Guest Blog: K D Grace

The Road Trip from Hell by K D Grace

One rule of travel that I now live by whenever possible is do NOT do a road trip with family. It can only end in tears, and believe me, I speak from experience. Mind you there are a few exceptions. My sister is great fun to travel with, as long as she has her trusty flask of coffee and as long as you keep the map away from her. She can’t find her way out of a paper bag with a map. The other exception is my husband, whom I LOVE to travel with, but he’s my family by choice not by chance, so I’m not entirely sure that counts.

In Migrations, the story I wrote for Xcite’s Traded Innocence volume of their fab new Secret Library collection, what begins as the road trip from hell turns into a sexy adventure when Val Hastings, her Aunt Rose and her overly-helpful cousin, Sally, find themselves sharing the interstate with the mysterious, leather-clad biker who just calls himself Hawk. Hawk makes Val’s journey across the US with the family members one would least like to travel with not only bearable, but totally sizzling.

The basic inspiration for Migrations came from a horrendous road trip I made years ago with my mother and a grown-up niece. My mother had suddenly decided she was afraid of flying. She did that periodically. So my niece and I were shanghaied to drive her eighteen hours cross-country to see an ill family member. Though I will forever be grateful to my niece, who volunteered to help with the driving, I learned the hard way what happens when an introvert like myself travels with an extreme extrovert and a mother, who chose this particular trip to be moody enough that God himself couldn’t have pleased her.

Though even my sister could have taught my mother a thing or two about map-reading, every mile of the way she was convinced that I was on the wrong road, something she constantly reminded me of while my niece cranked the radio to the world’s whiniest country and western stations trying to sooth her with music – as it were. I inadvertently added to the entertaining pilgrimage by getting a speeding ticket somewhere in rural Iowa. I was only going a few miles over the speed limit, but it cost me. The money, I would have happily paid many times over for the peace of NOT having to hear about it from both my mother and my niece the whole rest of the journey. And of course, when we reached our destination, the very first words out of their mouths, after greetings, were about my speeding ticket!

At a truck stop where we had refuelled and bought a gazillion calories worth of unhealthy snacks and gigantic Diet Pepsi’s with which to wash them down, my niece purchased a romance audio book she thought my mother might enjoy as a change from the country music. However, my niece hadn’t realized that this particular romance novel had several very graphic sex scenes. I think that might have been the true highlight of the trip for me, enjoying the discomfort that the two obviously shared as the rumpy-pumpy began in earnest. I seem to recall some remark from my mom that since my niece paid for it, we might as well go ahead and listen to it. And we did! EVERY last word!

I’m sure if you’d asked my two traveling companions at the time of the journey, after they had filled you in about my criminal record as a speed demon, they would have given you a totally different account than the one I have just provided. However, since you only get my account, you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?

It was much later that the account became fictionalised, making Aunt Rose and Cousin Sally several times removed from my loving relatives, adding the outrageously sexy and dangerous character, Hawk, the biker, adding the night excursion into the bird reserve for sex amid the migrating Sandhill Cranes, and the suspicion of murder and foul play (pun intended.) And sex, I added lots of fun, sneaky sex — sex at rest areas, sex at truck stops and sex at numerous other places along the way, all making Val’s journey a whole lot more sexy than mine was. But I definitely have to say that my road trip from hell, if nothing else, was inspirational.

*****

VAL HASTINGS, assisted by her do-gooder cousin, SALLY CLINE, is shanghaied into driving their AUNT ROSE across the US to visit her son. What begins as the trip from hell turns into a sexy adventure when they find themselves sharing the interstate with a mysterious, leather-clad biker. Aunt Rose and Sally are convinced he’s up to no good. But after Val catches him mid-wank at a rest area, and he offers her some steamy help to make her journey more enjoyable, she’s convinced he’s her nasty saviour.

Is HAWK, the biker, a murder, a free spirit, or something else? Whatever he is, animal attraction wins out over caution, as he joins the ladies for a cross country romp that keeps Sally and Aunt Rose nervous and Val hotter than her overheating engine.

Available from:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Waterstones
Xcite Books

*****

K D Grace was born with a writing obsession. It got worse once she actually learned HOW to write. There’s no treatment for it. It’s progressive and chronic and quite often interferes with normal, everyday functioning. She might actually be concerned if it wasn’t so damned much fun most of the time.

K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels, The Initiation of Ms Holly, The Pet Shop and Lakeland Heatwave Book 1: Body Temperature and Rising are published by Xcite Books and are available from all good paperback and eBook retailers.

Her erotica has been published with Xcite Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Black Lace, Erotic Review, Ravenous Romance, Sweetmeats Press and Scarlet Magazine.

Find out more about K D Grace on her website, http://kdgrace.co.uk. She’s also on Facebook and Twitter.