Now that Sins of the Father is live, I’m refocused on what’s next: Strike up the Band, to be released in September.
This is Jake’s story, and it’s kind of close to my heart. First, because Jake is literally the first character who came into being in this universe. Second, because Jake, like me and at the suggestion of the excellent Ami, is asexual.
I spent a lot of time trying to decide what asexual looked like for Jake, since it’s different for all of us, and tried to make the book informative on the subject without reading like a wikipedia entry on the subject of asexuality. It’s a finer line than I would have thought.
I’m still trying to decide whether to include this in the blurb other than as a warning that unlike the previous books in the series, this one will have no sex scenes.
For the curious, here’s the blurb:
Jake McKenna doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be on tour, he doesn’t want to be playing guitar, and he definitely doesn’t want anything to do with Brian Mulholland. He’s biding his time until the tour is over so that he can walk away from his music career for good.
Brian didn’t ask to be here. Okay, maybe he did. Fine, you know what? He wanted this. He may not like the circumstances that have landed him in his dream job, but he’s not going to let anyone ruin it for him, even if it’s the insanely hot guitarist he’s had a crush on since the first time he saw the band play. He will win over Jake McKenna if it’s the last thing he ever does.
Personally, I suspect Brian will manage to win Jake over, despite the hurdles they both have between them and the end of the tour.
Ami
Personally, I think you can include both asexual and no explicit sexual scenes as ‘tag’ for the book (I don’t like the word “warning” because it seems like we needs warning for no-sex in a romance book, what’s up with that?).
BUT, sometimes it’s also nice NOT to have such tags too, so readers can be surprised. One of the latest books I read from Ada Maria Soto “His Quiet Agent” includes asexual characters and no sexual scenes, but the blurb only mention “heat rating of zero”.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35238838-his-quiet-agent
It is the readers who then classify it with asexual characters and so on…
Sam
Oh, that’s interesting. I’m going to have to check that out.
I know what you mean, that “warning” sounds totally wrong. I’ve been kind of surprised by the pushback I’ve gotten from a few directions about not putting sex scenes in a book when the rest of the series has sex. I never expected it to be a big deal.
Right now I’m somewhere between full-on “this book has an asexual character, and there will be no sex” and just as you said, “heat rating zero.”
I must say, I’m a little excited to have people read it, and a little more terrified, since it feels more personal than my other books. I can see why people choose not to write own voices books.