Final Calls

Last chance to enter the Lovers Entwined giveaway over at Stumblingoverchaos

Lovers Entwined will be released tomorrow.


Also while I'm here, I'll be giving away one copy of When Love Flue In to a lucky winner picked from the comments on either of these post.

http://lillianfrancis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/good-luck-will-rub-off-when-i-shake.html

http://lillianfrancis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/just-facts-maam-aka-sometimes-wikipedia.html

I'll keep the giveaway open until the 7th December, so if you want to try and win a copy head on over to either post and leave a message.

Good luck will rub off when I shake hands with you...

photo credit: janGlas via photopin cc

Hi, I’m Reagan and I’m a chimney sweep. That's not me in the picture by the way, my hair is darker, there's a chance my ears are bigger and I don't wear the traditional get-up to actually do my job. Especially not the hat, I hate the hat. No, on the job you're far more likely to find me in dirty jeans and a T-shirt.

Before you ask, nope, I’m not a cockney. I’m from the West Country, a small village in Somerset to be precise. Not that any of the London sweeps I’ve ever met speak like Dick Van Dyke. I can’t sing either, in case you’re wondering. As for nifty dance routines on the rooftops, well, I don’t think Health and Safety would be too impressed. Anyway the closest I get to dancing is flailing my limbs around on the dance floor at the clubs I go to…when I get the time. And I can slow dance with the best of them, but can’t we all? I mean, what’s difficult about leaning into the latest hot, hard body?

I say the latest because I can’t seem to keep a boyfriend longer than a month.

Don’t know why.

I know I’m not what you’d call traditionally handsome, but I’m not likely to scare small children or curdle milk. As for the rest of me, hell, sweep work is physically demanding—I never need to visit the gym—and my body reflects the effort that my job demands.

Maybe it’s the hassle of being self-employed; some guys don’t understand that when you work for yourself, occasionally you need to make sacrifices of your time. In the quiet summer months I can supplement my income by appearing at weddings. It’s a tradition that capitalises on the superstition that sweeps are good luck, dating back to a story that claimed George III’s life was saved by a chimney sweep. I said I can’t really dance but I can jump a broomstick. Of course, that means most of my summer work is weekends.

Then come September, my work starts in earnest and I’m busy, busy, busy. It’s rare that emergency calls need to be made, most people schedule their yearly cleans well in advance. But occasionally there are problems, flues catching on fire where people have skimped on the need to have their chimney swept. Sometimes people forget, or their circumstances change and they suddenly realise in a panic that it’s Christmas in two days’ time and the sweep has yet to make an appearance. I try to accommodate all my regular customers, but a callout on Christmas Eve, well, that’s never going to happen.

Unless… No… Who am I kidding? There’s one customer who I can’t deny. Not that it’s ever going to lead the places my fantasies would like it to go. Maybe that’s another reason why I can’t keep a boyfriend, my unquenchable desire for the unattainable.

Wow, that was some tangent. You don’t want to hear about my sex life, or should I say lack of it, and I certainly don’t want to talk about the blond Adonis who fills my dreams, and most of my waking—or is that wanking--fantasies.

Let’s get back on track, chimney sweeps… I could forgive you for thinking my story is a historical one. Sombre scenes of child labour and smoke-filled skies. Rotund capitalists eagerly exploiting small urchins, sending them up chimneys; quite regularly to their death.

No, this is the twenty-first century not Victorian England. Thankfully. My sexual proclivities, as I think I’ve possibly already implied, embrace all that is male. It’s a fact I’m not in the slightest bit ashamed about, but a situation that would have been unimaginable a hundred years ago.

Got distracted again. Where was I?

Once a profession in decline due to the 1956 Clean Air Act, nowadays chimney sweeps are making a resurgence. Physically fit men and women can once more be found in the hearths’ of many homes across the country, due to the credit crunch and rising energy prices. I specialise in open fires as opposed to wood burning stoves, although I do have the training tackle both. I just prefer to work on an open fireplace. Sometimes it can be a dangerous job, or so the Health and Safety Executive tells us. We may not be sending small children up to clear the blockage or dancing on loose slate tiles but the job can have its hazards.

I’ve been attacked by a trapped bird, just missed being brained by a falling brick, lost my heart to a man I can’t have, been stranded on a roof when my ladder fell and ruined more T-shirts than I care to mention.

Then there’s the problem with the soot, it’s carcinogenic. And that can mean long-term health problems if you’re not careful. I always wear a mask. No, that’s not actually true, there are five occasions I haven’t worn a mask, but what’s five chimneys out of hundreds. And technically it’s always been the same house, the same chimney, the same blond-haired picture of perfection watching me. My mum would kill me if she ever found out I was playing fast and loose with my health like that, especially since it’s just because I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of a man who always looks so amazing.

All in all, I love my job. I work for myself, travelling the county, always somewhere different. I’m rarely treated with indifference. My regular customers always seem pleased to see me, treating me like an old friend. At the weddings I appear at I’m treated with the reverence for the luck bearer I’m purported to be.

So what if it’s a dirty job, someone’s got to do it.

I can always shower.

When I get home.

Reagan appears in my new Christmas release When Love Flue In.

Available from Silver Publishing. 

Just the facts, ma’am (aka, Sometimes Wikipedia does get it right)



R J Scott's Christmas Blog Hop



According to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia…

The chimney uses the pressure difference caused by a hot column of gas to create a draught and draw air over the hot coals or wood enabling continued combustion. Chimneys may be straight or contain many changes of direction.

Strangely this is quite a fitting description for the relationship between the two main characters in my new Christmas short, When Love Flue In. It took a change of direction in Dominic’s life before he could acknowledge what he wanted. Needless to say years of lusting after a man he thought he had no right to, had taken its toll and with the change in his lifestyle, the feelings he had tried valiantly to keep under wraps finally bowed to the pressure. As ‘the oracle’ tells us, this can only lead to one thing…combustion.



copyright Lillian Francis

One of the working fireplaces in the kitchens at Hampton Court.

At this point I could insert a joke about how many sweeps it would take to fill that massive hole but I'll leave that to your own warped and twisted imaginations. Look at those scorch marks though. That fire must have been throwing out tremendous heat.

Hopefully, my story will provide you with even a fraction of that warmth.

I'll leave you to decide.

When Love Flue In is out today from Silver Publishing

Christmas, a time for friends, family and roaring fires. Unfortunately Dominic faces the festive season alone with a blocked chimney.

A soot-haired sweep, an exploding flue and an uncooked turkey. It’s an unholy trinity.

This year Christmas might be perfect.

It’s Dominic’s first Christmas since his divorce and though he’s spending it on his own he’s determined to have a traditional Christmas morning, including a roaring fire.

Which is why Reagan, a soot-haired chimney sweep, is head and shoulders up Dominic’s flue.

Unable to take his eyes off Reagan’s low slung jeans and enticing arse while he sets about the hearth with rods and brushes, Dominic knows five years is a long time to have an obsession with the man who sweeps his chimney every Christmas.

This year there’s nothing to stop Dominic from acting on his desires.

But Dominic will need to stop hiding who he really is before a special sweep can light a fire in his heart.

Lovers Entwined - Giveaway

Ewan is one of Boston’s leading genealogy experts. When a would-be bridegroom comes looking for confirmation that there are no skeletons in his ancestral closet, Ewan considers turning the job down. Trey is a jerk of the highest order and yet Ewan experiences an infuriating attraction that’s easy to justify. Trey’s exactly his type—a carbon copy of the man Ewan’s been looking for his entire life.

Harder to explain is the sense of recognition that leaves Ewan speechless the moment Trey steps into his office. Or the stomach-churning sensation at the thought of casting the job aside.

Trey gets more appealing by the day, leaving Ewan struggling with forbidden desire for his client. Desire not helped by strange voyeuristic dreams that have started to haunt his sleep. Dreams that appear to be an echo of the past…

Head on over to Stumblingoverchaos where I'll be giving away a copy of Lovers Entwined.

http://www.stumblingoverchaos.com/archives/21860

Closing date for entries is 5th December.

When Love Flue In - Giveaway

Sometimes Santa isn’t the best thing to come out of a chimney.

Head on over to Stumblingoverchaos where I'll be giving away a copy of When Love Flue In.

http://www.stumblingoverchaos.com/archives/21858

Closing date for entries is 30th November.

Lest We Forget

Poppies, like heroes,  can be found everywhere.

Copyright Lillian Francis

Enough said.

If you need more food for thought though, check out the poems of Wilfred Owen, who was killed on 4 November 1918 during the battle to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors. This link will take you to The Sentry, where Owen packs enough visual imagary to fill a short story into a poem. His other poems are listed on the right; all will make you think if you care to do so.

You wait all year for a new release & then two come along at once...

As I posted recently, my new novel Lovers Entwined will be released on the 6th December by Ellora's Cave.

But this post isn't a reminder of that even though I've opened as such.

My Christmas story, 'When Love Flue In', will be released by Silver Publishing on the 1st December. Since it is part of Silver's 25 Days of Christmas, Let is Snow, it has a generic cover.

Generic maybe, but I think it has a lovely wintery feel.

Hopefully the story will stand out amongst the crowd, but being the first release of the group can't be a bad thing, can it?

I best let you know what it's all about, eh? Although, there's a clue in the title.

When Love Flue In

Christmas, a time for friends, family and roaring fires. Unfortunately Dominic faces the festive season alone with a blocked chimney.

A soot-haired sweep, an exploding flue and an uncooked turkey. It’s an unholy trinity.

This year Christmas might be perfect.

It’s Dominic’s first Christmas since his divorce and though he’s spending it on his own he’s determined to have a traditional Christmas morning, including a roaring fire.

Which is why Reagan, a soot-haired chimney sweep, is head and shoulders up Dominic’s flue.

Unable to take his eyes off Reagan’s low slung jeans and enticing arse while he sets about the hearth with rods and brushes, Dominic knows five years is a long time to have an obsession with the man who sweeps his chimney every Christmas.

This year there’s nothing to stop Dominic from acting on his desires.

But Dominic will need to stop hiding who he really is before a special sweep can light a fire in his heart.

Pre-order from Silver now and double your reward points!