Of kinky books and elderly mothers

My eighty-year-old mother is an avid reader and extremely proud of her author daughter.  Despite her age, she’s not what you’d call narrow-minded. Far from it. In the 1950s, she was more a Beatnik than a Donna Reed type. She first talked to me about homophobia when I was about seven. When she found my erotica stash when I was studying in France in college, it didn’t lead to a lecture. It led to a twenty-minute conversation about the differences in how men and women write about sex. On the phone. Long-distance to France. Before Skype. (Did I mention she used to be an English teacher, and that she’s probably the reason I’m such a huge geek? I love my mom!)

We’ve offered to buy her a computer and/or an ereader, but she’s not too keen on technology. I make sure to get her copies of my print books. She’s read Lions’ Pride, a paranormal menage, and is really looking forward to the other books in the Duals and Donovans series coming out in print. She enjoyed Cat Scratch Fever, an erotic mystery published under the Sophie Mouette pseudonym. Still, I was nervous when I sent her a print copy of Knowing the Ropes. Sexy is one thing. But this book is more than a little kinky. How would she handle floggings, canings, butt plugs, and other fun things that one doesn’t usually think about in association with elderly retired school-teachers?

I should have known. Mom didn’t like it as much as Lions’ Pride, but that wasn’t because the sex was too kinky or there was too much of it. In fact, she said the sex was well-written and that there was obviously a lot of thought about what makes a healthy relationship behind the book. (She did say she probably would have found all the sexy bits more interesting “even five years ago, but at my age it’s just not as interesting as it used to be.”)

Mom didn’t mind the kinky sex at all. She only minded the book lacked a paranormal or mystery element! I’d forgotten that, unlike me, she was never big on straight-up contemporary romances.Mom, as it turns out, likes a good love story, even a wildly sexy one…but only if she also gets magic, shapeshifters, or larceny along with it.

Maybe I should have dedicated a Duals and Donovans book to her, not Out of Control, my next kinky title. 🙂

Knowing the Ropes is out in print and available today from Samhain and all the usual bookseller suspects. You can even get it at your local independent bookstore, though it might have to be special-ordered.