Genre:
Consensual Heterosexual
Amazon Book Description:
Emma Percy has never been like the other girls. She's a mechanic. When it comes to machines, whether they've got two wheels or four, she knows how to keep them running. When the call of the open road and a life of possibilities leads her to the small town of San Viero, she finds that affairs of the heart require more than simple mechanical knowledge.
With only one place to turn for work, Emma finds herself surrounded by the members of the Dead Men Motorcycle Club. Though their rough exteriors and a lifetime of warnings from her father about such men keeps her distant at first, she soon discovers that the passion for riding that these men feel can be turned to other purposes as well.
Get ready for the ride of your life as Emma explores her feelings for the Dead Men and their leader, the enigmatic Cash. Will she resist temptation for the sake of safety or throw caution to the wind and explore the shared attraction between her and the club's mysterious President?
This story contains depictions of adult situations between consenting adults. All characters are at least 18 years of age. This story is a work of fiction. Any similarities between characters appearing in Learning to Ride and anyone else are coincidental. Any similarities between Emma's life and your own is extremely hot.
Excerpt:
Cash spared only a moment's glance at my uncovered body before pulling me back against him for another kiss. He was still sitting on the edge of the table, and I stood between his knees. I could feel the heat rising from his body, even greater than it had been when I first entered the room. He pulled away from our kiss, his lips nearly trembling as he spoke. "When I got shot,' he said, 'all I could think of was you. I knew that I had to get back here to you. I couldn't bear never having this chance."
Author Interview:
Can you describe your book in one sentence?
Learning to ride is about finding the strength within
yourself to do what you've always wanted - whether it's riding through Southern
California on a motorcycle or approaching that attractive stranger you're so
nervous about talking to.
For those who might consider reading your book, what would you tell
them to expect?
I would tell them to expect a story that grabs them. The best books are the ones which you don't
even notice the pages going by because you're invested in what's happening to
the characters, and I try to make sure every one of my books has that quality,
regardless of length. When you write
romantic erotica, it needs to feel organic.
It needs to feel like the story and the sex are one and the same. Learning to Ride is more than just erotica or
romance - it's both! Neither is complete
without the other and the result is a page-turner that leaves you wanting to
read more about the lives of the people involved.
What makes your book so different from all the books out there?
What makes Learning to Ride - and all of my books, hopefully
- so different is that the characters come first. Action and excitement are important to any
book, of course, but I feel like I give my characters a deeper personality that
readers can really identify with.
Especially in the field of erotic fiction, too often the characters are
shallow and without motivation. I try to
avoid that because the action is far more meaningful when you connect to a
character. My readers are fully fledged
people and they deserve characters that are (almost) as real as they are.
How hard was it to come up with characters?
Creating characters is at once the most challenging and most
rewarding part of writing a story. It's
easy to come up with a laundry list of statistics and mannerisms and call it a
character. Creating a realistic
character is much more difficult because you have to know in your mind how
they'd react to situations that might not even be appearing in your story. When I wrote Learning to Ride, I had to know
how Emma Percy would react to the events of the story, but to make her more
believable I had to know how she reacts to every day life. I have to know how she gets ready in the
morning, whether she takes cream or sugar in her coffee and what kind of music
she likes to listen to. Once a character
has a complete personality, it becomes much easier to write the story. I know how Emma will react in any situation,
so writing the story becomes an exercise of dictating her thoughts onto the
page rather than pushing her through situations and telling her what to do.
What made you want to write erotica?
I started writing erotica the right way - by reading
it! I've been a fan for a long time and
a writer as well. It just came to a
point where I realized that I could take my talent for writing stories and
apply it to erotica as well.
Is there any particular author or book that influenced you in any way
either growing up or as an adult?
I'd have to say Stephen King. I loved reading scary stories, even as a
child. My favorite parts were the way he
could show you the emotion that his characters were feeling without taking you
out of the story. I also love the way
his books are all subtly connected in the same universe. Here's a little Easter egg for you - all of
my books are connected, too! If you look
closely, there are common characters and locations woven through my
stories. Learning to Ride brings one of
the central characters of my whole collection into the spotlight for the first
time.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
The best advice is just to keep writing. It sounds so cliche, but it's true. Writing is a skill like any other, and you
have to practice every day. Nobody
writes their first hit write out of the gate.
You've got to practice and make sure your writing is improving every
step of the way.
What is one book you wish you had written?
Haha! Well, I wish
I'd written Fifty Shades of Gray - who doesn't?
The way that series has exploded in popularity is inspiring for any
erotica writer. It's more than just
popular, though - it's pushing the boundaries of what can be considered popular
in the world. It's hard to imagine a
book like Fifty Shades (or any of my own books) achieving the same level of
popularity ten years ago. It's a
breakthrough for the whole genre and it's done a lot of good in bringing
writers around the world more attention.
What is your favorite part of being an author?
My favorite part of being an author is the freedom to write
what I want to write. I get to be my own
boss and let my imagination carry me forwards.
It's very rewarding to succeed when your imagination is what's driving
you. Rather than fulfilling a vision
that someone else had, I get to know every day that I'm succeeding at my own
vision. I've spent plenty of years
working for other people, and working for yourself is a whole lot more
rewarding.
Will you have a new book coming out soon? Can you tell us about it?
Yes! As a matter of
fact, I fell so in love with the characters of Learning to Ride while writing
it that I'm already hard at work on the next in the Dead Men Motorcycle Club
series. It's tentatively titled Tell No
Tales, and it's about the ways in which we're all tested in our convictions
when we choose to do what we really want. Breaking free is just the first step - you've got to stand up for what you
believe in, when challenges arise. Of
course, Emma and Cash know just how to celebrate, too! ;)
My Review:
Before I go into the meat and potatoes of this review, I have to make a note that I LOVE the title of this book - so well suited!! It is clearly a play on words... those of us with our minds in the gutter (guilty!) reading "Ride" as in "Riding his cock," but with also the meaning of "Riding a motorcycle." I love when erotica has the required "outlandish" title that is more than just "outlandish."
Learning to Ride is the type of erotica that has more story than sex. And so, I found myself responding to this book more similarly to how I respond to mainstream writing as opposed to how I respond to erotica. With this being said, I personally have always found it interesting how whenever we hear that a book has "Adult" content we all know that means it has explicit sex. Every book on this blog contains Adult content; however, I would actually consider this book as only appropriate for adults. (I think generally people should chillax about general sex stuff lol). My reason for saying this is because Learning to Ride romanticizes dating a bad boy... and this boy is about as bad as they get. Immature people may harbor unhealthy ideals about relationships after reading a book of this type.
HOWEVER, with this being said, Learning to Ride is perfectly suited for the audience it is intended for: Adults. Our main character Emma is a strong, independent woman, which is attractive in itself. Angelica smoothly brings us right into Emma's mind. And did I mention that Learning to Ride includes a bad boy? Every girls understands the allure of the bad boy, even if only to read about them. On that train of thought, perhaps the best way to enjoy the fantasy of bad boys is through the written word. Like so many of the other books on this blog, this one is the first in a series, acting as a teaser for the rest.
Learning to Ride was gifted to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Angelica for trusting me with your work!
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