Five Reasons to Read Sweet Spot by Lucy Felthouse (@cw1985)

I've been really enjoying introducing this blog's readers to other Hot Pink authors, and I'm absolutely delighted to have Lucy Felthouse here today to discuss her contribution to the series!

Thanks so much to Annabeth for having me here today—I’m so excited to have a title in the Hot Pink series along with you!


So, without further ado, here are five reasons to read Sweet Spot:

1. Because Wimbledon starts next week, and what better way to get yourself in the mood for a tennis tournament than reading some tennis sports romance?

2. Because Los Carlos Tennis Academy is packed full of some seriously sexy athletes. First we had Travis Connolly from Grand Slam for those who like men, and now I’m catering for those who love ladies with Virginia Miller and Nadia Gorlando.

3. Shower sex. Who doesn’t love some shower sex? Especially when it’s all steamy and soapy, and features two smokin’ hot women?

4. The intrigue. Yes, this is an erotic romance novella, but I tend to let my books lead me where they want to, and this led me down the thriller path, to an extent. There’s some serious non-romantic action and angst in amongst the lady loving, in this book.

5. The tennis. The Raw Talent series was born when Lily Harlem sent me a chapter which is now the first chapter of Grand Slam, and although I’m no sports expert, I grabbed on with both hands and went along for the ride. Now I’m on my second sports romance and planning more! Watch this space for my next sports romance, which, all being well, will be a femdom novella. Yum.

Happy Reading,

Lucy x

*****

Excerpt:

Nadia Gorlando and I had just gotten off the exercise bikes in the gym when one of the academy’s coaches, Peter Ross, headed over to us, all smiles.

“Hey, Nadia,” he said, his all-American grin widening and his blond hair flopping down over his forehead, “I need a huge favor.”

I flicked my gaze to Nadia. She raised one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows and waited for him to continue. He did.

“I totally lost track of time just now and I have an appointment with Travis Connolly. Would you mind wiping down my machine for me? Or maybe stick a note on it saying it’s out of order? I don’t want to leave it all sweaty for someone else. You’ll be doing me a real solid. I’ll owe you.”

My jaw almost hit the floor.

Now Nadia rolled her eyes, looked over at the offending machine, then back at Peter. “Sure, I understand,” she said, as cool as ice. “The world’s number one can’t wait. Go right ahead—I’ll fix it for you.”

He babbled a load of thanks, then jogged out of the gym.

I gaped at her. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”

Nadia chuckled. “Of course not. He may be coaching Travis Connolly and Rufus Lampani for the US Open, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to clean up his mess.” She pointed with her chin over to the machine Peter had just vacated. “Come on, V, I’ll show you how I’m going to deal with this.”

I followed her, grinning. Her tone told me that it was going to be something fun. Well, for us, anyway. Probably not for Peter.

Sure enough, when she returned from the room off the side of the gym, she had a pad of paper and a pen in her hands. Deliberately shielding the pad from my view, she wrote something down, then pulled off the top sheet. Folding it, she then propped it on the sweat-slicked seat so the writing was on view to anyone who happened past.

When I’d read and absorbed the words, I turned to Nadia, impressed. Her smile lit up her face, showing dimples in each cheek, and her brown eyes gleamed with amusement.

It was in that moment that I decided I had the serious hots for Nadia Gorlando.

The sign read,

PLEASE EXCUSE THE STATE OF THIS MACHINE. PETER ROSS, TENNIS COACH SUPREMO, “LOST TRACK OF TIME”.

*****

Blurb:

A Raw Talent book.

Virginia Miller is an up-and-coming tennis star. She’s gone from a ratty tennis court in a park in south London, England, to the world’s top training facility—Los Carlos Tennis Academy in California. In awe of the talent around her, Virginia is all the more determined to make the most of the opportunity and show that she’s worthy of her place there. Her mentor, Nadia Gorlando, has every faith in her.

But Virginia finds herself distracted—Nadia, as well as being a top-notch tennis player, is seriously sexy, and Virginia’s mind keeps wandering where it shouldn’t. Will her crush get in the way of her career, or can she find a way to push the other woman out of her mind before it’s too late?

Buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/sweet-spot/

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21521972-sweet-spot

*****

Author Bio:


Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100 publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women's Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house. She owns Erotica For All, is book editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth of The Brit Babes. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

*****

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On 'Throwing Like a Girl'

Recently, I was playing a tabletop role-playing game, and my character wanted to throw something. I rolled for it, and the dice didn't go my way. "You throw like a girl!" said the gamemaster, not once but four or five times, seeming to need to repeat the phrase as he reached the conclusion that my character had failed.

I smiled, but my chest burned. For years, I would have let that one slide, or nodded to it with a sense of shame, but these days I've learned a lot more about feminism and how to be a nice person, and I was angry at myself for letting him get away with that one.

I grew up about as far from feminist as possible. In my family, it was totally cool for men to tell women to go get them a glass of water, not as a joke, but as a command. Pretty early on, I decided that the way to deal with this was to avoid being seen as a girl as much as possible. I was not naturally talented at the activities traditionally associated with guys, but I tried really hard. I was jealous of the girls I'd read about who were just so good that they became pitcher of the boys team, or some such. I wanted to be a tomboy, but there were so many ways that I never felt I could really cut it.

I never got anywhere close to good, but I persistently beat my head against that wall. I played baseball, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and touch football. I was the first girl to ever attempt to participate in a game at my school called "beaming," which was an anarchic form of dodgeball that involved getting control of a rubber ball and throwing it at a random person as hard as possible. I was picked last for teams, was made fun of by boys and girls, and sweated out my recesses working damned hard to acquire skills every (boy) around me seemed to have been born with.

This behavior lasted all through elementary school, middle school, and early high school, pretty much until I discovered sex, at which point I became occupied by doing something else with the boys. I tried to have sex like a boy, too, but that's a post for another time.

Looking back, I don't know why I didn't go off and do something a little easier for me. I think I did like things about what I was doing. It was nice to be outside, nice to run around rather than attempting awkward conversation with the girls, nice to use my body even if it didn't always seem to take to what I was trying to do. For a very bookish girl, I think it felt great to feel strong, whenever I could manage it. I'll also never forget how it was whenever I wrested some accomplishment out of sports, such as the first time I threw a football with a perfect spiral.

It used to bother me that I wasn't great at sports because I wanted to prove people wrong when they said girls couldn't play well. The truth, however, is that I often could not prove that. I wasn't in the top 10 or even the top 50, and I probably never could have been. I was, however, not the very worst player, and I was of course far better than people who never played at all. Once, in college, the music class I TA'd for had a pickup baseball game, and I discovered I was the best damn player on the field, mostly because I knew which hand to put the glove on and how to swing a bat (my college was pretty bookish, what can I say).

So this was a big issue for me for a lot of years. For so long, I fought and fought against "playing like a girl" or "throwing like a girl" or even being a girl, really. But when the gamemaster told me my character threw "like a girl," this time I wanted to take him outside and see how he handles a football. My character may not have known how to throw well, but this girl throws like a person who worked really hard at something that didn't come naturally. Other people throw with talent, or like a person who never went outside, or who knows what. These days, I like being a woman and being seen as one, so I don't need to be good at sports to deny my femininity. On the other hand, I take deep offense to being told I'm not good enough just because I'm a girl, as well as to having all that hard work treated as if there's no possibility that it could even have existed.

I wish I'd spoken up then, but it makes me feel a little better to speak up now.