Spellbound excerpt Five

As promised, here is the final installment of Chapter One of Spellbound:

You can purchase a copy of Spellbound here.

I glance over at him and he is now on the phone, deep in conversation, his attention focused completely on his screen. I look back at Joe and he looks a little like he’s just asked me if I can help him keep one of his limbs.

“Of course you can have some honey,” I say, putting him out of his misery. “I can’t drink a whole bottle of anything on my own, let alone liquid gold.” I smile, hoping I miraculously show more confidence than I feel.

Joe leans forward and expertly pours the wine into the two long stemmed crystal glasses.

“Beautiful glasses Joe,” I murmur.

“Waterford. I picked them up while I was out as well. Greta is organizing us a cheese plate.”

The bowls are a third filled and I inwardly giggle at the glass half empty metaphor. Joe carefully lifts my glass and hands it to me. “Don’t touch the bowl. Your hand will overheat the wine. Sniff it first.”

I sink my nose into the glass just as Joe is doing and my sinuses flood with the rich scent of spicy wine. Joe looks like he’s in heaven, but it’s all a little lost on me. I smile at him.

“Wow,” I say.

Greta arrives with a large block of wood that has three cheeses and a selection of plain biscuits on it. She stares at Joe’s wine and he tells her to grab a glass form behind the bar because it is good for her job that she have a taste. Joe turns to me and with a one, two, three we take our first sip of Grange Hermitage.

I’m stunned.

Even I can tell it is an incredible wine. It’s smooth, and the taste of spices, berries and what seems to almost be vanilla explode in my mouth. It goes down very easily, almost as if it evaporated on my tongue, and I immediately want another sip.

“Take is slow,” says Joe. “Savor it. It’s your wine. It’s so precious.”

I take another sip, wondering when he will go so I can just get back to reading and drinking.

I look up at Mr. Briefcase and he has paused. He’s sitting back in his chair again, watching me with that boyish smile, that intense unwavering gaze. He looks like he’s enjoying the private joke and I can see he loves the surprise he’s pulled on me.

I raise my glass with a smile. He arches his brow and raises his whiskey back. Then, in an act of inspired cheek, I down the entire contents of my glass in a swift swallow that nearly kills me, but I hope looks incredibly cool.

“Oh my god - don’t disrespect the wine,” Joe squeals shaking his free hand. “You have to savor it. This wine will never ever be back in the world again.”

I glance over at my host and he’s smiling - thank god. He tilts his head to the side and I watch the smile fade as I feel the heat of his gaze travel the length of my body again.

I put my glass down and Joe pours with a stern lecture about taking it slow, and something about not being allowed to get drunk on wine like this. I’m starting to wonder if I can re-cork it and trade it for some cash. The wine I’ve had is mixing pleasantly into my blood and I grow fearless. With a gift like this, maybe I have made a really solid first impression. Maybe I can be bold enough to go and chat to the man. After all, he thinks I’m pretty.

No! Beautiful. He said beautiful.

With two wines under my belt, I can ask him over to share a glass surely? That’s the least I can do.

I resolve to approach him and ask him to join us.

But when I look up again, his chair is empty and Jack Sinclair has gone.

Spellbound excerpt Four

As promised, the fourth installment of Spellbound chapter one:

You can buy a copy of Spellbound here. 

I walk toward my chair and sit heavily into it as if I’ve been struck. I’m still in a daze, staring right ahead. I’m not sure what to make of that. My beauty inspired him? My beauty? One of the very early lessons I learnt in my love of film was beautiful girls act and intelligent girls… well they direct.

Feeling flustered and shell shocked I open my book in the hope I can hide behind it. Part of me wants to accept the compliment, but I have way too level a head for that sort of nonsense. Pretty doesn’t cut it. Beauty doesn’t cut it. I don’t want to be thought of as beautiful. My mother is the most beautiful woman in the world and my roguish father dumped her at fifty for a twenty-something-year-old. My mother is still beautiful, but she pines for my father and lives in loneliness. All because she traded too much off her looks.

I swore I’d never go down the same path.

But where is the harm in a compliment? The man wants to buy you a five dollar glass of wine because he won fifty dollars on some online gambling game or something. Who cares? You haven’t sold your soul.

This thought gives me a little confidence and I realize I’ve let my imagination get the better of me. Save it for work Connie. Don’t get all carried away cause a guy in a bar tells you you’re beautiful.

I toss him a swift glance. He’s sitting at the same table, legs elegantly crossed, folded newspaper in his right hand and his whiskey neat poised in the left. Part of me sighs as I succumb to my reality and let the fantasy of flattery go.

I turn my attention to reading. Alfred Hitchcock would understand. After all, he is the great love of my life.

It’s not till I get to settle in and let the book take me, that it occurs to me Joe hasn’t brought me my wine. I assume there’s been some sort of screw up and Joe’s forgotten or something.

I’m a bit miffed now. I look over at Mr. Briefcase and he is deep in conversation on the phone, running his fingers rapidly over that electronic device. He’s so gorgeous and for a moment I’m thinking about my beauty again and then I have to re-warn myself off that stupidity. I’m hardly going to approach him and remind him about my glass of wine - that moment, as cute as it was, is definitely past.

I look toward the bar just in time to see a very flustered Joe come through the doors at the back with his jacket on. He’s camping it up, fussing and flicking his hair in a way I know he does when he feels he’s all important. Now is not the time to bug him either. I look at the clock. It’s almost five. Soon Greta will be starting and I can just sidle over and ask her for a glass and all this awkwardness will be forgotten.

I go back to my book.

A few minutes later, Joe appears. He bends toward the small table in front of me as I look up. The first thing I notice is he’s used the fancy tray, the one we joke never comes out of the cabinet for the locals. Then I notice a simple bottle of red wine, the cork sitting by its side, and a stunning long stemmed piece of glassware I’ve never seen in this bar nor the likes of anywhere, in my life before.

“What’s this?” I say to Joe.

“Your wine babe. WOW - did you make an impression.”

I look over at Mr. Briefcase and he’s watching me. He lifts his whiskey as if to say cheers or thank you or something I should know, and can’t work out.

“A whole bottle? Geez. And the fancy tray? And a nice glass. He must have impressed you too,” I joke.

“Connie. Do you know what you have here?”

Joe looks all serious and I know I am missing something crucial again. It seems a day for it.

“Er. A bottle of wine?”

Joe sits in the chair next to me.

“No. You have THE bottle of wine. I had to go out for this Connie, after it was arranged. It’s a bottle of Grange. One of the nineteen-fifty-eight bottles made in secret by Shubert behind the Penfolds’ back. Normally you would pay about fifteen thousand dollars for this bottle, but your admirer seems to have an incredible private cellar.” He pauses and looks at the bottle as if in a trance. “I’ve never even tasted the older Granges. And you have one of the most prized right here.”

I stare at him. “Are you sure? Isn’t there some mistake?”

Joe shuffles and pulls a second immaculate glass out of his jacket pocket. “Would it be ok if I had a taste? I mean please?”

I stare at Joe. My mind is a confused whirl of thoughts. I can’t accept a fifteen thousand dollar bottle of wine. Can I? Is this man mad? How much did he win on that horse?

Spellbound Excerpt Three

As promised, the third excerpt from Chapter One. 

You can purchase a copy of Spellbound here. 

“I’m going to buy you a drink,” he says to me in a voice that sounds like it’s wrapped in velvet. It’s deep, strong and commanding, but at the same time arrogant while oddly reassuring. I realize it’s a statement, not a question and I get the message there must be very few women who refuse his drinks.

I make what turns out to be a futile decision to turn him down.

Turning to look at him, I notice immediately, behind the arrogance, his dark blue eyes have the same boyish sparkle that appealed to me across the room. That spark must be some kind of permanent fixture designed to lure unsuspecting women into his ego ocean, only to be dashed against the horrible jagged rocks at the shore of his heart. Something inside tells me he is in control of this situation and I am at the mercy of it. I feel like a child approaching a chess set with interest and across the board is a grand master gently inviting me to sit.

Inwardly, I shake my head.

Holy crap, get a grip girl! How much are you looking for a fantasy to escape your reality?

“Oh, that’s ok,” I stammer helplessly. I give him my sexiest “there-is-so-much-sexual-tension-you’d-better-not-be-gay” smile and pull my shoulders back instinctively hoping the outline of my breasts look seductive. “I’m not buying rounds or shouts. I’m a little skint today. Thanks for the offer though.”

Any minute some other gorgeous woman will walk in and he will be all over her. Stay awake, Connie. Don’t let some guy in a bar hurt your heart just because you’re feeling vulnerable, I remind myself.

The intensity of his look is so disarming. Direct eye contact. Gone is the boyish glint and for a brief flash he looks surprised and almost hurt. His dark blue dream pools travel from one of my eyes to the other as if he’s searching. I get the feeling I am supposed to know something that I have been too stupid to pick up on. I wish I was better at flirting. I wish I was more sophisticated.

No! I wish this guy would leave me alone so I don’t have to feel stupid as well as poor.

“No. You've misunderstood. I don’t want you to buy me a drink. I'm buying you a drink.”

He turns toward the bar, and I have the distinct feeling I'm getting a drink no matter what.

What the hey! If he wants to give me a drink, why don’t I let him? He’ll sit with me for half an hour, get to know me, discover he’s wasted five dollars and move on. He certainly doesn’t look like five dollars will set him back.

I sigh.

“Ok. That’s fine.” I turn toward the bar, joining him in a search for Joe.

Then, I sense him move a little closer, and a wave of the most beautiful masculine aroma rolls over me. It's a woody scent that makes me think of a forest right away, and then citrus. I can't help myself, I inhale deeply, and notice my body is set to fresh flames. Awash in arousal, I’m again lost in a mystery I can’t seem to grasp. I scan the bar looking for Joe, wishing this guy didn’t make me so nervous. Wishing I wasn’t blushing from head to toe. Wishing my body wasn’t betraying me so viciously.

Then his lips are close to my ear, and he whispers, his breath teasing my lobe,

“Does this make you uncomfortable? I'm sorry about that.”

I don’t know much right now, but I know that’s not an apology. It is a sick twisted trick to make me fall at his feet and passionately kiss the shiny black off his shoes.

I’m now officially scared I’m going to fall in love and will have to drink twice the foolishness away at the end of the night. I turn to look up at him slowly and that stunning boyish glint is back, with the arrogance of a man who knows precisely which parts of my body have just pledged him eternal allegiance.

My brain screams NO! Run for your life! While that other part of me heats up and weeps, who cares about your feelings! Let’s get laid!

“It’s fine,” I stammer. “It’s your drink.”

He smirks and then the boyishness is back like a siren on the rocks.

“I noticed you when you walked into the bar. I think you’re beautiful. As I indulged in my appreciation of you” he pauses and looked down at my body, then back into my eyes, “I took a chance on something and it paid off instantly. Because your beauty inspired my successful move, I feel I owe you a drink at the very least.”

It takes a few seconds that feels like twenty-five years before I realize my mouth is open. I have no answer for this. I don’t know what to say. All I'm conscious of is the smell of a forest and an ache between my legs.

Thank god he keeps talking.

“I have no intention of imposing on your evening. I’m sure you will soon be surrounded by friends. I merely want to thank you for inspiring me.”

His tone is suddenly business-like and I notice for the first time he has a British accent.

He holds out his hand and I drop my gaze and thankfully close my mouth, and look at his hand. For some reason, I feel disappointed.

“My name is Jack Sinclair.”

I reach out for his hand and a zap of electricity passes between our fingers. I yank my hand back with a total lack of elegance, and he half smiles with what looks like patience, but I can’t be sure. I reach out again, and that stupid zap springs between us, but I ignore it this time and shake his hand.

“Constance Berringer,” I stammer wishing I was a famous director so we could follow that up with Oh! THE Constance Berringer?

But instead I say “My friends call me Connie.”

I pull my hand away but I can’t help notice the lingering touch of his long fingers caressing my skin as I do so. My body is on fire, that stupid little electricity thingy that must have come from the loop carpet (though I’ve never known it to travel through rubber sneakers) combined with the causal stare of his eyes and that mouth I don’t dare look at, have set my body to a jelly that translates as putty in his hands. My cautionary brain warnings appear to have burst into flames and disintegrated.

“Well Ms. Berringer, I don’t mean to keep you from your book. I’ll order your wine. Thank you for bringing me so much luck this afternoon. I hope you enjoy your small gift of thanks.” And with that he turns away and strides toward the end of the bar where he and the elusive Joe start to talk.

Spellbound Excerpt Two

As promised, another excerpt from Chapter One. 

You can buy a copy of Spellbound here.

I settle into my book, mind my own business, and then something happens that I’ve never experienced before.

I have the weirdest sensation eyes are on me.

Yet, it’s more than that. It’s a feeling I recognize, as if I’ve always known it, or have always been waiting for it without knowing I miss it. I have a tingling in the lower spine that spreads erotically, around my pelvis. My heart begins to race and a flush spreads slow and hot over my skin. Strangely, despite the intensity, this sensation is positive, as if my body understands better than my mind, that something I need has arrived.

I glance up from my book, and he's there.

I look directly into the eyes of the most handsome man I have ever seen. He’s sitting at a table just a couple of meters away. He has what looks like a whiskey neat in front of him, and he’s lounging back from the table, legs stretched out and elbows resting on the arms of the chair, with an unselfconscious elegance that takes my breath away. His hands hold an electronic device, but right now, he's staring at me with what looks like surprise in his dark blue eyes. His mouth partially opens as if he's going to speak, and then he pauses, irritation taking over the surprise and glances down into his device again.

But now, the faintest of smiles rests on his perfectly formed lips.

He looks relaxed and in control again, and I begin to wonder if I imagined that silent drama playing across his face just a second ago. The smile tickling at his lips fascinates me into staring, and he glances up, staring fiercely into me, that smile sparkling in his boyish eyes. The tingling sensation in my spine goes crazy and I blush, worried he can read my thoughts that are shocking to me. I look down quickly as I feel the fever of the flush flood my face. When I take a risk and look up again, he’s smiling at his device, looking like his own racehorse just won the Melbourne Cup.

I’m nervous. My body responded violently to his glance, and even as the heat subsides, I can't calm my heart rate down or bring my nipples back from high-beam.

We seem to be the only two people in the bar. That would explain how I could gain the attention of a man that beautiful, I grumpily confess to myself. As I continue to read my book, trying desperately to concentrate, every now and then the electric feeling in my spine radiates through me like sunshine focused on my lower back and I look up to see his dark eyes on me. That ghost of a smile makes his unashamed checking me out somehow appropriate.

But he can’t be checking me out.

Not a guy like this.

Just because he’s in my local watering hole doesn’t mean I can lay claim to that kind of man. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt that is open at the collar, and a dark gray suit that looks like it was handmade by local artisans in Florence. Even his black shoes are polished. Noticing them makes me shuffle and hide my Chucks, inwardly cursing myself for not throwing on a dress before I headed out the door.

“Always dress like you’re going to meet the love of your life sweetheart,” my mother says, “Because some day you will.”

Until this moment I always thought that was such a load of crap.

“If he loves me, he can love my Chucks,” I always say back. Right now I hate my Chucks and wish to holy heaven I’d worn the D&G heels I found in the second hand store a month ago that were the steal of the decade for fifty dollars of my hard earned cash. It doesn't matter if Mr. Briefcase-stare-across-an-empty-room-at-me likes the Chucks or not, I hate them while he looks at me like that.

I need drink number two.

I stand and immediately regret my decision as the intensity of his gaze intoxicates me as if I’d had four wines, not one. I stumble toward the bar feeling his eyes on me with every step. I try desperately to act cool, totally aware I must look like a complete fool because I do not possess the grace or elegance to pull off this casual act. He will know I’m made a mess under his gaze simply because I’m trying too hard to not be a mess under his gaze. I suck my slightly rounded belly in (too many beers this winter) as I walk to the bar, trying to accentuate my tiny waist in my cute jeans. Thank goodness I wore the good jeans and not the cargo pants that could almost be tracky-dacs they’re so ugly. I only have a white tee on and my leather jacket, but that isn’t too uncool a look.

What I am I thinking. Suits don’t go for arty chicks anyway.

I make it to the bar, relieved to have something unmoving to grip.

I’m still trying to act cool, pretending I don’t notice he’s only moved his eyes as he’s watched me cross the room, pretending I don’t notice when he stands and walks in full command of himself toward me, pretending I don’t notice my flushing skin set on fire from his approach.

God, I wish I know how to be cool!

And then he’s standing right next to me, an elbow on the bar, turned in my direction. I’m still facing the bar, too scared to look at him, pretending I care where Joe the bartender is.

Spellbound Excerpt

Spellbound is now available on Amazon.

When struggling film maker Connie Berringer goes to her local to drown her financial sorrows in cheap wine, mysterious stranger Jack Sinclair offers to buy her a drink claiming she’s beautiful. She begrudgingly accepts to ease her wallet, but is too smart to be fooled by the line. When the drink arrives, it’s not a beer, but a fifteen thousand dollar bottle of Grange Hermitage. Connie’s interest in Jack Sinclair dramatically changes, only to find he’s vanished.

Over the next few days Jack will turn up at the most unexpected moments rapidly becoming a crucial part of Connie’s world, and soon, an exciting adventure in the bedroom. Connie discovers a self in Jack’s arms she never knew, including the depths of passion she is capable of and the lengths Jack will go to stimulate that passion. Jack sees something in Connie he wants, but his search for it in the past will come back to haunt him, resurfacing as a threat to the new relationship he’s found.

Sophisticated, erotic, witty and tantalizing, Spellbound reaches into the broad sweep of the soul from the suspenseful drama of a homage to Hitchcock to the slow ticklish thrill of a completely romantic romance.

Excerpt:

From Chapter One

Bills!

Hundreds of them.

At least it seems like there are hundreds of them.

They’re ugly too.

And have barred teeth that snarl at me and taunt “You can't afford your lifestyle. You’re a bad person!”

It’s true. Not the bit about being bad (bills can be pretty nasty when they find their voice) but the living beyond my means bit. My problem is I want a place to live and food to eat and sometimes that’s too much to expect. I was spoiled by my mother, of course who led me to believe things like heaters in winter, three daily squares and a telephone are life’s necessities. I was obviously raised with a silver spoon.

At least that’s how this mountain of bills is making me feel, and for once sarcasm isn't helping. If I can't afford to eat and pay rent, something is horribly wrong.

The jury is out deliberating on the cause of my current woes, but there are two primary points of view:

1. This culture won’t pay artists a decent living while they are working and honing their craft.

2. A bright young law student, all her prospects ahead of her, throws everything down the toilet when she decides to leave her studies and take up a career in filmmaking despite her brilliant father’s excellent advice to play the game by the rules and not make life any harder than it has to be.

It will come as no surprise to find the first point is mine and the second is my Dad’s. However, I always had the idea I was a talented director, and winning first prize in the Independent Short Film Awards only fanned that flame, rather than quench it as Dad had hoped.

Yet, here I am. No funding, unable to find the cash to support myself as I work on my brilliant projects and no film job – not even as coffee girl on a set.

It is no mystery to my merchant banker father why great directors don’t want young, up-and-coming film makers anywhere near their sets.

To me it is a puzzle I will never solve.

However, the cold hard fact remains; I live in my dismally small apartment in Kings Cross in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I’m getting nothing like a job in film, let alone that great advance to build my brilliant film project that I just know deep inside will launch my career. I work in a cafe and I am now, officially at the end of the money I have “borrowed” from my Dad.

(He said never pay it back. I said it was a loan. He said if I would only ask I would never need money. I said I wanted to choose my own path in life. He said naturally if I accepted his financial assistance he would be compelled to offer me direction in other areas also. I told him it is a loan etc – you get the picture.)

I smile with sympathy at myself in the mirror. My large eyes, always a bit too big for my face appear more doeish than usual. I feel sorry for myself and embarrassed at the same time.

I haven’t been idle in the last few months since I took the loan from Dad. I wrote one full and proper script and three first drafts, all of which have something going for them. I made and submitted a short film for a local film festival. I even lowered my standards and directed one commercial, which took three days and for which I was paid a pathetic but gratefully welcome seven-hundred dollars. In short, I have been incredibly busy. I just haven’t made enough money. The most lucrative aspect of the past six months is working as a waitress, and that is nothing short of depressing.

Still, I don’t want to give up.

It’s an ugly thing to confess, but I’ll say it now. The look in my father’s eye when I tell him this lifelong “pipe dream” is over is all the impetus I need to get myself motivated again. I need my big break, that’s all.

No, not a break, I need to get real about the cash and then go back to the directing when I get more financial.

Gee! Even that admission is tough on the dream-ego. And I have a fairly healthy dream-ego.

With bills this high, and self-esteem this low, only one thing can provide the answer.

A drink.

I leave the bills splayed out on the kitchen table as a kind of future punishment for spending the twenty dollars in my wallet on red wine, knowing when I come home they will be there to ask where the money went. I reach for my coat, grab my bag and race out the door.

As soon as I walk into my usual hang-out, the roaring fire cheers me. I love this old pub with its red velveteen lounge chairs, the fireplace and the cheap red wine. I’m a little early, but soon the bar will be filled with all us “undiscovered” artistic geniuses - hell for some people, heaven for me. I’ll get sympathy for my theories on why no one will read my great scripts and forget the chiding reality of my bills for a blissful couple of hours. In the meantime, I intend to down a red wine and get on with reading a random book on Hitchcock I borrowed from the library two nights ago.

“Joe!”

The cute bartender, complete with patented Aussie navy blue singlet and dusted blue jeans over a sculpted gay body turns and smiles when he sees me.

Ahhh - I’m home.

“Connie. You’re early lovey.” His face falls. “Tough day?”

“Let’s just say I had another domestic with my wallet.”

“Well, a bar is the best place for anyone who’s low on cash.” He grins and I’m understood and safe. “What’ll it be? A beer or a wine?”

“I’m gonna need red wine for this dilemma.”

“House special coming up, babe. How about I give you the happy hour price before happy hour? That’ll put a smile on your wallet.”

I give him my cutest “I-love-that-there’s-no-sexual-tension-cause-you’re-gay” smile and slam my fiver on the counter. For my pain I receive a hefty glass that’s probably over full and a buck fifty change.

Gotta love your local.

Second Excerpt of Chapter One, due tomorrow. 

Spellbound Published at Amazon

Spellbound went through its first publishing rounds a week ago, and I must say, its wonderful to get this book out there.

I am so proud of Spellbound. It has been on quite a journey, first being optioned by an agent in New York (not saying any names - lets just say I was VERY excited for a couple of weeks) only to lose its place due to Hurricane Sandy imposing itself too personally.

This was followed up with Spellbound becoming a finalist in the Steam E Reads erotic romance competition, only to lose in the final round (I later found out I had sent them a pre-edited version for the competition - What a silly mistake!).
Then I was offered a publishing contract with Steam E Reads, only to end up opting out of that to go with WahWahFunk, seeing as I had so much work published with them in the past.

Spellbound was initially written at the end of 2012, in response to Fifty Shades of Grey and the negative connotations around BDSM in that book. Like so many other erotic romance readers, I loved Fifty Shades of Grey, but I felt it was a shame Christian Grey had to be portrayed as disturbed.  My own experience of BDSM and the Dominants I had relationships with over the years were so positive, I felt that someone needed to speak up with a book that, while remaining with the contemporary romance theme, explored the ideas of BDSM with more understanding. Everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a feminist and a very passionate heterosexual (I LOVE men) and both of these things are very compatible within a BDSM relationship.

You'll just have to grab your copy of Spellbound to find out how that can be.

In the meantime, we are working to get Spellbound up on other platforms, such as Kobo, Nook, Apple, Smashwords, Draft2Digital and Lulu.

I will post little excerpts of Spellbound here each week, to see if I can tease you into purchasing your own copy. Be sure to drop by and send me a note about how Spellbound was for you.

Hitchcock's Top 5 Underrated Leading Ladies.

How do you decide who the best leading ladies are in Hitchcock films? Do you go by the popularity of the film? Their beauty? Their talent? There have been many lists made like this, but how about we make one based on great performances in the lesser known Hitchcock's…

5. Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes

Perhaps this isn't a minor Hitchcock, but Lockwood's performance is the foundation for the entire film and she puts in a great showing, making it an entirely exciting experience. This film has now been done many times in many different ways, but I still love Lockwood's performance, thrilling as the confident fun-girl becomes the maddened panicked woman who really isn't sure if she’s going crazy or not. Plus, there is something so exciting about an entire train full of people accidentally conspiring to drive a woman crazy.

4. Tippi Hedren in Marnie

I’ve added this in because Marnie is usually considered a lesser Hitchcock merely because it was so misunderstood for so long. Again, Hitchcock bases the entire film on a woman’s performance as someone on the brink of insanity and the much maligned at the time Tippi Hedren turns out to be way ahead of her time. Marnie is not only very romantic, but it stars a young Sean Connery as the male lead when he was only famous for being James Bond. Hitchcock, typically ahead of his time, pits Connery against Hedren and gives Hedren most of the power, so Tippi’s performance looks, at many different points, as though she is out witting James Bond. It’s a powerhouse performance.

3. Joan Chandler in Rope

Joan as Janet Walker starts out as the gentle woman in love, but it all starts to crumble when she is unwittingly one of the chess pieces in the game of life played by the psychopathic Brendan and his follower Phillip. As the deadly practical joke plays out, it is Janet Walker who first realizes the men are up to something and Janet Walker who first notices David is missing. Where Joan Chandler was sweet and blissfully in love, she is at first crushing with her biting wit, and then slowly deeply troubled as she can sense something terrible has happened to David. Joan plays Janet Walker as a bright sophisticated women, decades ahead of her time.

2. Maureen O’Hara in Jamaica Inn

It’s difficult to know just how Hitchcock could get Jamaica Inn so very wrong, but there is just one thing in the film he gets right. Maureen O’Hara is a great May Yellen, and even with Hitchcock giving her a terrible supporting cast and mysteriously cutting the character of Jem out of the film  - why did he do that? Mary had no one to love – Maureen O’Hara remains the only reason to see Jamaica Inn. A side bit of information, Jamaica Inn turned out to be so despised by Daphne Du Maurier herself that she almost withheld Rebecca from Hitchcock. Thank god that didn't happen, but when you see the difference between the book and the film, it really is a wonder she ever spoke to the man again he so botched the adaptation.

1.  Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound

Spellbound – this will come as no surprise – remains one of my all time favorite Hitchcock films, and not just for the Salavdore Dali sequence, but also for the complex problems Constance has to deal with. She is a wonderful character, brought to vibrant and fantastic life by Ingrid Bergman. Its her voice, and her gentle lilting manners that are so beguiling at the best of times, but used to great effect in Spellbound that make Ingrid's performance my very favorite in the lesser known Hitchcock works.

Why We Love Hitchcock.

The famous dream sequence in Spellbound designed by Slavador Dali.

There is something very special about Alfred Hitchcock that makes him not just one of the most celebrated and revered directors of all time, but also one of the most popular.

Part of Hitchcock’s popularity was connected to his savvy business sense. Its now legend that when he bought the right to Psycho, he bought all the books in circulation so that no one could buy it in order to read it before seeing the film and thereby get a heads up on that now so famous surprise ending. Psycho was also one of the first films to use that famous “nurse” story – there will be a registered nurse on hand in the cinema to rouse people from their expected fainting away in terror. This idea has been used so many times now, its lost its meaning, but Hitchcock knew people. He knew how to write them, how to direct them, how to tease them with suspense and how to appeal to them.

Mrs Danvers haunts the new bride. Daphne du Maurier had Mrs Danvers as matronly, but Hitchcock paints her younger, and with erotic overtones, in homage to du Mauriers bi-sexuality.

Or perhaps our love of Hitchcock is based in his non-educated roots? Hitchcock exemplifies the idea that anyone, if they work hard enough, can achieve anything. Even in 1926, after he’d made his first successful film titled The Lodger (Hitchcock wasn't even twenty at this stage) he knew he’d need  publicist and he started to create a persona for Alfred Hitchcock the director that he honed and worked on all his life. He was a gifted publicist and a man passionately devoted to his own intuitive vision.

Another incredible shot from Spellbound. Chance, fate and the turn of a friendly card.

But then, if we think hard, possibly one of the most beloved things about him, is his invented persona. That lovely, funny way he had of communicating, that dry clever wit applied to all his films and above all, his charming ability to laugh at himself. He knew he was not handsome, but he also knew he was clever, and both those things would have to be hidden to a certain extent in order to bring people on side.

Spellbound is a book devoted to Hitchcock, his methods of suspense and his constant examinations of certain themes, such as thwarted love and the idea of the wrong man. In many ways it is a book and a series of books that celebrates the pleasure films bring us, not just to provide us with pleasure, but also to inspire us to be greater and do greater in our day to day lives. Films have so much power to inspire, and so much of that emotional intensity started with Alfred Hitchcock.

Spellbound to be published by Steam eReads on February 14 2014

Spellbound

I am thrilled to announce a new novel I've written entitled Spellbound. I wrote Spellbound at the end of 2012 and it had a strange journey, moving from agent to agent, until I entered it into the (very lucrative) Steam eReads erotic fiction contest, where it became a finalist. As soon as Spellbound made it through the first round, I pulled it out of the agent selections, and let the novel find its own path.  I was offered a contract by Steam eReads and jumped at the chance to be published by this exciting new publisher.

Spellbound is the first of a trilogy about Connie, a young woman in Sydney's Kings Cross who is struggling to become a film maker. Struggling, that is, until she meets the handsome multi-millionaire Jack Sinclair, who introduces her to the world of BDSM, as seductively as he creates film connections for her career. But Connie is independent, and Jack isn't all that he seems - which is a problem because Connie is falling hard.

Spellbound is heavily influenced by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and uses many Hitchcock tropes such as slow winding suspense and small mysterious clues, along with old world 1940's glamour set in a 2013 lifestyle. It's a fun novel - fun to write and fun to read.

Oh and of course, like all Barbra Novac novels, its very very HOT.

Spellbound will be released by Steam eReads on the fourteenth of February 2014 - the best publication day of the year for erotic romance. Check out my authors page at their website here.

The famous Dali scene from Hitchcock's film Spellbound.