Here we are with another short recap due to a super short chapter. Which honestly, I’m fine with. I could use a lazy day. At least this isn’t packed to the brim with multiple sex scenes.
I think that’s in like, two chapters.
Your One Stop Procrastination Shop
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Here we are with another short recap due to a super short chapter. Which honestly, I’m fine with. I could use a lazy day. At least this isn’t packed to the brim with multiple sex scenes.
I think that’s in like, two chapters.
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Since I don’t have any news about The Mister, I’m going to shamelessly hijack your eyeballs for news of my own: The Boss, which began as a serial I wrote to subvert the tropes in Fifty Shades of Grey, spawned a seven-book series, the first five of which are now becoming available in serial form on the Radish app. Since its premiere on May 20th, it’s a #1 trending title with over 100,000 views. Are you kidding me? Is this real life?
If you’ve never read the series but you’ve always been mildly curious, this is a great way to dip your toes in. A new episode unlocks for free every day, and if you want to read ahead, you can pay a few cents to unlock more chapters.
Tell your friends! Tell your neighbors! Tell your parents that you’ve found a great hardcore BDSM soap opera! They’re gonna love to hear about that!
In other news, while this is gonna translate to some extra income next quarter (which is sorely needed), my husband severely injured himself about a month ago and has missed some work and is rapidly accumulating medical bills, resulting in a big income shortfall this month which is a supergiant pain in my ass. ZERO pressure, but if you’ve been thinking, “I should send money to Jenny’s Kofi,” this is a good time. I absolutely hate mentioning it (hence the stupid thing at the bottom of all my posts, sitting there like a guilt bomb when you finish reading the damn thing, sorry about that) especially after I just mentioned it not too long ago, but man, I have been super broke lately. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. There’s always ups and downs, right? Don’t sit there like, “OH MY GOD I FEEL BAD BECAUSE JENNY IS GOING TO DIE IN THE GUTTER! I AM STEALING FOOD FROM HER CHILDRENS’ MOUTHS BY READING THIS CONTENT WITHOUT GIVING HER A DOLLAR!” because I won’t and you aren’t. I’m Domino. I always luck out somehow (and my weed hook-up extends credit). If you can donate and want to, awesome, if you can’t or don’t want to, you’re still awesome because you’re here.
PS. Mr.Jen’s injury is some kind of spinal nerve damage thing that’s causing severe chronic pain in his shoulder and arm. At least, that’s what they’re going with for now. We don’t know how he got injured, which is complicating the diagnosis and treatment; all we know is that he woke up suddenly with 10/10 pain and a cramp in his trapezius muscle that won’t ease up with any muscle relaxers that they’ve tried. He’s on a shit ton of drugs to control pain and help him sleep (which they barely do), as well as so many OTC pain relieving patches and gels that he smells like the dirty, loose Certs at the bottom of a grandma’s purse. Cross your fingers that’s it something simple to fix and I’ll keep you guys updated if you’re interested in knowing what’s happening with him.
Now, let’s escape from the career realities of a working writer, into a magical world of a super popular novel written with as much care as one would take with a grocery list.
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You know what’s really difficult? Finding news to report on this book. I haven’t even seen much ado about E.L. James’s BookCon panel over the weekend. Either I’ve unfollowed all the right people on social media, or all the right people have blocked me. Either way, I’m good, but at least Twitter pulled through for me in one respect. My awesome Twitter friend Quiana sent me pictures of some kind of promotional box for The Mister that includes pink granny panties, Windolene wipes, and artsy black-and-white photos of the Cornish countryside.
Imagine opening up your super amazing publisher promo or subscription box or whatever this thing was and finding underpants and cleaning products. Ah, the romance.
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Hold the fucking presses. We’ve got news and it’s going to be music to your dick. Which is, incidentally, one of the more maligned phrases from this god awful book. I mean, imagine, writing “music to my dick” in your manuscript. Imagine how totally devoid of literary self-awareness one must have to confidently put that phrase into the world. Imagine it. The hubris. Imagine sitting down and typing that on purpose.
Now, imagine you did it twice.
In the interest of due diligence, I looked up the phrase “music to my dick” in Grey.
Her sharp intake of breath is music to my dick.
We should have started keeping track of the number of copy/paste phrases and incidents have meandered into The Mister from the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. At this point, I’m assuming we’re a few pages from Maxim exclaiming, “I’m fifty Misters of fucked up, Alessia!”
I try to update these with news about The Mister or E.L. James…but this book has all but dropped off the face of the zeitgeist. The initial, desperate clamoring for hype has trickled out. A month after release, the book has fallen out of the Amazon top one hundred. It’s fallen off the top twenty-five releases on BookScan. It’s being beaten by After. In other words, while The Mister sold better than most authors can expect, it did not do the work the publisher had to have been expecting on the heels of blockbuster after blockbuster. Consider: Grey moved over a million copies in its first week. The Mister moved 68,500 copies upon debut, and the numbers have fallen by tens of thousands with each subsequent week.
Hey, remember all that “a rising tide raises all boats” nonsense that romance authors touted to explain why it was okay for E.L. James to rip off someone else’s work and write hundreds of thousands of words glamorizing domestic abuse? You know, because it was bringing so many new readers into the genre and we were all going to make bank? Yeah, if those wonderful new readers had stuck around, The Mister would be doing comparable numbers. Instead, it seems that all Fifty Shades of Grey did was create a weird cottage industry of thin-skinned self-pubbers in an arms race for who can write the most disturbing books chock full of rape, stalking, abuse, and forced pregnancy, who crank out their 10k short stories every week with the help of underpaid ghostwriters so they can game the KU algorithm and make bank.
How’s that rising tide, everybody? You drowning yet? Hope your allegiance was worth it.
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Hey there, everybody! Before we get started, I’ve got a housekeeping detail for Trout Nation and it is a DOOZY. Starting yesterday, you’ll be able to read my Sophie Scaife series (written as Abigail Barnette) on the Radish app! A new episode will release every day, Monday through Friday, and the first twenty or so episodes of The Boss are free so you can try before you buy!
Also, shout out to whoever left the Amazon review for Where We Land that pointed out the book is nothing like Poldark. I’ve had so many people mention that to me over the weekend.
Okay, now, let’s get into this book. The one you came here for. The one you don’t want to keep reading but find yourself inexplicably drawn back to.
Let’s get into.
The Mister.
Which, by the by, was a “deal of the day” on several book blogs last week when it was offered as a $2.99 sale ebook on Amazon. Like Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels, The Mister has also been moved into categories it does not belong in to retain the illusion of super high sales numbers. Right now, it’s the #2 bestseller in “Mothers and Children Fiction” and #4 in “Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense Literary Fiction.”
Again, let me be clear: The Mister would be a dream success for any author who previously hadn’t written the bestselling book of all time or whatever. But if you are that author, and your publishing house has thrown gobs of money behind your book launch? And you’ve been on television all over the world to promote it? And done numerous print interviews?
You shouldn’t be getting your ass handed to you in your own category by Kindle Unlimited banging-my-billionaire-stepbrother books.
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I apologize for the shortness of this recap, but the chapter is short and pretty much unnecessary until the last page.
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No real news, except The Mister did move up from #4 to #3 on the New York Times bestseller list. It has yet to reach #1 on either NYT or USA Today. Which is a great example of exactly how the success of one title doesn’t automatically translate into the success of the next title, even for authors with blockbusters.
Since it’s a slow news day, it’s a great time to remind everyone that any typos or misspellings in the quoted text are my fault unless otherwise noted. I’m really bad at typing. Also, remember that I don’t post the full text of the chapter, just selections, and I sometimes might not mention a detail like, “he took off his shirt,” or something before an excerpt where he’s shirtless. Consider any inconsistencies in that vein the result of omission, unless I point it out.
This is also another great time to remind everyone that I have a book out that has been deemed “adorable” by readers, and you can find out more details here.
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I am so, so ill, and so, so full of every kind of OTC cold medicine you can safely mix (and some you can’t) that I was tempted to just make this entire recap, “Then they had sex.”
But it’s really, truly bad. As compellingly written as the terms and conditions of the warranty on your new refrigerator, as sexy as the cracked concrete floor of a franchised oil change garage, this is not something I can skip over. Oh no.
Especially not after the staggering generosity everyone showed yesterday and today. Sweet Jesus, I almost feel guilty. You guys literally funded next month’s rent! I cannot thank you enough. Even though I look like I’m auditioning for the role of Zombie Outbreak Patient #3 in a musical production of The Walking Dead, I’m gonna deliver. I’m gonna detonate all around you and start to move, really move. I’m gonna take you into this muted pastel room of pain with me. It will, however, be a short recap because the chapter is short and there’s really not a lot you can say about four pages of kissing.
Get on your masochist bikes. We’re going for a super painful ride.
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In news directly from the mouth of hell, E.L. James has coyly teased that she may or may not write a BDSM novel featuring gay men as the central couple.
[…]James says she’s been swamped with fans begging for her to write a book that features gay men.
Who are these fans? Turn on your location. I just want to talk.
And it’s not just men asking her to pen the erotica, women are writing in and asking for some man-on-man action too.
I highly doubt it’s any men asking her. It is 100% white Christian moms with “Live, Laugh, Love, Pray” wall decals, three desperately overscheduled “Greybies” named Mykklaryn, Renesmee, and, of course, Christian, who participate in dozens of conflicting afterschool activities that feed their mothers’ pathological transportation martyr needs. The I-would-like-to-speak-to-your-manager army is desperate for an audiobook they can listen to quietly while waiting in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru, then cite as evidence that they’re not homophobic, they just vote for strongly anti-gay candidates because they agree with them on other issues. Oh, and sure, they donated to their megachurch’s conversion therapy camp, but they read poorly written butt sex scenes so they just can’t be bigoted.
And gay men, if you are a huge fan of E.L. James, I need you to explain why you’re so into painfully heterosexual and extremely homophobic “erotica” when there are hundreds of thousands of other choices out there.
James’s coquettish “never say never” quote is the most infuriating fucking thing I’ve read in a while. And I have a Twitter account. Yes, bitch. Say never. Say the fuck never. No one, be they gay, lesbian, bi, pan, or queer, needs your straight ass fetishizing them for your ravenous audience and their dubious tastes. We have enough condescending straight women pulling that bullshit in M/M fiction already.
James says the idea interests her because having two men in the relationship would take away the power dynamics based on gender roles.
I cannot wait to read her BDSM novel where there are no power dynamics. I’m sure it will be thrilling, completely accurate, and well-researched.
Also, probably Supernatural Wincest fic.