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I’m so happy to invite brilliant
author Joan Livingston to my blog today. She has a new book coming out on 18th
May called Chasing the Case which I’m
excited to read. And, today, she's Writing About Sex, so hang onto your seats.
But first, here’s a quick blurb of her book and
then I’ll hand you over to Joan:
New to
the game. But that won't stop her.
How does a woman disappear in a town of a thousand people? That's a 28-year-old mystery Isabel Long wants to solve.
Isabel has the time to investigate. She just lost her husband and her job as a managing editor of a newspaper. (Yes, it's been a bad year.) And she's got a Watson - her 92-year-old mother who lives with her.
To help her case, Isabel takes a job at the local watering hole, so she can get up close and personal with those connected to the mystery.
As a journalist, Isabel never lost a story she chased. Now, as an amateur P.I., she's not about to lose this case either.
How does a woman disappear in a town of a thousand people? That's a 28-year-old mystery Isabel Long wants to solve.
Isabel has the time to investigate. She just lost her husband and her job as a managing editor of a newspaper. (Yes, it's been a bad year.) And she's got a Watson - her 92-year-old mother who lives with her.
To help her case, Isabel takes a job at the local watering hole, so she can get up close and personal with those connected to the mystery.
As a journalist, Isabel never lost a story she chased. Now, as an amateur P.I., she's not about to lose this case either.
Over to Joan…
Writing about Sex
Of course, there’s sex in my new
mystery, Chasing the Case. It’s a
given because I wrote about people and what they do. Sex is a part of that.
But writing about something so
personal without being vulgar is a bit tricky. I believe I give enough, so
readers can use their imagination.
There are no descriptions of body
parts. Nothing is throbbing. The sex scenes aren’t icky or embarrassing.
By the way, my characters are
consenting adults who are having a good old time in the sack, and in Chasing the Case, actually mature
consenting adults.
This is my third book out. In the
first, Peace, Love, and You Know What,
a group of hippie friends have a three-day bash. This is the early seventies,
so there is nudity, free love, and dirty professors. Lenora, the main character
has sex with three guys in two days, including a ménage à trois — her instigation by the
way.
My second novel, The Sweet Spot, is a more serious novel.
Edie St. Claire has a rather hot and heavy relationship with her married
brother-in-law until that ends tragically. Then she has to pay for it when the
town turns against her.
Things are a more light-hearted for
Isabel Long in Chasing the Case.
After all, she tells the story. She’s a long-time journalist who becomes an
amateur P.I. after she gets canned from the newspaper she was running. She
decides to solve a mystery of a woman who went missing in her town of a
thousand people 28 years earlier. It was her first big story as a rookie
reporter.
It’s also a big change in another
way for Isabel. Her husband died and after giving herself a year to grieve,
she’s ready to move on. How did she put it? It’s time to do something foolish
or at least, have fun.
That’s what she does. And she
doesn’t have to look far to find it.
I’m not going to spoil the plot by
giving away who Isabel has sex with in Chasing
the Case. It had been some time since the man was in a relationship that included
sex.
As he warns her on their first night, “I may come awfully fast. It’s been a while.”
Isabel’s response? “That’s okay, I’m a little
nervous, too. It’s been a while for me, too.”
She removes the photo of her dead
husband to another room. And during their first romp she lights candles on the
bureau and nightstand beside the bed. She tells herself: “I believe there’s just enough light for me to
be firm and beautiful in his eyes. Maybe.”
I will say there’s a lot of playful
banter about sex between Isabel and her lover in this book, but then again she is
a bit on the sassy side.
Besides being an amateur P.I.,
Isabel takes a part-time job tending bar at the local watering hole called the
Rooster. Her plan is to get up close and personal with people connected to the
mystery.
Here is her observation about the bar’s
customers on the night a band is playing. “The
Rooster is jumping and bumping tonight, and from my vantage point at the bar, I
can tell a lot of the customers will be humping later on. Yeah, I’m being a bit
crude, but I’ve seen more men and women getting felt up here tonight than by
the TSA at the airport in Hartford.”
Finally, one last thing about sex, at least for
this post: an anecdote about my 94-year-old mother, an avid reader of romance
novels. (She is the inspiration for Isabel’s mother, who is her Watson in this
series.)
I will admit a few of my kids were
uncomfortable about the sex scenes in my first book. So, when I gave my mother
a copy, I added this warning, “Mom, there’s a bit of sex in it.”
Here’s what she told me after reading it: “Oh,
I’ve read a lot worse than that.”
Really, Mom?
Chasing
the Case, published by Crooked Cat
Books, has an official May 18 release. You can pre-order the Kindle version;
the paperback is available. Here’s the link: http://mybook.to/chasingthecase
Social media:
Website: http:www.joanlivingston.net.
Twitter: @joanlivingston
Goodreads: http://http://www.goodreads.com/Joan_Livingston
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