Book Spotlight - Faith by Ashe Barker #BDSM #EroticRomance

It's my absolute pleasure to have Ashe Barker over to talk about her latest release, and tell us a little about herself. 

Welcome, Ashe. And many congratulations on your new release. J

ASHE BARKER, FAITH

Hello Tara, and thank you so much for inviting me over today to chat a little about Faith, my latest release and the first with Stormy Night. It’s all been a bit of an adventure, but I’m loving every moment.

Faith goes on general release this week, and you’ll be able to grab a copy from Amazon.com

Faith is mainly set in Yorkshire in the UK, though the characters do get to do some globe-trotting. For Ewan, the hero, this is all in a day’s work – he’s a civil engineer specialising building sports stadia. He’s the go-to man whenever a major international sporting event is in the offing, and in Faith we see him regularly jetting off to Qatar to help build the venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

I love to travel, and this would be a dream job for me. It is for Ewan too, he likes the freedom, and thinks nothing of jetting off to the other side of the world at a moment’s notice. That is, until he starts to get up close and personal with the lovely little widow living next door. He is rarely in the UK, but soon finds he has more and more reasons to want to stay put.

In the story Ewan spends Christmas in Qatar. He describes cruising on a dhow in Doha bay, and listening to Christmas carols. Back in the day my husband and I used to like to go on holiday for Christmas, and I recall sunbathing on a beach in Lanzarote once, listening to the strains of Once in Royal David’s City drifting from a hotel nearby. You never know where inspiration for a scene might come from.

Do please feel free to leave a comment. Where is the most unusual place you ever spent Christmas? Or where would you most like to spend it?

(Tara: Ooh ooh, can I go first? I went to Canada for one Christmas and it was absolutely amazing. Coming from a temperate climate like Ireland, it was incredible to spend Christmas in -32 degrees F. It was the first time I had ever experienced such extreme cold. And boy do the Canadians know how to decorate for Christmas - it was incredible- a real winter wonderland.) 

Here’s the blurb…

After her husband’s sudden, tragic death, Faith is left widowed after only six months of marriage. She wallows in grief until a neighbour, Ewan, reaches out to her. Although his work takes him away a great deal, Ewan slowly becomes Faith’s rock, helping her heal and encouraging her as she struggles to rebuild her life. As time passes, Faith grows more and more attracted to Ewan, but one thing holds her back: Ewan is a dom, and she is not ready to be a sub.

Though the idea of kneeling naked at Ewan’s feet excites her in a way she can’t fully understand, Faith fears that his sexual appetites would prove too much for her. But when he discovers that she has been exploring the lifestyle without his knowledge and hiding her activities from him, Ewan issues an ultimatum: either she becomes his submissive, or they go their separate ways. This is just the push Faith needs, and in the end her decision is not a difficult one.

Ewan quickly proves to be a firm, commanding lover who is more than capable of mastering her completely. He challenges Faith’s boundaries and introduces her to a level of sensuality she never dreamed she could experience, and Faith soon finds herself at peace in a way she has not felt in years. But when fate takes another turn and she learns the truth about her husband’s death, can Faith count on Ewan to be by her side as she adjusts to a new reality yet again?

Publisher’s Note: Faith is an erotic novel that includes spankings, sexual scenes, anal play, extensive BDSM content, and more. If such material offends you, please don’t buy this book.

And here’s an excerpt from Faith. The heat is starting to build between these two.

Is your kettle on?

The text from Ewan pings onto my phone at around eight o’clock on the second evening after I return home. I reply straight away.

No

Ping. Wrong answer. I’m coming up your path now.

A moment later I’m still on my way downstairs to the kitchen when the knock sounds at my door. I detour to open it, and have to give myself a stern talking to about not flinging myself into his arms. He looks delicious. Sex on legs with a tan to die for. Is it all over?

“Hi. Come in. You look great.” There. That didn’t sound too needy, did it?

“You too. Nice Christmas?”

“Yes. I was at Helen’s, in Glasgow. You?”

“Cruising on a dhow in Doha bay. Listening to Once in Royal David’s City in forty-five–degree heat is a bit disconcerting. Still, the food was excellent.”

“Is that a hint that you’re hungry?”

“Ah, Faith, how well you know me. I just got back and I have nothing in. Any chance…?”

“Pizza okay?”

His smile dazzles me. I take myself and my dampening pussy off into the kitchen to raid the freezer while Ewan makes himself at home in my lounge.

I really need to get this lust thing under control before I make a fool of myself and embarrass him. He’s my friend, my neighbour. Nothing more. And my interest in him is surely just a sign of my loneliness and sexual frustration, possibly exacerbated by my upcoming anniversary. More to the point, it’s been six months since I had sex. I need to get laid.

Ed was good in bed. Well, enthusiastic certainly. I had no complaints. We weren’t in Caroline and Ewan’s league—not that I’m especially clear on just what that meant—but we were inventive enough. I recall Ed was somewhat sheepish the first time he suggested I might like to be tied to the bed. He needn’t have been; I loved it. He never gave me any indication he might like to progress his kink further and I confess it never entered my thinking then either.

It has now.

I keep remembering Caroline’s remark all those months ago about her dom and a gag. I recall her bruises, the marks she was so pleased with, so proud of. I imagine Ewan’s hands on her, creating those weals. And lord help me, I’ve started to wonder what those hands would feel like on me.

This has to stop.

A bit more about me…

Until 2010 I was a director of a regeneration company in Leeds, in the UK, before becoming convinced there must be more to life. So I left, and at last I’ve been able to realise my dream of writing erotic romance. I’ve been writing seriously for about two years but I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, erotic and other genres.  I love reading historical and contemporary romances in all pairings – the hotter the better. But now I have a good excuse for my guilty pleasure – research.

In my own writing I draw on settings and anecdotes from my own experience to lend colour, detail and realism to my plots and characters. My stories are often set in the north of England where I live but I draw inspiration from all over. An incident here, a chance remark there, a bizarre event or quirky character, any of these can spark a story idea. But ultimately my tales of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of my own lurid and smutty imagination.

On the rare occasions I’m not writing my time is divided between my role as resident taxi driver for my teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, rabbits, tortoises.  And most recently a very grumpy cockatiel.  I’m a rural parish councillor, and I’m passionate about evolving rural traditions and values to suit twenty first century lifestyles.

My other titles include the ‘Black Combe’ trilogies, The Dark Side, Sure Mastery, The Hardest Word and A Richness of Swallows, all set in the atmospheric moorland of West Yorkshire or Cumbria and with a strong BDSM theme. The Three Rs is a stand-alone novel set in Berwick in the Scottish border. I’ve also written a couple of short stories, Re-Awakening, and a raunchy pirate tale, Right of Salvage, as well as a novella, Carrot and Coriander. All are available from  Amazon.co.uk  Amazon.com   Barnes and Noble  All Romance 

I have a pile of story ideas still to work through, and keep thinking of new ones at the most unlikely moments, so you can expect to see a lot more from me.

I love to hear from readers. You can find me on my blog, and I’m on Facebook, and twitter too.

Thanks so much for coming to visit, Ashe. It strikes me that life for you in the north of England is nut unlike life for me in the west of Ireland, what with Mum's Taxi and the menagerie and the rural existence. It was lovely to get to know a little more about you and I look forward to reading Faith, the blurb is very intriguing.