The Ingredients of Bliss By Lisabet Sarai #Blogtour #giveaway

Check out this delicious new book from Lisabet Sarai!  One sexy French chef. One kinky American TV producer. One ambitious Chinese gal who thinks she wants them both. The ingredients of bliss? Or a recipe for disaster?

 The Ingredients of Bliss By Lisabet Sarai, a Contemporary BDSM ménage from Totally Bound, 2014

Accomplished cook Mei Lee “Emily” Wong knows exactly what she wants—her own show on the Tastes of France food channel. But life is full of complications. First, her deceptively nerdy producer, Harry Sanborne, initiates Emily into the delights of submission. Then her boss, legendary chef Etienne Duvalier, begs her to dominate him. Emily just can’t resist—especially when Harry orders her to explore her inner mistress. Suave and sexy Etienne will do whatever she asks—in the bedroom if not in the kitchen. And Harry, her lovingly diabolical Dom, adores pushing Emily’s limits.

When the network sends the trio to France to shoot a series of cooking shows on location, Emily knows her career is on the upswing. Her plans fall apart in Marseille as a Hong Kong drug syndicate kidnaps both Etienne and Harry. The Iron Hammer Triad mistakes Etienne for notorious gangster Jean Le Requin, who has stolen their drug shipment, worth millions. Emily realizes she must find the real Le Requin, retrieve the purloined dope, and bargain it for Harry’s and Etienne’s lives. The secret she’s been keeping from Harry might prove useful. Still, what chance does one woman whose knife skills are limited to chopping vegetables, have against the ruthless cruelty of two criminal organizations?

Get your copy today! 

The special VIP edition of The Ingredients of Bliss is now available from Totally Bound. This version contains a sizzling bonus chapter not available from other retailers. Totally Bound has the most advanced book selling site of any independent publisher on the web, with new One-Click ordering and direct delivery to all e-reader platforms.

An Interview with Harry Sanborne

By Lisabet Sarai

Lisabet Sarai: Hi, Harry! Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions? My readers always want to know about the hero.

Harry Sanborne: Not at all. Though I’m hardly the hero type. It was Emily who rescued me, don’t forget.

LS: True, but you’re the dominant in the relationship. Though you didn’t reveal your interest in BDSM to her at first, did you?

HS: Guess you might say I had my own secret. (chuckles) Seriously, though, I didn’t want to frighten Emily away. From the first time I saw her, sparring with Etienne Duvalier in the test kitchen, I knew she was something special. Smart, strong, competent and stubborn. An incredible cook. And beautiful, of course, with a sort of unconscious sexual appeal that I at least found irresistible. I didn’t need that aphrodisiac, that’s for sure!

After we became lovers, I felt pretty certain she was the woman I wanted to spend my life with. She’s so focused on her career, though, that I didn’t push things. I was happy to be with her under any terms.

LS: When you finally let your Dom side show, though, she reacted positively, right?

HS: You might say that. (grins) It was bit of a shock for her to realize she enjoyed being on the bottom, but as is always the case with Emily, she – um – adapted quickly.

LS: I’m sure your skill as a top had something to do with that.

HS: It has nothing to do with skill, not really. It’s the emotional connection that counts. I love her and she knows it, feels it instinctively, no matter tightly I tie her up or how hard I whip her. She knows that I’ll take care of her. She trusts me. I’m honored by that trust.

LS: What about her relationship with Etienne? Did you feel threatened by that?

HS: You may find this hard to believe, but not at all. First of all, I’m not the jealous type. I knew Emily loved me, before she realized it herself. And I don’t believe that love is limited, that what you give to one person reduces the amount you have available to share with others.

Second, I was intrigued and yes, turned on, by her dominant side. I’m a pretty kinky guy! Anyway, I encouraged her to top Etienne just to see how she’d react, what she’d learn about herself.

Finally, I really like Etienne. Sometimes he acts like he has a stick up his ass but having worked with him for nearly three years, I knew he was a decent fellow with a good heart. And it seemed that, like me, he might have lost that heart to our Emily.

LS: So you were willing to share her.

HS: I just gave her a nudge. You know it’s true what they say, that the sub ultimately has control. I could  tell the idea of having Etienne as her slave made her hot. That made me hot. I “ordered” her to act in a way that would fulfill her fantasies – and Etienne’s too, as it happens.

LS: And your own?

HS: Okay, okay… I won’t deny it. But ultimately, for me, it’s all about Emily. Sounds sappy, I know, but my number one priority is making her happy.

 

Read an Excerpt of The Ingredients of Bliss by Lisabet Sarai

“Coming!”

I pulled myself together the best I could then unlocked the door. Eyebrows knotted with worry, Harry peered into the cramped space. When he saw Etienne—who looked remarkably cool and self-contained—he broke into a knowing grin.

“Ah, Etienne—I didn’t realize you were in here with Emily. Conferring about tomorrow’s show?”

“Of course, Harry. What else?” Duvalier’s voice was like ice water.

What else indeed? I envied Etienne’s composure. The heat of the blush painted my cheeks. My heart rate hadn’t yet returned to normal after my shattering orgasm and I was short of breath, as if I’d just completed a marathon.

“Why’d you lock the door, Em? Are you two cooking up some kind of new secret to entertain the audience?” Still hovering in the doorway since there really wasn’t room for him in the dressing stall, he turned his attention to me. His nostrils flared, and I guessed he was picking up the scent of my recently exposed sex. I wanted to drop through the floor.

“Uh—it wasn’t locked—it just has a tendency to stick.” I hoped Harry would forgive me the face-saving lie.

Etienne shot me a grateful look.

“Oh, right. But why did you scream?”

By the gods, he was a merciless tease!

I cast my eyes around the room, desperately seeking inspiration. The studio had taken over half a block of remodeled Victorian row houses. Dust bunnies gathered in one corner, where the wooden floor met the outside wall. “Cockroaches!” I blurted out. “There was a cockroach, climbing up my leg!”

“Really? Oh dear.” Harry pretended to believe me. “I’ll have to call in the exterminators again. Definitely a problem in these old buildings. Anyway, I’m glad you’re not hurt or anything. That was quite a squeal.”

He was struggling not to laugh. I wondered if Etienne could tell. Even if the chef noticed, though, he’d never let his knowledge show. Cool, calm and collected, that was Etienne Duvalier in a nutshell. At least in public.

“Did you want something, Mr Sanborne?” Etienne swept an errant auburn lock back from his brow and stepped up to face Harry.

Harry was the taller of the two men, by a few centimeters, but Etienne broadcast the impression that he was totally in charge. Nevertheless, Harry didn’t act in the least cowed.

“I just got word from upstairs—Mr Elliot wants to see you both. Right away.”

Oh, no! Roger Elliot was chief executive for the Foodie Network. I’d met him a couple of times, but he rarely intervened directly in the running of Tastes of France channel, which was Etienne’s baby.

This couldn’t be good. Had someone overheard my encounter with Etienne the previous afternoon? The thin walls of the dressing cubicles meant that was a distinct possibility. What would happen if the network learned I was having sexual interactions, on the job, with my boss? I saw my career plans sinking like an over-loaded merchant’s junk sailing into a typhoon. Why, oh why, couldn’t I just resist temptation? I couldn’t expect Harry to save me this time…

 

Blog Tour Prizes

First prize: $30 gift certificate to Sur La Table (http://www.surlatable.com) 

Second prize: $20 gift certificate to Whole Foods Market (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com)
Third prize: Three-pack of ebooks from my back list, including a copy of Her Secret Ingredient, the prequel to The Ingredients of Bliss.

I’ll also be giving a PDF copy of my own original cookbook, Recipes from an International Kitchen, to everyone who leaves a comment. AND I have a bonus $10 Totally Bound gift certificate for the tour host who gets the most reader comments.

To enter, simply leave a comment that includes your email address. You can enter once for each spot in the tour. For the full tour schedule, go to: http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2014/08/ingredients-of-bliss-blog-tour-starts.html

 

 About the Author

 I started both writing and cooking at an early age, and I’ve continued to indulge both passions as I’ve matured. Usually I’m an improvisational cook; I’m not all that fond of following recipes, and when I do, I almost always introduce my own variations. My philosophy tends to be the more spice, the better.

You could say the same about my writing. Since the release of my debut novel Raw Silk in 1999, I’ve published lots of erotica and erotic romance in almost every sub-genre– more than fifty single author titles, plus dozens of short stories in various erotic anthologies, including the Lambda winner Where the Girls Are and the IPPIE Best Erotic Book of 2011, Carnal Machines. My gay scifi erotic romance Quarantine won a Rainbow Awards 2012 Honorable Mention.

I have more degrees than anyone would ever need, from prestigious educational institutions who would no doubt be deeply embarrassed by my chosen genre. Widely traveled but still with a long bucket list of places to go, I currently live in Southeast Asia with my indulgent husband and two exceptional felines, where I pursue an alternative career that is completely unrelated to my creative writing.

Website: http://www.lisabetsarai.com

Blog: http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com

Goodreads page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/83387.Lisabet_Sarai

Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/author/lisabetsarai