3.17.2016

SURVIVAL OF THE BIG MISTAKES TRR REVIEW

Today has been so exciting already! It's not even noon yet!!

LEARNING TO BREATHE Release Date MAY 3


SURVIVAL OF THE BIG MISTAKES REVIEW!

The Romance Review by Delta:


LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book. Get it, get it now!!!
Dr. Alexandra Van Zant is having a REALLY bad week. Between trying to figure out how to save the world from a deadly virus that one of her employees developed, her husband's multiple infidelities (one resulting in a child), the release of security footage showing her having sex with Patrick "Gabe" Gowan, Conor Larkin and Jonathon O'Donnell (and loving it), you'd think she'd hit rock bottom. But the worst is yet to come when she drops off the grid and heads to Montana to clear her mind and visit her brother.

Alexandra is a savant, the world's leading molecular biologist in the genomics of disease. She also has bipolar disorder, OCD, ADHD and control issues. In a word, she's an extremely brilliant hot mess. As bodies start dropping all around her, Alexandra and her supremely intelligent mind will have to sort out exactly who she can trust.

The second book in the Van Zant Siblings, SURVIVING THE BIG MISTAKES, was a doozy! I went about this series all wrong, picking up book 3, then heading back to start at book 1. Now that I have an actual background on the characters, I feel like the third book makes much more sense to me. But I digress. Alexandra is such a fascinating and unique character, one that I haven't even seen similarities to in other books. She's only ever been sexual with her lying, cheating husband, but once she has a menage a quarte with Gabe, Conor and Jonathon, she realizes that she can use sex to escape the trappings of her mind for awhile. She's literally got the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders, knowing that if she gives up, there's a good chance the death toll due to the virus will be astronomical and worldwide. She's so foreign but such an empathetic character that you can't help but just fall in love with everything about her.

Similarly, Gabe is her oldest friend in the world, and now her new lover. He's charming, affable and sexy as hell. I love that he's more than willing to share her with his mates; their menage was soooooo freakin' delectable! The action in SURVIVING THE BIG MISTAKES was terrific too, I never knew which way the wind was going to blow with Alexandra and Co., even though I'm well aware of the next book, which I should probably read with fresh eyes before delving into book 4.

Bottom Line: 

Get this. Now. Don't pass go, don't collect $200. Just get it and realize your worst fears and biggest desires all in one delectable read.




3.06.2016

Why RA Changed my Writing Focus

I constantly lament that Romance, Romantica, Erotica has become so canned...
Okay, I've been around awhile...
20 years ago when I started this Blood/Sweat/Tears Journey of Writing there was one size fits all, white on white boy meets girl ...
Sure, there was gay erotica and bdsm erotica but it was not in the mainstream...

I'm still ranting on and on because the fight for diversity across the love/sex genres is still sparse...
Yes, yes, there is multiracial diversity, gender diversity, and preference diversity (kind of...) because you still have to hunt for great writing in those genres...
But it's out there...the romance novel of today is not the same as yesterdays...

Back on track:
My lament continues because their is hardly any chronically ill/disabled persons represented in Romance, Romantica, Erotica ...thank you The Fault in Our Stars and Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl for making me cry my guts out and I love you for that because emotion is so cathartic,: however, I am still looking for the great story that portrays the pain, challenges, laughter, and orgasmic sex that chronically/ill or disabled people face every day...

Maybe the writers are out there, writing their hearts out...but publishers are afraid to take a chance. Yeah... there's a blog post I kinda touched on the taboo aspects...

Maybe its the size of the target audience is so small...
Ummmm... 1 in 5 US citizens is disabled... that's a pretty small number, right?
Yep, 36 Million...tiny
Annnnnd... 1 in 2 US Citizens have a chronic, invisible illness... 1 in 2? Seriously?
117 Million

If I could whistle, this is where I'd do it...
In my mind, my current frustration that we as writers are not writing what we are living is justified...

Except, my part of the "we" equation is now methodically introducing damaged people in my novels because six years ago I was hit by a train that didn't stop moving so that I could patch up the damage. I had to pull myself out from under that moving train and climb onboard for the ride of my life that would leave me mentally, physically, and emotionally forever altered. The train was the invisible chronic illness known as Rheumatoid Arthritis...and I will be a passenger the rest of my life, leaving me feeling out-of-control of where I'm going... And occasionally I get thrown under the train so I can battered and scraped up again...

Thank you RA Train, I am forever in your debt because I am a better writer today than yesterday. A lot can be said for an author that writes with their own blood...
So now my BDSM-LGBT Erotica is more raw, authentic, both forgiving and unforgiving, because the taboo truth is that chronically ill and disabled folk have sex too...
And I'm trying to keep it real to balance the scale a bit.

Thank you Delta of The Romance Reviews for touching on the fact that my heroine lives with the invisible illness BiPolar Disorder in the great review of the Consequences of the Big Mistakes




3.05.2016

Writer Update

WRITER UPDATE:


My Daddy Dom/little book A LITTLE INDULGENCE is 15K from done...fingers crossed I can knock it out this weekend! gotta stay focused because my Little's so want to be their very own big series...

.....so cross fingers, say a prayer, dance naked, light a candle for me if you can....

Gotta do a little wrapup on THE TAMING AND SHARING OF XANDRA which is at wordcount but needs tweaked...
and from there.... deep breath:



Throw myself on starting REVELATIONS OF THE BIG MISTAKES which will wrap up Alexandra Van Zant's sibling thread of the VAN ZANT SIBLINGS series..... whew... 





When Alexandra’s sister calls her fiancé in the middle of the night frantically in need of a Shibari Master, Alexandra learns yet another secret about Gabe and falls headfirst into his kinky past. Not realizing the emotional turmoil she is about to propel herself into, Alexandra insists Gabe be Jessica’s rigger since he learned Shibari from Jessica's husband and has bound Jessica in the past.

Gabe isn’t thrilled with Alexandra’s plan, since his and Jessica’s shared secrets go farther back than anyone realizes. Knowing it’s about to get real, he brings in a back-up rope master, Francisco Emanuel to top Jessica. With Alexandra’s high-risk pregnancy and bipolar disorder leaving her teetering closer and closer to the abyss, he fears wrapping her sister in his rope may be the last straw.

Alexandra has her own ideas, demanding Gabe not only use the opportunity to share his love of Shibari with her but demands he dominate her as well. Will their relationship implode as secret after secret comes out? Or is their ménage too tightly bound for anyone to fall?