FIRST: Interview with me and contest to win books at: Books and Barks.
Yes, there is smut in all my books except the first one.
Yes, my mom reads my books.
VICIOUS CIRCLE had a couple of kisses in it, but was very much sans smut. When HALLOWED CIRCLE came out … I asked my mom, do you want me to tear out the smutty pages, black marker them or leave them? She said to leave them.
Color me surprised.
When I gave her a copy of FATAL CIRCLE I warned her it too had smut. With ARCANE CIRCLE I didn't bother to give her the heads up. I figured she'd caught on. Though I have made the verbal effort to prepare her, I never promised her that she would find standard “missionary” style scenes.
In fact, there’s a standy-uppy sex scene in HALLOWED CIRCLE; oral followed by impromptu use of a kitchen countertop in FATAL CIRCLE; the insinuation of fellatio and a doggy style scene in ARCANE CIRCLE.
As for WICKED CIRCLE… (since it’ll be released in 13 days SQUEE!!!) here’s a brief excerpt from one of the smut scenes (slightly modified for this post):
He was climbing the steps inside the wærewolf den fast. She was keeping up, but was panting with the effort. It resonated erotically in his ears. “That was an impressive transformation,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? That’s it?”
He didn’t want to tell her how he was struggling with all that was new. He squeezed her hand then released her, hoping it wasn’t too abrupt. He was aware that he had to give her some kind of answer, but like a bad joke, her mom had actually given up her right arm in the process of unlocking his tattoos; he wouldn’t dare complain, but neither would he say anything that might make him sound ungrateful or imply that Eris’s sacrifice hadn’t garnered all they hoped for. “It felt easier. Much more fluid.” Emerging onto the ninth floor, he guided her toward the small guest chamber at the rear of the hallway.
"It was your first change since breaking the binding,” Persephone added. “Did it feel more powerful to you?”
“Yeah.” He opened the door of the small studio apartment and hit the switch for the lights, twisting the knob to dim them. “I guess.” He opened the door wider so she could enter.
“You guess? I was out in the hallway and I felt it.”
“Really?” Instead of letting her acquaint herself with the space, as soon as he shut the door, he seized her and held her against him. “I’ve got something else I want you to feel.” He pressed his lips to hers roughly. “God, I missed you.”
Seph kissed him back and buried her fingers in his hair.
It felt like he hadn’t seen her in months, not mere days. His body thrummed with energy and ached for a release. His tongue pressed between her lips, wishing it was another part of his body. Her lip gloss tasted like sweet berries. He reached under the sweatshirt, pushing up tank tops to touch her skin.
That enticing resonance played across his fingers again, dripping into his palm and rippling through his body.
“Mmmm. I missed you too,” she said, arms winding around his neck. Effortlessly, she hoisted herself up and wrapped her legs around him.
He carried her toward the bed in the corner and she wriggled just before he heard the thud of her shoes dropping to the floor. He laid her on the mattress and, beyond the want or need of foreplay, unfastened her jeans.
This scene was atypical because it’s using an actual bed. Off the top of my head, there’s only one other instance in previous books where Seph is actually having sex in a bed.
That might explain what my mom said to me.
You see, in prepping for this post, I called my mom and, to put a twist on things, asked her what it was like to be the parent reading the child’s smutty work. She, who has read many a
Harlequin romance, said, “Aw, I’ve read stuff like that before.”*Note her use of “stuff” and the omission of words like “smut,” “sex,” “porn,” or “premarital fornication.” *
However, she admitted that, “…it is different when it’s your books.” She laughed nervously before adding, ”I figure it’s fiction, so I tell myself that you don’t actually do stuff like that…you just make all that stuff up.”
She’s so awesome! She cracks me up while making it not weird for me.
