadow towards him. In horror, she saw the menacing steeds closing on him. She was sick with dread as she sank to her knees, pulling her fingers through the mud. She felt the grainy muck under her fingernails, but didn’t look down; her eyes were fixed on him. Round and round her tracing hands moved, stabbing and smoothing at the wet ground, she had to do it faster – she had to move faster – she was muttering under her breath, she mustn’t look away, the bile of fear was rising in her throat…

A violent fit of choking ended the murmuring litany. As she spluttered, a warm arm gripped her around the waist, a hand patted her back hard. She drew breath at last, through her gagging coughs, and felt the welcome oxygen spread through her veins.
‘You’re okay!’ she exclaimed, falling into his arms in weak relief. Her head lay against his chest, feeling the warm lifeblood flowing through his skin. ‘I was so worried – it was so awful…’
‘You were worried?’ said Adrian in disbelief, tilting her head back to look at her. ‘I’m okay? You passed out cold!’
Sarah looked around her in confusion at the spacious room, full of soft furnishings and warmth, with its high ceilings. A few candles still glowed.
‘I… had the weirdest dream.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s still with me – it felt so important. You were there, you were in terrible danger, these men with horses were coming for you, but the water was between us and I couldn’t do it fast enough.’
‘Do what fast enough?’
With his arms wrapped safely around her, the dream was evaporating, shreds of it flying away as her full consciousness returned.
‘I don’t know… It was important, it was so important.’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘I had mud under my fingernails.’ She examined one hand, half-expecting to see the soil still ingrained.

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Want a bit more? There's another excerpt on my website - and if it tickles your fancy just right, tell the postman to bring you one or download the hands-free audio-version. Don't forget to add a comment below to be entered into the draw for a signed copy.

The Ten Visions: UK release, 5 July 2007

Ghosts! Mysterious pictures! Strange dreams! Sinister supervisors! Passionate encounters! True love! And all set in Oxford...

...but enough about my life...

The Ten Visions is now haunting a shop near you... At the end of this month, you'll get a tasty excerpt in our usual Smut Slot, but if you can't wait till then, it's now at Amazon and in the shops. (Waterstones keeps theirs in a special "Erotica" section - heaven forbid that anyone browsing for fiction accidentally pick up a book with sex in it - while Borders considers it Romance.)

There's an audio version here, with a sample that even your mother could listen to without blushing (though the rest of the book might get her a little hot-under-the-collar). You can also read an excerpt on my website...

About The Ten Visions

'Jo - I don't know what you think, but I don't believe in ghosts.'
'Sarah, my darling.' He took her hand in his again and held it to his cheek. His skin was cool and smooth on the back of his hand, his cheek bone sharply sloped. 'Tonight you made love with one.'

The moment she starts her doctorate in Oxford, Sarah is beset with mysteries. An old portrait in her rented house bears an uncanny resemblance to her. A new lover insists he's a ghost. Her attractive, sinister supervisor obstructs her research at every turn. An ordinary hill on the meadow fills her with fear - and not just her, but also the man with whom she falls in love. And every time she has sex, she hallucinates strange places and other times.

With her own life and soul at risk, Sarah uses sex-magic and a sequence of visions to travel between different times, worlds and places. On an epic journey, she battles an ancient evil to solve a mystery dating back centuries - a mystery that holds the truth of her origins and purpose.

Read an excerpt | Find the audio version | Find it on Amazon