Review Tuesday: A World of Yes by Amanda Earl

A World of Yes by Amanda Earl

Devil House Press, 2015

Bonnie Clowd is a poet, a day-dreamer, a free spirit, a smart ass, a sex maniac, an appalling housekeeper, aggressively Canadian, just turned thirty five, and single. Amanda Earl’s hilarious and provocative novel A World of Yes takes us into Bonnie’s chaotic but sensual world, as she tries to make sense of her own desires. The book opens just before Bonnie’s thirty fifth birthday party, when she somehow finds herself in a lustful embrace with her best friend Charlene. After the arrival of Bonnie’s meddling Aunt Winifred interrupts their clinch, Charlene disappears and Bonnie, deeply shaken by her own level of arousal, drinks herself into a stupor. She awakens the next day to discover discarded condoms and other evidence that her guests had continued the party without her. None of her friends, though, will give her an honest account of what happened.

Although she’s independent and self-sufficient, Bonnie’s often lonely—and pretty much always horny. A World of Yes follows her adventures, and misadventures, as she navigates the minefield of her life: her attentive but often unavailable married lover Sean, her gorgeous but sleazy boss Byron, the sweet and slightly goofy guy she meets on an online dating site, the seductive stranger on the train who offers to introduce her to dominance and submission, the selfish guy she picks up in a bar and fucks in a back alley, and of course the mysteriously missing Charlene, who probably would give Bonnie some great advice, if only she’d answer her phone.

Amanda Earl somehow manages to keep the sexual heat turned up, even when Bonnie veers close to the edge of ridiculous. Having edited her collection of short stories, I already knew that Ms. Earl could write gorgeous, intense, transgressive erotica, the sort of stories that melt you as you read. I didn’t realize she had such comic talent. Bonnie had me laughing out loud, even though I knew her sexual-existential crisis was fundamentally a serious issue. Here’s a sample:

“Okay!” I hang up and looked around my living room. I start putting stuff away. I’ve been told I’m an excellent tidier. The trick is to put everything in a big bag and throw it in the closet. It sits there with all the other big bags full of useless crap and after a year of not being missed, gets thrown out. On my way over to the closet whose doors can barely close with big brown bags bulging out, I spot a small fragment of a photograph. I don’t recognize it right away, but then I see it’s Esmeralda and she’s got her arm around a guy, but all I can see is the guy’s arm. She’s sitting on my own couch! But she’s never been to my place. I’m sure of it. I see Charlene’s pink fluffy scarf on the couch, the one a friend of hers made for her. She was showing it off to me the day before my birthday. What? That means Esmeralda was over here…during my party. What the heck! She told me flat out that she didn’t come. Even was annoyed at not being included in the orgy. Talked about planning one for my birthday next year even. Geez. What the heck happened at my party? And why won’t anyone tell me?

Meantime I have to get the kitchen a bit cleaner. Sean won’t feel like eating my food if he sees the state of my kitchen right now. It’s like an archeological dig. I’d better excavate and quickly, before Indiana unearths my mummy. I manage to get everything put away, including that stupid photo, which I stick underneath a book on call girls.

Even the chapter titles are brilliant: “The Way of the Armadillo”, “Figs, Flowers and Other F Words”, “Would you like an epiphany with your cinnamon roll?”

One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the strong sense of place. Most of the book is set in Ottawa, but Bonnie travels to Toronto and to Montreal, and the author makes it clear these different cities have different souls.

What impressed me most, though, when I’d finished the novel, was how tight the narrative turned out to be. As I read, I had the feeling of being, like Bonnie, a bit out of control, but that’s an illusion. The structure of this book is almost Platonic. All of Bonnie’s wild excesses, her emotional ups and downs, her binges and her crises, take place within a single week. By the end of that week, Ms. Earl has brought the story full circle to provide a surprising and satisfying conclusion that answers many of Bonnie’s (and the reader’s) questions. That’s when I realized that Ms. Earl knew exactly what she was doing. In retrospect, I saw the patterns which had faded into the background against the immediacy of Bonnie’s emotions.

Like Bonnie, Amanda Earl is a poet. Like a poem, A World of Yes is meticulously constructed but gives the impression of spontaneity. The deeper you look, the more you see.

Highly recommended!

Tom Sawyer paints the fence pink and other 21st century reboots

By Amanda Earl (Guest Blogger)

I’d like to see a literary reboot of Little Women where Jo is gender fluid and Laurie is the March family’s gay pal. Or a sequel to Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huck are a couple of old queens reminiscing about their shenanigans on the Mississippi.

The most unconventional romance I read this year was Glutton for Pleasure (Samhain Publishing Ltd, 2010) by Alisha Rai about a woman who falls in love with twin brothers. Spoiler Alert: they all end up together.

Society is bombarded by heteronormative monogamous tropes in our films, music, literature and general culture. I like to discover alternatives and offer them. My favourite characters are those who can’t or won’t even try to fit in to a white picket fence lifestyle where their goal is to own a house with a two-car garage, work at the same job all their lives and find “the one.”

I hear a new Bridget Jones movie is imminent. Wouldn’t it be cool if Darcy, Bridget and Daniel shacked up together in a bisexual love nest? Or to go back to “Pride and Prejudice,” instead of a remake with zombies, how about a remake with queers? Or queer zombies even.

I like plucky characters who struggle to figure out where they fit in. Some of my favourite recent reads were Daniel Allen Cox’s Mouthquake (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015), set in Montreal, where a young gay man with a stutter tries to figure out his place in the world. It’s a beautifully poetic and poignant work. I love Heather O’Neill’s Lullabies for Little Criminals (Harper Collins, 2006) whose main character, Baby, is a thirteen-year-old girl with a drug-addicted father and no mother. She has to learn how to survive, squatting in old crumbling houses or on the streets with the hookers, pimps and con artists. Kid Stuff by Tom Walmsley (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003) and pretty much all of his writing deal with people living lives of poverty on the wrong sides of the tracks who are dealing with violence and crime, and often struggling with their sexuality.

As a reader, I am always relieved when I read about such characters, whose lives represent more of what I’ve experienced. As a writer I feel the need to offer readers characters and stories that don’t fit in with the so-called (North) American dream of happiness and success.

I wrote a poetry book entitled Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014) inspired by Kiki of Montparnasse, a renegade model, cabaret singer, renaissance woman who fucked a lot of different artists in Montparnasse between the wars and didn’t apologize for it. And many of my stories so far (Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl, 2014) are about characters who rub against the smooth veneer of society.

My latest work, the erotic novel A World of Yes (DevilHouse, 2015) is about Bonnie Clowd, a thirty-five-year-old single woman who’s trying to figure out what she wants out of life. She’s not sure she’s cut out for monogamy or even heterosexuality, and is surrounded by people who are highly sexual and aren’t ashamed of being so. When I write, I can create the kind of world I want to exist with a few roadblocks along the way. That’s great fun and very satisfying.

I enjoyed writing the characters in A World of Yes, particularly Bonnie. I am fascinated by people and have an insatiable curiosity about their lives, their inner thoughts, the secrets they hide and their values. Bonnie gets herself into some silly situations that evoke Bridget Jones or Lucille Ball. Life is absurd and often full of comedic moments. I want my characters and my writing to reflect that as well.

I recently told a dear friend that I make up characters like I used to make up imaginary friends when I was a child and for the same reason: because I am lonely. I am lonely in a room full of people at a party. I don’t fit in with the status quo. I’m a polyamorous, happily married woman in my early 50s with an insatiable libido and a kinky side. I don’t find a lot of role models or kindred souls around either in real life or in fiction. I feel like I am an alien who came from a different planet.

Everything I write or create is an attempt to connect with fellow aliens. I have to believe they’re out there. Bonnie is one of them.

Here’s a short excerpt from A World of Yes, to reveal a wee bit about Bonnie’s character. A longer sample can be found on Smashwords.

I wrap myself in robe and sit on the bed to paint my toe and fingernails. I’ve never understood how other women manage to do this without making a huge mess and looking like accident victims. I have a hard time bending down to reach my toes. I’ve tried various contortions, feeling like a Cirque du Soleil acrobat. Often I call on Esmeralda or Charlene to help out, but there’s no time, so I plop my foot up on the Complete Shakespeare. ‘Out damned spot!’ I think as I take the nail polish remover and a cotton pad to remove the extra polish I’ve managed to schmoosh all over my toes, and even on my elbow somehow. The fingernails are easier, but I still have to sit around for a good fifteen minutes letting them dry. I have a habit of doing this at the very last minute so that they stay wet. It’s not unusual for me to walk out the door with a smush of nail polish on my index finger and a smear on my thumb.

Buy Links

A World of Yes on Amazon

A World of Yes on Smashwords

Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl

Kiki

Drawing for a free e-book! I’d love to hear your comments on any of the above. As incentive, I’ll be drawing a name out of the comments box on January 9 to receive a coupon for a free e-copy of A World of Yes.

About Me

Amanda Earl is a Canadian publisher, poet and pornographer who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Her novel A World of Yes (DevilHousePress, 2015) is available as an e-book on Amazon and Smashwords. Her poetry book, Kiki came out with Chaudiere Books in 2014 and a collection of smutty fiction, Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl was published in 2014 also. Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca, Ottawa’s literary hub and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress with its transgressive imprint, DevilHouse. After a near death experience/health crisis in 2009, Amanda insists on leading a vigorous life that focuses on love, lust and whimsy. Read about her in secret at http://amandaearl.com/ or connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle.

Erotic Visions for the Brave

I’ve known Amanda Earl for nearly a decade, having met her (as is the case with so many other fellow authors) through the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. She contributed two stories to Cream, the ERWA anthology I edited in 2006. However, I didn’t fully appreciate Amanda’s artistry, passion and erudition until she joined the Oh Get a Grip group blog in 2013. She only stayed a year before moving on to other creative ventures, but that was long enough for me to recognize her for the remarkable individual she is. I was thrilled when she agreed to work with me in compiling Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl.

While editing on this collection, I’ve had the chance to read (and re-read) far more of Amanda’s erotica than I’d done before. In the aftermath, I’m still soaked. Amanda’s stories exhibit great diversity, but all are designed to arouse.

The stories in this book run the gamut from raw and transgressive (“Sir North”, “Daddy Complex”) to wistful and tender (“Typing for Jack”, “Mercy and the Man in the Dark Suit”) to playful (“Cinderella and the Glass Dildo”, “Jesus, Melinda and the Undead”) to desperately dark (“The Vessel”, “Sex with an Old Woman”). In these pages, you’ll find humor and irony, satire and philosophy, and pretty much every shade of pleasure imaginable. Amanda’s fiction explores lust in all its compelling urgency and celebrates the incandescent experience of mutual sexual satisfaction. But don’t look for romance; although her characters may share affection, respect, the thrill of recognizing common or complementary fantasies, she’s not really interested in happily ever after. To quote from her glorious tale, “The Adulteress”:

I'm not going to pine away for the guy after he's gone. Or maybe I will, just a little bit, here in my lonely apartment with the candles burning bright. I might obsess about him just a smidge. Fantasize about fucking him again. Write for hours or days about the encounter or turn to a fresh, blank page. It depends on how good we are together. I suspect my Romanian playwright and I will fuck like gods. Even the way he looks at me turns my knees to jelly, my cunt to cream.

This is literary—and literate—erotica. Be warned, though. Amanda doesn’t mince words. She’s graphic in her descriptions, ferocious in her explication of desire, no matter how wild, dangerous, messy and socially unacceptable its form. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart. I suspect Amanda’s proud of this fact.

Like all books in the Coming Together Presents imprint, this collection benefits a charity selected by the author. Amanda has chosen GMHC (GMHC.org), which provides worldwide AIDS/HIV prevention, care and advocacy throughout the world. Amanda and her husband have participated in the GMHC Walk for Life in Ottawa for a decade. All proceeds from sales of Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl will go toward helping to end the epidemic and improving the quality of life for those living with AIDS/HIV.

So even as you’re squirming in your seat, amazed and aroused by Amanda’s carnal creations, you can know that you’re actually doing a good deed.

[Leave a comment on this post, with your email, and I’ll enter you to win a copy of my speculative erotica story The Last Amanuensis.]

Here’s a bit from Amanda’s story “Matilda Jones Has a Secret”.

Matilda is also excited to be in a room full of fellow rubberists. They are all either hooded or masked. Some wear gas masks. Like her, the participants would be ostracized by their families and their communities if their activities were discovered. In larger cities, she’s heard that those into rubber are able to walk around in public. That is something she can never do in her small bedroom community. It is enough for her now to have discovered a group of like-minded people.

Matilda smiles and greets a woman in an electric blue spandex leotard. A man in a shiny rubber raincoat waves at her. She is home.

Her master is lounging on a bar stool; he is handsome and masculine in leather and shiny PVC, with an opening that displays his cock, which she notices is already distended. A topless woman in a plaid latex mini skirt licks his boots.

Matilda kneels and waits for his command to crawl to him. She bites the end of the collar and holds it with her teeth while she crawls, taking care not to drop it, because she knows what the consequences will be if she does so.

When she is at his feet, he bends her forward so that her ass is in the air and her breasts are within easy reach. He reaches down and strokes the zippers over her breasts, unzips each zipper slowly and then pulls on a tit, hardening it. He smiles at her quick intake of breath, then does the same thing with the other tit. Matilda’s breasts are now aching with pain and ready to be used. Her master tells her to open her mouth. The collar drops into his hands.

He wraps it around her neck. Matilda feels the familiar and delicious constriction as he fastens the collar. Her arousal spreads from her stomach to the depths of her cunt. He zips her eyes closed. She is now in darkness, with flecks of light glinting through the zipper teeth. All she can do is listen, focus and accept what is about to be done to her. She is responsible for nothing. Everything is out of her control.

She chews her lips as the cold clamps bite into each nipple. She tries not to squirm in desire as she smells the musky aroma of her master’s cock, which forces its way inside her mouth. Matilda can taste a trace of the other sub’s perfume on his cock. Somehow this flagrant evidence of wantonness arouses her even more, firing her imagination and her loins. Nothing is hidden here, nothing is disapproved of. There are no limits.

Her master unzips the zipper at her crotch, ordering her to spread her legs. She loves the throatiness of his voice, the clarity of his commands. She either obeys or he punishes her. It is that simple. She winces as the cold, steel-pointed toe of his boot parts her moist and swollen lower lips.

Her master pushes her down on his boot, ordering her to hump against it until she comes. The boot is still wet from the other submissive’s tongue. A rush of heat spreads through Matilda’s cunt. She can tell by the feminine gagging sound that her master is shoving his cock down the other sub’s throat. Once he has used the girl, she will be dismissed. Matilda’s master will focus solely on using his own personal rubber-clad wench.

Around her, she can hear the snap of whips, the rattle of steel chains, the moans of the others, as if they are all part of some ecstatic symphony. The sounds add to her feelings of bliss.

As she humps her master’s foot, she luxuriates in knowing she is his to do with what he wants and that her sole duty is to be his beautiful and exotic slave, gleaming in black rubber. Her mind flashes briefly to the woman, pale in her pastel frock, her minivan full of groceries, the backseat covered in faded crayon marks. She remembers the Laura Ashley sheets on the lonely queen sized bed her husband rarely bothers to sleep in. Then her master removes the clamps and she howls in pleasure and pain, knowing her loud screams are pleasing him. Sensation drives every thought from her busy, analytical brain as she reaches climax.

Thanks-Giving Back Hop Links

Sunday 22 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/sunday-snog-for-good-mm-201.html

http://leighwantsfood.blogspot.com/2015/11/coming-together-giving-back-hop.html

Monday 23 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/giving-it-away.html

http://delilahnight.com/2015/11/23/giving-back-blog-hop/

http://paidbytheweird.blogspot.com/2015/11/coming-together-thanksgiving-giving-back.html

http://wp.me/p1EqZm-Vt 

Tuesday 24 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/funny-brutal-tender.html

Wednesday 25 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/erotic-visions-for-brave.html

Thursday 26 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/bloody-good-erotica.html

http://annabetherotica.com/

Friday 27 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/release-day-for-another-coming-together.html

Saturday 28 November

http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2015/11/where-no-man-has-gone-before.html

Coming Together Presents: Amanda Earl

 

I’ve known Amanda Earl for nearly a decade, having met her (as is the case with so many other fellow authors) through the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. She contributed two stories to Cream, the ERWA anthology I edited in 2006. However, I didn’t fully appreciate Amanda’s artistry, passion and erudition until she joined the Oh Get a Grip group blog in 2013. She only stayed a year before moving on to other creative ventures, but that was long enough for me to recognize her for the remarkable individual she is. I was thrilled when she agreed to work with me in compiling this Coming Together Presents volume.

While editing on this collection, I’ve had the chance to read (and re-read) far more of Amanda’s erotica than I’d done before. In the aftermath, I’m still soaked. Amanda’s stories exhibit great diversity, but all are designed to arouse.

The stories in this book run the gamut from raw and transgressive (“Sir North”, “Daddy Complex”) to wistful and tender (“Typing for Jack”, “Mercy and the Man in the Dark Suit”) to playful (“Cinderella and the Glass Dildo”, “Jesus, Melinda and the Undead”) to desperately dark (“The Vessel”, “Sex with an Old Woman”). In these pages, you’ll find humor and irony, satire and philosophy, and pretty much every shade of pleasure imaginable. Amanda’s fiction explores lust in all its compelling urgency and celebrates the incandescent experience of mutual sexual satisfaction. But don’t look for romance; although her characters may share affection, respect, the thrill of recognizing common or complementary fantasies, she’s not really interested in happily ever after. To quote from her glorious tale, “The Adulteress”:

I'm not going to pine away for the guy after he's gone. Or maybe I will, just a little bit, here in my lonely apartment with the candles burning bright. I might obsess about him just a smidge. Fantasize about fucking him again. Write for hours or days about the encounter or turn to a fresh, blank page. It depends on how good we are together. I suspect my Romanian playwright and I will fuck like gods. Even the way he looks at me turns my knees to jelly, my cunt to cream.

This is literary—and literate—erotica. Be warned, though. Amanda doesn’t mince words. She’s graphic in her descriptions, ferocious in her explication of desire, no matter how wild, dangerous, messy and socially unacceptable its form. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart. I suspect Amanda’s proud of this fact.

Like all books in the Coming Together Presents imprint, this collection benefits a charity selected by the author. Amanda has chosen GMHC (GMHC.org), which provides worldwide AIDS/HIV prevention, care and advocacy throughout the world. Amanda and her husband have participated in the GMHC Walk for Life in Ottawa for a decade. All proceeds from sales of Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl will go toward helping to end the epidemic and improving the quality of life for those living with AIDS/HIV.

So even as you’re squirming in your seat, amazed and aroused by Amanda’s carnal creations, you can know that you’re actually doing a good deed.

Enjoy!

~Lisabet 


 

Excerpt from "The Coriolis Effect" 

F/F Vampire erotica

Lou grabs the collar of my shirt, trying to get at my neck. She licks and sucks my throat. I get goose bumps down the length of my entire body. God! It feels good. I’m so wet.

“You smell delicious,” she says as she rips off my shirt buttons then tears my camisole right off my body. My tits are hard. She sucks at them like she’s starving, wraps her hands around me, then I feel her fingernails scratching my naked back. It’s like she has hands everywhere. Suddenly she’s got my skirt off. Suddenly I’m standing there in nothing but my stockings and high heels. She pushes me down onto the bed, on my hands and knees, then pulls off her pants.

She comes around to me with a harness in her hand and this dildo, which she straps on and then makes me suck. She coats it in the baby oil I keep on my nightstand and then walks behind me. My body is wet, taut and excited.

“Relax, baby. Just relax,” Lou says as she rubs my shoulders, back, buttocks, calves, heels and toes, then puts her hand between my legs.

“Open your legs,” she whispers. She traces the outline of my cunt with her finger.

“Bet you wish Ruth was doing this to you.” She leans her body over mine. One of her fingers strokes the curve of my ass. I moan as I hear the slick wet sound of a finger sliding into my asshole. As I writhe in time to her slowly pumping fingers, I wish she’d speed up. I want to move now, want to be taken. And yeah, she’s right. I wish it was Ruth doing the taking.

The unremitting regularity of her body on mine drives me insane.

“This wouldn’t be enough for Ruth, baby. She needs more,” she says quietly as she pushes the dildo into my ass, inch by excruciating inch.

I want to dwell on what Lou’s saying but my need to let go and be totally fucked takes over.

She drives the dildo deep into me. Fuck. It feels good. She’s fingering my clit at the same time. I’m wet and hot and swollen. My tits rub against the sweat-soaked sheets as she plunges deep into me.

“Imagine Ruth is sucking at your neck now.” I remember the feel of Ruth’s lips against my cool neck on the rooftop. “You can hear her breathing heavily into your ear,” Lou says as she moves her body slowly and steadily against mine. The dildo pushes into me, triggering a tightness in my cunt.

“Ruth needs you, baby.” We’re moving faster now. “She wants to bite your neck.” I’m so open. Lou’s finger enters my cunt. “She needs your blood.” That’s enough to set me over the edge. My fingers grasp the sheets and I cry out as I come.

All Romance / OmniLit ~ Amazon ~ Smashwords ~ Create Space

About the Author

Amanda Earl is a feisty bitch who leads a lascivious life in Ottawa, Canada with her husband, Charles, and her inamorato, Tom. She is an imaginative wench with her thumbs up the arse of various creative bodies, including but not limited to poetry, fiction, theatre and visual poetry.

 

In 2004 she began writing smut for the sheer joy of writing openly about sex and letting her filthy imagination run wild. Of great assistance in her quest was the Erotica Readers and Writers Association, which has published thirty four of her stories and flash fiction in the Gallery and Archive (Treasure Chest). Under the helm of Adrienne Benedicks, ERWA, which is comprised of beginner and experienced writers, editors and publishers, has been instrumental in Amanda’s development as a smut writer.

Her fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including four times in Maxim Jakubowski’s Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica; Cream, The Best of The Erotica Readers and Writers Association; five Cleis Press anthologies edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel; and gritty urban online and printed ‘zines such as Urban Graffiti, Front&Centre Magazine, the Moose and Pussy, Lies with Occasional Truth, UnlikelyStories, and Postscripts to Darkness.

 

Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca, a hub for Ottawa’s literary community, and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress and its transgressive imprint DevilHouse.

 

Her first trade poetry book, Kiki, inspired by the multi-talented Roaring Twenties Parisian strumpet, Kiki of Montparnasse, comes out in September, 2014.

After having been gravely ill in 2009, Amanda has an extravagant propensity for joy and trouble. For more on her shenanigans, please visit AmandaEarl.com or connect with her on Twitter @KikiFolle.