Today is the last day of my Bandicoot Cove Experience, a feature on the Blog beween August 25th and and September 21st with Previews, ARC-reviews and Guestposts from the authors Vivian Arend, Lexxie Couper and Jess Dee. *sniff*

Yesterday was the release day of Jess Dee's ISLAND IDYLLE, my favorite of the series so far! Click HERE for my review of ISLAND IDYLLE.

Today Jess tells us a little about how it all came to be.
Please help me give Jess a warm welcome and enjoy this last post of the Bandicoot Experience for now...


In the beginning, Viv, Lex and I knew we wanted to write an anthology together… and that’s about all we knew. We had no idea where the anthology would be set, who the characters were, and what the common factors tying the books altogether would be. In order to be productive, we’d arrange chatting times on Yahoo Instant Messenger. The point of these chats? To answer all these questions and brainstorm the anthology.

We’d spend hours just trying to find common times to chat to each other, and then have to pretend to be very focused on the books, when we all really just wanted to have a good chat. Sometimes, to help keep all three of us focused on the writing, we’d even make lists in advance: lists of various issues that needed to be discussed during these chats.

I took some time to browse through the earlier emails we’d written, and came across this one I thought I’d share. It’s an email I sent Lex and Viv, focusing on some questions I believed we’d need to find answers to during a chat. I asked the questions and followed each one up with my opinion (in brackets). Lexxie then returned the email with her responses in bold

On 05/09/2010, at 8:19 PM, Jess Dee wrote:

Right, some things I've been mulling over which we can chat about tomorrow.

1) Where is it set?
(On a tropical island? We won't do a wedding, we can have another central plot.)
I reckon a very small but very exclusive island just off the tropical far north Queensland coastline called Bilby Island

2) Are we going with the hotel theme? (I'm very happy with it.)
I love this theme

3) Who is the central character linking them all? Is it a central character, or just a central theme?
(For eg, is it simply the opening of a new hotel, first weekend in the hotel? Or is it Jane Doe's first hotel opening and she's sent out invites to her nearest and dearest to attend?)
I like central character

4) Is the central character one of our main characters?
I'm thinking the central character isn't one of ours. She's the lynchpin that brings ours together

5) Can I have conversations in my book with your characters, and if so, can I send them through to the owner of that character to write an appropriate dialogue?
(I love the idea of that - if you have any clue what I'm talking about.)
If we don't, I will sulk (and if you don't, I will sulk)

6) Are we going to begin each book at the same time, ie one common scene, but obviously the scene will be viewed in three different ways as it will be in the POV of one of our characters.
(Love this idea)
Oooh, I love love this idea

7) Do we have a Central opening line: eg, "I hereby declare this hotel open."
(love this idea)
By the Power of Greyskull....

8) If one of us wakes up in the middle of the night and feels the need to work on the antho, is it ok to completely ignore her, or yell at her to go back to sleep?
If I'm not asleep, talk/chat/work away :)

(Note from Jess, added for blog: This question was targeted at Viv, who has a ridiculous habit of waking up at obscene hours in the night…and writing.)

10) How much junk food can one consume while working on this antho?
As much as one likes (I will most likely consume copious amounts of tea)

11) How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Forty-two

12) What's big, white and very dangerous when it falls out a tree?
A fridge.

13) What is the meaning of life?
Forty-two (same as the woodchuck question *grin*)

14) Can you tell I'm totally into this idea and already having loads of fun with it?
Yes.

15) Do you have questions to throw out?
What’s big, white and blue?

BTW - the answer to no. 12 is a fridge. So maybe we don't actually have to discuss it after all. ;)

And finally - just because I love an idea doesn't mean I'm stuck on it.

————————-

So, that was the email with Lex’s answers. (She never did tell me what was big, white and blue!)
A couple hours later Viv’s reply came:

Will answer properly once I'm not lying in bed writing on my itouch. ;)

BUT, I had an extra little idea I wanted to throw at you guys. Q#3-- the girl who is opening the resort and invites her friends along. You KNOW we are going to have people asking about her. It would take a little figuring out, but I'm totally game to write an additional 4k or something and come up with a freebie to add to this set.

Could be G1 shows up in our books occasionally flustered, and everyone chalks it up to opening nerves, but it's really that every time she rounds a corner or hits her room she's being fucked silly by HER two lovers.

:)

Sent from my iPod


Nope, Viv never did respond to the rest of the questions. But that was okay. Because her little email sparked a whole new idea, and Kylie Sullivan’s book, Exotic Indulgence was born.

It’s nice to be sitting here now, on the other end of the journey. All four Bandicoot Cove books have released. I sincerely hope the reader’s journey to Bilby Island and Bandicoot Cove is as fun and satisfying as the trip we took while writing the books!

Jess

Island Idyll

Adolescent fantasies can grow into very adult realities.

Bandicoot Cove, Book 4

Sienna James has come to Bandicoot Cove to mourn the end of her eight-year relationship with Ben Cowley. The last person she expects to meet is the star of every one of her high school fantasies.

Joshua Lye is not only as appealing as he was in high school, he reveals she was the main feature in his adolescent wet dreams. As kids they never got it together. But they’re adults now, and there’s nothing keeping them apart.

When Ben arrives at the resort determined to win Sienna back, finding another man in her bed kind of throws a spanner in the works. But he isn’t deterred. Rather than admit defeat, he comes up with an alternative plan: Let Sienna sleep with both men—at the same time. Then she can make an informed decision as to which man she wants.

Sienna shouldn’t want to go through with this shockingly sexy plan, but she does. Desperately. Except after the sexual storm passes, she could have it all…or be left holding an empty heart.

Product Warnings
Contains a suggestion beyond risqué, a solution beyond orgasmic, and two men who know how to play dirty. Really, really dirty.

Buy links: Samhain | Amazon |Barnes & Noble

Vivian Arend | Lexxie Couper | Jess Dee | Bandicoot Cove
Paradise Found | Tropical Sin | Island Idyll | Exotic Indulgence