Shadow Lane Volume 6
Put to the Blush
by Eve Howard
Shadow Lane Volume 6: Put to the Blush,
A Novel of Spanking, Sex and Love
Copyright ©2009 by Eve Howard
ISBN-13 978-1-926585-46-8
Second Edition
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Howard, Eve, 1953-
Shadow lane [electronic resource] : volume 6: put to the blush, a novel of spanking, sex and
love / written by Eve Howard – 2nd ed.
Electronic monograph in PDF format.
ISBN 978-1-926585-46-8
Also available in print format.
I. Title.
PS3608.O82S536 2009a 813'.6 C2009-904881-7
Cover artwork by Tarsis: www.briantarsis.com Interior artwork by The Contessa and Tarsis
Shadow Lane Volume 6 was first published by Blue Moon in 2001,
Copyright © Eve Howard.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
Publisher: CCB Publishing
British Columbia, Canada
Dedicated to the excellent Fred R.
Crossjay and Teresa
Shadow Lane
Volume 6
Put to the Blush, A Novel of Spanking, Sex and Love
Contents
Chapter 3 – The Difficult Seduction
Chapter 5 – Phoebe and Pascal Part 1
Chapter 6 – Phoebe and Pascal Part 2
Reader Reviews about the Shadow Lane Series
Sloane and Pamela
It was barely ten o’clock on Monday morning when Robert Corning, publisher of Breathless, Romantic Traveler and Honeymoon, called Hazel Weber, editor of Breathless, into his office.
“You couldn’t have done a worse job on this issue!” he declared, slamming the magazine down on his desk in a style that caused Hazel to perceive that this was not to be their usual coffee break.
“I’m sorry,” she volunteered immediately. “What was it you didn’t like, Mr. Corning?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” he directed her to a chair by the side of his large conference table and sat down himself. Hazel had never felt her heart pound so violently as when she watched her boss leaf through the company’s second most popular magazine with his big hands. “First of all, every story in this issue is narrated by a single woman who manages to have lots of sex without ever getting married, divorced, having kids or contracting a social disease. I’m sure I told you when I hired you, Hazel, that our audience is mostly comprised of young married or divorced moms. How are they going to relate?”
“But tales of domesticity aren’t sexy. I think women buy our magazines to escape from their drab reality,” Hazel ventured boldly.
“Girl, are you insane? There should be at least two wedding night scenes in every story, the first depicting the author’s first, failed honeymoon, and the second describing her second bid for nuptial bliss in the capable arms of a trucker or cowboy who loves her in spite of her hyper-active child.”
“I see,” Hazel mumbled, barely hearing a word he spoke in her sudden anticipation of being fired. Like most 25 year olds in L.A., she lived from paycheck to paycheck.
“Furthermore, none of the stories you put in this issue contain those endearing characters and heart rending situations that serve to convey positive moral statements about home and family. And you’ve also been too esoteric. Did you think you were writing for the literati? Are we sitting in the offices of Vanity Fair?” Robert gestured around the faux wood walls of his conference room. “Do you think that if even one of your readers had ever heard of Madame de Stael that they would be reading this type of magazine?” he demanded.
“I guess not,” Hazel admitted, now completely convinced that she was about to be dismissed.
“I had my trepidations about hiring a Stanford English major, but you assured me that you understood the simple, basic requirements of writing pulp romance.”
“I guess I just thought I was supposed to write about sex without being vulgar.”
“I have no complaints about the way you write your sex scenes, it’s what surrounds them that’s the problem. This is a genre with particular requirements, Hazel, among the most important of which is the reinforcement of solid, sentimental, middle class values. Your stories are too sophisticated. And there’s not one tearjerker in the bunch. Don’t you understand that you have to pile on the deprivation to make the happy ending seem even happier?”
Hazel did not know what to say and merely waited for him to go on.
“Look