On my very normal twentieth birthday, the king’s enforcers try to arrest me for necromancy.

One of them helps me escape then collapses at my feet, badly wounded and beautifully naked, but unable to shift. This mountain of a fae is an immortal dragonshifter, and he’s vowed to kill me if I turn evil.

Are the darkthings that whisper to me from the shadows evil?
Was my attempted healing that? While he was unconscious, I tried something to help him.  I changed something … inside him.

Despite the vow and his arrogance, one reckless kiss pulls me into his embrace.

The kingdom is in turmoil, and our desires and growing fascination with each other teeter dangerously on the edge of the unknown.

I can guess his secrets, but he doesn’t know mine.

When the king plays his cruelest card, only one option remains.
Learn necromancy or die.

A kickass, enemies-to-lovers romance between an innocent necromancer and a ruthless dragonshifter set in a complex and unique fantasy world.

The eBook is HERE and on Kindle Unlimited
Get the Paperback of Deadly Maiden

Killer Bones is a dark and nasty CNC Fraternity Prequel Romance, and Book ONE in the series.

It is standalone and features no one from the following books, apart from a tiny cameo from one character - an Easter egg of sorts - that only one reviewer has spotted, so far. It has a HEA that some prefer to call a HFN, and is a very brutal story, with a serial killer theme, so I advise people to check the Book Content warnings that are on this site.

(There are 2 endings. NOTE: Only the Killer Bones, Evil Edition paperback contains both endings, due to this eBook going into Kindle Unlimited after June 21st.)

***
My online rants targeted men dealing in the filthiest crimes.
I thought I was untouchable.

Until the day I’m dragged before Montez Flores, my worst enemy, and he gives me to a scarred man.

Instructed to degrade then kill me in front of Montez, his mistress, and a roomful of bodyguards, this Mister Smith takes me exactly how he wants to.

He delays my death by promising he will do worse to me tomorrow.

Then they lock me in with him at the bottom of a yacht.

I’m alive when I should already be dead. What does the scarred man want from me?

My soul in exchange for my life?

AMAZON Buylink
On GOODREADS
The Evil Edition paperback on AMAZON

This new cover for Their Cruel Love is to match the first two books set in the CNC Fraternity. 

Some seem unwilling to try a book in a series if the series appears 'incomplete.' For a day, I trialed publishing this as a standalone spin-off book, with the same setting as the others - which is exactly what it is. I then backflipped and placed it in the series again.

​However, the plot does not continue on from the previous books and none of the characters are in previous books, except for Razor, who appears in one scene in His Talisman.

I wasn't going to add any more to this on social media. I stepped into the wrong review on Goodreads, thinking they wouldn't mind and stirred up some controversy and subsequent review bombing on my latest book. I was a mix of amused, amazed, and sometimes horrified by events. So bizarre to have a reddit thread about myself. Believe it or not, I am just a person, like you.

However, when someone on my temporary street team asked me to address a rumor that I had bullied someone, I realised it would (probably) be best to say what happened. Thank you Amy, for that question.

For anyone not in the know, I pointed out a hair color fact the reviewer had wrong. I'm a bit anal about facts. (screenshot below) After which I apologized for intruding and said, thank you, when she amended the review, though really just agreeing in comments would have been enough for me.

Goodreads deleted my comments on her review, as well my own review and graphic - I never rate my own, it's a promotional thing that some authors do.

I have OODLES of low-starred reviews (1s and 2s) after decades of writing and may have commented on 2 of those over ten years??? I tend to read them all, good and bad - many times I have said this on Facebook. Many authors read reviews. Some, like me, read them all.

My 2 following comments on her review I have no copy of, but approximately those said this ~>

Comment 2: Thank you for amending the review. That, yes, the hair color was mentioned in just one descriptive passage in my book, but that it was also a fairly large part of her review - which was why I asked her whether it was in her version of the book.
(And it was late at night when I made that first comment and early morning when I made the 2nd and 3rd (bad idea).)

THEN I read her review more thoroughly and saw she was alarmed that Cecile commented.
Comment 3
I said I had reread, that I'd missed some of her main points due to skimming. I said "Karma?" thinking I'd just done what she had done in the book (selfdeprecating, as I do, but I can see some might misinterpret that.) I explained I hadnt asked Cecile to comment, but that she is devoted reader.

I can't recall the rest well,  but I know I said something like I read reviews like a crack wh*re,  because it now seems someone saw that as an insult to the reviewer? (I've said this about myself a few times, prior to this) I do read reviews like an addict. lol My bad habit. Also an awful simile, but I've no idea how anyone saw that as anything but me explaining my addiction to reviews.

Then I said "I won't comment again. Promise."
I also said thank you once (?), apologized for intruding, once. I was trying to be VERY polite.

​After it was deleted, I redid my 'review' of my book with less 'confrontation' - the Goodreads Support word.

However, here is the original full transcript that was on my review, GR emailed me THIS after deletion. I feel this says everything way better than I have above.

In the interest of full disclosure, I could add the link to the reddit - but I gather it's easy to find on search with my name. I could link to her review, but I prefer if people who like me, or even those who dislike me due to my rabid reading of reviews, to simply leave it be.

I'm not a bully, though I am a pita over facts. For that I will apologise.

So that is it. The saga laid out from my side. I can see some detest authors commenting on reviews, and some are horrified we even READ them. Many of my fans do like me commenting but I will be sticking to those higher reviews in future.

​Just remember, strangers are reading everything you write...

Leaving this here on that note of horror.
(If this blows up, I'll be in my nuclear bunker)

The Rise and Rise of Dark Erotic Romance
 
I was going to discuss how our notions of dark erotic romance (hereafter called DE) have changed over the years but with all the banning going on by Amazon and Smashwords (Smashwords distributes to B & N, iBooks, Kobo, etc) it seems a good time to talk about what is getting banned also.
The latest book banned that I know of was Dubious by Charmain Paul.

When I started writing DE it was at the start of 2013 and this sort of fiction was not well known or well read. Early writers were Claire Thompson, CJ Roberts (Captive in the Dark), and Kitty Thomas (Comfort Food). After this the tide rose, slowly at first, but there is a huge appetite for these books among women. Pepper Winters (Tears for Tess) and Aleatha Romig (Consequences) are probably two of the biggest-selling authors who came next, though Consequences is barely erotic.

The tide rose some more.

All of these earlier books written by romance authors, or all that I know of, had stories with capture fantasy. Capture fantasy revolves around dubious consent sex scenes and often some nonconsent too: No, I don’t want this sex. Yes, yes, I do!

Bodice rippers done better.

Back then, I tried to define what I was writing and I went to Wikipedia, only to find a definition that reduced DE to erotic horror. Not so fast Wikipedia. To me, horror was a minor component of these stories, if present at all.

Here is where and when the waters got muddy. Press 2014 and FAST-FORWARD.
A tsunami of DE washed in.

What we have now is a mish-mash of all sorts of different types of stories and no single definition that all readers agree on.

Why????
Lots of reasons.

Even by 2014, DE was selling so well that labelling your book dark, even if you weren’t sure what it was, even if it barely touched on the genre, might help your sales.

Can you blame anyone for doing this? No, I guess not. Partly because what the hell is dark?
The term is impossible to pin down…unlike my heroines.

Muddy labelling is because the term can’t be defined and the mislabelling in itself muddied the water even more.

You can get all anal – please do – and try to use a dictionary but that will not help you.
Please don’t do actual anal with a dictionary.
 
Again, what the hell is dark?
 
Dark Romance or DE has come to mean, to different readers, anything from…

Bad boy romances, where the man is mean and kills people, but still loves his woman madly and would die for her. These don’t really need to be called anything new, but calling them dark sounds cool. You can probably think of other books with dark themes that fit here in this slot that do not need to have a new label.

Taboo romances – where someone fucks their stepbrother, or adopted child, or maybe their stepbro werewolf, or their sheep, or maybe even a ménage with a bunch of mafia bosses who are werewolves. The boundaries can blur with all romances, of course. Eg The Wild by K Webster

BDSM romance – yes, for some readers a sadistic Dom whipping then fucking his submissive is dark, even though this is totally consensual.

Erotic Horror romance – you have erotic scenes but the sex scenes written to arouse are consensual. Rape may appear but not to titillate. Overall these are horror stories and you are meant to be left gasping over the extreme violence and horrible things done.

The main characters may be the ones doing the violent acts, perhaps in revenge, such as in Sick Fux by Tillie Cole. Or they may have horrible things done to them – as in Pretty Broken Doll.

Capture Fantasy Romance – the sex in these stories can range from dubious consent to nonconsent – often men kidnap women or force them into sexual servitude. Alien scifi is a big part of this genre, as is contemporary. Slaves are easier to imagine in science fiction settings. Some readers find capture fantasy more fun and palatable if not set in ‘real life’.
 
Right now, I see a huge rise in the number of erotic horror romances being released. Some authors mix horror with other categories.

So this broadening of what is dark romance has happened over many years, and this is why nobody agrees on the definition of dark romance, and why we never ever will agree.

Dark in fiction can mean scary, immoral, or plain ol’ not full of goodness. You could call Bonnie and Clyde a dark romance and you would not be wrong. It completely annoys me but then my definition annoys others too.

We are all going to have to agree to annoy each other.

Dark is a blurry, fluffy, dumb-ass, and too broadly defined word to mean much when applied to stories.

What’s dark to you might not be dark to me.
And that is how it always will be.

You can make up new words like Pitch Black Dark as did AA Dark. But since most haven’t a clue what that is, and you can’t deduce the specifics by looking at the words, it doesn’t help anyone except her fans.

As for censorship…
If you want to reduce the risk of banning, you cannot label your dark books correctly.
If you want readers to know what they are getting – assuming they read blurbs – you add labels.
Guess which wins out?

Authors are mostly too scared to add precise warnings and labels to DE.

The one BIG advantage of writing erotic horror is that it does not run the risk of banning, as long as the sex that is titillating is consensual.

The world is perfectly happy to consume pornographic violence where people are maimed and murdered in the weirdest ways. So this might be why we are seeing more of it written?

Partly? But I think it is that people love pushing themselves. They love seeing how horrified they can be by fiction. They love the thrill. Hannibal Lector eat your heart out.

That same voyeuristic thrill is why people watch horror movies like Saw and Hostel.

To me, such thrills are akin to sexual arousal, which is why it’s ironic that some sexual fantasies are seen as terrible but mincing someone’s face is not.
 
Will Amazon reach for the broader ban-hammer next? Possibly. They stock centaur and T-rex rape books but ban titillating rape in other books. Such a mess. Whatever they try to implement, authors are unlikely to trust the justice of any method that tries to corral certain books into a ‘Naughty Dark’ category.

END OF QUOTED & COPIED ARTICLE

And below is my next 'dark' book out January 24th, 2024... and I don't think it is that dark, because the sex is 99 percent consensual.

It's gory, murderous, has a snuff film background, there are tinges of horror, but to me it's closer to a thriller romance with a vigilante justice undertone. I'll leave it to readers to decide.

​An inferno hot, dark standalone romance from New York Times & USA Today bestselling author, Cari Silverwood
 
THE NIGHTMARES COME TO ME, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
A stone table, hooded men, and a woman dying.
Have I killed my friend? To find out, I apply for the same CNC training course I sent her to.
 
Two men agree to take me on and teach me how to be theirs.
Theirs… It’s such a powerful word.
 
If I say yes to all that they wish to do,
Will my heart still be mine or will it be theirs? 
I must remember my true purpose – to find Milli or to avenge her.
Even if I have to paint the walls with blood. Preferably, it won’t be my own.
 
MARCUS THOMPSON
Phoebe Bartholemew, my god, I have her. She’s mine to destroy.
I will grind her into the dirt beneath my feet, same as her family did to ours.
 
RAZOR
Handling Marcus and Phoebe is fun, if a little like juggling d*ldos and knives. But this beautiful island is toxic and deviant killers hide among the guests. To leave this place alive, we need to unearth them before they put us six feet under.
 
Things to know about Their Cruel Love
Secret society of millionaires and billionaires
One woman shares the embrace of two men (MfM)
Enemies to Lovers
Smutty Murder mystery
 
TW Find them here
This romance has dark themes that may be triggering.
 
This book can be read standalone but the books that came before it in this series are:
His Keepsake
His Talisman