Making a Guest-List - #shortstories #LGBTQ #giveaway @JeanRoberta

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An Interview with Nikko Lee

[Saturday's normally a guest day here at Beyond Romance. Today I've got something a bit different for you-- an interview with YA (and erotic) author Nikko Lee, conducted by my friend and colleague Jean Roberta. Enjoy! ~ Lisabet]

Hi, Jean. Thanks so much for the interview.

1) Can you tell me a little about your new novel?

WolfCreek is about a gay werewolf who finds strength in what makes him different. Josh finally gets the chance to escape his oppressive pack; but only if he finds it's next leader. As a rare omega werewolf, he alone can find an alpha strong enough to control New England's largest pack.

He teams up with an erratic Amazon in training and a disarming park ranger with a secret. They are no closer to finding a true alpha when a local is mauled to death. In retribution, the Amazons decide to kill Josh's entire pack.

2) Was it hard to switch from writing a sexually-explicit vampire novel to one for new adults?

Most of my published works have been sexually-explicit. I've found a comfy home in writing erotica. In some ways, it was a relief to not have to come up with new and exciting sexy scenes to fill a novel. I think it will be a bigger challenge in the sequel to Wolf Creek when Josh gets a boyfriend who has no problem letting Josh know just how irresistible a werewolf can be. It is a challenge to write sexually charged scenes with a delayed pay-off, but it makes that moment with bodies collide all that much more rewarding.

It was actually a challenge writing about werewolves instead of vampires because I'd been hooked on vampires for so long. I had to figure out a number of things like the mechanics of transformation and the rules of the pack. It was a lot of fun stepping into a whole new mythos.

3) How is your novel (and possibly other recent novels for new adults) different from the classics that used to be in every school library?

I'm still finding my way around the new adult genre. With the rise in popularity of young adult fiction, many adults are finding stories about young people making their way in the world and discovering themselves strike a chord. I don't think we ever stop looking for who we are and where we belong. That stage of separating from your parents and being on your own is such a big step but only the first in a lifelong journey. Admittedly, I haven't been in a high school library in a while so I'm not sure what's on the shelves now. Twenty-five years ago when I was in high school, we were reading Grapes of Wrath and Old Man and the Sea. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of literary gold in these classics. But at the time, their worth was completely lost on me. Those stories weren't what I was experiencing.

Now teens and young adults have a wide array of fiction to get lost in and relate to. The main characters are more relate-able because they are more diverse and go through more diverse and modern experiences. Diversity is something we need more of in all genres of fiction.

4) Has motherhood influenced your writing? If so, in what ways?

Pregnancy had a huge influence on my writing. I published several short stories last year, all with a maternity bent. It's a terrifying time, especially being my first pregnancy. I have an educational background in genetics and spend my work days looking at articles about developmental defects in mice. So I channelled all that worry and hope into my writing.

Ten months into motherhood, I've learned why baby monitors are so popular in horror movies. There is nothing scarier than the thought of hearing something unexpected coming from the monitor in the room where your sweet, defenceless baby is sleeping. Never mind walking up to their closed door or their near motionless and sleeping bodies.

Now as a mother, I read a lot of books with one sentence or even phrase per board page. I can't wait for my daughter to reach an age when she will want to participate in reading - other than by eating the pages.

I'm also very curious about how a fictional mother with an infant would handle any number of fictional challenges from a zombie apocalypse to finding a second chance at love.

5) What inspired your new novel?

Wolf Creek was inspired by a number of short stories and books I was reading at the time and a change in the overall acceptance of gay characters in fiction. The late Jay Lake's Torquing Vacuum made me realize that a gay main character could have adventures that didn't revolve around his or her sexuality. JR Ward's Lover at Last finally consummated a homosexual relationship between two characters that had been building for several novels earlier in the series. Patricia Brigg's Cry Wolf take on the importance of an omega wolf caught my imagination.

Before writing Wolf Creek, I had been writing with an erotic novella about two martial artists coming to terms with their sexuality and falling in love. While writing about the evolution of their sexual relationship and dealing with the consequences of their secret romance was enjoyable, I worried that the story was too much about one character coming out and that there wasn't enough external conflict.

So I kidnapped Josh from that story, made him a werewolf and introduced him to a sidekick character I loved from another trunked novel who made trouble where ever she went.

6) Is there anything else you would like to say?

I'd just like to invite people to check out Wolf Creek. I hope they will fall in love with these characters as much as I did. Although Wolf Creek has some romantic elements, it is more about Josh finding himself and his place in the world. If there is enough interest, I will get to write the sequel in which Josh finds love in a most unexpected foe turned friend who made an appearance in Wolf Creek.

Review Thursday: The Flight of the Black Swan by Jean Roberta

The Flight of the Black Swan

By Jean Roberta

Lethe Press, 2013

In her acknowledgments at the commencement of The Flight of the Black Swan, Jean Roberta lists Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as one of the book’s influences. Given her plot that thrives on misdirection and complication, her characters who bear names like Sir Roger Tingly-Jones and Martin Bonnyshanks, and the tendency for her chorus of gay seafarers to burst into spontaneous song, I might have guessed this on my own. William Gilbert could well have penned the libretto for this romp, if not for his Victorian sensibilities. (Anyone who’d like to imagine a William Gilbert homoerotic leanings might enjoy my alternative history tale “Opening Night”, in Connie Wilkin’s collection Time Well Bent.)

Ms. Roberta’s book, aptly subtitled “A bawdy novella”, tells the story of unfortunate Emily, a young woman from a good British family who finds herself far more enthralled by females than males. When her passion for her lovely schoolmate Lucy is thwarted by Lucy’s surrender to destiny as an aristocrat’s wife, Emily desperately seeks opportunities to escape the same fate. Fortune intervenes in the persons of Roger (who happens to be Lucy’s elder brother) and his paramour Martin, who plan to steal a soon-to-be decommissioned British ship and set sail for America with a crew of similar sexual inclinations. Emily agrees to a marriage of convenience with Roger to placate her family, and, fitted out in man’s clothing, embarks upon a new life of freedom on the good ship Black Swan.

I won’t spoil your reading pleasure by giving any more details. I will warn you, though, to set aside any prejudice you might have about sexual exclusivity, either in terms of partners or genders. Emily, Roger, Martin, and the crew turn out to be far more flexible, sexually, then you might expect. As the voyage unfolds, the Black Swan offers sanctuary to a range of gender ambiguity. A jolly and indiscriminate carnality reigns on this ship of outlaws.

Although Ms. Roberta cites some contemporary sources, The Flight of the Black Swan is more fantasy than historical fiction—except in terms of language. Emily’s first person narrative captures the rhythm and vocabulary of Victorian English. Here are the initial sentences:

Almost the worst thing that can happen to a young lady is to be loved by her parents.

Consider it: attentive mothers and fathers do all in their power to protect their daughters from risk and notoriety—in short, from every experience which gives savor to life.

One cannot help sympathizing with this hapless victim of Society, indeed with all the so-called Green Men who constitute the Swan’s crew, whose amorous inclinations are condemned as unnatural, and indeed, illegal.

I have to say a few words about the amazing production design of The Flight of the Black Swan. In this digital era, I’ve become accustomed to books as boring, utilitarian objects whose form is irrelevant to their content. In contrast, even in PDF format, The Flight of the Black Swan is a thing of beauty. With the ornamental fonts it employs for titles as well as for the instances of hand-written correspondence or verse scattered through the text, and its lively cover that suggests an oil painting, it provides visual as well as intellectual pleasure.

My one criticism of this tale is fairly minor. I would have liked to have heard more about Emily’s kidnapping by pirates during her formative years. She alludes to these events on several occasions, and it’s clear that experience shaped her tastes, but we never get any of the juicy details. Perhaps the author is planning a prequel?

All in all, The Flight of the Black Swan is a delightful volume, quite a departure from Ms. Roberta’s short fiction, which is often hyper-realistic and emotionally intense. Having read it, I have a new appreciation for her versatility—as well as for that of her characters.

Do Not Adjust Your Screen

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Each Has A Point

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Are We There Yet?

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