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I'd like to start this entry by clarifying exactly what this release originates from and what that may or may not mean for the future... of the past. We gotta go back, Marty. We've also gotta talk about Amazon's filter in the post below this. That information is really important if you interact with erotica to any degree on Amazon, so check if out if you don't already know all about the filter. Heck, even Romance titles and things so tame as Ménage are getting filtered now. That put a filter over two of my Daemonique books.
For those following what I've been doing recently, the 17th century premise may have rung a bell. Indeed, Soulflame was originally to be the publicised extension of Cinders of the Soul, my recent short story challenge piece. As seems to always be the way however, my will to push for more and strive for better has seen this take off into becoming its own dedicated volume. Now, as is always the case with altering pre-determined events in history, you cause all sorts of hell and chaos for continuity. So I can't say exactly how much of the prior short story will survive in upcoming volumes.
So enjoy the short story as a gauge of my style and potential to be a little weird, but don't take it entirely as a forewarning of where fate will take us in Soulflame just yet.
That said, I've thoroughly enjoyed the premise behind Soulflame. All the research alone has made it quite enriching a time to work with. It's also quite a difficult and tragic time where life expectancy was around 35 and people were by and large illiterate. Female actors were also illegal. Those were all some of the things I wanted to capture with the theme of this story. We all have our issues in this day and age, discrimination and unfair treatment is a prickly thing under the skin of any workforce. So to travel so far out of that comfort zone and put the reader in a time where the rights of people were so warped from what we expect now, and have it discussed as though the most normal of things really hit as a good opportunity for me.
I love gothic and medieval fantasy as much as the next person, and this isn't far off those eras, but what really hits home is that this was real. Great great distant ancestors lived in this era, world-changing science and art was done in this era. Untold death was visited in this era. Beneath it all, unspoken love was shared in it, too. It's scandal upon scandal for it to have happened at all, not only lesbian emotion but between sisters, too. The heart knows no boundary though, even across all sense of space, time and society. A spark of love will warm the soul into untameable flames. Such was my reasoning behind the title, anyhow.
Currently I'm planning to make this title three volumes of unique content. 'The Spark', 'The Stage' and 'The Cinders', clinching and pulling the original title back in. You'll have to stick with me to see exactly what happens in each of those volumes.
Extended excerpt follows:
Had her sister been a man, it would have made some sense, but then had she been a man,
she would not have had that tender feel to her lips. She would not have had
that gentle swoon to her touch. Men were quite something else entirely, Alice
had decided, and not unfavourable, but not quite this. There was a closeness with Annabel in her heart that Alice
understood to mean belonging to a family.
It was a feeling that had been torn from her body and lost
for a time. Annabel had comforted her grieving and healed that wound with her
closeness over the years. Annabel was Alice’s closest friend and sister as sure
as any could be, but Anna had thrown a spark of something else into her heart,
and the warmth of it could not be smouldered.
As though to highlight the turn of events within her
thoughts, the skies outside boomed with raucous thunder that made her leap to
sitting as lightning flashed through the curtain. Alice could not stand
thunderstorms, and had been having a hard enough time sleeping without that
blazing overhead. A second boom tore through her room with such force as to
rattle the windowpane and make her ears throb.
Perhaps it was just the rain and wind upon her window that
shook it, but she did not care. It made the hair on the back of her neck rise
and saw to her curling into a fearful ball. Choices were few, and the last time
thunder had come in the night she had been blissfully unaware in sleep. It was not
looking to recede and grant her that peace tonight, however. There was only one
choice.
Pursing her lips and getting out of the bed, Alice left her
room and crossed to her sister’s door, knocking quietly. There was as much a
chance that she did not hear as that the rain drowned out her knocking, so Alice
knocked harder and pressed her ear to the carved wood a moment. Lightning
crackled violently through the sky, making her flinch under the boom to follow
it mere seconds later. That meant it was close.
“Anna? Are you awake? I’m opening the door.” Alice called
in an uneven quiver as she pushed the door open and stepped inside. With pillow
in hand, she looked no less sorry for herself than when the pair had been but
children that scurried to their parents bed when lightning struck. It seemed
Annabel had not been capable of sleep much better than Alice, and the woman
turned with a disorientated glaze to her eyes.
“Alice? Oh, don’t tell me…”
“Th-there is a leak in my window-frame and the shutter is
frightfully loud, that is all! I am not still scared of some thun-aah!” The
stagger of lightning through the thin curtains illuminated Annabel’s face in a
drowsy grimace that almost unsettled Alice as much as nature’s lashing had, and
her ruse was immediately spoiled.
“You’re a big girl now, Alice, but come along. I would not
like to witness you in a sleepless grouch come morn.” Annabel explained,
shifting over and offering her bedcover up as she pulled to the wall. The cot
was a decent enough size for one and a half, enough space to stretch and move
alone. The tension in Alice’s shoulders relieved itself a touch as she nodded
and sighed in relief. It would be hours till she got to sleep otherwise, if at
all.
“Thank you, sister.” Alice murmured, doing her best not to
mope from the need of her sister’s comfort. Placing the pillow on the bed and
leaning down to crawl in, something caught her eye that made her turn to
confirm it while her body sat and shifted. Annabel
was not wearing her nightgown. The warmth in Alice’s cheeks immediately
flared as she looked to the discarded garment and back to her sister as she
slid into the bed.
“You are not cold, sister?” Alice asked, edging closer and
pursing her lips as Annabel glanced to her and shook her head lightly, offering
an arm for her sister to rest on in comfort.
“You can see how humid it is by the storm alone, sister,
and it is coming into the summer. Nay, I do not tend to sleep with that.” Annabel explained in a sleepy
grumble. Alice nodded quietly and shifted closer, hooking an arm around her
sister’s bared waist and resisting the immediate urge to stroke and fondle it.
She truly was warm. Perhaps it was something Alice would need to take to doing
to cool herself, too.
“You are right, excuse me.” She whispered, shifting and
pulling her own off to lay in her underwear as her sister did. The simple white
cotton was a good enough covering for her decency, though did nothing to reign
in her mind’s indecency. Waiting for her to settle back down, Annabel cuddled
the arm around her sister and chuckled softly as she brushed and stroked at her
hair tenderly.
“Truly you are such a child, Alice. You recall when we
slept this way with Father, hm? Have him read us stories and stay with us till
we slept. Truth, for all I ask of you, my sister, I would not have you change
from who you are.” Annabel whispered in a jovial, light tone that spoke of her
amusement and pleasure to be with her sister. Anna gently patted the back of Alice’s
head and leant in to kiss Alice’s forehead, just the way Mother always did.
“Be as it may, I
think some things should change,
Anna.”
“Oh? Pray tell.” Those words alone would seal their fates
and see to coming change. They would see to her sister finally taking action.
Act before you live to regret it, before they die to leave you to regret it.
Alice could not hold it to herself, for the flames licked at the foundry of her
heart and soul. Alice grasped her sister’s shoulder and leant over her till
their noses touched. Not even the roar of thunder made her flinch.
They kissed.
Every bit as soft, as sweetly tender and wondrous as the
first. Nay, it was more than that,
for this time Alice took to it with intent. She wanted to kiss her sister, to envelop and return her the love and
life she had been blessed with. She could taste everything that made Anna her
sister in that embrace. Everything to the meal shared hours past and the
quickening of her breath from her nose brushed across their lips.
For the full story, please consider purchasing it from any of the following.
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