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.

reviewer, excerpt, buy link at: http://erotic.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=20775

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... 

SHIBARI PRESENCE is AVAILABLE

BUY it NOW!

• Author:Roxy Harte
• Length:Novel
• ISBN:978-1-68252-083-3
• Series:Van Zant Siblings
• Genre:BDSM & Fetish, Menage & Polyamory, Contemporary
• Cover Artist:Dar Albert
• Prev Book:Van Zant Siblings 4: Learning from the BIG Mistakes

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?

Chronic Illness and Disability in Erotica

Career Sidelined by Chronic Illness...

Yes, that was me five years ago when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. 

I turned inward. Facing the devastating diagnosis I felt lesser, defeated, pushed aside...
In that moment I learned a valuable lesson from my Loyal Readers because once I stopped producing books on a regular basis I started hearing from my committed and concerned followers.

Reading their notes and emails I learned many of my readers are house-bound and chronically ill and by conversing with them I realized I wasn't useless or throw-away because of a label. My readers who so compassionately shared their stories with me to lift me up define who they are every day and if they can do it and still have a light sometimes sarcastic take on living with Chronic Illness and still be Sexual Beings, so could I...

That information combined with the knowledge that almost all of my personal friends are dealing with a chronic mental or physical illness made me start thinking about erotica and asking if our lives are so filled with the interruptions of illness, why isn't it  represented in erotica?

And now I am back!

Since those first dark years spent trying to get a diagnosis, I have found medication, which helped to normalize my life as much as possible and allowed me to return to my career as an erotica writer...

I wrote LOVERS with a woman in a wheelchair who suffered with childhood into adulthood rheumatoid arthritis. What seemed like such a small thing to me was suddenly a big deal to that titles original publisher who insisted I take out the wheelchair because it didn't belong in erotica. At which point I had a conversation with my publisher and shared a list of bdsm play parties and etceteras specifically targeted toward the disabled. I also chose to explain my own experiences because I am not a novice in dealing with chronic illness and became even more determined to "normalize" chronic illness in erotica because having to receive medication on a schedule or being confined to a chair does not make the person a lesser human being. 

Come'on... haven't we moved beyond treating people with mental and physical disabilities like children?
Apparently not.
Disability in erotica is hard to find because it confronts the idea a disabled person is nonsexual, which made it a taboo topic for far too long...

I am personally offended by that attitude!
I've always heard to "write what you know" because you can real and emotional layers impossible without having experienced something first hand. With that in mind...

I understand Chronic Illness ...
I understand BDSM on a 24/7/365 basis ...
I understand polyamory...
I understand bisexuality

I have life experiences in all four, why not mash-em-up? Enter the Van Zant Series...

To boot...

Why not have a Chronically-Ill Kick-Ass Heroine? 

And that's exactly what I'm trying to do in my Van Zant series by tackling all four points in spades, not by having the "token disabled secondary character my main character meets for lunch" but by creating main characters who are dealing with major medical problems but who are able to continue to love, laugh, play because that's what chronically ill people do every single day.

I feel confident in being able to write their stories.

Having personally played with a chair confined girlfriend and finding the experience amazing, I am able to approach my main character Alyssa who has MS and is chair bound from a positive reference point and use the lessons I garnered from "Anne" like learning to shift the focus of sex from "what makes me feel good" to "where can I touch you so that you feel good?" 

Few people know my first husband suffered from bipolar disorder complicated by schizophrenia or that he became a quadriplegic during our marriage because I never talk about him and for twenty years I have kept those memories tamped down. Recent events have brought the emotions from that time in my life to the surface and having a character with bipolar disorder was the perfect place to deal with my conflicted emotions. The side note being I have a much lesser and more manageable form of Bi-Polar, which allows me to create huge volumes of work during my manic phases is only that I am soooo thankful for my manic phases for that very bonus.

With Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Attention Deficit Disorder being introduced as a major players in my character Alexandra Van Zant's stories, I have really been forced to face both my present and past demons... every day I remind myself... write what I know... because I know that my experience may not be another's experience...

Reviews like this one that actually talks about how I have handled Alexandra's medical conditions as part of her characterization let me know I am on the right track and to keep going.

The series gets progressively hotter as it goes along, from Simmering to super HOT so I hope you will read Alexandra's stories and let me know what you think :)

Surviving the Big Mistakes

Conquering the Big Mistakes

Learning from the Big Mistakes

Shibari Presence

(additional works in progress)