My new book Bedding Down is officially out!

Today is/was the pub date for my newest book, Bedding Down: A Collection of Winter Erotica. This book is more along the lines of erotic romance, but still very hot. Next time, if there is a next time, though, I plan to kink it up because if you've browsed your local romance shelves, you'll know that threesomes, kink, and all sorts of other wildness are going on between those covers. I actually instructed my authors to tone things down slightly from what we're used to in the erotica world. It's getting good reviews so far, so I'm curious to hear what you think of it.

Click here to read an interview with me at Love Romances & More Reviews, about writing and a tiny bit about Bedding Down.



Here's the Table of Contents, official description, and my intro:

Introduction: The Perfect Chill

One Night in Winter by Kristina Wright
Six Weeks at Sunrise Mountain, Colorado by Gwen Masters
It’s Not the Weather by Alison Tyler
Baby, It’s Cold Outside by Marilyn Jaye Lewis
Northern Exposure by Isabelle Gray
Hidden Treasure by Sophie Mouette
Sweet Season by Shanna Germain


Ignore the weather report—there's a heat wave coming!

Author, editor, blogger, and former sex columnist for the Village Voice, Rachel Kramer Bussel presents seven titillating tales guaranteed to steam up your bedroom windows in the midst of Mother Nature's seasonal chill. A lusty collection of scintillating erotic dreams from some of the best writers in the field, here is a sexy and sure cure for the winter blues!

Two uptight Manhattanites discover a hotspot in frigid Minnesota where they can shed their inhibitions and explore their most intimate fantasies . . .

A billionaire recluse and a beautiful paparazzo generate some serious heat in a snowbound cabin in the Colorado Rockies . . .

Combine a blizzard, a romantic old castle, a burglary, and a breathtakingly sexy devil—her perfect recipe for dangerous lust . . .

In the unfamiliar chill of a New York winter, a California sun bunny discovers the secret to igniting her boyfriend's inner erotic fire . . .

Stuck with a man she despises on her sister's wedding day, a distraught beauty resolves to be civilized—until her studly adversary lures her into a forbidden place with no rules or taboos . . .

A husband and wife whose marriage has stalled get their pistons pumping once more when a sudden winter storm strands them in their car . . .

Though she's been taught all her life never to beg, her insatiable desire for him is bringing her to her knees . . .


Introduction: The Perfect Chill

As I write this, the weather in New York has just started to turn chilly, bringing those first crisp breezes, the first hint that winter will soon be here. While summertime is known as the season when flesh is bared, the truth is that winter is probably when we need companionship the most, someone to cuddle up with beneath the sheets, or in front of a roaring fireplace. Someone to keep us so much warmer than any heating device ever could.

The seven novellas presented here offer up stories where passions rise in the winter, where the flurries of snowflakes provide not just something pretty to look at, but an excuse to drop everything and get naked, sometimes actually in the snow. These characters boldly stare down winter, daring it to derail their lusty plansæand sometimes winter rises to the challenge.

In Kristina Wright’s “One Night in Winter,” a woman confronts a man she thought she’d left far in her past, only to have him get under her skin in the exact same way he used to do. As she tries to elude him, she only finds herself more and more attracted to him, the inclement weather conniving to keep them together. Gwen Masters brings us a loner hero who’s deliberately secluded himself in the woods, without phone or television or anything resembling human companionship. But when he finds a woman trapped in the woods, he takes her in for a stay that’s far longer, and more intrusive, than he intended. California girl Alison Tyler puts a spin on the very meaning of winter with her heroine’s resolutely anti-winter boyfriend; no matter how sexy of a snow bunny she makes herself, he just can’t quite warm her up in the right ways. The lengths she goes to to woo him are seductive and surprising. In Marilyn Jaye Lewis’s “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” a couple almost break up over a breakdown. They’re forced to discover that their passionate memories of lusty outdoor sex spurs not only their arousal, but their love for each other, as they try to rekindle their romance. Another couple trying to revive their former glory is seen in Isabelle Gray’s “Northern Exposure,” as the pressures of marriage weight heavily on a couple poised in that in between state. The “Hidden Treasure” in Sophie Mouette’s story turns out to be much naughtier than the criminals seeking it expect, and provides the residents of a historic museum the chance to repeat the hottest parts of history. Rounding out this collection, Shanna Germain gives us something delicious and delightful to curl up with in “Sweet Season.”

What they all have in common is the search for someone to make these men and women forget about the chill in the air, forget about the potential dangers and discomforts of winter, and simply revel in the thrill of having someone nearby to ward off the cold. Someone whose kiss is enough to ignite a fire deep within, who can make magic happen with a touch of their lips or a sensual caress. Winter here is both a state of mind and a time to bed down, to remember what you loved about a person the first time, and fight to hold onto that sensation. It’s a time when we may bundle ourselves in layers, but are just waiting for the right person to come along and peel them off. It’s as sexy as sprinkling snow over a lover’s naked body, as huddling close into his jacket, of breathing deep and letting go, watching the whiteness you’ve formed before you, and having a special man there to savor it with. I hope Bedding Down will keep you warm this winter.

Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City