Showing posts with label young adult fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label young adult fiction. Show all posts

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Bringer of Chaos Release Blitz! (#scifi #contest #dystopian @kayelleallen)

A major publishing event! Today’s release day for Kayelle Allen’s amazing new dystopian scifi novel Bringer of Chaos: The Origins ofPietas. If you’ve been noticing Kayelle’s gorgeous posters and enigmatic quotes over the past few weeks, I’m sure you’re as intrigued as I am.

Read on for more information on this ground breaking book. And don’t miss Kayelle’s giveaway at the end!


Blurb

Two enemy warriors: one human, one immortal. Different in belief, alike in spirit, marooned together on an alien world.

Imprisoned and in isolation over a year without food or water, the immortal Pietas survives. Though broken in body, his intellect and will are intact, thanks to Six, the special ops warrior who captured him, but kept him sane. The warrior had no hand in his deprivation and, like Pietas, was betrayed by his own kind. When Pietas is abandoned on an alien world with nothing but his honor--and Six--he must find and rejoin other immortal exiles. After centuries of war, Pietas detests humans and kills them on sight, but he is too damaged to continue on his own. Though he despises needing help, he allows Six to nurture and restore him to full strength, and then accompany him. As they cross the planet together on foot, the immortal begins to wonder if he has found his first human friend, or if Six is loyal only because Pietas could keep the others from tearing him to shreds. This human will either be his closest living friend, or the one whose betrayal will trigger all-out vengeance by the most powerful immortal ever born.

Immortal. Warrior. Outcasts. Traitors took everything. Except their honor.

You are human. Unworthy.
A foreword from Pietas

This book you hold is being presented as fiction, but it did happen. It is as real as the air you breathe. It is not a first-person story, but it does follow my point of view.
I would never have allowed a human to know these things, but a friend persuaded me there can be no vengeance unless those in the wrong know what they did. When one has wronged another, one must face the consequences.

Having been persuaded to tell the story, I now allow it to be placed into your hands. I want you to know the truth. Why? Because other Ultras have hidden the truth. Buried it beneath fables and false retellings, as if you were a child unable to bear harsh reality. Unwilling to face the consequences of what your kind has done.

Above all, I will not lie to you.

When I come for you, I want the satisfaction of seeing your regret for what your ancestors did to my kind. I want to see your fear, and taste your terror.

This is no horror story. It's merely science fiction. Tell yourself it is only fable, if that will help you sleep. By all means, human, do sleep.

Read this, if you dare to know the truth.

~ Pietas


Prologue

In the twenty-seventh century on Earth, genslaves were supreme among all humanity's genetic creations. They fulfilled man's every desire. They recuperated from disease and injury so fast they were all but immortal. Their strength far exceeded man's. Specific, ingrained abilities limited upward and lateral movement among the servant classes, keeping genslaves in jobs with no chance of advancement.

Bred to require little rest, labor-genslaves performed menial and repetitive tasks, with enough intelligence to work, but not enough to aspire beyond their station. Warriors possessed unmeasured strength and massive size. They fought humanity's wars, died so man didn't have to suffer, and were reborn to fight again. The physically weaker classes had more intelligence. Healer-genslaves obtained vast amounts of skill in medicine and designed cures for disease. Artists created beauty. Nurturers and teachers cared for humanity's children. Scientist-genslaves designed additional genslaves, to make man's life even more pleasant. All classes were created with genetic shackles of obedience, making them content to remain subservient.

While humanity relaxed, secure in a position of power, genslave-scientists created a new order of beings with free will. It will be argued through the ages whether the creation arose from faulty programming, or a desire for freedom, but the new creatures were not hampered by genetic restraints.

They took the name Ultra, and did as they pleased. Ultras were brains and brawn. No matter how difficult the problem, Ultras solved it. No matter how horrific or grisly their wounds, Ultras survived. Disease did not touch them. Starvation did not stop them. Even death did not hold them long.

The creation of Ultras changed everything.

When Ultras demanded freedom, humans claimed them soulless, inferior, unworthy, and undeserving of equality. Humans tried to silence them, and when that failed, punished them. The Ultras seized their liberty by force. Emboldened by the Ultras' success, other genslaves rebelled, and began calling themselves Ultras as well. The First Cycle of Wars devastated half the galaxy. In the Terran Crescent and the Colonies of Man, power tilted toward Ultras. They ruled the starways. Ultras tightened restrictions and limited trade, allowing mankind meager freedoms, and no more mercy than man had shown them. Humans served, subservient to their former slaves.

Not all genslaves wanted war. Some concealed their genetic differences and abilities, and lived among humans--as human. The rumor that genslaves hid among them spawned the Human Pure movement. Purges wiped out non-human traits and enhanced sensory perceptions. Humanity weakened itself by outlawing genetic healing or correction. They identified anything and anyone considered unnatural. Anyone different hid it or faced death by fire, from which Ultras could not revive. For the human underground, the weapon of choice became a flamethrower.

Among Ultras, leadership arose that considered humans redeemable. They sought to allow humans more freedom, and give them a voice in their own government. They hoped a kinder relationship would bring an end to galaxy-wide conflict. They hoped peace would halt senseless death and destruction, foster growth, and increase trade.

In 4536 AD, after centuries of war, Ultras and humans met to discuss a truce.

But that is according to legend. Here, you will learn the truth.




Get your copy today!



CreateSpace (print): http://bit.ly/boc-origin-csp
 

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Meet the Author

Kayelle Allen is a best selling American author. Her unstoppable heroes and heroines include contemporary every day folk, role-playing immortal gamers, futuristic covert agents, and warriors who purr. She writes Science Fiction, Science Fiction Romance, Mainstream Fantasy, Contemporary Romance, Gay Romance, and non-fiction. She likes to attend Science Fiction conventions, and has been a speaker at DragonCon, and Gaylaxicon. She holds an honorary lifetime membership to OutlantaCon, an Atlanta Scifi convention for the gay geek. Kayelle is the founder of the author-mentoring group Marketing for Romance Writers, and manages the successful Romance Lives Forever blog. Kayelle is married, has three grown children, and five grandchildren. She is a US Navy Veteran.


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Saturday, September 26, 2015

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.


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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Teenage Angst Sucks

By J. Hughey (Guest Blogger)

I don’t really feel like blogging today so I’m telling myself how writing can be cathartic. The thing bothering me is something you’ll relate to. How do I know? I’m pretty sure you’ve lived through your own teenage angst, plus you may be lucky enough to relive it with your kids, like I am right now.

My husband and I just had a blowout with our seventeen-year-old son about a curfew he chose to ignore without bothering to text or call. Overall, we are very fortunate parents—no addictions, felonies, or pregnancies so far—but we do expect our kids to toe the line, especially when we are the ones providing the car, the smart phone, and all the usual fun teens expect.

From his point of view, thirty-five minutes after midnight is not so very late. And his mapping program lied to him. And he had an emotional friend to deal with before his departure. And it’s illegal to text and drive. What’s the big deal anyway, Mom?

I get it. I remember those days and I’m sure all of you do, too. Just like back then, I can’t wait for this phase to be over.

Reliving the cusp-of-adulthood angst has infiltrated my writing, sometimes rearing its head as a complete obstacle, like today. Other times, I’m writing it into my characters in Yellowblown™, my New Adult contemporary romance series that follows a college sophomore through the upheaval an eruption of the Yellowstone volcano causes across North America. Not only is she trying to get a life, she is dealt a really crappy set of circumstances that retract her options rather than expanding them at the moment she is contemplating independence. Moving home puts her back into the role of a child while outside forces give her new responsibilities and worries.

A big challenge with parenting—and writing—is keeping the personality you are dealing with in mind. Hubbie and I know our son. We know he is always going to push the envelope, like the old adage if we give an inch he will take a mile. So, we aren’t giving an inch on issues we especially want to manage, with the hope of getting him through his senior year of high school relatively unscathed. As for Violet Perch, my nineteen-year-old lead character in Eruption, I’ve struggled to show her age-appropriate angst without creating a young woman no one wants to spend five minutes with much less two hundred pages.

Teenage angst sucks, and as readers, we don’t want to be aggravated by protagonists the way real people, whether they be our children, other relatives, or the mouthy teen in the discount store can do. A book, we can set aside. Real people, not so much.

How to survive the teen years, both fictional and factual? Shine a light on the positive. I manage this better in my writing than my parenting, I’m afraid. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to break through the wall my son erected at the announcement of his punishment whereas my heroine reacts the way I tell her to so far.

Any words of wisdom for surviving the senior year of high school? A family friend said, “Stick to your guns, but continue to love him.” That seems pretty good, but I’m open to help.

Blurb
I’m in the middle of the perfect college semester, hundreds of miles from Mom, with an awesome roomie and my freshman crush finally becoming a sophomore reality—Hotness! I’m figuring out calculus, I’ve got both hands on the handlebars and the wind of freedom in my hair. What on earth could slow my roll?

How about if the Yellowstone volcano erupts for the first time in 630,000 years, spewing a continuous load of ash (crap) all over North America? Think that’ll put a kink in my bicycle chain?

Make that kinks, plural, because here’s a scientific fact I’ll bet you didn’t know. Nothing ruins the perfect semester like a super caldera. Now that I’ve made you smarter today, maybe you can tell me how to keep my life cruising in the right direction—no to Mom, yes to roomie, double yes to Hotness!—during a global disaster?

My lame name is Violet and, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not hanging from the side of a cinder cone on the last page of this trauma, but there’s definitely more to come. Unless, of course, humans become extinct and then there’s not. Duh.

Enjoy an excerpt from the day the eruption starts, September 13:

“You’re starting to freak me out,” I said. Boone looked like he was going to tell me someone had died, but he didn’t know anyone in my family, and surely the Dean of Students would not give him the responsibility of passing on bad news after three weeks of talking.

“Sorry,” he said. “I can’t decide if I’m freaked out or not.” He took a deep breath. “Yellowstone is erupting.”

I stared at him, not a flicker of comprehension illuminating my dim-bulb mind. Nothing. “Yellowstone? The place with the, umm, geysers?” Obviously I’d heard of Yellowstone, never been there, not sure I could place it on a map in the murky part of the U.S. between where I lived and Hollywood.

“Yeah. Yellowstone sits over a hotspot that’s been around for millions of years.”

“Instead of steaming it’s now erupting? As in lava erupting?” We’d covered igneous rocks in a very general way already so I knew hot liquefied rock below the ground was called magma and, when it erupted, became lava.

“Dr. Potter says nobody knows what it’s doing. It blew this morning. I mean explosively blew. All the local sensors went offline. Satellite pictures show a big brown cloud of dust. Like two hundred miles across.”

Boone’s voice shook a fraction. I put my hand on his forearm. He sat back so he could hold it in his.

I asked, “Do you have friends out there, or family?”

“Not close. Dr. Potter knows I’m from Nebraska. He asked me where—made me point to it on a map. He said my family might want to stockpile supplies, or better yet, leave.” He paused, prompting me to scoot to the edge of my seat. “My house is nine hundred miles away from Yellowstone, Violet.”

“Are you serious?”

“He says if it does anything close to what it’s done in the past, thirty percent of the U.S. is pretty well screwed.”

I rifled through my bag to find my tablet. “Show me,” I said. “I need to see a map or something.”

“C’mon,” he said. He took me to Dr. Potter’s office. The professor ignored us. He jabbed his finger at his cell phone to enter a text message. The screen of his laptop glowed with a cascade of open program windows, and his iPad bonged with an incoming email tone. His finger did not pause when Boone led me to an ancient roller-shade map of the US.

“Yellowstone is here. Dr. Potter drew this red circle this morning.”

That’s not coming off any time soon, I thought as I studied the thick line of scarlet Sharpie.

“The last eruption basically obliterated everything within this oval.”

“When?”

“Six hundred thirty thousand years ago,” Dr. Potter muttered. His trendy rectangular glasses sat askew on his nose. He swept his hand toward his laptop’s screen in a disgusted now-look-what-you’ve done gesture. I circled around his desk to see images more current than the one offered by the cartographic fossil on the wall.

A dark mess of chocolate pudding plopped in the midst of the whipped topping clouds of a satellite loop. The mass burgeoned over the northwestern U.S., dry pudding mix edges caught and swept east by the prevailing winds.

Anyone with a grandpa who blares Weather Watcher on the TV all day knows weather moves east.

Apparently, crap shot into the air by Yellowstone moves east, too.

****

Eruption: Yellowblown™ Book One is offered at the special introductory price of 99 cents for a short time, so grab your copy now. http://www.amazon.com/Eruption-YellowblownTM-Book-J-Hughey-ebook/dp/B00MRHAIRO

If you’d like a chance to win some Yellowblown™ swag made with a series logo and Eruption cover charm, sign up for J. Hughey’s newsletter at www.jillhughey.com/contact.



About J. Hughey

J. Hughey knows what a girl wants. Independence. One or two no-matter-what-happens friends. A smokin’ hot romance. A basic understanding of geological concepts. Huh? Okay, maybe not every girl is into geology, but J. Hughey is, and in the Yellowblown™ series she combines her passion for a timeless love story with her interest in geeky stuff to help Violet Perch get a life, despite an ongoing global catastrophe.

J. Hughey also writes historical romance as Jill Hughey.


Twitter: @jillhughey
Newsletter Subscribe: http://www.jillhughey.com/contact

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Saturday, August 2, 2014

No Cubbyholes!

By J.J. DiBenedetto (Guest Blogger)


I’m J.J. DiBenedetto, author of the Dream Series, and I’m thrilled that Lisabet has turned her blog over to me for a few minutes.

This is the point where I would normally tell you what genre the Dream Series is, but that’s the trick. I don’t really have a good answer for that, and it’s been one of my biggest challenges since I published the first book in the series a year and a half ago.

I imagine that sounds ridiculous: “You wrote it,” I can hear you saying, “how can you not know what genre it is?” But it’s true. The problem is, I didn’t set out to write a mystery, or a paranormal romance, or a New Adult novel, or a romantic suspense story. I just sat down and wrote the story that was in my head, which turned out to have elements of all those genres, without actually falling easily into any one of them.

I didn’t want to change the story to fit it more conveniently into one, easily-defined genre. Partly, I guess, pride was involved. But, honestly, the real truth is that the story went where the characters took it, which is often not at all where I planned or expected it to go. And I wasn’t about to second-guess them.

Taking the series as a whole, it’s a little bit easier, because I can at least make an argument that it’s a subspecies of the cozy mystery genre. All the books follow our heroine, Sara, and her husband (and, as the books go on, children) as they cope with Sara’s gift (or curse), the ability to step into other people’s dreams. In each book, the dreams show Sara a problem that (thanks to her unique perspective) only she can solve. In the first book, Dream Student, it’s hunting down a serial killer. In book #2, Dream Doctor, it’s figuring out who intends to kill one of Sara’s medical school teachers (when it seems that everyone who knows him wouldn’t mind seeing him dead). Looked at from that viewpoint: a husband-and-wife team of amateur detectives solve a crime in each book, the answer is obvious.

But then there’s the supernatural aspect: the dreams. And there’s a lot more of Sara’s everyday life and challenges in each book (getting through her first month of medical school, or dealing with a precocious four-year-old daughter or, in the eighth book, which is still in progress, coping with a boy-crazy teenaged daughter who’s starting to make some very bad choices), and time passes in each book – Sara is twenty one in the first book, and she’s thirty seven in the book I’m working on now. And the romance element is always present – Sara’s relationship with her husband is central to the books.

So it’s a challenge to define the books, and that’s made it a challenge to sell them to readers. But they books wouldn’t let me write them any other way, so it’s a challenge I’m happy to have!

The first book in the series takes place in college, and in the winter of 1989-90, and here’s a little bit more about Dream Student.


What if you could see everyone else's dreams?
 
College junior Sara Barnes thought her life was under control.  Her biggest worries were her upcoming final exams, applying to medical school, Christmas shopping and what to do about the cute freshman in the next dorm who's got a crush on her.  Until the dreams started...
 
Now she's learning more than she ever wanted to know about everyone around her.  Watching the hidden fantasies and seeing the deepest secrets of her friends and classmates is bad enough.  But much worse are the recurring dreams of a strange, terrifying man... dreams that could cost Sara her sanity... or get her killed.

Excerpt
There’s a sound, my Dad clearing his throat, and I’m back in the here and now. He looks at the picture in my hand, and then, with a very odd expression on his face he wags his finger at me. “I think I need to meet your young man.”


“You’re going to, Dad. On Sunday.” What’s going on?


He’s still got that expression. He’s looking at me as though he’s noticing something he’s never seen before. “I see so much of your mother in you. I don’t think you realize how like her you are,” he says, finally.


I do, actually. I look a lot like her. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was young, and if you didn’t know it you might think you were looking at me. I start to say that, but he shakes his head.


“It’s not just that you look like her,” he says, reading my mind. “It’s–well, I was watching you just now. I saw how your eyes lit up when you were thinking about your Brian.” How long was I staring at that picture?

“Nobody else has eyes like yours. Nobody else’s are that bright. Nobody else’s light up the way yours did just now. Except…” and now he chokes up a bit, and he has to have some water before he can go on, “Nobody except your mother. How you looked just now, that’s how she looks sometimes, when she’s looking at me.”


Oh.


Oh, my.


I didn’t expect that. “Um–I–I don’t know–Dad, I’m not sure what…” As I’m babbling, it hits me. I’ve heard this before. From Brian, the night we met, at the club. He said something very similar to me, and suddenly I’m feeling dizzy, and warm. I have to hold on to the edge of the table to steady myself.


“I saw it, honey,” he says with a gentle smile. “I see it right now. You’re done for. This Brian, he’s in your heart. You can’t hide that, and you can’t fake it, either.”


I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my father. But he’s right. Brian’s in my heart, that’s exactly how it is. There’s no point pretending it’s not true. And it’s such a relief to have someone really and truly get what I’m feeling. Even if it is Dad.


“Can I ask you something?” My voice is very small and very far away. I still need to hang on to the table for support.


“Always. Anything. You know that,” he says.


I already know the answer, but I want to hear it anyway. I let go of the table and my hands are shaking. 

“Sometimes when I look at him, when I look into his eyes, I mean really look into them, and he catches mine, it’s like everything else just disappears. Like we’re the only two people in the whole world. Even if we’re in a crowd, or at the movies or wherever. Is it like that with you and Mom?”


He reaches across the table, takes my hands in his. “Boy, you do have it bad. Worst case I ever saw. Or the second-worst, anyway.” He lets go of my hands. “It was. It was exactly like that.”
 
Dream Student is the first book of the Dream Series.

You can buy it at:

 About JJ


J.J. (James) Dibenedetto's fans would swear he's got a sixth sense when it comes to seeing into the minds of others and often wonder if his stories could possibly be fiction. He enjoys suspending disbelief with suspenseful paranormal tales that are a perfect blend of reality meets fantasy.

His popular Dream Series continues to delight readers with each and every exciting installment.

Born in Yonkers, New York, he currently resides in Arlington Virginia with his beautiful wife and a cat he is sure has taken full advantage of its nine lives. When it comes to the cat, he often wonders, but then again it might just be his imagination.

You can follow JJ at
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Saturday, January 26, 2013

From Young Adult to Erotica

By Helena Harker (Guest Blogger)

Thanks for hosting me, Lisabet! Hello, everyone! Thanks for dropping by. 
 
For many years, I wrote young adult novels. I liked the fact that it allowed me to go back in time and experience a part of life that I never really got to enjoy. When I was a teenager, I was pretty miserable. I didn’t fit in, didn’t have any close friends, and couldn’t wait to get to college. But when writing YA novels, I could be whoever I wanted to be and make my characters do whatever I wanted them to. The entire world, whether it be contemporary, or paranormal, or fantasy, was under my control. And I didn’t have to stick to reality, either. I liked to create worlds with supernatural elements and fantastical creatures that don’t exist in reality. It was all about the escapism. When I read, I don’t read about real people in real situations. That’s boring. That’s life. When I read, I want to escape.

When I started writing erotica, I naturally tended to write BDSM. Why? I think it’s all about control again, and about escapism. I often have the feeling that between my job and taking care of two kids on my own, and trying to squeeze in as much writing as I can, that everything is spinning hopelessly out of control. I’m on a treadmill and I can’t stop running, even though I’d love to jump off and take a break, just sit down with a frappuccino and chill. 
  
In my stories, women have a lot of trouble relinquishing control, or they tend to be the ones in control and they play a dominant role with respect to the men in their lives. Surrender is difficult for them, and that’s the case for Bella, a smart-ass, often bitchy girl who’s always on the defensive. She needs to learn to trust. She needs to learn that not every guy is out there to use her or hurt her. When she meets Darius, her roommate’s ex-boyfriend, who just so happens to be a whip-maker, she doesn’t think he can convince her to let go and try BDSM for the first time, even if it means getting an A on her Psych paper. If you want to know more about Bella and Darius, here’s an excerpt from the beginning of the story...


What a place to do research for a Psych paper. I hooked my thumbs into the pockets of my army camouflage pants and glanced at the huge black and red banner over my head: Welcome to Sextravaganza, your consumer sex show. Yeah, not exactly my number one place to spend the afternoon, especially since I managed to wander smack into the middle of the bondage section. Up ahead, I heard a woman advertise the benefits of the bondage bed, where you could immobilize your partner in all kinds of kinky positions. What the hell did a bondage bed look like, anyway? Did it come with its own rope and an assortment of D-rings?

I didn’t really want to know, so I hung a left down another aisle, coming face to face with a display of books about something called shibari, which was…let’s see…Japanese rope bondage. I picked up a hardcover issue and leafed through it. The models were tied with thick rope that formed complicated geometrical patterns over their bodies. I didn’t know whether I should appreciate shibari as a form of artistic expression or be disturbed at the sight of all these bound women. Flipping through a few more pages, I tried to make up my mind. The images had a haunting, sensual quality. Some of the rope patterns were exquisite. Okay, I decided, returning the book to its shelf, shibari was art.

Sighing, I readjusted my backpack over my shoulder, pulled the brim of my baseball cap lower over my eyes and scanned the crowd. People seemed pretty normal, a lot of couples strolling hand-in-hand, groups of men in their early twenties, and even a few white-haired ladies with their husbands. Before coming here, I pictured something totally different, like nymphomaniacs on the loose, women strutting around half-naked, and guys coming on to me left and right.

Not that I’d mind if guys came on to me. Sometimes it was fun to turn men down. It gave me a rush of power to grind a man’s ego under my boot. Yeah, I was a little bitter at the moment. A bad boyfriend led to a bad breakup, which led to a bad attitude. My life sucked big-time and I had three days left to hand in a five thousand word paper on the connection between the sensations of pain and pleasure. I had a title, “The Paradox of Pain,” and…absolutely nothing else. I didn’t even have an idea to start with, much less a full-fledged thesis to expand on. But I had questions, a whole lotta questions, and I planned to get some answers from my roommate’s ex-boyfriend.

Daphne dated Darius for a few months and when things got too intense, she broke up with him. What she meant by too intense, I had no idea. They were still friends, though. She said he’d be the perfect go-to guy for info about pleasure-pain dynamics, and I’d find him at “The Whipping Booth.” At first I didn’t get it until she explained what Darius made in his spare time. Whips, she said. Darius is a whip-maker. It took a while for her comment to sink in. Most men spent time in their garages tinkering with car engines, or they cruised down the highways on their motorcycles, or they went camping on the weekend. But Daphne dated a guy who had a passion for whips. I guess the only thing crazier than him making whips was the idea that people actually bought them.

Finally, after strolling past sexy latex cat suits, handcuffs with fluffy pink lining, and a stunning array of leather collars—some with wicked-looking spikes—I found a kiosk called “The Whipping Booth.” There was the man I was looking for. The whip-maker stood in front of a glass display case, feet apart like a soldier on guard, a long glossy ponytail down his back. Man, I wish my hair looked half as good. Of course my hair was cropped short, but I’d love to have the same silky-soft shine. This guy could star in his very own hair care commercial. I’d have to ask him what conditioner he used.

Damn, he must practically live at the gym to have those killer biceps. His cut-off T-shirt revealed well-defined muscle and tanned skin. He could sweep me off my feet, all one hundred and fifteen pounds of me, and do multiple sets of curls. And his chest? To die for. The T-shirt’s stretchy fabric hinted at powerful pecs and ripped abs. Sexy dark stubble covered his cheeks and his lips were full and firm, the kind of lips a girl wanted to kiss. Fuck, was I getting the hots for my best friend’s ex? No, never, not for a guy who believed sex and pain were a perfectly matched pair, like peanut butter and jam or popcorn and melted butter. Darius makes whips, remember? Stay away from him, Annabelle.

Bio

Helena Harker is a teacher by day, writer by night, a daydreamer who loves to escape to other worlds. Her fiction is populated by strong men, passionate women and lots of paranormal creatures. In her free time she enjoys photography and curling up with a good book. She is multi-published and also writes in other genres.

Twitter: @HelenaHarker


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