Jyvur Entropy's Blog, page 29

Phantom of the Opera, but add Smut and Monsters: A Rave Review of ‘Music of the Night’ by Angela J. Ford

Oh my goodness. WOW.

This book was INCREDIBLE. And if you’ve read any of my other book reviews, you know I don’t go around blowing smoke. I’m a harsh reader. It takes a really incredible book for me to want to gush about it the way I want to gush about this book.

The book that has me swooning is ‘Music of the Night’ by Angela J. Ford.

First of all, let’s take a second to swoon over this beautiful cover.

That dress! That embrace! The handsome male lead and the ephemerally beautiful female lead, with her dark wavy locks flowing behind her. So pretty! And the glossy gold font! I received this book in ebook format as an arc for a blog tour through Silver Dagger. So, I have the digital book already. I still need to get my hands on a paperback or hardcover copy. It’s so beautiful and would look gorgeous on my romance bookshelf

Okay! Before I start carrying on about the absolute lush, sexy, darkly romantic brilliance that is this book, let’s get the book deets out of the way.

A haunted tower, a mysterious instructor, and the lure of the music of the night. . .

After the death of her father, Aria is left penniless and destitute. To avoid working the streets, she becomes the ward of a Count and moves to a remote town called High Tower.

High Tower is a gloomy place with one vivid attraction: the theater. Lords and ladies come from afar to be seduced by a night of unforgettable entertainment.

Many are warned to stay away from High Tower’s dangerous enchantments, but it’s a warning Aria is forced to ignore. Determined to take her life back into her hands, she and the Count make a deal. She can avoid an arranged marriage if she learns to sing for him.

When Aria stumbles across a mysterious man in a dark tower, she begs to learn the power of song from him. Although reluctant, the man agrees to teach her the music of the night. Between midnight meetings and emotional singing lessons, Aria falls in love with her alluring instructor despite his shadowy past.

But something deadly stirs, awoken by the desire of its master.

Evening reveries become haunted with terror, blood, and murder. Rumors claim the man in the tower is behind the madness that haunts High Tower, a truth Aria is loath to believe. For she just gained the desire of her heart.

What she doesn’t know is that her haunted instructor intends to use her for his own purposes. . .

Music of the Night is a complete, stand-alone novel inspired by Phantom of the Opera. Perfect for fans of dark and steamy fantasy romance. 

*Order a signed paperback from the author and get a free bookmark and art print HERE! 

Website: https://angelajford.com/product/music-of-the-night/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56329839-music-of-the-night

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QZS1GM5

Signed paperback? Order one and get free book swag? Omgoodness! I legit didn’t notice that in the book info until this moment right now and gah! I’m off to order a copy like the second I’m done editing this post.

Okay, time for me to gush about how much I LOVED this book! The romance, the mystery, the lush dark atmosphere, the monsters, the magic, the smut!

Angela J. Ford legit took everything wonderful about Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical and added smut, magic, and monsters, and yes, I am here AF for it!

The book manages to capture the exact tone and atmosphere of the beloved musical, infusing every scene with the essence of it, yet the book is truly transformative and stands on its own as something new and special.

What really sets the darkly sensual tone of this book is the writing style. Ford’s writing style is so gorgeous. It’s like a cozy blanket, like a dark fog rolling over the mists to wrap you up in midnight decadence. She brings this lush world to life. It’s one of those books I just wanted to live inside of. I wanted to spend forever with Uriah and Aria, watching her learn to sing in a haunted tower in the dead of night. It’s the epitome of gothic romance, both creepy and seductive. Ford has a way with words that crafts an atmosphere that will give you tingles and shivers. This is gothic romance done so right.

Then there was the romance and sex scenes. Gah! So soooo good!

Let’s start with that first kiss scene.

Oh that kiss scene!

A romance needs a great first kiss scene, but not every romance novel pulls it off. Ford pulls it off so well. We can feel the sexual tension, the longing, the emotion flowing between the two of them. It was so masterfully done and gave me all the feels!

Then there were the sex scenes. You know, I always said Phantom of the Opera would be better if there were actual sex scenes in it. Because Phantom of the Opera makes women horny. I don’t know why women are so weird. Men just need to see a person they find hot and they’re ready to go. Women, however, we need a whole tragic backstory, a phantom, a labyrinth, a full musical score! So Andrew Lloyd Weber went and gave us all that, but no sex scenes.

Well, Angela J. Ford went and took care of that. We now have all the mystery and gothic atmosphere, but with smut! That’s exactly the POTO-inspired fantasy I needed in my life.

And these sex scenes are HOT.

What really makes or breaks a sex scene is the dialogue. The words the characters say to each other adds a whole other level of emotion and fizzling chemistry. The dialogue in ‘Music of the Night’ is so perfect, so heart-wrenchingly romantic and steamy all at once.

Here is my favorite line from a sexy scene:

Aria says this in a scene where SHE takes the lead (so you know that scene was already one of my favorites). She pushes him down onto the bed and rips his clothes off, all while Uriah is super turned on by how bold and confident she is, taking charge in the bedroom. Then she looks down at him, as they’re both naked and she’s about to mount him and says ‘Uriah, I’m going to save you.’

AH! Literally just….my goodness, that line did it for me.

She’s talking about saving him from the magic that keeps him bound to the tower, where he has to play music to keep the monsters of High Tower at bay. She’s talking about saving him from his dark past and his own pain.

All of that context and the heightened, erotic emotions of the scene, it all just REALLY worked for me. I found it so sexy, so sweet, so romantic. That has got to be my favorite line of sexy dialogue from the whole book.

But every sex scene is full of amazing dialogue like this. It increases the fizzling sexual tension and the emotion. For me, I can’t be turned on by sex scenes in a book unless I can feel the love and emotion between the characters. That was never a problem with this book. I could feel the deep river of emotion flowing between these two characters with every page.

Lastly, I want to rave about the monsters in this book. The addition of monsters brought the gothic vibe up to a whole other level. The monsters were incredibly creepy. Each time they are described, it gave me such a visceral reaction, such shivers.

Now, I do have a few criticisms of the story. I still absolutely adored the book, but no book is perfect and after all that raving, I think I need to point out a couple of the book’s problems.

Uriah’s character was not developed in a satisfying way that made sense. While the chemistry and romance between Uriah and Aria was beautiful and deeply romantic, Uriah as a character never came to life for me in the way that I need a romance hero to come to life. We never get a real sense of who he is or what drives him.

Yes, we know that he wants to free High Tower from the monsters and defeat his enemy (who his enemy is, I will keep secret, as that’s a major spoiler). But WHY is it important to him to save High Tower? Is he an altruistic person?

Well, but then late in the book, as he explains more of his backstory to Aria, we learn that he did some truly horrible things that led to him ending up in High Tower. So is he actually an evil person? We’re told that he did those horrible things because the power and magic went to his head. So…he’s a cocky and arrogant person? He’s a cruel person? Or he WAS those things and he has changed? None of it is ever really explained.

A good deal of the time, it felt like Uriah was simply a mish-mash of traits used to drive the plot forward. If he underwent some massive transformation that led him to realize his past actions were wrong, we should have some sense of that.

Even without the backstory bit, we never get a sense of WHY he wants to save High Tower. It seems that would come from a place of altruism. Yet, he is willing to trick Aria into a contract that could drive her mad or end her life. He feels somewhat conflicted about this, but it wasn’t explored enough for me to really understand him.

Most of the time, Uriah felt like a talking plot device.

One example of Uriah’s motivations not making sense is the “meet cute” between him and Aria. They first meet when Aria decides to find the source of the lovely music that comes from the abandoned-supposedly haunted-tower. She enters the tower and Uriah rushes out of the darkness to grab her, clamp a hand over her mouth, push her up against a wall, and say, “If you promise not to scream, I will release you.”

But like…WHY does he care if she screams? He’s up in this abandoned tower already being loud AF with his music. Everybody can hear him. Who is he worried about hearing her scream? What was the point of saying that? What would happen if she did scream? The people of High Tower already won’t go near the place and he’s magic.

To be honest, I think this part was added simply for the sexual tension. I think the author wanted to have their first scene be a highly erotically-charged scene, with Uriah being all dominant, grabbing her and pushing her up against a wall. But you can’t just have characters do things for plot reasons. If their actions and motivations don’t hold up to scrutiny, then the characters never really come to life. They never feel real. what would have made this book better for me is if Uriah had actually felt real, not this ever-changing character that we never come to understand.

Then there is a major plot hole with Count Zurik. Aria originally comes to High Tower after her father dies and she finds herself homeless and destitute. She writes to her distant relative Count Zurik and he rescues her, bringing her to High Tower to dance (and eventually sing) in his theater. But (without giving any major spoilers) there is a plot twist at the end, where some interesting backstory elements of Count Zurik are explained. After we learn where Count Zurik came from and his true motivations for bringing hopeless people to his theater, we realize there is no way Aria could have known about his existence. This plot hole could have been easily fixed by taking out the part where Aria writes to him. The author could have had all the same plot beats, with Aria becoming destitute, but then Count Zurik shows up, introduces himself and saves her. As the book is, Aria writing to him does not make sense.

Despite the few issues I had with the book, I still loved it. Every book can be improved upon, but this was a book that I couldn’t put down. I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy of the book.

A resounding 5 of these guys!

Angela J. Ford is a bestselling epic fantasy author who has sold over 30,000 copies and has had over 10 million page reads in Kindle Unlimited. Her books have been ranked bestsellers in multiple categories.
She enjoys traveling, hiking, and playing World of Warcraft with her husband. First and foremost, Angela is a reader and can often be found with her nose in a book.

Aside from writing she enjoys the challenge of working with marketing technology and builds websites for authors.

Angela is passionate about helping indie authors succeed and runs a community and podcast called Indie Author Lifestyle.

If you happen to be in Nashville, you’ll most likely find her at a local coffee shop, enjoying a white chocolate mocha and furiously working on her next book. 

Author Links

Website: https://angelajford.com/tower-knights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelajfordauthor 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aford21

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aford21

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/angela-j-ford  

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Angela-J-Ford/e/B0052U9PZO

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4522765.Angela_J_Ford 

~~ 🕮 ~~~~ 🕮 ~~ 

GIVEAWAY

$10 Amazon 

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/music-of-the-night-book-tour-and-giveaway

~~ 🕮🕮 ~~ HOSTED BY:~~ 🕮🕮 ~~ 

Silver Dagger Book Tours: https://www.silverdaggertours.com/  

I also want to shout out this very cool website that Ford is involved with. According to her bio at the end of ‘Music of the Night,’ Angela is the co-founder of booksniffer. I still need to explore this site more. But from what I can tell it’s a fancier goodreads alternative, with a lot of neat features that goodreads doesn’t have, like daily book deals and some marketing tools for authors.

The first note pierced the silence as the orchestra warmed up. First the strings, their mellow tones drawn out and haunting, followed by the chords of the piano and chimes. The audience filtered in, ladies dressed in fine gowns, their fingers and necks covered in the glitter of sparkling jewels. Lords escorted them dressed their best, each carrying a rose for their ladies, and yet some wore masks to hide their faces for what was to come.

I stepped further back into the shadow of the black drapes, although no one would see me, hidden in my perch in the back of the theater. Lifting a spy glass to my good eye, I took in the stage and waited for the performance to begin.

Opening night was the highlight of the theater, a fresh performance with exotic dancers and throaty singers giving a parody of life. I cared naught for such amusement, but I needed one of them for my plans. A singer, a strong one, to carry out my will.

Hiding my loneliness and pain was no longer an option. My patience had run dry, forcing me to act. My song was ready, all I needed to do was find a singer, cast a spell, and the rest would fall into place. 

Aside from whispered prayers, they’d forgotten me, the one who haunted the tower, who brought chaos and terror into their lives. I’d returned in secret to haunt their steps, to make them realize that all along, this place was mine. I was its master, and it was time to take my freedom.

The first song began, the dancers swayed on the stage. One caught my eye, hair as dark as a raven with long limbs, accenting graceful movements. She was too far away to see clearly, yet her movements made her stand out from the others. While she danced in sync, her eyes darting about the stage, causing her to miss a step or two. I wondered what drew her attention, and why she was not as dedicated to the dance as the others. Wistfulness twisted through me. If I were a normal human, like the lords and ladies who filled the hall, I’d go up to her after the performance, introduce myself and woo her.

Not tonight for my purpose transcended the mundane, and I needed a singer, not a dancer. Still, watching her eased the ragged edges of pain that plagued my soul and increased my resolve. I would move heaven and earth to earn my freedom and a chance to live life, like the humans. . .

Giveaway 

$10 Amazon 

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

https://www.silverdaggertours.com/sdsxx-tours/music-of-the-night-book-tour-and-giveaway

Okay, that is it for this rave review! Now I’m off to try and get my hands on a signed copy!

If you want to see a review with spoilers, here is my booktube review of the book.

And if you want to discuss the book further, I’ve started a thread about it on my forum for romance readers and writers.

That’s it for now! Bye

Author Links

Website: https://angelajford.com/tower-knights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelajfordauthor 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aford21

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aford21

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/angela-j-ford  

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Angela-J-Ford/e/B0052U9PZO

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4522765.Angela_J_Ford 

WWW Weds: All About Those Arcs and Blog Tours

Okay! It’s is Wednesday, my dudes!

Ahhh….

Alright, three questions

What Are You Currently Reading?

What Did You Recently Finish Reading?

What Do You Think You Will Read Next?

And it’s all hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

What Are You Currently Reading?

Thank freaking goodness, I am FINALLY almost finished with the second Wheel of Time book. Ciminey, I have been reading this book for over a year. While ‘Eye of the World’ was a fun read and I read it in just a little over a month. But The Great Hunt has been a slog, and I kept putting it down to read other things Now I’m almost done with it! Yeah! And I have another 12 books in the series to go after this. I hope I can keep this momentum up.

I received this arc in exchange for an honest review. It’s the first arc I’ve received from a publisher, rather than via a blog tour or booksprout. And the publisher is actually my friend’s publisher and she’s the one who referred me to them….so….I mean….I’m feeling very torn on what to do for this review. I’m not enjoying the book very much. I’m trying to decide if I should opt out of reviewing it. I want to keep getting those insider hook-ups!

What Did You Recently Finish Reading?

I haven’t finished too much lately. Mostly because I’ve been so busy! I’m working on a relaunch of my book ‘Combustion.’ It’s going to be republished April 29th and my book will be on tour via Silver Dagger April 29th-May29th. So I’ve been preparing my media kit, having promo graphics made, designing merch, and planning giveaways and distributing arcs…whew! And in addition to that, I was invited to be a part of a romance anthology and an erotica anthology with several other romance/erotica writers. I’m also revising Desire and Destruction and having some fun NSFW images commissioned for that…gah! I’m busy! lol So all I’ve finished lately was the first novella in Emily Hurricane’s 5 novella series ‘Bloodlines.’ And….I still need to review novella one!

It was good. Very gritty. I love a post-apocolyptic story.

What Do You Think You Will Read Next?

This is going to be my whole day tomorrow and I couldn’t be more excited about it!

A Phantom of the Opera retelling with gothic towers and a fantasy twist? Ah! I swoon!

I’m reading this arc as part of a tour for Silver Dagger. My review needs to be posted by Feb 13th, so I’d better get cracking!

I need to jump back into this one! I feel so bad for how long it’s taking me to finish. This is an arc from a fellow indie, the amazing Jennifer Mugrage from the Out of Babel blog. I’ll be thorough in my review to make up for my procrastination.

That’s it for me! What are you reading this week?

My Forum Looks Pretty Now! Thank You sirready of fiverr!

Look at that! Gah! It’s so gorgeous. I love it! The light theme works so much better than the dark rose theme that I started with.

Also, I widened the scope of my forum. I realized a forum just for role reverse romance was way too niche. Forums get less traffic than other platforms anyway, but I’d like to get to a point where at least a handful of other people are posting stuff. So, it is now a forum for readers and writers of all romance! If you love romance, I’d love it if you joined to promote your book or just chat with other romance readers/writers.

I figured out how to connect the domain myself, so that’s exciting. It’s readingwritingromance.com.

One issue I could NOT figure out was how to get a cute little banner at the top of the page. The icon I made kept ending up squished in the upper left corner of the screen. I wanted the icon to look cute and be easily readable at the top, like on the Wacky Writers forum.

See? Look at how cute and sleek their logo looks. That’s what I was going for. I read threads about discourse software. I watched tutorials. No matter what I did, it just wasn’t working out for me. So as I usually do when I can’t figure a tech task out, I went to fiverr.

I ended up messaging with the seller sirready. He walked me through the process of resizing the image, telling me exactly what px size it needed to be. Then he tried to explain to me how to install the image as a banner. I’m so un-tech-savvy, I didn’t understand half the tech words he used.

So he took my login and installed the banner for me and when he was done, we had this conversation:

Criminey! This guy is way too honest and nice. It only took him 10 minutes, so he wouldn’t charge me!

(Don’ t go hit this guy up for free work. I only mention that because it shows what a helpful and honest person he is. Pay the man for the work he does please).

So here I am shouting him out in an attempt to send some real business his way.

He provides help with a variety of tech issues, including domains, forums, and wordpress. If you need some help with a tech issue, check this guy’s gigs out.

And if you love the romance genre, consider joining my new forum. I already run one community via discord. I’m excited to get my second community up and running, this time via forum

Behold My Waifu Pillow <3

Haha XD I’m starting to roll out merch for my ‘Desire and Destruction’ book launch. I saw that Printify had pillows available for design and since I always joke that Cole from D&D is my dream man, I decided to make my very own Cole waifu pillow.

For any author looking to make merch, I highly recommend Printify. I like them a lot better than Teespring. Anytime there’s been an issue with any of my merch, someone from their customer service team emails me right away and talks me through the problem. Like with the Combustion makeup pouches I released with that book launch, the ink I chose wasn’t showing up on the canvas material, so they went though it with me and gave me a few different suggestions to fix it. They’re great. It’s super easy to design with them. It’s super easy to connect an etsy store.

Speaking of etsy stores…..

https://www.etsy.com/shop/JyvurEntropyMerch?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Pretty much everything I make on etsy goes back into my books, commissioning artists (like CocaineJia of deviantart who drew that gorgeous cover image of Cole and Ingrid), hiring people to format, developmental edit, proofread, hiring graphic designers, etc.

Publishing books is expensive, so every little bit of coin I can get helps. I like offering products instead of having a tip jar or patreon. I like people to get something tangible for the money they spend.

Anyway, that’s it for me! The plan is to relaunch Combustion in late April and the launch for Desire and Destruction still has to be determined, but should be sometime this spring.

Okay! See ya, sucker!

I started an Advice Column on Tumblr

https://jyvurentropyblog.tumblr.com/post/642504602854490112/my-writing-doesnt-come-out-the-way-i-plan

I freaking love advice columns. AskaManager, EvilHRLady, CaptianAwkward, all of them. So, I decided to start my own!

I think the focus will mostly be writing, but feel free to ask non-writing related questions too.

There’s a section on my tumblr where you can submit questions anonymously.

Yay! Advice columns

And in other news, I made a linktree: https://linktr.ee/jyvurentropy

Check that out to find my discord server, links to my books, my etsy shop, my wattpad, inkitt, and more.

Okay! See ya!

Photo by Trinity Kubassek on Pexels.com

Interview with Jane Conquest: The Writer who Exposed Wattpad

An interview with Jane Conquest. She ran a wildly popular meme page on wattpad with over 100k followers. She also had several novels and comics. In 2018, her account was deleted from wattpad.

She went on to create a youtube documentary called ‘Exposing Wattpad.’

Jane’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/janeconquest

Jane’s website: https://www.janeconquest.com/

Her books

Her reddit AMA:

Instagram

Webtoons: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/march/list?title_no=181644

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jane_conquest

Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/janeeconquest/_saved/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/90192879-jane-conquest

Did you watch the interview? What did you think? Have you ever had any problems with wattpad? Let me know in the comments below!

I’m Advertising My Writer’s Community Again

I started a discord server back in June and it’s been a really fun experience so far. It’s definitely been a bit of a learning curve, figuring out how to moderate a community. Overall, it’s been awesome though.

I’d love to get more people from the book blogging community to join. If you love talking books or writing, please think about joining my discord server ‘The Writer’s Block.’ I mainly started it because every other writer’s discord I found was overrun with kids. So I started my own and made it 18+.

We’ve got all kinds of writers in our group, from super green newbies to people experienced in amazon self-publishing to traditionally-published writers. What I love most about running a discord server is the opportunity to learn from other people. We all have expertise in something. When we form with friendships and connections with other people, we can pool together all of that knowledge.

If you’ve read this far, you are cordially invited to join! Just click here: https://discord.gg/NcPXS8q

Change Up Your Reading Challenge Update!

Two books on my way to bingo.

I listened to the Audible audiobook ‘Over Her Knee’ by Shoshana Evers.

I also read an arc for my friend Emily Hurricane (okay technically an arc is not the same as beta reading a manuscript *shrugs* I’m known to cheat at my own self-imposed goals). Emily’s book actually could have fit multiple squares. She has the first draft of Bloodlines available on wattpad. The revised draft is being released on Radish. The book will be published on March 5th, and you know I’ll be reminding everybody of that in blitz style as the publication date draws nearer.

This book is a post-apocalyptic paranormal story. The world ends and Daphne is the only person left alive. Her incredible immune system leads her to believe that she may not be fully human….

For the book release, Emily has split the book into 5 novellas, and I’ve only read the first one so far. So is Daphne really superhuman? I’m not sure yet. The first novella ended on a hell of a cliffhanger. I’ll just say watching her explore the wreckage of this apocalytpic world while she also explores her newly-discovered superhuman powers was a ton of fun, although at times sobering, as Daphne discovers corpses and wonders if she’ll go insane from lack of human interaction.

Really strong start to this novella series and I can’t wait to read more.

And to get bingo, all I need now is a Radish book, Netgalley arc, and a Booksprout arc.

I already know what I’m reading for my booksprout arc. I have a cozy mystery I requested back in the spring and the review was actually due in (don’t kill me) July. I completely forgot all about it. Like it evaporated from my brain. Now I’m actually gonna read the thing.

For Netgalley, I’m not sure. I’ve never used Netgalley before. When I gave out arcs of my own book, I used Booksprout because I liked the UI a lot more. But Netgalley does seem to be the arc-distribution channel of choice for most book bloggers, so I’ve got to give it a try at some point. I did poke around there a little before I discovered Booksprout. It just didn’t grab me. We’ll see what happens.

And then for Radish, of course I’m gonna use this challenge as an excuse to support my friend Emily Hurricane again. I’ll be reading her Radish serial ‘Wrong Number.’

All bad decisions are born out of one key moment.

A moment, thoughtless or not, where you choose wrong over right. Evil over good. You roll the dice and brace for the consequences, and that’s exactly what Jolie and Carson did the day they met by mistake.

One wrong number, one simple conversation over text, and their lives as they knew it were gone.

Jolie, a miserable housewife who clings to the bottle just to get by, and Carson, a doctor who’s stitched together the perfect facade to hide his failed marriage from his children and colleagues.

Loneliness consumes them both, and when they find an unlikely friend at the end of a stranger’s phone number, they cling to whatever connection they can get. Neither intended to cross any lines, but then again, good people rarely intend to do bad things.

For Jolie and Carson, their key moment was fast and not at all easy.

And the consequences might be even worse.

I can already tell I’m going to relate to the female lead so much. Struggles with alcohol dependency? Lonely even though she’s married? (things are getting better on that end, but you know….years of just sort of doing my own thing, having a friendly but increasingly distant relationship-changing patterns are hard. We’ll get there, I hope). I can tell this is a character I’m going to vibe hard with.

Okay, see ya, sucker!

WWW Weds: Reading all the Arcs, while I Wait on Beta Reader Feedback

I’m in such a great mood right now. ‘Desire and Destruction’ has been sent out to beta readers, so I’ll be getting feedback on that soon. I’m already getting a great idea of what changes need to made in revisions. I’m also about to get my proofread ‘Combustion’ back, so I’ll be doing a relaunch of that book within the next month or two (sans typos this time). I’m actually going to do a proper book launch this time. I’m talking blog tours, promo graphics, giveaways, arcs, and possibly even some street team stuff. Fuck, I might buy some facebook ads and space in a newsletter. (If people read my books, my life has meaning, right?)

Anyhow, while I’m waiting back on beta reader feedback, I’ll be taking a writing break and focusing on reading. Then once D&D is back, my to-do list goes: Revise D&D, start revisions on both ‘Incel’ (will be retitled ‘TFW’ and it’s going to be about the male experience more broadly-if incels are mentioned it will be in passing-the themes of the book will be largely the same, but the focus is shifting) and on ‘Time Storms’ which needs a lot of work in terms of worldbuilding, and lastly, I want to write another gentle femdom time travel romance. I’m having a hard time right now coming up with a new male lead. Cole from D&D is just my absolute dream man. I don’t want to write a Cole clone, but I’m not sure how to write another subby dude that I can get really into (it just makes writing the book so much more fun if I can enjoy the book the same way a reader would). So I’m trying to figure that out right now. I can’t start figuring out the story until I can picture both leads in my head. I have an idea of who the female lead will be, but my next male lead just refuses to materialize.

But before I really get into all that, I’m taking a break to read a LOT more books.

WWW Weds is hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

What Am I Currently Reading?

My main read right now is Bloodlines by Emily Hurricane. It’s actually about a disease that kills off the vast majority of the population. It’s weird because Emily has said she started writing this far before Covid was a thing. It’s definitely eerie reading about so many of the things we’ve all experienced over the course of the past year, but in a post-apocalyptic novel.

I’m on her arc team, so that’s how I’m reading the books, but she also releasing each of the novellas in this series on Radish.

I’m also finishing up the last few chapters of a manuscript that I’m beta reading for Pixie Stormcrow. It’s a gentle femdom contemporary romance that takes place in the same universe as her newly-released work ‘The Will to Serve.’

The book is called “The Heart to Lead” and isn’t available to the general public yet. I’m just blessed enough to have that insider hookup.

And speaking of insider hookup, Pixie is well-aware of my gentle femdom obsession (as I think everybody is at this point) and she hooked me up with a gentle domme for an interview! So that will be coming soon to this blog. This domme works with Pixie on the bdsm advice column ‘Dear Lani.’

Lastly, I’ve just started this historical fiction. It’s another arc. This one I received from a blogger buddy, Jennifer Mugrage from ‘Out of Babel.’ It’s really good so far and I’ll have a full review coming soon.

What Did I Recently Finish Reading?

This is a cozy mystery that I received as an arc for a Silver Dagger blog tour. It was okay. I really didn’t love it. There were elements that I liked, but overall, it wasn’t really my speed. Still I didn’t think the book absolutely sucked. It just didn’t jive with me enough for me to want to read any of the other books in the Sugar Mountain series.

What Do I Think I Will Read Next?

I ordered the paperback off amazon and it just arrived in the mail yesterday. It’s a decent length for an erotica too. I don’t like when they’re too short.

And then the fantasy novel “Tide” which I purchased off amazon after seeing the author promoting their work on the Wacky Writers forum.

Lastly, I plan to read this wattpad fantasy novel, ‘The Lichlord of Cyrenica’ by Joseph Huff.

This writer gave me a lot of great feedback on two of my books, my romance-fantasy ‘Time Storms’ and my collab sci-fi story that I’m cowriting with Emily Hurricane, ‘When the Darkness Takes Us.’ So I absolutely want to return the favor and read his work. I’ve also just heard great things about this book. It comes highly recommended.

That’s it for me! What’s on your TBR?

Happy Weds!

I Feel Like….

A conduit. That’s how I feel so much of the time. Like a conduit. Like I have too many emotions and too much energy and it’s way too powerful for me to deal with. I feel like my whole life has been people saying “calm down. It’s fine. Calm down. It’s fine. Calm down it’s fine.” And people were saying that to me when I was kid and living in this house full of violence and danger all the time. After the two times my mom seriously injured my younger sister, I was so panicked all the time, trying to keep my younger sisters safe. I was 9, 10, 11, and all the adults were just “calm down. It’s fine. Calm down. It’s fine. That child is so emotional. That girl exaggerates. She makes up stories. Calm down. It’s fine. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.”

I have never stopped feeling like something horrible could happen at any second. I’ve never stopped feeling like I have to be on edge all the time. I don’t know how to.

And I have a lot of emotions and they aren’t appropriate. They don’t match the situation. They’re too strong.

My emotions are always too strong. And I know that.

But I’m also incredibly bitter that there’s a right and wrong way to feel things. I’m incredibly angry and sour that the times I had full-blown meltdowns in school as a teenager, everybody was so concerned about…..”Calm down. Shhhh. Calm down. Shhhhh.” And nobody cared about helping me get out. Nobody did.

It’s all about routine and order. People can be complicit in the most evil things, because they want everyone to calm down and say it’s fine.

My mom cut my younger sister’s eye open. Everybody knew that. The rest of the family knew that.

But smiles and photos and dance recitals and nobody ever mention what happens in Carey’s house or what she does to her kids, because calm down. It’s fine.

Everything is fine.

Everything is always fine.

Nothing can ever not be fine.

And if you let all those emotions bubble over in front of anyone, it’s trashy. It’s not appropriate. It’s not acceptable.

You can hide your feelings inside of books and songs and poems and paintings.

But don’t you dare just cry your heart out and rant out the nonsense stabbing you in the brain.

Because calm down. It’s fine.

Obscure it. Abstract it. Never just say it.

Does everybody feel things as intensely as me, but they’re better at hiding it? They just know how the fuck to calm down and be fine?

People say I’m really hardworking. Really prolific.

‘You write so much. You read so much. You do so much. You’re hardworking.’

It’s only because there’s this awful torrent of emotion and energy that tears through me, like a stream from the world’s strongest pressure washer, like electricity zapping through me. And I feel like I’m just the conduit and all I can do is direct that energy and emotion. I try to channel it into something positive and artistic. It’s like I’m holding a fire hose and I can’t control how strong the water pressure is, all I can do is decide which way to turn the nozzle. I can direct it at something destructive or constructive.

I can write books and read books and blog. Or I can meltdown and cause general chaos and make a complete nuisance of myself.

But what I don’t know how to do is calm the fuck down.

And I’m not fine.

People should be sorry when they hurt other people. My mom isn’t sorry and she never will be. She blames me for my own abuse and the way she abused my sisters.

And I have no idea how to be fine with that. She wasn’t the only person in my family who did terrible things to me and my sisters. But the other two people apologized and meant it. So it’s like I don’t have to hold onto that anymore. They are sorry. That’s how it should be. I don’t carry that trauma around anymore.

My mom will never be sorry, because she doesn’t think she was wrong.

I don’t know how to be okay with that. Probably because, as much as I know it doesn’t make sense, I feel like she’s right.

I’m a shitty awful person and if I had been better, our family would have been happy.

I feel like a conduit for all of these awful emotions and I can’t turn them down. I can’t calm down.

I hurt every single day. I constantly wish I was dead. I’m here prolonging myself out of weakness like everybody else. I truly believe nobody actually likes being alive. I don’t see how anybody could.

But calm down. It’s fine.

It’s not okay to feel the world this deeply.

Talking about it makes you dramatic or an attention whore.

The only right way to be in pain is quietly.

Quiet. Calm. Dead.

I feel dead all the time.

I smile and laugh and goof around. I do it for a couple of reasons. It does make people like me more and talking to other people is the best distraction, even if I hardly ever feel really connected to anybody else. But also, the times I let the mask slip, all I hear is….

Calm down. It’s fine. Calm down. It’s fine. Calm down….calm down…..calm down……….

and I really really wish that I could.