Review Tuesday: The Separation by A P von K'Ory #ReviewTuesday #CrossculturalRomance

Bound to Tradition: The Separation by A P von K’Ory

Amazon KDP, 2013

Businessman Erik Lindqvist – nicknamed “Viking” - has problems with women. He doesn’t trust them; fundamentally he believes they are all untrustworthy sluts who exist only to be used and discarded. That’s how he treated all his many lovers, until he met Khira, the brilliant and beautiful sixteen year old from the Kenyan Luo tribe who stole his heart. Despite her youth, Khira seems to have tamed the beast in Erik. Her upbringing as a Luo woman has given her a unique perspective on men and sex. Men are “muscled infants” who must be indulged but also guided by the women, who are goddesses on earth. Khira and Erik have a rather unconventional marriage in which Erik is still free to expiate his lust with other women. At the same time, they are deeply devoted to one another and to their beautiful and talented children.

When Khira secretly takes their pubescent daughter Loyana back to her tribe to be initiated into the mysteries of goddesshood, and Loyana falls ill as a result, all Erik’s rage against women rises to the surface. He brutally assaults his beloved Khira, sending her into a coma. Coming to himself, he realizes that he may well have killed the person he loves most in the world. Both Khira and his children desperately need him, but he can’t cope with the guilt and the responsibility. Despite his mostly happy marriage, he still hasn’t resolved his mistrust of the female of the species.

The Separation is the third and final book in A P von K’Ory’s dramatic Bound to Tradition trilogy. The second volume ends with Erik’s attack on Khira, and his subsequent desperate attempts to get her out of the African bush and into medical treatment before she dies. As the third book opens, Khira has been unconscious and unresponsive for days. Erik is half-insane with grief and guilt. Their five children are traumatized, especially Loyana who witnessed Erik’s attack on her mother, and who feels that she is at fault for agreeing to the initiation. Khira’s closest friend Joyce arrives from Kenya to help care for the family during the emergency. Standing in for Khira, she’s willing to confront to Erik and force him to accept what he’s done.

This book was not what I expected. From the title, I thought that Khira would recover, but that she’d break away from the unpredictable and violent husband who almost killed her, living separately from him despite their mutual love. Instead, Khira remains in a coma throughout most of this novel. The “separation” relates to the fact that she and Erik cannot communicate at all.

However, despite her outward passivity, Khira’s mind is still active. A P von K’Ory is very convincing in her portrayal of Khira’s inner life, as she struggles to understand what has happened, to remember who she is, and to recognize the people around her. She can hear; she can form intentions. However, she cannot, especially at first, command her body to act on those intentions – even something as simple as moving a finger. These visits to Khira’s mind are devastating.

Much of the novel is dedicated to Erik’s attempts to run away from himself and his responsibility for Khira’s condition. I have to say that I found him infuriating. Despite the almost supernatural connection between him and his wife, he just can’t manage to face his own flaws. One can’t help but believe that Khira would be better off without him.

In the end, love triumphs, though I sense there will always be scars that won’t fully heal. Khira fights her way back to consciousness and to her family. Erik finally begins to work on his deep-seated emotional issues. The book concludes with an event full of hope for the future – an event that sets the stage for A P von K’Ory’s second series, Golden Shana.

As hard as it was to read about Erik’s behavior, I enjoyed The Separation. Like the previous books, it is full of vivid descriptions and intense emotion. It does not focus as much on the conflict between Erik’s and Khira’s worlds as the first two volumes of the trilogy, but that tension always exists under the surface. You can’t help wondering when it’s going to explode once more and fracture their lives.

Review Tuesday: Bound to Tradition Book 1 by A P von K'Ory #ReviewTuesday #Africa #Multicultural

Bound to Tradition Book 1: The Dream by A P von K’Ory

Amazon KDP, 2013

Kenyan teenager Khira Caroline Oganga comes from a proud line of Luo warriors. Orphaned before she was born, she is her mother’s jewel: beautiful, intelligent, courageous, inquisitive and eager for experience. Although she is deeply embedded in her family and in the ancient traditions of her tribe, she’s also drawn to the English-dominated society of Kenya’s former colonial masters. Given the opportunity to study at St. Mary’s Girls High School, Khira finds herself increasingly confused by the conflicting values of her two worlds.

When she meets brash, charismatic Erik Lindqvist, a brilliant but arrogant tycoon more than twice her age, these conflicts reach a crisis. Despite the seemingly unbridgeable gaps between their status and their cultures, Khira and Erik fall in love, and the domineering Swedish billionaire is determined to marry the charming and headstrong teen – even though she has been betrothed since childhood. Khira is more than willing to become Erik’s wife, but insists that their union be on her terms. Somehow she needs to balance the expectations and rituals of her native culture against the demands of Erik’s world, and her own surging desire.

The Dream is the first book of the Bound to Tradition trilogy, which charts the sometimes rocky course of Khira’s and Erik’s relationship. I found it utterly fascinating. A P von K’Ory provides an in-depth introduction to Luo culture, conservative and “backward” in some ways, amazingly progressive in others. The relationship between the sexes is particularly intriguing. Superficially, men dominate Luo society, but among the women, males are referred to as “infants”. Women are the patient, all-suffering goddesses who nurture, protect and care for the fundamentally unstable, emotionally volatile men.

This perspective, of course, applies equally to Erik, the ultimate alpha male who nevertheless needs the balancing feminine power that Khira wields.

I loved the way the author managed to capture the unique cadence and flow of Luo language, even in English. I have no experience at all with Kenya, but the world of tradition she portrays felt genuine, as nuanced and complex as any society.

The book begins with Erik’s and Khira’s journey to her home village, to seek her grandfather’s consent to the marriage, then flashes back to recount her earlier history, her education, and her first encounters with Erik. In general, this structure works well. The author dispenses information gradually, letting the reader get to know Khira bit by bit. There are occasional “information dumps” that weaken the book – several pages of back story without any intervening action – but mostly we learn about the characters in more natural and organic fashion.

Apparently, Bound by Tradition is a prequel to the author’s Golden Shana series. Erik and Khira are Shana’s parents. Their unusual background is mentioned in the Shana books; I found it highly satisfying to read about it in detail. In fact, Shana’s relationship with Roman in some ways mirrors her parents’ history. Certainly both cases are characterized by a ferocious clash between the masculine and feminine principles, a supremely dominant man tempered, but not tamed, by a strong, confident woman.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed The Dream. I look forward to reading the next volume of the trilogy.

Review Tuesday: The Untouchable by A P von K'Ory - #eroticromance #dominance #ReviewTuesday

Golden Shana: The Untouchable by A P von K’Ory

Amazon KDP, 2018

Millionaire businessman Roman Castell is accustomed to getting what he wants, especially when it comes to women. Females war with one another for his attention. Roman sincerely enjoys the charms of the few lucky ones he chooses — until he gets bored and moves on. He’s a law unto himself, unattached, dominant, demanding, the ultimate male predator, a generous but fundamentally cold-hearted lover who covers all his bases by forcing his playmates to sign legal contracts before he’ll bed them.

When he encounters Svadishana Lindqvist, he is totally unprepared for the havoc she wreaks on his emotions, his life and his self-image. Exquisitely beautiful, intelligent and talented, even richer and more powerful than Roman himself, Shana initially appears immune to his legendary charisma. Meanwhile, his craving for her is visceral, soul-destroying, humbling to a man who scarcely knows the meaning of the word humility. Roman devotes all his considerable resources to pursuing the woman who has fascinated him. In the first book of the Golden Shana series, The Chase, he makes some slight progress in winning her. In the second book, The Capture, he succeeds in overcoming her resistance, which derives partly from a history of sexual abuse, and binding her to him with ties of lust and perhaps of love. However, he can’t resist exercising his power over the other women in his life: his former mistress Marie, who is pregnant with his child, and Shana’s childhood friend and one-time Sapphic lover Alyssa.

The Untouchable, the third volume, opens as Roman welcomes the love-sick, desperately willing Alyssa into his dungeon. Motivated by ego, jealousy and a desire for revenge, he secures Alyssa to his bondage cross then forces her to watch as he ravishes Shana. The perverse scene, though pleasurable for everyone involved, terrifies Svadishana. Roman seems to uniquely fulfill her on every level - physical, emotional and spiritual - but she fears that under his influence she’ll lose all independence and control. She also, quite logically, foresees practical problems in their relationship, given their demanding careers and potentially conflicting business interests. She asks for some time and distance to consider their future, and Roman grudgingly acquiesces. Shana jets off to the other side of the world, leaving him alone, bewildered by his feelings, needing her as he has never needed anyone. She misses him with equal fervor, but her loneliness and desire are not enough to overcome her concerns about their future.

Meanwhile, the man who raped Shana at university (Grieg, nicknamed “Phoenix”) proceeds with his plans to reclaim the woman he views as His Girl. Roman, as might be expected, fights back with every weapon in his substantial arsenal. The middle of The Untouchable reads more like a thriller than an erotic romance, as the rivals and their respective henchmen try to outsmart and destroy each other. Only near the end of the novel do Roman and Shana reconnect, in a violently passionate, multi-chapter love scene. This reconciliation makes it clear to both of them that despite the obstacles, separation is not a viable option.

Golden Shana: The Untouchable, like the two previous installments in the series, is vivid, passionate and engaging. I especially liked the middle third, in which Phoenix and Roman basically go to war against one other. Roman shows both his strengths and his weaknesses in this segment, while the reader comes to understand the fundamental evil represented by his opponent.

Ultimately, though, I ended up feeling frustrated by and annoyed at most of the characters, with the exception of Marie and the surprisingly moral thug Garlinski. Roman, it seems, has not learned or changed much during his ardent and arduous pursuit of his golden goddess. The final chapters show that he is still as selfish, immature, arrogant and egoistic as when we first met him. Shana has demanded some space and time away from her lover and nemesis, but he barges in on her nevertheless, then blames and punishes her for depriving him and making him unhappy. This behavior does not, in may opinion, reflect true love. Meanwhile, Shana succumbs to his aggressive machismo rather than holding him to account for breaking his word. The whole scene perpetuates the sexist mythos of the magic cock that can undermine any woman’s resolve and turn her into a gasping puppet desperate for penetration. I’d thought Shana was better than this; Roman too.

How can this be true love when Roman is so dishonest? He hides the fact that he is expecting a child by another woman. He shares nothing about his experiences fighting Grieg. Indeed, if he were thinking about Shana’s safety, he’d realize she needs to know that she’s being stalked, that she’s been marked as Grieg’s victim. Roman is still unaware of the true identity of Phoenix, but he has clear evidence of how dangerous he is.

It’s clear, though, that the author considers Shana’s and Roman’s intense connection to be so powerful and fundamental that it renders all these considerations moot. I believe that she personally loves Roman as much as Shana does. This conviction comes through in the love scenes, where she lingers on every gesture and reaction.

Personally, I am not convinced. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. In any case, if you enjoy passionate romance full of unexpected twists, you should check out this book.

How To Create and Kill Your Darlings (continued...) #BDSM #eroticsuspense #giveaway @Apky11162

By A P von K’Ory (Guest Blogger)

Point 2: Test Your Protagonist’s Convictions

Normally, we avoid thinking in this way, and yet in a very real sense, to bribe someone is to pay them to go against their beliefs, right? And to extort someone is to threaten them unless they go against those beliefs. Michael Dobbs’ Francis Urquhart in “House of Cards” uses these two “means” abundantly and ruthlessly. He has no qualms about having opponents “embarrassed” or killed, or putting them in his annual list for knighthood – at a “price”.

But I digress. Back to our lessons. For example:

Take a vegan. How much would you have to pay them to forget animal rights and eat a steak (bribery)? Or, how would you need to threaten the vegan in order to coerce them into eating the steak (extortion)?

In romance, think of how much it would cost to get the loving, dedicated couple to agree to keep away from each other forever (bribery). Or, how much you would need to threaten them to get them to do this (extortion)?

What would you need to pay the pregnant teenage Catholic girl to convince her to have an abortion (bribery)? What threat could you use to get her to do it (extortion)?

You get the point. Always invent ways to bribe and extort your protagonists. No mollycoddling, like I tend to do. Kill your darling, not the flu virus. As creators of fiction, we sometimes care about our protagonists so much that we don’t want them to suffer. Maybe that’s why no script ever allows James Bond to have his crafty fingers sawed off. As a result, we creative souls literally cringe at the mere thought of putting our protagonists into difficult or dangerous situations.

But, unfortunately perhaps, keeping them safe and comfortable precisely negates what we need to let happen to them in order for our fiction to be compelling.

So what’s the worst thing you can think of happening to your protagonist, contextually, in your story? Got it? Okay, now challenge yourself: try to think of something else just as terrible, and force your protagonist to decide between the two.

Dig deep to discover your protagonist’s convictions by asking, How far will s/he go to … ? and What would it take for … ? In my Golden Shana series, the love story between Roman and Svadishana (Shana) teeters because Roman is expecting a baby with another woman. He fears that if he tells Shana this truth, he’ll never have and keep her. On the other hand, Roman is a moral person (at least in this regard) and can’t simply abandon his girlfriend and his innocent unborn baby, let alone think of an abortion. Now I need to ask myself

(a) How far will Roman go to hide the truth from Shana?

(b) What would it take for him to stand by and watch his baby grow up not knowing him, the father?

Over to you now.

(a) You as a writer could ask yourself, how far will your heroine go to find freedom?

(b) What would it take for her to choose to be buried alive?

OR:

(a) How far will Detective XYZ go to pursue justice?

(b) What would it take for the detective to commit perjury and send an innocent person to life in prison or a death sentence?

As writers we should ask ourselves: What does my protagonist believe in? What priorities does s/he have? What prejudices does s/he need to overcome? Then, put the protagonist’s convictions to the ultimate test to make their truest desires and priorities come to the surface.

Now you get an insight about what Kill Your Darlings mean.

Golden Shana: The Chase (Book 1)

(Read Lisabet's review here.)

An evening at the opera house La Scala in Milan twirled the lives of five people into a web of intrigues, heartaches, human hunts, loss and revenge.

Roman: I never chased after a woman. It was always the other way around. Then I caught a glimpse of the woman I would kneel for, at the opera, and I didn’t even know her name. But I determined to find her if it took me the rest of my life.

Shana: He stood in the room with her. The frisson in the currents freaking between them was as solid as a steel portal. The mutual force of predator and prey blasted its way into her core ... her soul ... Danger. Keep far away from him.

Marie: Some men were born to rule the world; others were born to ruin it. Roman Alastair Northcott Broughton Castell was born to do both. But she loved him and awaited his baby.

Alyssa: He was the lover she wouldn’t tire of. Roman had something so damned perilous about him he was addictive. Who gets addicted to safe and riskless? Not her.

Grieg/Phoenix: Had His Girl interpreted that Friday night as abuse? He’d only done what she wanted – protection of her cherished innocence.

Excerpt

What a difference a day makes… And it hadn’t been a day. It had been an evening in Milan. Brief moments of an evening. I didn’t care about the consequences to whomever. Through my obsession with Svadishana I became aware of the fact that I was a person. A human being, not an almighty god, with all the baggage that comes with being that. I too – eureka! – had a heart pumping white and red corpuscles through my veins. Blood, not icicles.

Was it love I felt for Svadishana? A woman I’d spoken three whiny words – Please call me! – to? Was it more than simple lust and desire? Did I want to possess more than just her body?

Pondering these questions alone was so unlike me. That woman had turned me into an alien even unto my own self. What I felt, my inner voice said, was more than the thrill of the hunt. More than lust, desire, need, passion, the excitement of possession, and subjugation.

Of course all that was part of it. But the basis or the source, the seedbed on which all that sprouted and was growing to full blossom in me, could well be something else.

When I thought of her, saw her image from Milan in my mind, watched how she moved in long smooth strides in YouTube, my brow beaded with sweat. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the few photos I’d fished out of the Internet. Group photos at a family birthday or the authorized biography of her father. Her movements in a YouTube conference clip were springy and powerful even in their smoothness. She exuded strength all over the place, laughing, talking, gesticulating.

A breath-taking beauty. Such beauty that I dared not believe it at times.

And brains to go with it.

In love or not, I knew what I wanted and Svadishana was the answer. I wanted her and would do anything short of suicide to get her. Who knows – perhaps when it came to that as the only means available, I’d really murder too. I didn’t in the least care about the consequences, as long as they got me to where I wanted to get to.

Svadishana’s arms and knickers and… heart?

What obsession, Roman. Get back to real.

No chance. Real was Svadishana.

Golden Shana: The Capture (Book 2)
 
(Read Lisabet's review here.)  
 

Roman finally gets together with Shana. But he finds himself wedged between three women and the man intent on killing him because of Shana. And there’s the secret of Marie’s unborn baby.

Roman: I wanted to eat all of her. Even within that fortress I longed to erect around her to hold her captive in, to keep her away from men not worthy of the sight of her, I’d devour her.

Shana: Roman was deadly sex. She had no antigenic for immunity against him. Instead she lay there on his bed, in an impossible state of sluttish disarray, holding her breath.

Marie: “So you didn’t bring your rich old cow with you.” The bitch was ten years older than her, years older than Roman himself. Weren’t men supposed to prefer younger women?

Alyssa: She was not going to let Roman treat her like a hole in the air. He started this triangle and she was going to make it equilateral.

Grieg/Phoenix: His philosophy stated that peace was bondage, and war was freedom. His Girl was his territory, and no other man’s.

Excerpt

I picked her up and carried her like a bride. Or a sleeping child. She nuzzled between my neck and shoulder. I kicked the door shut behind us.

We were both ablaze, and I needed to check that, wind it down a notch.

“Like to lie down on the sofa and cuddle till we both slow down a bit?”

“Bed.” Her voice vibrated against my neck.

We left the entrance hall behind us. The flames kept on leaping.

“Overriding my sensible decision?”

“Yes. Bed.” Tremulous once, tremulous twice.

“Just got me, and you want to run away with it.” I bore her past the living room.

“Bed.”

“I’m getting a restraining order on you.” I took the first stair, chest tight again.

She lifted her head off my shoulder and her Huskies sent megawatts to my blues. Unveiled desire. My balls clenched. At this degree I risked coming where I stood with her in my arms. I was tempted to close my eyes and summon my control. For the first time I felt life surge through my veins for a woman, the whole woman, not just sex with her. Again, I experienced that powerful instinct in me to guard and protect her, the fragile and most precious thing in my life. She had a pull on every cell in me. Her masses of loose curls gave warm slaps through my chinos to my hip, sending the sergeant into planning guerrilla warfare for its freedom.

The witch. I was hypnotized. I had to stop climbing the stairs and get my head cleared. She was as necessary to me as the air I breathed, yet she knocked that air straight out of my lungs. Her naked desire was intoxicating. Insanity mingled with reality. I really had her back in my arms. She came to me, came to my home for the first time. And ordered Bed, not a mutual shower. She was the first and only woman to take me to this Newland. She was my perfect balance. I’d fallen hard and didn’t even want to get back up. It happens to the worst of us ingrained rogue playboys.

The Huskies still pinned me in Newland. “Skirting around the deed, are we?”

“Protecting my golden goddess.”

For sheer survival, I broke the lock of our eyes and started up the stairs again.

Golden Shana: The Untouchable (Book 3)

Roman doesn’t even want a harem. But the harem relentlessly seeks him. No sooner has Shana left Roman than Grieg/Phoenix is marking time on Roman’s door, out for a war, not a fight, over Shana. And so is Marie, whose pregnancy Roman still keeps a secret.

Roman: I loved owning women. Then I found my woman. But she would never be owned, not even by the gods. She left me. Still, her dangerous admirer and I began wars over her, not merely street fisticuffs.

Shana:  Roman scares me in every way and the fear excites me. I’m brainless in his arms, brainless just from thinking about him. He makes me navigate so many labyrinthine passages and secret doors that I’d never even been aware of before. My body knelt and wept for him. My common sense made me flee from him while I could.

Marie: I sold Roman my heart and soul. Only to realise my body had not been consulted, and was therefore out for war.

Alyssa: I really got all that about Roman. The super-ink indelibility of him, the substance of him that stamped his four-figure-euro Ferragamo Oxfords, the supernatural charisma that rocketed him all the way up there with Lucifer. His square would never fit my round. But hope springs eternal, right?

Grieg: “If I have whoever your girl is, why don’t you simply come over and take me off her or her off me?” Roman had not reacted like a man who had received that damning message. Over the phone, he’d sounded as if he didn’t have a single feather ruffled. Time to start the war.

Excerpt

I heard him change the phone to the other ear. “Castell, you’re a kid running a billion-euro crib, you pervert.”

My system actually waged wars for me to jump out of my skin. Control, Castell.

“Oh, yes. I’m about as straight as the U-bend under a sink, fuckwit. So is this the problem? A pissing contest based on having some beef about your wallet being a little anorexic in comparison? Have I got that bracketed?” I heard him swallow again. I decided on a blind knock on that, although for all I knew he was drinking water. “By the way, I’d ease up on the drink. Otherwise you won’t manage to solve the square root of bugger all, let alone remember if you have any other name but Sggirb.”

“I know you right up to your fucking perve room, Castell. I delivered the CD—had the CD delivered – right into your fucking office, practically into your hands. You know nothing about me. So you better watch your smart mouth.”

“Ah, you thought you’d simply storm the Bastille that’s my home and be discreet about it, then slink into my office building and show me the dot over the i that amounts to your balls? You’re right, I know nothing about you. You’re not even in my periphery, private or public.”

“I’m not a ball of yarn to your kitten, so watch your fucking mouth, Castell!”

Just to keep him put off his stroke, “Who would you say has all the tools for annihilation, fuckwit, the kitten or the yarn?”

“You’re lucky I’m—”

“Luck is basically mythical. Reality is called chance. How about we meet?”

He said nothing.

Not good, because now that I was screwing him hard, I needed to keep up the pace. So I said, “You could make it your mud hole or you could haul your arse back here to my city. Then we roll up our sleeves, or whisk off our T-shirts. Then we start doing a little tribute to Muhammad Ali out in the Congo with Joe Frazier.”

He said nothing. I heard him swallow at intervals during the silence. “I’m rapt with attention, fuckwit Sggirb, so let’s have a date and then – to quote your countryman –you are an American – float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

“You think you’re so fucking cool…” He rumbled the word out long: Coooooollll…

“Oh, I don’t just think it.”

“Just keep your hands off her, Castell. Keep your hands off My Girl!”

“If I have whoever your girl is, why don’t you simply come over and take me off her or her off me?” I paused for a reply, none came. “Or is this the sheep being docile until they get utterly famished?” Another pause. Silence, so I continued, “You sound like you wouldn’t find a clitoris if you were armed with a compass, street map and a fucking NASA telescope.”

“You can’t intimidate me, Castell.”

Which only exposed to me the wound I’d ripped open in him. Time to add chilli.

Kindle Buy Links – Please note that the books are also available in paperbacks:

UK Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Shana-Chase-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B00WA7M3OC/

UK Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Shana-Capture-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B06X1DGGMZ/

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Shana-Untouchable-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B07H1YY28C#reader_1725967073

US Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Chase-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B00WA7M3OC/

US Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Capture-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B06X1DGGMZ/

US Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Untouchable-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B07H1YY28C/

UK Untouchable PB: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Shana-Untouchable-von-KOry/dp/1725967073

Website http://www.Akinyi-princess.de

Twitter  https://www.twitter.com/Apky11162Facebook

Facebook Author Page:         https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAPVonKOry/

Facebook Timeline:                https://www.facebook.com/apvonkory

FB Golden Shana Series:       https://www.facebook.com/Goshanaliterotic/

FB Editor/Services:                https://www.facebook.com/KOrindaYimbo/

FB AuthorMePro Press:     https://www.facebook.com/Professionaless62bloggerP/

FB Readers & Reviewers:     https://www.facebook.com/AkinyiReadersReviews/

Amazon Author Page

https://www.amazon.co.uk/A-P-Von-KOry/e/B00MDHD7ZS

GIVEAWAY!

Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here:http://writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/a-p-von-kory/

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Two Free Erotic Romance Novels @Apky11162 #freebooks #newrelease #EroticRomance

Happy Monday!

Just popping in to share the news that my friend and colleague A P von K’Ory has dropped the price of the first two books in her Golden Shana series to zero, to celebrate the launch of the third volume, The Untouchable.

You can download both books to your Kindle here:

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-2-Book-Series/dp/B079ZWCFWP/

My review of Golden Shana: The Chase is here and Golden Shana:The Capture, here. Don’t miss your chance to read this original and dramatic erotic romance – at zero risk.

Meanwhile, I am eager to read the third installment of Roman’s and Shana’s story, available now:

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Untouchable-von-KOry/dp/1725967073/

Books for the Selective Reader - #EroticRomance #Suspense #BreakingRules #GuestBlogger

By Akinyi Princess of K’Orinda-Yimbo (Guest Blogger)

Are readers manipulated? Do they read books they truly like?

I made a conscious decision to write erotic romance books for the discerning readers who, like me, want to read something a bit more substantial and worthwhile, in my opinion. I wanted to write books for readers who are ambitious enough to want to read about different lives, situations, and cultures that would negate the familiar grounds, not just something they can “easily identify with”. I’ve defied the rules and combined erotic romance with the thriller/mystery/crime genres. My hope is to cater to an audience that is selective, experimental and sophisticated enough to venture into something new.

So when the publishers’ editors asked me to write something erotic, I tried to veer away from the sort of bite-sized billionaire hero, and the woman who enjoys being dominated via the usual trademarks of blindfolds, chains, whips, or floggers and the like. I didn’t want to do yet another ©McErotica.

My focus reverted to my first award-wining series, Bound To Tradition, set in Africa and Europe between 1950 and 1979. From this unusual love story, I picked out the youngest daughter, Svadishana (Shana), now 32, and paired her off with a 28-year-old younger hero, Roman. Besides, I made them both “financial nomads” whose businesses span the globe, and therefore not bound in a single city or country.

I wrote what I call ©Sophisterotica that would appeal to me personally, as a reader. The sex scenes are penned the way I would want them both from the man and for me. In other words, I wrote for myself and hoped there are other women out there who would enjoy the sort of literature I would enjoy reading. There’s also the truism about writing what you know. I simply added more of my fantasies to that. I needed conviction in my work in order to give it all the passion and authenticity it deserves.

I’m convinced there are other readers who are prepared to read something different and original. To me traditional publishing has become a bit of a recycling business. Books are less likely to be chosen for publication based on their literary merit.  There was a time when publishing houses were true talent scouts, mentors, nurturers. Those days seem over. Today, publishers are more like bankers or repetitive, predictable production lines, much like the interconnected fashion and film industries.

I have nothing against readers who prefer erotica that involves physical and social pain and humiliation. I simply prefer erotic psychological battles that challenge the intellect a bit. But I’m aware there are a lot of readers who love those “typical” erotica books.

Like the Good Book says: Unto Caesar what it Caesar’s.   

Golden Shana: The Chase

by A P von K’Ory

Roman: I never chased after a woman. It was always the other way around. Then I caught a glimpse of the woman I would kneel for, at the opera, and I didn’t even know her name. But I determined to find her if it took me the rest of my life.

Shana: He stood in the room with her. The frisson in the currents freaking between them was as solid as a steel portal. The mutual force of predator and prey blasted its way into her core ... her soul ... Danger. Keep far away from him.

Marie: Some men were born to rule the world; others were born to ruin it. Roman Alastair Northcott Broughton Castell was born to do both. But she loved him and awaited his baby.

Alyssa: He was the lover she wouldn’t tire of. Roman had something so damned perilous about him he was addictive. Who gets addicted to safe and riskless? Not her.

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Chase-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B00WA7M3OC/

Golden Shana: The Capture

by A P von K’Ory

Roman: I wanted to eat all of her. Even within that fortress I longed to erect around her to hold her captive in, to keep her away from men not worthy of the sight of her, I’d devour her.

Shana: Roman was deadly sex. She had no antigenic for immunity against him. Instead she lay there on his bed, in an impossible state of sluttish disarray, holding her breath.

Marie: “So you didn’t bring your rich old cow with you.” The bitch was ten years older than her, years older than Roman himself. Weren’t men supposed to prefer younger women?

Alyssa: She was not going to let Roman treat her like a hole in the air. He started this triangle and she was going to make it equilateral.

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Shana-Capture-von-KOry-ebook/dp/B06X1DGGMZ

Excerpt from The Chase

What a difference a day makes… And it hadn’t been a day. It had been an evening in Milan. Brief moments of an evening. I didn’t care about the consequences to whomever. Through my obsession with Svadishana I became aware of the fact that I was a person. A human being, not an almighty god, with all the baggage that comes with being that. I too – eureka! – had a heart pumping white and red corpuscles through my veins. Blood, not icicles.

Was it love I felt for Svadishana? A woman I’d spoken three whiny words – Please call me! – to? Was it more than simple lust and desire? Did I want to possess more than just her body?

Pondering these questions alone was so unlike me. That woman had turned me into an alien even unto my own self. What I felt, my inner voice said, was more than the thrill of the hunt. More than lust, desire, need, passion, the excitement of possession, and subjugation.

Of course all that was part of it. But the basis or the source, the seedbed on which all that sprouted and was growing to full blossom in me, could well be something else.

When I thought of her, saw her image from Milan in my mind, watched how she moved in long smooth strides in YouTube, my brow beaded with sweat. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the few photos I’d fished out of the Internet. Group photos at a family birthday or the authorized biography of her father. Her movements in a YouTube conference clip were springy and powerful even in

their smoothness. She exuded strength all over the place, laughing, talking, gesticulating.

A breath-taking beauty. Such beauty that I dared not believe it at times.

And brains to go with it.

In love or not, I knew what I wanted and Svadishana was the answer. I wanted her and would do anything short of suicide to get her. Who knows – perhaps when it came to that as the only means available, I’d really murder too. I didn’t in the least care about the consequences, as long as they got me to where I wanted to get to.

Svadishana’s arms and knickers and… heart?

What obsession, Roman. Get back to real.

No chance. Real was Svadishana.

Coming soon!

About the Author

A P Von K'Ory was born in Kisumu, the capital city of Luoland, Kenya, to the Luo royal houses of K'Orinda and Yimbo. She was sent to a public school in Yorkshire, England when she was too young to say "sod off". She studied Economics, Literature, and Journalism in London, graduating with firsts as a journalist from the London School of Journalism, as well as an economist from the London School of Economics.

Love took her to Bavaria, Germany where she further studied Germanistics and German-specific Economics and Socio-Philosophy. Her most recent personal achievement is her Ph.D. in Sociology and Geo-Politics in Germany, making her total number of doctorates five. She regards knowledge as a lifelong quest of learning something new.

Writing entered her world when A P was about five and never left. Apart from her numerous and published articles, theses, and papers, A P's first novel and personal favorite, Khiras Traum, was published in 2004 in German. There followed eight romance novels, including the award-winning Bound to Tradition trilogy. Her nonfiction book Darkest Europe and Africa's Nightmare: A Critical Observation of Neighboring Continents was published in New York.

In between other jobs (e.g. working as a cleaner in a mental asylum in northern Germany - great plots there just waiting for her!) and as a freelance journalist since 1980, she gives lectures and seminars in various German, Austrian, and Swiss universities, colleges and high schools on topics ranging from socio-economy in Africa, Business English, African literature and the socio-ethnological conflicts in the traditions of Africans and Europeans in particular, and the West in general.

A P is the winner of six awards from four continents, the last one being the Achievers Award for African Writer of the Year 2013 in the Netherlands. The Selmere Integration Prize was awarded her in 2014 for her engagement in helping African Women in the Diaspora cope with a variety of domestic and social problems. The Proposal, a short story, won the Cook Communications first prize in 2010 and is published in an American anthology Africa 2012. In 2012, she won the Karl Ziegler Prize for her commitment to bring African culture to Western society in various papers, theses, and lectures. Again in 2012, her book Bound to Tradition: The Dream was nominated for the 2012 Caine Prize by the Author-me Group, Sanford, and in 2013 she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Von K'Ory has a large extended family. She lives in Germany, France, Cyprus, and Greece with her husband, son and two grandsons.

She may be reached at any of the following:

Websites
 

http://apvonkorybooks.co.uk
http://AuthorMePro.eu

Twitter
 

https://www.twitter.com/Apky11162

Facebook
 

http://facebook.com/AuthorAPVonKOry
http://facebook.com/AWGADIN

Chat with her at:
 

http://facebook.com/KOrindaYimbo
http://facebook.com/akinyi.yimbo
http://facebook.com/Professionaless62bloggerP 

Amazon Author Page

https://www.amazon.co.uk/A-P-Von-KOry/e/B00MDHD7ZS