Mar 15 2013
BOOK CLUB: Uncommon Pleasure by Anne Calhoun
1 – What was the inspiration for this duology?
Ty first appeared in a Quickie I released through Ellora’s Cave called ON THE EDGE. I intended him to play a very minor role in the story when I drafted it, but the moment he showed up at No Limits, the bar where so much of the action takes place, he was a smart-ass, wounded as hell, and honestly, a little more interesting than the hero, John, at that point. I had to consciously tell Ty to go sit and be broody elsewhere while I finished John and Lucy’s story.
Later I was approached to write Ty’s story for an opportunity that didn’t pan out. This left me with a finished novella…and Sean, another hero who intrigued me in a completely different way. I wrote Sean and Abby’s story later in 2011, with the idea of writing a book comprised of two separate stories woven together by the characters’ decisions and choices.
2 – Your work is often novellas or shorter stories, but they never seem to short change the romance. Is writing in a short format more challenging or easier for you?
It depends on the story. By far the most difficult 5K words I’ve ever written is Transformed, which appears in the Agony/Ecstasy anthology Jane edited. I spent WEEKS on that story. On the flip side, I’ve written and polished 45K novellas in a month (doesn’t sound fast, but for me, that’s fast). Full length novels are automatically more difficult because there are more balls in the air – the romance, the erotic component, the secondary characters, the plot.
As for not short-changing the romance…that’s the whole point! If what the characters do in bed (or against a wall, or in the back seat of a car) doesn’t land like a grenade in their relationship, then I’m not doing my job as a romance writer.
3 – Ty would definitely classify as a slow to warm up hero, occasionally being deliberately cold to Lauren. Did you worry at all the readers would have a hard time identifying or rooting for him?
LOL! No! I was pretty sure Ty was a classic wounded alpha. I was more worried readers would find Lauren’s confident response to him off-putting. She’s no blushing virgin, not by a long shot. There’s one scene where Ty’s behavior might cross the line from wounded into mean, but I like a big fall before the HEA. J
4 – Thematically, all romances are about the redemptive power of love, but this theme seems intensified in cases where the heroes have experienced the theater of war. Why do you think this is?
As a writer I’m very interested in the aftermath of war, in how that kind of service and experience affects the characters’ relationships with the people they love, or want to love. Ty and Sean both served in Afghanistan, and for both of them, that experience wreaked havoc on their relationships. Ty’s haunted by something he feels he should have prevented, but didn’t. Sean felt he had to choose between the girl he left behind and the men under his command, but that fifteen months he was a platoon lieutenant isn’t the rest of his life. Making those choices, facing combat, will change a person forever. The people who willingly put themselves on the front lines of anything – war, police work, social service of any kind – provide good fodder for creating complex characters with wounds and fears. They know things about themselves and the world that make it harder to love…and make their love that much sweeter in the end.
5 – Sean is one of my favorite hero types, a Caregiving Alpha, which is quite a juxtaposition from Ty. Was this a deliberate choice?
I love Sean. I freaking, flat out love him. I love his nuances, I love his patience, I love his brains and his determination, I love how he sees his flaws and tries to overcome them in his own geeky way. So yes, it was a deliberate choice.
6 – Was the decision to include ménage scenes in both stories and editorial choice? Or yours? And how do you think the scenes inform the story and the development of the relationship between the romantic leads?
The decision to include ménages in both stories was entirely mine, and intentional. I mirrored the final sequences to set up a sexual chain of events that trigger actions and emotional consequences for all the characters.
Ty’s fighting his attraction to Lauren, so he tries to drive her away by suggesting she sleep with Sean. Lauren, because she’s sexually adventurous and not about to let Ty get the upper hand, ups the ante by suggesting the ménage, something she never would have if she knew about Sean’s situation with Abby. Because Sean’s distraught over losing Abby for good (or so he thinks), he agrees to the menage. But during that ménage Sean learns something about who he is and what he wants that night, so he sets out to get Abby back. When Abby finds out what Sean did with Ty and Lauren, she makes a decision of her own, one that’s motivated by hurt and fear – the same fear she’s had all along with Sean, that she’s not enough for him – and sets up the second ménage.
Characters are composites of their experiences. They do things that are perfectly in character (Ty and Lauren) and they normally wouldn’t (Sean and Abby), with consequences all around. In other words, bringing someone else into bed will impact their relationship with each other, with the third character, and all of their relationships as well…especially if things are already strained (as they are in romance novels)!
Over to you readers, what did you think of Uncommon Pleasure?
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Dear Author Book Club! | Anne Calhoun, Romance Author
Mar 15, 2013 @ 09:57:56
[...] PLEASURE is the Dear Author Book Club choice for March and the chat is TODAY, March 15! Reviewer Kati asked some great questions about [...]
Mar 15, 2013 @ 10:31:10
Geo restrictions on this book . . . can’t get it. Pants!
Mar 15, 2013 @ 10:55:28
I think Calhoun writes some of the best erotic romance out there because the mix of sex and emotion is so seamless. However, as I said in my review, I though that the sex was better integrated into the first story than the second.
And, of course, the deux ex menage that is used not only in this one but the previous stories by Calhoun.
Overall, however, both stories were strong in their own way. I liked the opposition of the hero in pursuit in the second and the heroine in the first kind of being the pursuer.
Mar 15, 2013 @ 11:33:01
Thanks for the review and interview but I think I’ll wait until it is a bit less expensive.
Mar 15, 2013 @ 12:47:31
I really love the hero in pursuit storyline, combined with the fact that Sean is a Caregiving Alpha, he worked better for me than Ty. But I agree with you, Jane, Calhoun writes consistently satisfying erotic romances.
Mar 15, 2013 @ 15:13:04
I haven’t read this book but I will add it in my TBR pile because of the recommendation and because I liked “Liberating Lacey” by the same author. I have been reading the Out of Uniform series by Elle Kennedy which are erotica novellas featuring navy SEAL heroes. Like Ms. Calhoun’s novellas they featured menage in almost all the books and with very emotional stories particularly the most recent one that has a M-M-F storyline.
Mar 16, 2013 @ 10:02:48
Anne Calhoun is one of my favorite writers. “Breath on Embers” is one of the best things I read last year. I liked “Uncommon Pleasures” — although I thought that the Lauren/Ty section worked better than the Abby/Sean part. For one, I liked Lauren a lot. I liked her confidence and her competence. Most of all, I liked her passion and how she was fearless in expressing it. And I loved how that contrasted with the attributes that Ty was actively trying to repress. I also liked Sean a lot. Abby, not so much. Her self-sacrifice and her insistence that she could do everything on her own (which was so obviously contradicted by reality as the story progressed) got tiring for me. I kept wondering what Sean found interesting about her. I did smile at the chain of menages that linked the stories together. I very much look forward to her next book.
Mar 16, 2013 @ 11:52:17
I enjoyed this one – never read anything by this writer before (should not be surprising considering how few het romances I read overall), but I liked it and much more than I expected. I again loved the heroines in both stories. Absolutely loved how Laura knew what she wanted and was not afraid to go for it – sooo refreshing (for me anyway). I loved Ty, even though I do agree with the author that he is classic wounded alpha character.
Now menages, I usually extremely dislike menages where woman is involved (again, please take into consideration that I primarily read mm romances in romantic genre and while I love and want supporting women characters in the stories, I absolutely do not want a woman anywhere near main couple in a romantic sense, so this is where it comes from.), but here of course there was completely different situation. I definitely agree that in first story menage worked much better for me than in the second one. Second one was – huh, here we go again and why do we need to do that. In the first it just somehow made sense to me on many levels. And it truly is a wonder that it worked for me, so bravo to the writer