New Year, New Project

It’s strange how ideas pop into your mind and leave just as quickly. In December 2019, I was on a mini-vacation in the southern U.S. I knew I would have a lot of downtime in airports and at the hotel, I’d stocked up on books to keep me occupied. I’d no plans to work on my current writing project as I’d fallen into a crater on that one and hadn’t quite figured out how I was going to crawl out.

I loaded up my Ipad with the following author’s I love:

• Murder on the Minneapolis by Anita Davison
• Duke in the Darkness by Nicola Davidson
• Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
• Don’t Dare a Dame by M. Ruth Myers

Followed by some new stuff:

• Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics by Noah Berlatsky
• Show Me Your Secrets by Emma Ashe
• Claiming the Secretary by Emma Ashe
• Second Chance Romance by Emma Ashe

I decided to read the new stuff on my way down south. So I bounced back and forth between Ashe’s An Indecent Apposal series and Wonderwoman/Bondage. Finished with Ashe’s three novels I couldn’t shake this feeling of irritation. On a scale of 1-5 on my writing scale (1 worse; 5 best), Ashe was a strong three. She got points for hitting all the checkboxes for hot pepper-heat-level romance. However, the characters in each novel were nearly identical as were the sex scenes. What turns people on should be as varied as the characters themselves. They shouldn’t be the same. Overall Ashe’s novels felt too…well, disposable to me. On my trip home I jumped back to reading my favorite authors, but I couldn’t shake this itch in my brain Ashe’s novels had left behind

I wanted to read a novel with Anita Davison’s level of historic details. Nicola Davidson heat level and incorporate Wonder Woman/Bondage. The Thin Man’s wicked sexual banter between the two leads and M. Ruth Myers kick-ass take-no-prisoners female P.I.

I started to think well if this is the book I want, why not write it myself? It’s amazing how quickly the first draft of this novel is coming together. I don’t even have a ‘real’ title for it yet.

For right now it’s “1937” until I decided on something different.