Hallo, lovely readers of Victoria Blisse’s blog!

Thank you so much to for having me :)

There are only a few more days until the release of my latest story with Total E-Bound…and I can hardly wait for His Christmas Present to hit the virtual shelves on 20 December!

To relieve the excitement stoke the anticipation entertain myself you until then (any other authors notice that waiting for a release date is strangely similar to waiting for Santa to arrive?), I put together a music mix to go with the story.

Now, I love putting together music mixes, always have. Except, I don’t like to do it until after I’m done with a story. When I’m writing I tend to stick to mood music to create atmosphere, the more repetitive the better. I play the poor album I’ve chosen constantly, on repeat, for hours at a time. This tends to mean I associate certain phrases of music with certain lines in each story…and it also means that my partner gives me very long-suffering looks every time I turn up the volume.

But as soon as I’m finished, that’s when I start trawling around, looking for the songs I think represent the emotions and the action of the story to make my ultimate mix.

Making a Christmas mix for His Christmas Present was especially fun since I have my own favourite versions of the songs, but they didn’t necessarily match the tone of the story. Case in point was Little Drummer Boy. It was important to find the right cover (you’ll see why when you read the story), and I must have listened to twenty different Drummer Boys before I stumbled across that utterly perfect Joan Jett version. And then there’s the Wham! contribution. Confession: the catchy chintz of that song drives me mental. But my hero Tim drives a cab, and there’s nothing better to represent the typical Christmas music he’d hear on the radio all day long driving through London. Another hard part of making the mix? Finding the willpower not to include Christmas Time for my Penis by The Vandals no matter how tempting it was!

I hope you enjoy listening, and do let me know what your Christmas favourites are, whether they’re on the mix or on the soundtrack to your own holidays! Whatever your own celebrations this year, have a fabulous time with your friends and family.

Music Mix: His Christmas Present by Rachel Randall

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His Christmas Present by Rachel Randall

You are cordially commanded to attend my Christmas revel…

Diana has chosen Tim as the perfect gift for their charismatic host, Max. But before Max gets to unwrap his Christmas present, the other guests want to play naughty and nice with his new boy-toy. Tim’s in for a very sexy Christmas Eve. Welcome to the party.

Available from Total E-Bound on 20th December!

Today my Blissemas blog is over at the Total-E-Bound blog. So your comments there count towards the contest! Head on over to Hitting the Hotspot and tell me how you manage to find some time to relax at this busy time of year and read all about my Favourite Chill Out Activity!

Today, I’m bringing you three stories of Christmas that will make you leave your Scrooge-like ways and embrace the warmth of the Christmas season. We’ll start with

Blisse of Christmas Past:

Christmas Spirit Warms the Heart
Do you believe in Santa? He believes in you.

Jodi is a toll booth operator and she meets Mike when one night he forgets change for the toll. There is an instant connection and they decide to meet up on Christmas Eve for a date. However plans are almost ruined when Mike’s car refuses to start but then Santa swoops down and gives them a lift on his sleigh.

Our couple get to know each other intimately during their stay at Santa’s grotto and are surprised to find out that Father Christmas has a job for them both but will our virgin lovers take on the task?

This story was released just after Christmas last year and is a sweet, sexy romance that involves Father Christmas himself as the match maker! It is filled with all that makes Christmas merry and bright!

Blisse of Christmas Present:

Stopping Point.
Book two in the Point Vamp Series

Josh is a vampire he just doesn’t quite know it yet.

He is confused and his voluptuous sire, Cara is far too busy being mysterious to really help him unlock the secrets of his Afterlife. However, he pieces it together by himself and decides to turn his best mates into Vampires too. This doesn’t quite go to plan but he does discover The Point and its unique, ten-second rule.

Cara does not approve of Josh visiting The Point but that night she turns up at his door bloodied and much more dead than usual, and accepts Josh’s help to escape from her much older and much crazier Sire Leopold. How is Josh going to defeat an older, wiser and more powerful vampire? He hasn’t a clue but for Cara he is willing to find out.

Now, I know this doesn’t seem very Christmassy and granted, a good portion of the story isn’t BUT the concluding part is set at Christmas and we find out what a bunch of vampires actually do for Christmas day! So if you’ve ever wondered about it, check this one out.

Blisse of Christmas Future:

Snowed in at School.The weather outside is frightful…

Gary and Lucy, two teachers, are snowed in the school together on Christmas Eve. Gary tries to wade across the school playground to freedom but all that happens is he ends up wet and trouserless and Lucy has to work out some way to warm him up.

Could this be the ideal opportunity for her to make her sexiest fantasies come true?

Snowed in at School is going to be released from Silver publishing in just 5 days time!

I’m excited, new story, new publisher and it’s Christmas! It’s my early present, it really is. I’m sure you’ll love this story if you like the idea of staying cosy inside away from the snow!

What do you like to read around the festive period? I love to read The Christmas Carol, I usually read it aloud to my daughter and The Night before Christmas on Christmas eve which my mum read to me when I was little.

Don’t forget every comment gets an entry into the Blissemas contest to win 15 prizes check the Have a Merry Blissemess blog post for more details.

Kendall is going to tell us all about her writing process and style, lets give her a warm welcome! Remember if you comment on this post you could win an Amazon Gift Voucher!

The writing process for me is somewhat chaotic. I work at a day job where no one knows my alternate identity, and if all goes to plan, will never find out. I also have a husband and two school-aged children. So all of this combined makes my writer’s life a challenge. Before I went back to work full-time I tried the “business hours” approach to writing. As soon as my children left for school I would sit down to work. An hour later the cursor would still be taunting me and I’d have a couple pairs of shoes on the way I’d just ordered from Zappos. The stories came, but very slowly. Much more slowly than I anticipated when I had hours stretching before me in which to write.

When I made the decision to go back to work last year, it did wonders for my creativity. It’s almost as if my muse sensed I’d gotten so fed up with her lazy attitude that I’d abandoned our relationship all together. So she started talking. A lot. “You can handle a full-time job and me at the same time… Your family will adjust… Buy an iPad…” Okay that last one I threw in there just to justify the purchase. Although I do make notes on it. I’m not playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja, honest…

What I’ve discovered about myself is that I work well under pressure and time constraints. When I had all that time yawning before me my creativity came to a near standstill at least a couple of times a week. Now that I must juggle writing with everything else I have found that even though I am not spending as much time at the keyboard as I used to, the time I do spend has become more productive. This time crunch has even helped me to rein in my pantser ways. I just don’t have time to go skipping down a plot line that could blow up in my face forty pages in.

So it may appear from the outside that I’m all over the place, and sometimes it feels that way, but at the end of the day the books are getting finished, I’m working at a day job I love, and my family still remembers my name. I must be doing something right :)

Kendall’s promoting her book Come Undone which you can pick up from Ellora’s Cave now.

I love Christmas decorations. I’ve spent a good chunk of the last 2 days decorating my living room. I’ve not taken photos yet, but here are some I took last year of some of my favourites. I bring them out every year!

Here’s my Tree

It looks pretty similar this year but with a few more lights as I decided to buy some new ones. I love my Christmas tree, it makes me feel all happy and child-like when I look at it. Several ornaments have special memories associated with them and I love how bringing them out reminds me of that time.

Here’s my Santa candle sticks. I love’em.

Also, on the far right you see my little Santa dolly. She’s so sweet, I bought her at a church fair several years ago. I can’t even remember when I got the twin Santa candle holders but they make me happy. I have a definite thing for jolly santa’s, we have loooooooads of’em. I can’t resist a Father Christmas, it’s all the magic surrounding him I think.

And how do you make a decoration even more awesome? You make it edible, woooo!

My husband put this gingerbread house together last year and my daughter made the figures in the garden. Pretty food makes me happy, especially at Christmas.

So tell me about your favourite decorations, I want to know what you love! And you never know, you might win one of the 15 Blissemas Prizes!