Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Super Hot Excerpts from When In Rome Vol. 3: The Emperor's Gladiatrix

My third title, The Emperor's Gladiatrix is live on Amazon.

The plot is thickening and our heroine is trying to figure out if she's changing the history and whether she can save the emperor from getting assassinated without messing up the timeline. She's doing so much for him and even planning to leave all the comforts of the 21st century behind to permanently move to the 1st century AD ancient Rome... To be one of the many lovers of the most powerful man in the world.
You have to be insane to do such a thing! But all logic and reason flies off the window when you are crazy in love.

She's doing all that, risking so much, throwing everything away to be close to him and what does he do? He stages a gladiatrix fight in the arena, offering himself as the reward! The beautiful women of the Roman nobility line up to fight before the eyes of a quarter million people for a night in his bed.
Crazy, right?

I mean, why would any woman would put up with this crap? Why on earth?
You gotta read all three volumes to find out.
Every single female reader who has read the first two stories has told me Caligula is smoking hot and they want that magic locket to go to ancient Rome. I wonder if they will change their minds and be mad at Caligula after reading Vol. 3, but I very much doubt it. The man IS hot!

And here are the excerpts:

We climbed up the stairs and turned into the corridor leading to the palace wing where his bedchamber was. Mixed feelings raged in my heart. He held my hand… This was the first time he'd done that. I burned for him, but I couldn’t get my mind off of how he'd eyeballed Fabiana at the banquet. My insides burned with a hotter fire than the night I'd watched him have sex with the acrobat woman.

But he was the emperor of Rome. He could have any woman. He could have a dozen of them. But tonight he was having me instead...

We passed the guards in the corridor and walked into his lavish bedchamber hand in hand. He seated me on the bed and took his place next to me.  His hands cupped my face and he looked in my eyes… God, those eyes!

“Give me that fire, my little thirst-quencher,” he said, his voice deep and husky.
***

    “I’ll punish you for your insolence!” he said, lifting himself up. He ripped a long piece from my ruined dress, roughly turned me around, and tied my hands. Then he laid me on my back, with my hands under my butt. His eyes were wild and full of fire.
    “Punish me, Caesar!” I pleaded.
    He ripped another piece of fabric and stuffed it in my mouth. Now I couldn’t beg even if I wanted to.
    “You will keep quiet, woman!” he commanded.
    My whole body shivered. I remembered how incredibly aroused I got when he chained me up and interrogated me in the dungeon. I had to admit it turned me on even more when he was rough. Anger boiled away in passion.
    He pushed my legs apart, squeezing the flesh of my thighs.



 Buy it here: When In Rome Vol. 3: The Emperor's Gladiatrix









Sunday, April 26, 2015

Awesome Double Review From A Reader's Review Blog

I have received my first blog review from Tina at A Reader's Review.

I'm very humbled by her amazing review and having trouble finding the words to express my feelings. Wow! She is clearly a professional reviewer, it's quite humbling to get such a flattering review from a top notch blogger.
Here, go read it on her blog: http://areadersreviewblog.com/2015/04/25/double-review-when-in-rome-an-unexpected-vacation-book-1-and-the-emperors-dungeon-book-2-by-jessica-nyman/

Thank you so much Tina!

Thursday, April 23, 2015

What is in Vol. 3?

I am now ready to reveal the title for the 3rd installment in my debut erotic romance series When In Rome. (First 2 parts are listed here)

The title is (ta daaaa) The Emperor's Gladiatrix. So, we have more story going on here with the political intrigue and we get to see the gladiatrix fights. Of course there are steamy sex scenes, but there's more actual story than sex going on here. Yes, the ancient Romans had female gladiators fighting in the arena for centuries, but the popular culture totally glosses over this fact. I've never heard of them until I started writing this series and researched the ancient Roman history. Great many Roman chroniclers wrote about them, there is even of solid evidence like reliefs depicting them in action. There is one relief on display at the British Museum (see the Wikipedia page here for more info and a photo of the relief.)

The movies and the tv shows make no mention of the gladiatrixes. It's a shame, really. There is going to be a minor plot twist about the gladiatrix business in Vol. 4. In Vol. 3 Caligula gets more dominant and shows more of his charming bad boy side. Our heroine has been appearing quite submissive, but she has some mojo and she's actually not all that submissive. She will surprise you later, I promise!

I wish I could ay more but I don't want to spoil the story. It will go live in a few days, just wait and see!


Thursday, April 16, 2015

An Unexpected Success!

    My debut story When In Rome Vol. 1: An Unexpected Vacation for over 500 downloads in less than 2 weeks, currently ranking #6 in Kindle free Historical Erotica and #14 in Paranormal Erotica, #2,165 in the entire Kindle Free store.

    Grab it while it's still free, it won't be for too long!
    If you post a blog review send me the link so I can spread the word.
    If you post a review on Amazon and Goodreads I'll send you a virtual hug for it and feel grateful forever!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

When In Rome Vol. 2: The Emperor's Dungeon Is Going Live Tomorrow!

I have finished formatting, received the cover from my wonderful cover artist Lillian and submitted it to Amazon. It should go live sometime tomorrow.

Those of you who have read When In Rome Vol. 1: An Unexpected Vacation will love it. There's more about the mysterius magic locket, a really cool new character and hardcore bondage with heavy iron chains and fetters in the Roman dungeon. And our heroine will have a big and important quest, a much bigger mystery to solve. She will also learn more about Caligula and find herself facing a big dilemma.

The sex scenes are even steamier than the first story according to my beta readers and the plot gets more complicated with conflicts and dilemmas to solve.

I will update when it goes live. I'm working on wrapping up the third story in the series which has even more cool stuff and exciting events. Stay tuned!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

The Truth About Caligula

I am writing this post after a random reader review I have received on Amazon and Goodreads.

The review says:
Back in college, a professor of mine offered us the theory that the stories of Nero's reign were outrageous pieces of propaganda design to destroy the love the people had for him. "An Unexpected Vacation" seems to begin from this theory with the emperor Caligula. This book is to be continued, and we'll see if the author intends to pursue this thinking further. But what she has now is hot, fiery Ancient Roman fantasy that will set any mild-mannered woman on fire (and those who are a bit ruder will be satisfied as well).
 This is actually true about both Nero and Caligula. I'm a history nerd (I hope I am not ruining my erotica author image by stating this fact!) and I'm quite particular about my research. The snarky, sexy, bad boy Caligula character I am writing is actually the most historically accurate Caligula you can get in the erotica market.

Most of Caligula's horrendous reputation comes from two chroniclers: Suetonius and Cassius Dio. Suetonius was born twenty eight years after Caligula's death and his main work titled The Lives of the Twelve Caesars reads like a scandalous tabloid collection. He has written terrible things about every emperor, but the stuff about Caligula ended up being the most famous. He wrote far worse things about Caligula's predecessor Tiberius but no one talks about Tiberius, no one made movies about Tiberius and most certainly no one writes erotica about Tiberius. Perhaps that is because Caligula was a smoking hot young stud and Tiberius was a hideous old man.

The other notorious things known in the pop culture about Caligula come from Cassius Dio, who was born a whopping hundred and fourteen years after Caligula's death. None of these guys who wrote the terrible, bone chilling things about Caligula had ever seen him. Caligula's contemporaries, the famous stoic philosopher Seneca included, don't mention incest relationships or sex scandals about Caligula. Well, the man was fond of sex, but it was just normal polyamory stuff, nothing gross or shocking (unless you find polyamory between consenting adults gross... I certainly don't!)

Modern scholars totally discredit those scandalous accusations. None of the modern historians take Suetonius serious. I have consulted with several people with master's and Ph.d on ancient history, including one with a degree on ancient Rome's sex life. There was no solid evidence to prove any of the notorious accusations about Caligula, including the (in)famous floating bridge he had built by having hundreds of ships tied together. Archaeologists found no evidence of that.

He did have two luxurious pleasure barges, which have been dug up from the bottom of Lake Nemi, but then again that was normal for the kings and the emperors of old. Modern day billionaires have gigantic luxury yachts and private jets. Nothing to criticize about having a pleasure barge. If you were the emperor or empress of Rome you wouldn't sail around in a fishing boat, would you?

There is this famous legend about Caligula being all crazy and making his horse a consul. The truth behind that is also different: Caligula was a smart guy with a rather dark sense of humor and the modern historians write that the whole thing stemmed from a humorous statement he made when he was telling the senators how much they sucked, in the lines of "Even my horse would be more useful  for the state than you guys if I made him a consul."

The rumors about the mass executions are also untrue. He forced one guy to sacrifice himself, to make an example of him. The guy was saying he would sacrifice himself to the gods if Caligula recovered from his illness, for the purpose of brown nosing and Caligula forced him to keep his word, to teach a lesson to the aristocrats that brown nosing is a bad thing to do. He waged a war against the nobility and in the end they killed him. And of course, since the nobility writes all the histories, they spoke ill of the man.

Common people loved Caligula and called him 'Our star.' I have read this in some essay but forgot to save the link, so I can't cite the source but I will edit this post and add the citation if I come across it.
When a big fire broke out in Rome, he handed out loads of gold solidus to the people who lost their homes, and paid extra to those who lost family members. He abolished taxes to ease the financial burden on the common people and small business owners and got harshly criticized for that too. He also tried to bring back the democratic elections and let the people elect the senators and other officials. Cassius Dio wrote 'Giving the vote to the rabble would be a disaster for the state' about that attempt. The senate and the patrician class were greatly disturbed by this idea of Caligula, and that might be part of the reason for them to plot his assassination.

You can verify some of these facts from Wikipedia and dig up academic papers to verify the rest. The long and short of it is that my Caligula is the most historically accurate one out there. I even based his character and dialogues on the real dialogues recorded by his contemporaries.

As for Nero; the common image about him sitting on top of some high place and fiddling while Rome burned is a lie. According to the reputable sources, Nero was hundreds of miles away from Rome when she burned and fiddles didn't exist back then. When Nero returned to Rome and saw the devastation he was stricken with grief and composed a sad lament with lyre, which was twisted into the infamous fiddling story by the vicious historians of the later generations. He spent a huge amount of money to rebuild Rome and compensate the people who lost their homes and property. He was an artist and not much of a statesman, so they wrote horrible things about him decades after his death just like they did to Caligula. And unfortunately all the bad stuff stuck and ended up in the common pop culture. This is indeed sad and disturbing.

Now, enough of the intellectual content. Will Caligula die in my story, or will his 21st century lover do something to save him without messing up the timeline?
You will find out when I release the rest of the series!







Saturday, April 11, 2015

Geek girls in erotica? Why not?

I have noticed a lot of top trends in the erotica section of Kindle store. One of them is BBW getting the hot stud. However I haven't seen any stories involving the geek girls getting the hot guys. Why not? There is a market for it in the romance genre, most definitely. I have seen one author who has dozens of books published about geek girls getting the hot studs, Greek gods, etc. She is traditionally published and looks like her books are selling like hot cakes. Why aren't people writing this in the erotica genre?

Well, I did. In my story the geek girl travels back in time, to ancient Roman Empire, and hooks up with the smoking hot emperor. She will do some badass stuff in the next installments.

Grab your copy while it's still fere, here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VL8KT6U

Thursday, April 9, 2015

An Unexpected Vacation is Ranked #34 In Kindle Store Historical Erotica Category


This came as a very nice surprise. I didn't expect it to rank that high to be honest. I know it's a good story and something totally new and original, a story with so much more than just sex, but I didn't expect it to rank #34 in the entire historical erotica category amongst some 3200 odd ebooks.

It's ranking #15,009 Free in Kindle Store. This is great news. I'm humbled. I hope to hear back from the people who read it!

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Great Reviews On An Unexpected Vacation!

I am thrilled to receive awesome reviews on my first book. Reviews are the bread and butter for the indie authors for myself, and good reviews even make the best selling authors tremendously happy. All authors, indie and international best seller alike, love receiving nice reviews from readers.

It's astoundingly flattering to receive such nice reviews on my first title. I really hope readers like my second title in the series, too. Thank you everyone for being so kind and motivating me to keep on writing! Big hugs to you all!


Here are the reviews I got on Smashwords:

Review by: Audrey Sparkle on April 08, 2015 :  
Was a great experience! It is clear that, the author's mind is so kinky in an intellectual way. also the selection of the male character is perfect. imagine such a tyrant in a sexual way, which suprisingly suited well, thanks to the author's words. just close your eyes and dream yourself in a bed with a roman emperor! can't wait to see the next issue.
Review by: Richard Reeves on April 07, 2015 :  
This was a great thrill to find a first time Author who put the time in to do the research and write a Great Book. I read it and was so surprised at the descriptions of the scenery, the descriptions of the people. Having multiple in a story is hard enough, but Ms. Nyman did a great job. It starts with a trip to Rome, buying a trinket at a store, then time travel. She winds up with a stud named Caligua who was a Ceaser. I won't go into the sex scenes, but I will say she has the best description of it than any books I've revied and that's a lot. I was impressed. And then a twist that will surprise anyone. Well worth the price. This is the first in her series, and this was the first book. They can only get better. Congratulations Ms. Nyman. I look forward to reviewing many more for you in the future.
(review of free book)
Review by: CatherineSparke on April 06, 2015 :  
This is great! It's erotic but intellegent, definetely very hot sex and a very, very hot leading man. You even get some clasical history and poetry thrown in too. I'm very much looking forward to further instalments of this, it's a really superior erotic story.
Review by: nevin1988 on April 05, 2015 : (no rating) 
If you want to read an erotic piece full of intelligent fiction, with a coherent historical background and a super exciting plot, this is the story for you. Plus the hottest sex scenes ever. Caligua is the real dream man, nothing like Cristian Grey. I can't wait to find out what will happen next.
Review by: leyla sahin on April 04, 2015 :  
As a person who likes reading short stories, this erotic story is surprisingly exciting. Especially erotic story readers should not miss this. I felt like i was watching a film, historical, hot and full of passion. I hope to read the next one soon.
Review by: Maura McKeely on April 03, 2015 :  
Oh my! This is a hot story. When this young college girl is transported back in time, she's about to get the kind of vacation she never bargained for. In a Roman Emperor's bed, no less! Best of all, this is just the beginning of a series. I can't wait to read the next installment!
 Here are the reviews I got on Amazon: 


4.8 out of 5 stars
(4)

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unexpected Pleasure! April 6, 2015
Format:Kindle Edition
It's been a long time since I stumbled upon such well developed and likeable characters in a short erotic romance. The young woman especially came alive for me, with her fresh and open approach to her life and the events that unfolded so surprisingly and happily for her. And her lover - the Roman emperor Caligula - was not at all what I expected based on his portrayal in popular culture. He was charming, civilized (but not too much!) and most of all simply aware. Even without his stunning physical presence both in and outside of bed, he was the kind of man I'd practically die to know in real life. And when you add in the wonderfully intimate and satisfying sexual dimension - well, let me just say that THAT is what I believe every girl really wants, whether she knows it or not, assuming she's still in love with life and the awesome potential it offers at almost every moment. When I was done reading I practically skipped out the door, into a bright sunny day and warm spring air, feeling that MY next great love might be just around the corner for me, too. I can't wait for the next installment in the series!


5.0 out of 5 stars
 Erotic historical romance April 3, 2015
Format:Kindle Edition
This is a well-written erotic historical romance that describes a young woman's sudden, magical trip back in time. At first, she's terrified of Caligula. After all, she's read numerous account of his violent reputation. But she soon discovers another side of this Roman Emperor. Addicted to his prowess in bed, she's willing to do whatever it takes to earn his favor and get back into his arms. The bedroom scenes are quite sensual and sexy. If you're looking for a quick, spicy read, this story will not disappoint.

5.0 out of 5 stars
 I found this to be a great read. Lots of fun April 5, 2015
Format:Kindle Edition
As a lover of both history and erotica, I found this to be a great read. Lots of fun! Lots of steamy sex! And surprisingly, I found Caligula to be a truly engaging character. It's rare that I find a character that feels as alive to me in erotica as Caligula was. Very impressed! Can't wait for the next release!

4.0 out of 5 stars
 Spicy read April 7, 2015
Format:Kindle Edition
It's a good read, really spicy, made me blush a few times. If you want a good read and can handle who ends up being her lover, a pretty interesting character, I implore you to read it.
I look forward to the next part of this series.
A review on Amazon.co.uk:

5.0 out of 5 stars
 Exotic, erotic and a great read 3 April 2015
Format:Kindle Edition
Really hot!!! Very well written and a very, very sexy leading man. If you're looking for something exotic, erotic and fun, this is definetely for you. And you get to learn something about ancient Rome whilst enjoying the ride.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Sneak Peak: Some Sizzling Hot Excerpts From When In Rome Vol. 1: An Unexpected Vacation

 
We passed by the guards at the doorway and headed into a lavish hallway. The emperor walked with a bit of swagger, towering over me and everyone else. I wondered where he was taking me.

“Drink!” he said. “It’s a privilege to drink the Caesar’s wine.”

   I stood less than two inches from him. He smelled so good. I was drunk on his exotic perfume. He put his hand on my back and pulled me into his arms. I’d never gone to the bedroom of a man I just met before…  But he was not just any man. He was the mighty Roman emperor. He ruled half of the world. He could have my head if I resisted.
His lips and the tip of his tongue trailed on my skin like a feather. I felt his warm breath on my neck and his hand caressing my upper arm. This man couldn’t be the bloodthirsty maniac they made him out to be. His touch was too tender.

 It's free on Smashwords and 99 cents on Amazon. You can download it for free on Smashwords. Amazon didn't let me make it free, if you report the lower price on Smashwords to Amazon, they will do the price match and it will be free.

I have written 16.000 words in 3 weeks, story 3 is almost finished. It has been a truly brutal writing schedule with a full time job, but I am not stopping until I finish writing the whole series!

I am planning to publish the second story very soon. If my cover artist  can fix up the cover this week it goes live on Friday. Otherwise it will be live on next Friday.

I've received a lot of compliments on the sex scenes from my beta readers, I'd like to know what you guys think! Drop me a line in the comments section or email me and let me know.