Title: Sophie's Secret
Author: Chloe Thurlow
Genre:
Contemporary
Erotic
Pages:
50
ASIN:
B0099HZSNY
Published: January 2013
Goodreads Blurb:
When Sophie Price catches her boyfriend Jake in bed with the
infamous Aisha Cummings, she realizes that 1: she's fed up with Jake anyway,
and 2: when it comes to the game of sex, she's still at the starting gate.
After a night at the kinky nightclub 'Pink', Sophie sets out on an erotic
mission that takes her from the coolly decadent to a full-blown orgy and way
out into the wilds of BDSM. On her journey, Sophie discovers how to 'let go'
and just 'be', and learns an incredible secret that will change her life
forever.
I write erotic novels. Some of my friends call the
work pornographic, which is both inaccurate and a bit of a put down. I will
define the difference by describing two pictures:
#1: a naked, blue-eyed blonde holding her breasts
and staring wantonly into the void.
#2: a girl in a laced corset and towering heels
leaving an elegant room.
The pornographic shot is calculated to stimulate a
sexual response. The erotic image provokes intrigue and mystery.
Perhaps the porn shot will motivate a desire to
masturbate, never fully satisfactory; while the erotic photograph creates a
feeling of mystery: what is the girl walking away from – and where is she going?
Why the chic corset and lack of panties? The porn shot is a complete picture.
The erotic shot is a single frame from an unfinished story.
Good erotic writing, like all good literature, must make
readers want to know what is going to happen next, and provide an outcome that is
what they expect, but not in the way they expect it. Erotica requires surprise,
fantasy, subtext. When a man asks a woman in a bar if she would like a drink, if
she responds: 'How much did you pay for your house?' – we have a new set up, a
tangent; this woman is interesting. Is she a hooker, a gold digger, a real
estate agent, or she just having fun? We don't know and want to find out.
Porn tends to be 'on the nose,' characters
"tell" the reader what's happening. Better confuse than be obvious.
Describing a woman as 'beautiful with long legs and big breasts,' devalues the
reader's own imagination. Say: 'Every woman
in the bar turned her head as she entered' shows the reader that this is a real
beauty. Note that I say 'every woman.' Men always look; women are more
discerning.
Romance is about love, where the natural consequence
of sex is reproduction. Erotica is about sex as an unexplored facet of our
humanity, a dark glass in which we dimly see our reflection, a quest for sexual
identity. Masks and costume are useful tools in erotic sex because, while
hidden, you are more open to be yourself.
These are the themes explored in Sophie's Secret,
which has been seen by some as a lesbian story, although it was not conceived
that way. It opens with Sophie Price catching her
boyfriend Jake in bed with her rival, Aisha Cummings. Sophie instantly realizes
that 1: she's fed up with Jake anyway, and 2: when it comes to the game of sex,
she's still at the starting line.
It
just so happens that Sophie has been turned away from a lesbian club named
'Pink' because, unlike her two friends who took her there, she doesn't appear
to belong. Determined to find out what goes on in that mysterious basement in
the backstreets of Soho, Sophie sets out on an erotic odyssey that takes her
from the coolly decadent to a full-blown orgy and way out into the wild winds
of BDSM.
Good
erotica needs subplots, a mingling of themes, a touch of philosophy. Sophie is
broke and will have to work her way through college, missing out on the chance to
reach her full potential – sexually, perhaps, but intellectually for certain.
As soon as she lets go of her fears, the other worries disappear and she become
fully herself. That's Sophie's secret.
In
association with DreamZ of Dragons, Sophie's Secret is FREE at Amazon from May 22, 2013 through May 26, 2013.
