Tag Archives: janine ashbless

The Prison of Angels by Janine Ashbless is out — aka more Egan!!!

You know when you have a crush on a character? First let me say that Janine Ashbless is a magician, this series is so compelling and more time for me to spend with my crush, Egan! Janine has been very kind to interview him for me and yeah, I am swooning! Come spend some time with me, Janine and Egan–and of course get the book if you have not already!!!

Janine Ashbless: Today I’m here with Egan Kansky, one of the two main men in my new novel, The Prison of the Angels. Egan is a renegade priest-slash-trained-killer working for a secret agency within the Vatican, and his rival in love is a fallen angel; they’re both after my heroine Milja. Hello Egan – you’re looking good!

Egan: Sure, thanks. I think.

JA: I mean, at the end of the previous book, In Bonds of the Earth, you were literally dying.

Egan [coldly]: I got better.

JA: Roshana had beaten seven shades of hell out of you, hadn’t she? Smashed both your legs. Broke a bunch of ribs.

Egan: Nephilim are deadly dangerous. And they only get worse after you kill their bodies. That’s how you end up with demons.

JA: But Milja dealt with her. She told you how, I presume?

Egan: She did. She’s incredibly resourceful, is Milja. And brave. And loyal — in her own way… Sure, I’d have left the Big Guy to rot, in her position. But she went back for him, despite the odds.

JA: You make a good couple, you two. And you’ve let slip to her how you feel about her, at last. Yay! You’ve told her twice, in fact; you just don’t remember the first time.

Egan. Ah … that wasn’t smart of me. We both know that it can’t happen.

JA: Funny how it keeps happening, then. You just can’t stay away from her, can you? Can’t keep your hands off her, either. We know what happened in that lodge in Norway last night!

Egan [looks uncomfortable]: I never said I was a good man. Just the opposite, actually.

JA: Yeah… I remember last time we talked. But, for the record, I want to tell you I enjoyed writing your sex scenes even more than I did those for fallen angel Azazel. In this love triangle I’m sort of on your side, to my amazement.

Egan: What do you mean?

JA: I know Azazel’s technically better-looking, ‘cause he’s an angel, and he’s like this non-stop sex-machine, and he’s even sort of sweet in his murderous Baphomety way…

Egan: Is this your idea of a pep-talk?

JA: But you — Wow. You are so complicated! You are a mess of contradictions, and you’ve got these layers and layers of half-lies and denial and really serious kink and darkness under a shell of “nice”. I’ve just loved finding out about you! You’re like a puzzle that I’ve had to solve while writing the trilogy. And every time you get close to Milja it’s, like, more agony and anguish for you! It’s really hot, from my point of view.

Egan: You’re a bit of a sadist, aren’t you, Ashbless?

JA: And don’t you respond well to that! Come on, Egan — you love it when Milja pushes you to the edge. It drives you nuts when you’re constrained and out of control. I mean, if we look back to the first book, Cover Him with Darkness, that very first time you met Azazel…

Egan: Whoa. We are not going there!

JA: Oh, we’re going further than that, lovely boy. I’ve got a scene lined up for the three of you that’ll send you to the edge and beyond. It’s going to break you, Egan. Don’t panic; you’ll thank me for it afterward.

Egan [through gritted teeth]: Oh, I really doubt that.

JA: You will. Because I’ve got to break you to make you open up to Milja. To tell her the thing that you’ve been hiding from her all this time.

Egan: You mean … about the other archangel? Rome?

JA: No. I mean about you. I mean that. You’re going to give up your secrets, Egan. Even the worst one in your heart. Because you can’t really love her until you trust her.

Egan: Please, no…

JA: C’mon. You know how I love it when you beg. [laughs] Brace yourself Egan — it’s got to get worse before it gets better…

The Prison of the Angels, the final novel in the Book of the Watchers trilogy, and the story of a young woman who releases a fallen angel from centuries of imprisonment, is now available from Sinful Press.

“When there’s war in Heaven, on which side will you stand?”

Sinful Press
Amazon UK

Praise for this series:

Book 1: Cover Him with Darkness

Book 2: In Bonds of the Earth

“An absolute must-read.”

—Rose Caraway, The Sexy Librarian

“Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, only much better written and with much more sexiness involved.”

—Clitical

“Oh it’s incredible. I love this series and the final book is a masterpiece.”

—Anna Sky, Sexy Little Pages

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure – and that’s “fantasy” in the sense of swords ‘n’ sandals, contemporary paranormal, fairytale, and stories based on mythology and folklore. She likes to write about magic and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000, and her novels and single-author collections now run into double figures. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave, among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology Geek Love.

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

www.janineashbless.com

Goodreads

Janine Ashbless Facebook

Amazon UK Author Page

Amazon US Author Page

Tie Me Up Made Janine Ashbless's Monday Blue

Yesterday the awesome Janine Ashbless hosted Tie Me Up on her blog, as part of her Blue Monday series. I am such a fan of Janine, who stopped by as part of her own Cover Him With Darkness book tour! So please run over, and read a hot Tie Me Up excerpt from Tabitha Kitten!

Psst…I Listen…

When one of my good friends told me that she listened to audiobooks a few years ago, I was surprised. I had not even ventured e-books at that time, I have long since popped my cherry on that. I am such a bibliophile, that it would be embarrassing the amount of books that I want to carry around with me most of the time! So e-books made it easier for me to both carry the books, and to switch from reading one to the other. But I did not judge my friend…that much. I even began to recommend books for her to listen to.
My audiobook cherry was popped when another good friend Malin James , had one of her stories on the Kiss Me Quicks narrated by Rose Caraway. Bound Unbound was the first story I listened to…go take a listen…I will wait…
Back? Okay, how could that not become an addiction?! I am still a devoted KMQ listener, and am psyched that the newest story is by Janine Ashbless…since I am not so patiently waiting to read her follow up to Cover Him With Darkness which I posted about here.
Considering an Audible membership was something I pondered while listening to the Kiss Me Quicks. I figured I would get one book, and be done.
I was not.
I did get several books Rose narrated–cannot wait for her Dirty Thirty audiobook to come out! Then I started branched out with Lily Horne who I follow on Twitter, this is her latest Audible release…and then more narrators…and different genres too…
Sometimes it is the most soothing thing to have a story told to you. It is a completely different experience from reading a book in your hands, or on a e-reader. The voice is given to you, and you follow it wherever it goes. Lily agrees with me, “Sometimes we just want someone else to read to us. Tell us a story. Allow us to sit back & be taken through words & a voice into the land that the book creates. Audio should somehow give yet another dimension to that world.”
Also, the story does not end until you stop listening. No more bumping into strangers on the street, because your head is in your book. If I missed that, I still have fiddling with my phone to replace it! The downside is books finish faster because I am insatiable, and then I need another to replace it. Which does not bother me in the least. Audible has no problem coming up with deals for me to indulge my need!
I listen now a lot to other storytelling podcasts, one for the New Yorker for example. I love this article Rose wrote about audiobooks, and the evolution of reading.
I like listening, and you see? Birds of the same feather flock together–now my friend and I suggest audiobooks for each other. Today, I bought five new novels on an Audible sale for the first book in a series…you see where this is going!

The Cover Him With Darkness Tour Stops Here Today!

Cover me with darkness–I cannot even begin to tell you how decadent this book is! I already knew that Janine Ashbless was brilliant as a writer, and eagerly signed up for her blog tour because it was Janine Ashbless! Cover Him With Darkness did not disappoint, it exceeded everything I could have wanted. Reading the novel, was like being consumed. I am not exaggerating, there were times I lifted my head from it and I was gasping for air. It is that intense. Not wanting to give any spoilers, there is a lot of sexiness from the time Azazel is introduced to us, he’s a great character and I could have been seduced by him…but it was Egan who became my crush while I was reading the book. He was always with Milja, and reminded me of a character in Louisa May Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase. He is nothing like that character, but they do share something in common that again, I do not want to create any spoilers. I asked Janine–as any girl with a crush would do–to tell me EVERYTHING about Egan. And she more than satisfied my curiousity, so here is Janine with everything you need to know about Egan!

Egan … oh Egan. I’m so glad you asked about him! Many of the readers of Cover Him with Darkness are so busy watching Azazel (“Fallen angel! Big scary sexy jerk! OMG what’s he doing?!”) that they seem to overlook the other hot guy in Milja’s life.
Not that I can reveal too much – Sorry! There are more books to come after Cover Him, and Egan will be back. He hasn’t abandoned all hope of saving Milja, or of defeating Azazel. He’s still bound by duty. And by the end of that first book you should have picked up some idea where that duty lies.
Egan works for a group called Vidimus: “We Have Seen” in Latin – and what they have seen is something they dare not tell the rest of the world. He comes into Milja’s life innocently enough – or so it appears – he drops everything when she begs for his help, and calls in favors to save her neck and get her away from her family and the church that is hunting her down. He’s the perfect White Knight.
Milja adores that. She’s spent her life longing for a wounded and helpless angel. The real thing has turned out to be not as sweet as she imagined, and though she’s still obsessed with Azazel, Egan’s goodness is massively appealing to her.
But no one’s perfect.
In an early chapter Egan lets slip, while they are talking about dumb things they both did as teenagers, that he had a habit of falling head-over-heels for unattainable women who already had bigger sexier boyfriends. Oh dear. Old habits are hard to break! The white knight falls for the maiden he rescues. Her vulnerability – and the fact that Azazel could kill him stone dead for a single wrong move – make her an irresistible match. So he spends the rest of the novel being more and more torn between what he must do and what he wants.
When I was developing the characters and writing, I wanted to find contrasts between my two main men. Azazel is dominant, powerful, arrogant, narcissistic … and honest. He does not lie to Milja. He’s almost too simple to lie. He doesn’t understand the value of manipulation. Egan is respectful, clever, self-sacrificing, and he staunchly refuses to take sexual advantage of Milja, even as he becomes ever more attracted to her. He’s undoubtedly a Good Guy. But Egan is hiding so much stuff. There’s a medieval doctrine called ‘mental reservation’ that holds that while it’s a mortal sin to lie outright, anything that is not directly a lie is allowable – even if you know and intend it to be misleading. So for example Milja notices how surprisingly effective and brutal he is in a fight, and when she asks him about that, he tells her that he grew up playing hurling, which is a really rough Irish sport. Which is true as far as it goes; he just omits to tell her about his specialist military background…
All three of my main characters are damaged by their pasts. In later volumes we’re going to find out what it is that has broken Egan.
Egan’s not just in the book because love-triangles are hot (though they are) and to mess with Milja’s head (though he does). He’s the light contrasted with Azazel’s dark. And just as there is light in Azazel, when you look beneath the surface, there is darkness in Egan too.
Like there is in all of us, of course.

Darkness is a theme in Cover Him With Darkness, but there is a lot of light as well. I more than recommend you read it, because nothing goes the way you would expect. Janine brings you into Milja’s world, and you are there and you will get involved emotionally and physically in everything that happens. Cover Him With Darkness is published by Cleis Press and is available on Amazon. Take my word and Kate Douglas’s, as blurbed on the cover of the book: Janine Ashbless has created magic!