Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Guest Post with Sidney Bristol!




WELCOME TO THE BLOG, SIDNEY! :) 



It can never be said that Sidney Bristol has had a ‘normal’ life.  She is a recovering roller derby queen, former missionary, and tattoo addict. She grew up in a motor-home on the US highways (with an occasional jaunt into Canada and Mexico), traveling the rodeo circuit with her parents. Sidney has lived abroad in both Russia and Thailand, working with children and teenagers. She now lives in Texas where she splits her time between a job she loves, writing, reading and belly dancing. 




Where to Find Sidney:

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Research, Japanese Tattoos, and Asian Food....





Hello! And thanks so much to The Book Queen for hosting me today. I’m Sidney Bristol! I’m currently touring the bloggesphere chatting up about the latest, inktacular installment to my So Inked series. The book is titled The Harder He Falls and features a hero and heroine who are the kind of people who grab their dreams by the scruff and run with them. The hero is a mixed martial arts coach, like what you see on UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Champion. And the heroine is a bad ass tattoo artist that specializes in Asian tattoos, specifically the Japanese tradition.


One of the things I’ve loved about working on this book is the research. Yes! I love research! I said those words! In college, I was totally that person who would rather write a full on research paper than take an exam. And I put that same kind of work into these books, mostly researching Japanese tattoos.


Chances are you’ve been to an Asian restaurant and sitting on either side of the front door are creatures that look like a mash-up of a lion and a dog. These are Foo Dogs, or the Lions of Buddha. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen them and never really understood what they were.


Though they’re called Foo Dogs, the idea of a lion is more accurate. In reality, the lion was an animal no one in either Japan or China had ever seen before, so they based their artwork off descriptions and the form of a dog.



A lot of people call them Lions of Buddha, but they actually predate Buddhism, dating back to the indigenous Shinto religion. There was a lion guardian with a red head that drove away evil spirits and brought health and wealth to those under its protection. It’s thought that they evolved from that, folding into the Buddhist beliefs and becoming a universal feature of the culture.


The Foo Dog has a lot of names. Celestial Dogs, Fu or Foo Lion, Lion Dog, Karashishi and Shi-Shi Dog. They’re all names that have been used to refer to these unique animals.


In appearance, besides their cross between the feline and canine, they typically have pointed ears, short, curly manes around their neck and exaggerated paws with talons. They symbolize a protective spirit, being a strong and courageous animal. They really embody the Darwinist mentality that only the strongest survive, because the tradition is that the mother would throw the cubs off cliffs to ensure that only the strongest young survive to adulthood. It’s a very vicious thing to do, but these creatures were all about protecting, so everything they did focused on that one goal.


Have you ever noticed that the Foo Dogs aren’t identical? Okay, sometimes they are and they shouldn’t be. The male should be positioned on the right and the female on the left depicted in a sitting or guard position. You can tell them apart at a glance by which has their mouth open. The male will have his mouth open with a paw resting on a sphere, which is supposed to represent heaven in the Buddhist tradition, while the female has her mouth closed and a paw resting on the belly of a cub in the show of life, or earth. Japanese tradition always sticks to the open mouth inhales life while the closed mouth exhales death.


As a tattoo element, people will often chose either the male or female to tattoo crawling up or down a limb. Some people will even get one on either arm or leg to symbolize their protection or fierceness. Often, they are combined with the peony flower, which is a popular element in Japanese tattoos since it is the imperial flower.



Next time you go get Asian food, stop and glance at the Foo Dogs and see what you think about them! Man, now I’m hungry for some fried rice. What’s your top pick when you go get your preferred Asian food of choice?



~Sidney Bristol

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The Harder He Falls by Sidney Bristol
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc. (July 19, 2013) 
Series: So Inked, 2
Genre: Contemporary Erotica

A woman who doesn’t have time for love…

A hot night full of hotel-destroying sex was all Kellie wanted from her client-turned-sex god. Between family and work, there isn’t room for love, just hot, sweaty lust. An arrangement for mutual gratification is exactly what Kellie wants, but every kiss, each mind-blowing orgasm twines her heart around a man she cannot have.

A man building a new life…

Quinton’s assumptions about the So Inked shop owner are turned on their head after one session under her tattoo machine. Kellie’s not the vandal he’s looking for, but she’s the woman he wants. In his bed, on the desk or under the stars, he’ll take her any way he can get her. But Quin has secrets and someone is out to destroy him. Someone who has their sights set on Kellie now.



Where to Buy*:
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The Harder He Falls by Sidney Bristol
Excerpt


Kellie  shifted on the wooden bench, still restless. The evening breeze was cooler than normal thanks to a cold front blowing in. It was ridiculous that dropping into the nineties was considered a cool spell, but in the height of Texas summer, you took what you got. She swept her hair up into a knot and tipped her head back. The slight dampness of her skin, courtesy of the ever-present humidity, was a small price to pay for being able to sit outside. She’d shed the formfitting dress for jeans and a tank top and felt more like herself for it.


“How hot does it get here?” Quin plunked down their dinner and sat on his side of the picnic table. Behind him the food truck was starting to pack up.


“Can’t handle the heat?” It was too much to ask that the man be able to cope with everything. He’d sat through the tattoo yesterday without complaint, being a heat weenie wasn’t terrible.
His brilliant blue eyes stood out in the dim illumination of the parking lot light. “When you have A/C, why should you?”


“You do realize that it’s going to get at least ten degrees hotter and stay there, don’t you?” She unwrapped the tacos and inhaled the spicy aroma of peppers and onions mixed with tender beef.
Quin made a show of wiping his forehead with a napkin. “I’m going to melt.”

“Why the hell are you still here then?”


He hefted his burrito and wrapped the tortilla tighter. “Family.”

She nodded, understanding that reason above all others.

They descended into companionable silence while they ate. The garbled sounds of a Tejano station melded with the distant sounds of Highway 75 and the light street traffic up and down Greenville Avenue.

“What are you so wound up about, doll?”

Her head snapped around. Quin watched her with one brow arched.

“What?” she asked.

“Your knees are bouncing and you keep looking around. Are you expecting someone I don’t know about?” He glanced over each shoulder.

The bubble of anger swelling in her breast burst. It wasn’t Quin’s fault she was suffering from a case of bitchitis.

Instead of snapping at him, she put her taco down and massaged her temples. “No, I’m just sitting on too much energy and not enough time to expend it.”

“Ah.” He nodded as if he understood. “We used to call that the fight or fuck stage.”

It was her turn to quirk a brow at him. She shivered despite the heat. He had a point; one or the other would help. “Fight or fuck stage? What did you used to do?”

“First I was in the Marines, then I used to fight MMA, semipro.”

Her eyebrows crept upward. Mixed martial arts? She saw Quin in a whole new light, and when she looked at him in this proverbial light, he looked damn good. Fighters came with their own set of issues, but as an MMA hobbyist herself, Kellie had to admit that her bad boy draw was sitting across from her. Growing up around the gym meant she’d become more than competent in a few martial art forms. As an adult, branching out into the grappling, wrestling and more violent aspects had given her a much needed outlet.

Kellie grabbed her drink, the cup covered in condensation, and gulped it down to get moisture back in her dry mouth.

“Why’d you stop?”

“I got hurt. Fractured a few vertebrae. Everyone was amazed I could walk after that. Realized there was little to no chance of me coming back from the injury, so I switched over to training. I like it.”

“Do you train around here?” An invisible fist clenched her heart. There had been a time when she would have known the different gyms, who trained where, which ones were worth going to and so forth.

Quin didn’t answer immediately. He chewed his food without haste and took a drink before replying. 

“I’m transitioning locations. Parting with someone. It’s a little messy.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I’ve been there. I’m lucky to have Mary as my co-owner. The guy I worked with before her was a man-child.”

He snorted. “Man-child?”

“Yeah, you know. Frat boy types.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “That’s a good one, doll. Man-child. I’ll have to remember that.”
The pet name slid over her nerves as if it were sandpaper. “Do you have to call me that?”

“What?” He blinked as if he had no clue what she was talking about.

“Lay off the doll crap already.”

He shrugged. “You look like a doll.”

Her scalp itched and her hand balled into a fist. “You think I look like a whore?” she growled. 

Moments like these she felt as if she were a passenger in her own body. The urge to do something, or even the man across from her, had her muscles too tense and her nerves strung too tight.

Quin jerked his face away from his cup. “What? No. That’s not what I meant. You’re attractive and exotic-looking. You look more like a doll than a real person.”

Heat crawled up her neck and she was thankful the parking light was their only illumination. It was the most convoluted compliment anyone had ever paid her, and it turned her on even more. She folded her taco wrapper into a neat square.

“You realize the term china doll is what men called Asian prostitutes and war brides?”

“The fuck—no. No, that’s definitely not what I meant. Hey, guys probably hit on you all the time. I figured I had to be a little creative.”

She rolled her eyes. “At least you don’t talk to my boobs.”

His gaze dipped to her chest and her nipples perked up at his inspection. She squeezed her thighs together. This was ridiculous. She was not an animal in heat ready to throw herself at some random guy.

“Well, in their defense, most guys probably only come up to your chest, so it’s not entirely their fault.” One side of his mouth kicked up in a roguish smile.

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, blame it on me because I’m tall.”

“It’s not your fault you’re tall. It’s their fault they’re short.”

Her phone buzzed against her hip. Conversation forgotten, Kellie dug it out of her pocket and unlocked the screen. The home-care provider always texted her when Grandma finally went to bed. She breathed a sigh of relief when nothing else was mentioned, which meant the day had passed without incident. She had all night before she would need to go home and face those troubles. For now she was her own woman.

“Everything okay?”

She glanced up from the phone. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

“So you moved here for family. Wife? Girlfriend?”

“None of the above.”

He was unattached and available. She went very still, the possibilities running through her head.
Quin cleared his throat. “My schedule right now doesn’t lend itself to dating.”

Even better. She laid her palms on the rough wooden surface of the table. “Neither does mine.”
His stillness echoed hers. A predatory awareness came over him, but she wasn’t prey. “That’s a shame.”

She looked him over, even as he did the same. He wouldn’t be the first client she slept with, she wasn’t a saint. But neither did she know him.

“Excuse me.” The food truck cook had walked up on them without either noticing. “I need to load the table, sorry.” He smiled and wiped his hands on the dirty apron.

Kellie swiped the napkin across her face. Had she really inhaled the burrito? Judging by the sad remnants left, yes she had.

“That’s fine. Thanks for the food.”

She rose, gathered up her trash and tossed it in a recycling bin, then leaned against the front of Quin’s truck, out of the way while Quin lent a hand to their cook and helped load the table. Too many thoughts spun around in her head, she needed a minute to get her head screwed on straight, but she wasted those watching Quin’s arms and the way his t-shirt stretched across his back. She pretended she hadn’t been staring when he headed for her, perching her elbows on the hood  and leaning back. The truck’s grille pressed into her back but with her elbows perched on the edge, it thrust her breasts out. As if she needed to draw any more attention to them.

Quin’s gaze roved freely over her body and she could already anticipate his strong touch. He would be an energetic lover, but would he be gentle? Or rough? Did he always have to stay in control? 

Because sometimes she liked to put a man through his paces.

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking and I’m dying to know.” He stopped less than a foot away.


She smiled slowly, already having a pretty good idea what his answer to her question would be. “I was wondering if you would like to get a room?”



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Thanks for stopping by today, Sidney! Wow, you learn something new every day, right? :)

I was suppose to already have reviews up for book 1 and 2, but sadly life got in the way... Please look for my reviews in the next few weeks instead! 



Don't forget to answer Sidney's question:

What’s your top pick when you go get your preferred Asian food of choice?



Mine? Sweet and sour chicken. Ooh, with a side of ham fried rice. I'm simple that way. How about you?





Enjoy!



Until Next Time,



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  *TBQ's Book Palace is a member of both the Amazon and Barnes and Nobles affiliates program. By using the links provided to buy products from either website, I receive a very small percentage of the order. To read my full disclosure on the matter, please see this post!

2 comments :

Kame said...

Wow - loved that excerpt! I am going to have to check these books out. Okay for me it depends on the day and who I am with on what I order - lately my BFF and I like to share lots of appetizers so we can try it all. If I have to pick one - I can't live without the rice - it doesn't really matter what is mixed in.

Sidney Bristol said...

Hi Kame!

Man, I love me some fried rice. I recently got the chance to go to a hibachi restaurant and they made it in front of me. OMG so good!!

Sorry about the delay in replies, my internet went all wonky. <3