Holding Cynthia
(Romancing the Coast, book 2)
by
Libby Campbell
Release date July 13th, 2017 by Blushing Books
Genre / keywords: Erotic contemporary DD romance, second chance, Canadian erotica, mature love/ beaches
Total length: 61,400
Artwork attached separately
Taglines
Antony says: Princess, I’ve seen you submissive. I’ve never seen you weak.
Blurb:
Antony Jacobson first held Cynthia Donohue in his arms at a wintry December wedding. Four months later, the statuesque, silver-haired woman continues to haunt his thoughts.
Cynthia is about to move to the West Coast to be closer her daughter. As her plane touches down in her new city, she steels herself to cope on her own. When she finds Antony waiting at the arrivals gate, a wave of gratitude and desire floods through her.
A lifetime of independence hasn’t prepared Cynthia for a submissive role in a relationship. She craves love, romance, and someone to share sunsets. But deep down she believes her dreams are out of her reach. Worse, they are a betrayal of her feminist principles. That’s fine: indomitable, handsome Antony will wait.
She is tired and aching beyond all memory so Antony takes charge. Very quickly, he realizes there is something wrong, very wrong, with Cynthia’s health. He insists that she see a doctor.
She says he is overprotective. He agrees. He is also determined to look after her if she won’t look after herself. A trip over his knee shakes Cynthia to the core. In spite of herself she likes – she wants – this loving correction. More importantly, she agrees that he may be right about seeing a doctor.
Is Antony too much, too soon, or is he just what the doctor ordered?
Publishers’ note: Holding Cynthia is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Tough stuff, but worth it. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books’ or the author’s advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or spanking of minors.
Excerpt
Antony opened his arms. “Come here.”
Cynthia tilted her head, not understanding what he wanted.
“Come. Sit on my knee for a bit, we’re going to have a little talk.”
She saw awkwardly on his left thigh and he responded by lifting her legs up, so they draped over the right arm of the chair. There was no choice but to put her arm around his neck for balance.
He bounced her a couple of times. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It is.” She leaned into him, enjoying the softness of his beard rubbing her face.
“I’ve told you I’m going to spank you. How do you feel about that?”
“I haven’t been spanked since I was a little kid and even then it was just a couple of fast swats.” She shrugged. “I guess I’ll try anything once.”
“If you and I are going continue seeing each other, you’d better be prepared for it to happen on a regular basis. How long and hard the spankings are will depend entirely on you.”
She bent her head, hiding behind the curtain of her silver bob that draped in front of her face. “Really?”
“I’m a lover not a fighter,” he said, hugging her gently. “Spanking is a way of clearing the air between us. It keeps things on an even keel, relieves built up tension.”
“You mean your tension about what I do?”
“For the most part, yes. I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m going to be the leader in our relationship. You are an amazingly strong and capable woman. But you’re also stubborn and willful. You’ve been boss of your own life for so long, you think you you’re taking care of yourself, that you’re self-aware. But you’re not. You know some of the things that you’ve been doing like taking care of business, taking care of your mother, your daughter, your father. That’s not looking after yourself. That’s looking after community which is important.”
He held her a bit closer. “But you can’t look after anyone if you don’t look after yourself. Everything I’ve learned about you tells me your needs haven’t been looked after for a very long time. No one who is looking after themselves gets so exhausted they can’t manage a half hour walk. You need someone to watch over you. If you’ll let me, I’d like that to be me.”
She leaned into him, tired to the core, grateful just to be sitting on his lap. “I’d like it to be you, too. I think. I don’t know. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have someone telling me what to do all the time.”
“I’m not going to tell you what to do all the time. Not only are you too smart to need that, it would bore me too quickly to have to do it. I’m only going to take control when I can see that you’ve lost your way.”
He lifted her chin, meeting her eyes. “Does that sound fair?”
“Sure.” She brushed a lock of hair behind her ears.
“Do you know why I’m going to spank you today?”
Don’t miss these other great books from Libby Campbell and Blushing Books:
Winning Sadie is also available as an audio book from Audible. Buy it here.
Libby Campbell, spanking writer and mischief maker
Libby Campbell writes in the bay window of her mock-Tudor home. Her muse is fueled by coffee, chocolate, and many cups of fragrant tea. Libby and her leading man share a love of hiking, beach walks, road trips, and an occasional night of dancing. They live in a leafy, seaside neighborhood on a rocky Canadian island.
Libby savors her evening bubble baths where she sings along to her favorite music, safe in the knowledge that no one can hear her. She loves all animals, but particularly small dogs with big attitudes and big ones who think they are lap dogs. A woman for all seasons, Libby is happy cuddling in front of a winter fire, watching a summer sunset, listening to birds in the spring, and walking in the autumn rain.
Optimistic by nature, Libby wants a solid HEA in her reading and her writing. She writes the stories she wants to read. To see what she’s working on now, or how she formed her earlier novels, visit her Pinterest boards where she pins pictures that inspire her characters and their worlds.
Connect with Libby Campbell on social media:
Follow her on Twitter: @LibbyC26
Author Q&A
Libraries or bookstores?
Both. I love my local library. I mean love it. At Christmas I take the librarians a bit box of chocolates to say thank you for their help. But I can’t resist stores either and Victoria BC has a few outstanding, independent bookshops. I have to talk sternly to myself before I go into them. A person has only so much shelf space after all.
Then there is Amazon. How great is it? I want to read a book? A minute later it’s on my Kindle. Magic!
If I love an ebook or a library book, I buy a print copy so I can have it to hold and cherish.
What genres do you write in?
This one – erotic fiction, which I love. It’s playful and fun but still challenges me to write well.
In the past, I’ve also had one YA book and one contemporary fiction novel published as well.
Do you like to outline or just dive right in when writing?
As a minimum, I draw a graph, outlining the acts, the change in the ordinary world, the halfway point, the crisis and the climax. Then I scribble all over it as my story builds.
Recently I’ve started collaborating on a time travel novel with another Blushing author. This has forced both of us to do a lot more outlining. We have an enormous spreadsheet with all our chapters outlines on it as well as ancillary spreadsheets that collect character details and research points.
Where do you find inspiration for writing?
In the world around me: in what I read, what I see, what I hear on the news. Stories pop up in my head constantly but there’s a lot of chaff in that wheat.
One thing for sure, once I’m writing a novel, I’m always surprised at how the universe starts to ‘speak’ to me about it. For instance when I found the perfect house for Simon and Sadie to buy in Sadie Says I Do, I wondered what obstacle might make it hard for them to move in quickly. Later that same week, I read an article about a prominent Canadian whose house sale was snarled up with liens by the Canada Revenue Agency (our tax office)
If you could travel to any time, what time period would you like to explore?
I’d love to visit Victorian England if I could live as one of the upper classes. My roots are English but, on my mother’s side at least, my family were the ruled, not the ruling class.
I’d want to be the Victorian lady with a handsome, stern but loving husband who lets her sleep until 9, shop for fine clothes, and play cards until early morning hours.
Do you have a favorite vacation spot?
My favorite vacation spots are quiet and remote; I don’t seek bright lights. I’ve spent months in the Australian outback which I adored.
These days, my husband and I frequently escape to Salt Spring Island, in the Canadian Gulf Islands (the other half of Washington State’s San Juan Islands). Seguro Island in the Simon in Charge series and Seeing Ronnie is a fictional island based on Salt Spring. A lot of the features are the same: the lovely ferry ride to get there, the Saturday markets, the wonderful hiking trails in the forest, and the history of the blacks who moved there to escape slavery.
We love Salt Spring because of the lack of light pollution. On summer nights we sit on the lawn, listening to the frogs, watching the bats come out to feed, while counting shooting stars.
Thanks for sharing and check out other authors on the Never Ending Tour,
Anita
