Archive for the ‘Spirit Willing Flesh Weak’ Category
May 27, 2008 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak
This is my cover for Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak in Italian, where it’s been retitled Tubino Nero (or, “Little Black Dress”). Cute, isn’t it?
November 3, 2007 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, contests
Hey, I’m going to give one more week to this contest. So far I have FOUR bonus prizes to give out….send me an email and make me give out even more prizes!
I went to Milton Keynes last night (invited by mega-popular author Carole Matthews) to give my talk on writing sex scenes to the Speakeasy writers’ group. It was a great group and I had fun. It’s amazing that, no matter how many times I give this talk, people come up with more and more double entendres and dirty puns. The human mind is truly resourceful.
That said, I have an apology to make. To the kind people of Milton Keynes who were so welcoming to me, and so interesting to meet, and who bought a copy of Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak: I apologise for the remark the hero, Harry Blake, makes on page 69. All opinions are the characters’ own.
October 18, 2007 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, reviews
Yesterday I received a package in the post from Headline. I had no clue what it was, since I’d already received my hardback copies of One Night Stand. Imagine my delight when I opened it and found lovely glossy trade paperbacks of Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak, in Dutch!
It’s called Charmante Leugen, which means “Charming Lies” and is very appropriate. I’m not sure where the yoga lady comes from but it’s an attractive cover, and, flipping through the pages, I have discovered that the Dutch word for “llama farm” is “lamafokkerij”.
Cool.
I also had a great email from a reviewer from the French cultural website Onirik (www.onirik.net). She’d reviewed Driving Him Wild (out in France as La maison des amants, “House of Lovers”), and sent me the link. My French is pretty rusty but even I can tell it’s a good review..it’s here.
September 5, 2007 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak
“My friend saw an advert for Spirit Willing in France,” said my friend, round my house to celebrate her first book sale to Robert Hale (yay Elizabeth!).
“What?” I shrieked, and ran off to my computer to check Amazon.fr. It’s not there. But maybe…soon…
June 2, 2007 | Asda, Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, The Sun, free book
It’s there! In the Sun! On page 30! Next to a photo of a dog in a bullet-proof vest!
Life is a little surreal sometimes.
(photo to follow)
May 31, 2007 | Asda, Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, The Sun, free book
Okay, so my lovely editor has returned from her holidays and I’ve found out what happened with The Sun. Apparently there was some warehousing mix-up.
ANYWAY it’s going ahead this weekend, which I think means this Saturday 2 June there will be a free copy of Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak for every reader of The Sun!
Thank you everyone who bought The Sun, especially if you normally don’t. I hope you enjoyed it so much that you’ll rush right out and buy another one this weekend!
May 25, 2007 | Asda, Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, The Sun, free book
Sun tomorrow, Sun tomorrow, Sun tomorrow!!!!!
Whoo-hooooo!!!!!
(P.S. Love the six-word novels. It’s going to be hard to choose a winner. Please keep them coming!)
May 12, 2007 | Asda, Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, The Sun, free book
Two weeks from today, on Saturday 26 May, the Sun newspaper will be giving away a FREE COPY of my book Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak, to every reader.
I think they’re printing a voucher in the paper and if you go along to Asda you can pick up your free copy.
FREE!!
I’m very very excited about this and will be posting regular reminders.
February 27, 2007 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, reviews
Hooray! Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak is on the Waterstone’s bestselling romance chart!
(This might have something to do with the fact that Waterstones are doing a “buy one, get one free” deal with Little Black Dress books–get yourself down there while they’re cheap! If you go to the one in Reading, all the copies of Spirit Willing are signed…) 
Thanks to Phillipa Ashley for telling me–she’s on there too with Decent Exposure.
While I’m celebrating good news, I should mention something I’ve been meaning to, which is that Married in a Rush has been nominated for a Cataromance Reviewers’ Choice Award. Yay!
Later, I have another beautiful picture of David Tennant to post.
October 19, 2006 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, excerpts
Am brain dead.
But I thought, while I’m brain dead, that I’d post a couple of deleted scenes from Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak. Just because.
This is one that went because my agent thought it was too cheesy. I like it. Then again, I like cheesy, far too much for my judgement to be trusted. It was from chapter ten. And I really did lie on a piano to research it, though I can’t sing that well.
Rosie, the fake psychic and professional liar, is playing a game of drinking Truth or Dare with Harry, a gorgeous journalist obsessed with the truth.
Harry walked me over to the grand piano in the centre of the room. He dropped my hand and I opened my mouth to protest but then his hands were at my waist again, lifting me up and setting me on the cover of the piano.
I giggled again. I was sitting on a grand piano, in a bar, in a hotel, in Milton Keynes, England.
I seemed to be a little bit drunk.
Harry sat down on the piano stool and opened the cover over the keys. He hit a key or two, experimentally, and then nodded, satisfied.
“I dare you to sing a song,” he said.
“Do you play the piano?” I asked.
“My parents made me take lessons from the age of eight.” He played several quick, jazzy chords. “I can play Mozart, Chopin, and most of the Monkees’ songs. So what are you going to sing?”
Why was I not surprised that Harry Blake, the well bred, had taken piano lessons as a child? Briefly, I wondered what my parents would have said if I’d asked for piano lessons at age eight.
Get a job, probably.
“‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ by The Ramones?” I suggested.
Harry’s long fingers danced over the keys, feeling out the Ramones tune briefly. “I think that song needs some electric guitars, not a grand piano.”
I watched his hands. Had I always found a man who could play the piano sexy?
I couldn’t remember any other occasions. In fact, I couldn’t remember watching a male play the piano since junior high school when geeky Donnie Deconzo used to play the intro to “Axel F” from Beverly Hills Cop whenever he got near a keyboard.
But Harry’s hands were so dextrous. I leaned over towards him, so I could see them more clearly.
“What are you going to sing, then?” he asked, still strumming out a vague, jazzy, improvised melody.
“You decide,” I said, mesmerised by the movement of his fingers. “It’s your dare.”
Harry looked up from the keys and met my eyes. Slowly, he smiled.
He stopped his melody and picked out another. Immediately I knew the tune, and the first line, and why he’d chosen it.
“‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,’” I said, but what I was thinking of were the first words of the lyrics. About someone being too good to be true.
Sneaky so-and-so.
“Do you know it?” Harry asked, filling in more of the chords as he continued with the melody.
“I know it. Do you want the Andy Williams version?”
“I don’t think the Ramones do a version,” he replied.
I crossed my legs and leaned back on one hand in “lounge-singer vamp” style. “I’m ready whenever you are,” I said.
He immediately segued into an introduction. Watching him, addressing every word to him, I sang.
I’d trained my voice, though for rather a different purpose, and when I began singing, I heard the room go quiet around me.
And Harry’s eyes were on me. Blue, steady, keen, smiling. I looked back and told him I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
I told him touching him would be heaven.
I saw him moistening his lips with his tongue when I sang how much I wanted to hold him.
His eyes told me that for once, he believed me. And then some.
Oh, this was fun. And sexy as hell, I thought, and then as I finished the first verse, I realised suddenly that I had no idea what the second verse was.
I paused, and Harry filled in with an improvised chord progression. “You okay?” he asked.
I had it. I gave him what felt like a catlike smile. “I’m great. Ready when you are.”
“You can really sing,” he commented.
“All that time in the shower must’ve paid off,” I said, and waited for him to work through his improvised bridge.
On my cue, I began singing again:
“You’re like a dream, Harry Blake,
Am I asleep, or awake?”
I saw his eyebrows raise themselves in surprise and amusement when he realised that I was making up the words. I reached forward and twirled a lock of his silky, wild hair around my finger as I sang.
“You have the funkiest hair,
C’mon and dare me a dare.
I don’t need E.S.P.
To know you want to touch me.”
And then I was telling him again how he was too good to be true.
And he was. Too honest, too principled, too well-bred for me to even think about getting tangled up with.
But I still couldn’t keep my eyes off him.
I shimmied on the piano to the build-up to the chorus, and then sang it out to the room and to Harry Blake. Loud, dramatic, throaty and full of all the desire I felt sitting on this piano feeling Harry touching the keys and sending musical vibrations through my body.
The next verse was a repeat of the first, and I lay on the piano to sing it. My belly and chest pressed against the cool glossy surface of the instrument. I could feel every note against my skin. I propped myself up on my elbows, my face only a few inches from Harry’s, and sang the verse and the chorus, my voice getting softer, huskier, and more intimate with every line. I slowed down the pace, a caress of a chorus instead of a flourish, and Harry followed me. Or maybe I followed Harry.
All I knew was that we were together, note for note, beat for beat.
We finished the song with a whisper and a tickling of keys. There was applause, but I barely heard it. I was caught up in Harry’s blue eyes, and couldn’t look away.
The last echo of the music died off. It felt very quiet, and Harry felt very close.
“Truth or dare?” I murmured.
October 10, 2006 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak, reviews
Woke up this morning to find that Married in a Rush has been given 4 1/2 stars at Cataromance. You can read the whole review here, but this is the bit I’m particularly happy about:
Julie Cohen is unrivalled when it comes to blending steamy romance, heartfelt emotion, poignant drama and effervescent sassiness and in her latest Modern Romance Extra, Married in a Rush, she once again demonstrates her talent for spinning wonderful stories…Julie Cohen’s books are like a glass of champagne- bubbly, flirty and feel good!
I also got a phone call from my agent saying Spirit Willing has sold in France.
I’m off to work now, but to celebrate these bits of good news (and the fact that I’m writing a sex scene), tonight I will post a photograph of Guy Pearce nude.
September 24, 2006 | Spirit Willing Flesh Weak
When I was in junior high school, my best friend lived in this amazing Victorian house. It was arranged symmetrically around a central chimney, so each room had its corresponding room on the other side of the house, and there were two staircases, two porches, two of each bedroom. The attic was the only room that spanned both sides of the house, in dusty high-ceilinged shadow.
In addition, in the centre of the house there were odd connecting doors between mirror-image rooms, so sometimes you thought you were walking into the hallway and would find yourself in another bedroom, similar to the one you had left.
The outside of the house was decorated with gingerbread that looked something like a rising sun, something like a grinning pumpkin face. It was set on the top of a hill. And the house had hardwood floors and elaborate banisters, and creaked in storms and in heat.
It was supposed to be haunted. My friend’s brother had seen a woman in white, screaming silently. My friend and I would tell stories and play with the Ouija board until we were terrified, but I never saw anything.
Except one time I felt something. We were playing hide and seek and I had stuffed myself into one of the closets, the one that had the stairs to the attic at the back of it. I was huddled between coats with my back to the attic door, listening for my friend’s footsteps outside, and something soft brushed against my knee. I heard a low “mmph” sound, like that made by a child. And I was out of that closet so fast I could barely catch my breath. Scared, and secretly very thrilled and pleased.
That’s the only half-ghostly experience I’ve ever had, and it could well have been something to do with the house’s atmosphere and my expectations and hopes. Aside from odd irrational fears, nothing similar has happened to me since.
When I wrote Spirit Willing, I had to decide whether I was going to include any real spirits in my book about a fake medium. Typically, I think I sort of sidestepped the issue. (Though people who have read it might disagree.) There might be a spirit or two–or, more likely, it might be memory, fear, insight, love.
Go on. Tell me your ghost stories.
