Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (HIS)(RO)(LGBT)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from the steamy side of my imagination-- Loving Leonardo - the Quest -- (Book 2 in my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous romance-- the ongoing Loving Leonardo series.)

First my 8, then details after~

The area bustled with shipping business during the day and

business of another sort at night. The Bishop’s Moke sat at the end of a rather ratty street where fishmongers dumped their cleanings on the cobblestone for the dogs, cats, and vermin. I steeled myself to the street urchins picking through the stinking refuse for their own meal. Rome wasn’t the only city with the capacity to bring me low. Ahead the sound of St Mary-le-Bow’s church bells rang the eighth hour. A moment later, a cloying flower-over-fish odor enveloped me. In an instant, I was accosted by a prostitute. “Cor you are a ‘andsome one, what say you and I slip ‘round back and wet that wick o’ yours, eh dearie?”
     I attempted to take her arms from me, for in the gaslight I could clearly see that the rough-looking paint on her lips did little to hide the sores of syphilis. My bile rose.  

Behind the scenes for the snippet above:

Luca has gone missing and Conte Bruno would like nothing better than to find him. In the scene above, Nicolas, dressed in a working man's attire and going by a tip, searches the society’s hedges on London's Fleet Street.

 >>۞<<۞>>۞<<

"...a very sexy, smart, and scintillating read."
~Coffee Time Romance

Buy on Amazon

Save $$ -- Get books 1 & 2 in the Leonardo Chronicles!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞
Just 99¢! By the authors from Romance Books '4' Us

HOW to WIN OUR ENTICE ME CONTEST♥♥♥

In honor of the first anthology by the Authors of Romance Books '4' Us, we're running an additional October contest. Prizes include a $100 Amazon Gift Card and a terrific "super power" Romance Reader or Romance Author t-shirt. If you're into romances, the t-shirt will make you smile. 
Three ways to enter!
 

  ۞>>Weekend Happenings<<۞

My Main Blog
Saturday's Ramblings & Fun Day Sunday
http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

**NEW**
Sunday's Six of the Best
Madeline Archer's blog

http://madelinearcher.blogspot.com/

  Sunday's Six of the Best
Rose Anderson other blog
http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

The Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/

Sunday 7
(open promo opportunity for you!)
 http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

Rose Anderson writes award-winning intimate love stories.
Find them all wherever books are sold.
Sample the scorchers for free!

 >>۞<<۞>>۞<<

Subscribe to Calliope's Writing Tablet
for a Wide World of Interesting Topics
http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Subscribe to Madeline Archer's blog for
updates, excerpts, & more!

 http://madelinearcher.blogspot.com/ 

 

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's another bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
Over the past two days, I’d barely eaten a bite nor slept more than a few hours at best. Nightmares seemed to come the moment I closed my eyes. Card-dealing gypsies played a prominent role, as did their cards of doom. Rolling, bone-crushing carriages carrying screaming women or led by screaming horses competed for vividness with the caved-in face of the man I’d killed in Venice. I saw Thomas and Ellie savaged while torches blazed, and books, paintings, and ossuary bones fell from shelves and walls in an avalanche. In one nightmare, Luca emerged from a mangled carriage like a marble nude streaked in blood. In another, Bruno laid dead at the bottom of the staircase with staring facsimile eyes painted on his closed eyelids, which then opened to reveal the pale cold stare of a corpse. Several times I woke in a panic, having dreamt everyone I loved was dead or gone. I missed Ellie and Luca desperately at night. While I’d had several nightmares since leaving Venice, usually I was able to fall back asleep by simply feeling their bodies against mine.

What just happened~A telegram to Nicolas necessitates he leave their quest in Paris and return to London ahead of the others. It's bad news, the addition of which adds to the growing unease that has already manifested several nightmares. Away from his companions, the disturbing dreams return full force. He can't shake the fear that something is brewing...



What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai. Discover the story in The Leonardo Chronicles.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>My Weekend Happenings<<<<۞

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up
for the summer. Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

Saturday's Musings & Fun Day Sunday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

۞>>>>NEW & COMING SOON<<<<۞

Find my scorching novels in ebook and paperback at
Amazon and Barnes & Noble and
wherever love stories are sold
Sample the First Chapters Here

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's another bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
We’d all been helplessly tossed upon a course that wasn’t of our own making, and it remained to us to survive it.

Small, nearly imperceptible changes unfolded before me as though a beam of sunlight passed over her portrait in a mightily compressed sense of time. I watched her pupils slightly dilate as they searched from one to the other of my own. The shift of emotion showed first in her eyes. This I felt it as much as I witnessed it, for more than our minds were connected; our hearts and souls were linked. Hunting down Leonardo’s book had been a lark. But what began as a lark had bloomed into companionship, commonality, and profound love between the three of us. Especially between us two. She needed me as I needed her, as we needed him.

Her face turned to my palm and I felt her kiss upon it.

What just happened~
Luca is missing and a murdering madman is at large. Nicolas and Ellie are strung tight as bow strings with worry. Prior to this scene, Nicolas finds his wife in a gaming salon disguised as a young man. When he gets her home, tears of fear and frustration follow. London is a big place and Nicolas doesn't know where to look next. Needless to say, tensions are high.

What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai. Discover the story in The Leonardo Chronicles.

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞

Romance Books '4' Us~ my Message in a Bottle post
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/07/message-in-bottle-by-rose-anderson.html

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up
for the summer. Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

Saturday's Musings & Fun Day Sunday

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

۞>>>>NEW & COMING SOON<<<<۞

Find my scorching novels in ebook and paperback at
Amazon and Barnes & Noble and
wherever love stories are sold
Sample the First Chapters Here

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~
I watched my wife prepare herself, standing before the wall mirror, her tongue poking in concentration as she arranged the pins in her hair and tightened the curls that were want to spill free. Several cinnamon strands wouldn’t cooperate and these she rolled around and around her finger until they were tight curls to be tucked under the rest. I was transfixed by the deliberate feminine processes whose end results were suggestive of the coifs of Degas’ ballerinas. Thomas was correct. Women were a breed apart, but as the French said, Vive La Différence!

She removed her blouse, skirts, and bustle, and for some reason my mind took a different turn. In my mind’s eye I saw her naked and gagged with a burlap sack over her head. For two days now my mind had been intermittently taken by that terrible image, followed by an instantaneous albeit short-lived feeling of dread. I couldn’t say why, but for some reason I felt it now. The sensation that Thomas often referred to as “a goose walking over a grave.” Kneeling, I helped her from her shoes and stockings. Lifting the hem of her camisole, I pressed my forehead to her bare belly and hugged her to me. How I loved this precious nymph.

What just happened~
Leaving the violence of Venice behind, my trio heads to Rome to follow clues in Leonardo da Vinci's book. Nicolas has been feeling a heavy sense of dread over the last few days. Here he takes a moment to appreciate his wife and the dread returns unbidden. Something is not quite right.


What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai.

There are two books in the ongoing adventure series and more to come. I invite you into a decadent Victorian world of artworks and secrets. Discover more in The Leonardo Chronicles. 

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞
Romance Books '4' Us~
Message in a Bottle
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/07/message-in-bottle-by-rose-anderson.html

#FreedomHop,My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up.
Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 
Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

My Main Blog ~ Thomas Jefferson's Edits

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Sample all of my love stories for free
including the one featured today!

See my Links page. I'm everywhere!

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~

Our quarters faced the fountain with its Egyptian obelisk in the center, and the ancient Pantheon just beyond. Luca procured a room two doors down. 

Rome was a bustling place with beggars and pilgrims packing the streets like so many sardines in a tin. Human nature being what it is, we decided to remove temptation and paid to have Ellie’s entire trousseau and my trunk brought into our rooms. There may be pious devotion here, but as we witnessed a half-dozen pickpockets in action, we were certain the counterbalance had a strong footing too.

I stood at the window looking down upon the busy street while Ellie attended to her toilette. I’d been in Rome on my grand tour and this visit, as the last, filled me with the same dichotomy of emotion. My eye was caught by a shriveled slovenly woman begging on the street below who had a babe in arms and no fewer than seven hungry, filthy children in orbit around her skirts. Within a few feet, a rotund cardinal with his bright red robes and matching wide-brimmed biretta walked by happily devouring his pastry. He didn’t give the starving children a second glance, not even the toddling child who held a beseeching hand out as he walked by.

What just happened~
On the hunt for fanciful declarations of love from Leonardo da Vinci to his long-time lover Salai, my companions have just arrived at their hotel in Rome. They plan to visit the Vatican Museum. Clues in Leonardo's book suggest a particular painting has da Vinci's message to his lover worked into it somehow. Nicolas has been to Rome before. As a sensitive soul, the stark contrast between the haves and have nots sits heavy on his heart.


What's at the heart of this unusual love story? 
Love knows no boundaries. Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance between the lines. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai.

There are two books in the ongoing adventure series and more to come. I invite you into the decadent Victorian world of Loving Leonardo and adventure to come. Discover The Leonardo Chronicles. Available for pre-order on Amazon and it costs less than buying separately!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞ 

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
 
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up.
Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
 
Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

My Main Blog ~ Interesting things all month long!

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Sample all of my love stories for free
including the one featured today!

See my Links page. I'm everywhere!

Weekend Writing Warriors #8sunday (RO)(ER)

It's Sunday and time for the Weekend Writing Warriors. Participants post 8-10 sentences from a writing project, either published or unpublished. Today it's a bit from The Leonardo Chronicles a bind-up of my award-winning, Victorian polyamorous series Loving Leonardo.

First my 10, followed by details~

We were hungry to experience life through complete abandon to the senses in the way of da Vinci himself, and if that meant wine at tea, then we’d happily partake.

Very much like the three of us, da Vinci was extremely curious with an insatiable desire to learn. He tested knowledge through experience and sensorial intake. In this he went so far as to implement the removal of senses such as sight, that the other senses might be enlivened, and included ambidexterity as a method to experience all. One of the most intriguing things about him was his eye for beauty; an eye where others were blind. His sketches of grotesquely deformed faces and bodies clearly proved it. This gift and his genius enabled him to go beyond conventional thought. I was coming to see Ellie and I as being very much like our friend Leonardo, for we too were a paradox to convention. 

Enjoying our continental merenda, we picked up the conversation where we’d left it the day before — discussing the ideals of classical antiquity that inspired the Renaissance and made da Vinci the man he was. I described to my companions how the artists of the time yearned for perfection in their work — the same perfect beauty Homer and Virgil strived to achieve in their verse.  

What just happened~
Absorbed in a new friendship aboard ship, newlyweds Nicolas and Ellie share a merenda with Luca and continue their discussion about Leonardo da Vinci. (A merenda is the Venetian version of afternoon tea) They haven't yet shared with Luca their quest for da Vinci's long lost book. It's turning out the three are indeed kindred spirits -- three sensitive souls yearning for their own version of perfection in the rapidly changing times of the Industrial Revolution.

What's at the heart of this unusual love story?
My little dog watches TV.  She really does. Nothing makes the little couch potato's day better than a good cat food commercial she can growl at. Cute.

I don't normally listen to the low drone in the background. One day the midday news came on and it caught my attention. It was a full hour of  negative social commentary -- ugly things like bigotry and sexism, forced medical procedures on women, and sneers and jeers at education.. like bettering oneself was a bad thing. Each bit of the news got under my skin like it never had before. There was just. so. much. My generation fought for equality as did those who came before. But it's very true when you finally get some ground under your feet, it feels so good to stand on the accomplishment, the thought of keeping that ground gets smaller in one's mind.

That's where Ellie came from, the heroine in Loving Leonardo. My unusual love story began with this negative news show. The issues I was hearing were Suffragette issues, and you'd think 100+ years later, we wouldn't have to fight for the same ground we'd already won.

The straw that broke this camel's back that day was one about long-time lovers kept apart because they were the same gender. That particular story was heartbreaking. The men had been partners for decades, their love for one another clear in their long commitment. But now one man lay on his deathbed. The other was fighting the courts to be by his side, but both ran out of time. From this tragic story my writer's mind created Nicolas and Luca.

I've felt for a while that society is sliding backwards and there's no doubt the ugliness is spreading. What's one romance writer to do?

Counter with love, of course.

As if directed by some unseen hand, I walked away from the novel I was working on and stepped into the past. My Ellie is a Suffragette and she loves two well-educated men who happen to love each other too. Yes, Loving Leonardo has a message of tolerance. Aside from that, it's an exciting, sexy romp through Victorian Europe on a quest for a book written and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci for his homosexual lover Salai.

There are two books in the ongoing series and more to come. I invite you into the decadent Victorian world of Loving Leonardo and Loving Leonardo -The Quest. Discover both in The Leonardo Chronicles. Available for pre-order on Amazon and it costs less than buying separately!

۞>>>>۞<<<<۞

۞>>>>More on my other blogs<<<<۞

My Sexy Saturday & Scintillating Sunday Showcase

http://calliopesotherwritingtablet.blogspot.com/

Weekend Writing Warriors

http://theancillarymuse.blogspot.com/
Too many weeds? I've left my wild foods recipes up.
Just scroll back and enjoy. Yum!

 http://calliopeswritingtablet.blogspot.com/
Sunday 7
**A promo op for you too!**
http://exquisitequills.blogspot.com/

My Main Blog ~ Interesting things all month long!

http://calliopeswritingtablet.com/

Sample all of my love stories for free
including the one featured today!

See my Links page. I'm everywhere!