Today I am so pleased to welcome K.J. Charles to Joyfully Jay. K.J. has come to talk to us about her latest release, Think of England. I reviewed this earlier in the week and totally loved it! She has also brought along a great tour wide giveaway. Please join me in giving K.J. a big welcome!
The Inexperienced Hero
If you read romance blogs, you’ll come across the topic of ‘What’s your pet hate?’ reasonably frequently. I think it’s a tribute to romance readers how civilised the subsequent conversations tend to be. Most of us understand that one reader’s annoying tropey nonsense is another reader’s chocolate-flavoured-crack habit, and to accept that we don’t all have the same tastes without having a row about it.
It is in that spirit of ‘each to her own’ that I present my own personal pet hate: the sexually inexperienced hero who’s brilliant at sex.
We all know this guy. He’s a virgin, or next door to one, he’s got to the age of thirty or whatever without putting his mouth anywhere his mother wouldn’t approve, and then the other MC comes along and suddenly our hero is taking it like a porn star/administering epic oral pleasure/giving his highly experienced partner the best seeing-to they’ve ever had, for half an hour by the clock. Which is nice for them, but it tends to jolt me out of the book. I mean, if there’s a single universal constant of human experience across the world and time, it’s probably that your first sexual experience was a bit crap.
I’m not pleading for total realism in romance. Real life has quite enough rubbish unsatisfactory sex without adding the fictional kind. I am sure that people have written brilliant romantic scenes where the inexperienced hero can’t get the condom on for ages and then comes before he’s half-way in, but I think we’d all be sorry if that became a standard thing. I understand why many people would rather skip to the good bit.
But the thing about the inexperienced hero is that there’s a lot of pleasure for the reader in his journey. Nerves, vulnerability, reluctance, the slow build of trust, the breakdown of internal barriers, the sheer terror of/need for intimacy, the unbearable nerve-wringing anticipation…ooh, it’s delicious. And I don’t want all that washed away in favour of superstud sex as soon as the zips are undone.
Plus, generally speaking, if your hero is a grown man who hasn’t had much sex, there’s probably a reason, and that reason probably isn’t going away overnight. And that’s going to feed into the sexual experience and affect how the scene plays out. (Unless you feel that all those personal and psychological reasons for his inexperience add up to a plot device that can be discarded once it’s served its purpose… in which case, go stand in the corner and don’t come back till you’re sorry.)
In Think of England, my hero Archie has reached the age of thirty with extremely limited sexual experience. That means he’s had maybe fifteen years’ experience of not having sex or of denying what he has had; of telling himself that the things he has done aren’t meaningful; of not kissing or being kissed.
Archie needs, not just to face his sexual feelings but, on a practical level, to find out what precisely he’s meant to do with them once faced. He’ll need to get used to intimate physical contact of a kind he’s never had in his life. That’s unnerving. Scary, even. Not something that you get over at the first sight of your Fated Mate.
Fortunately for Archie, in Think of England he meets Daniel da Silva, who is, let us say, in a position to help. But that doesn’t mean Archie’s sexual awakening comes entirely easily.
I mean, where would the fun be in that?
Blurb
Lie back and think of England…
England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.
Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.
As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.
As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…
Bio
I’m a writer of romance, mostly m/m, often historical or fantasy or both. I also have a contemporary thriller coming out soon. I like to mix it up.
I’m a commissioning editor in my daily life and I blog about writing and editing at kjcharleswriter.wordpress.com.
I live in London, UK, with two kids, a tolerant husband and an even more tolerant cat.
Giveaway
K.J. has a tour wide giveaway going on for one ebook copy of Think of England and a $25 gift certificate to your online book retailer of choice. Just follow the Rafflecopter link to enter.
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I like your view on handling ‘older’ virgins 🙂
I have many pet hates. (I could run a kennel). But one of them is the sexually inexperienced hero (or heroine) who is an immediate porn star. A bit of hesitant fumbling is kind of endearing. And it gives the characters the opportunity to do one of my pet… loves (?) – to *talk* to each other and so improve things.
I’d love to get a copy of this book. Thanks for including me.
Thanks for an interesting post!
I finished Think of England yesterday. I loved it! This is one I will re-read because it was so good and I zipped through it awfully fast because I wanted to see what would happen.
Liked your post , adding book to my list.
I totally agree with your pet peeve! Thanks for the great post and the giveaway. Looking forward very much to reading Think of England.
I enjoyed reading your post and I love the title of your book “Lie back and think of England”
ShirleyAnn(at)speakman40(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk
I read the other series by KJ. I really have to try this one.
I agree with K.J. Charles. It is really annoying when a supposedly inexperienced hero turns out to have a “natural” ability to make amazing sex. That, and first times which are as good as it gets. That makes me snort in disbelief. Really? Are you kidding? Anyway, I don’t think a traumatic first time experience with the love of your life is good stuff for a love story. Thanks for the post (it is great) and the giveaway
I totally agree with your point of view of how the inexperienced hero should be portrayed. 🙂 Thanks for the giveaway!
I really did enjoy Think of England. It was well written and I loved the MCs and the girls. I do have a question, though. Why don’t they have full on sexual intercourse? I’ve noticed that in another of your books (the only other one I’ve read). If it’s because this will be a series and the time wasn’t right in this book, I would understand. But I find myself disappointed when there isn’t that level of intimacy in these romances. I guess, as a woman, I find that penetration is an important part of sex and though I realize not all gay men practice that, probably a majority do. Anyway I’m curious about your thoughts.
Thanks.
Interesting question, several answers! For one, as you say, penetrative sex isn’t the only/ultimate conclusion of a gay sexual relationship. Lots of people don’t do it, don’t like it, prefer other things, and I think it’s important not to always put it as a kind of ‘crossing the finishing line’ act in the way it often is in het relationships. For another, there’s no way Archie’s ready for that level of physical intimacy – he’s never kissed a man before this week, even. Leaping to penetrative sex would seem to me to be unrealistically rapid development of the kind I whinge about in the post. 🙂
Also, in 1904, it’s less than 50 years since sodomy was punishable by death. After that it was life imprisonment. Archie was eleven when that was changed to a mere two years in prison for all ‘gross indecency’ – so basically he grew up knowing that sodomy was an incredibly serious crime. That’s going to be an act with a lot of connotations and a lot of baggage for a man who sees himself as decent, law-abiding and so on, and who’s struggling with the concept of admitting to himself that he wants another man at all.
I hope that helps answer your question, and thanks for your very kind comments – I’m glad you liked the book!
Thank you for replying. Your reasoning is quite logical.
I enjoyed your post and agree about wanting the vulnerability, nerves etc in the scene.
Loved your thoughts. I totally agree with your post – I like to see the transformation from innocent to sexual but not on the first try. Thanks for the chance at winning a copy of this – it sounds terrific.
It is good to see a character learn about their sexuality, especially if they are inexperienced like Archie, and if he has a willing teacher who can guide him and the he can grow more confident about giving and taking as time goes on. I am glad you took this approach with your characters and I look forward to reading this book, so thank you for giving one of us a chance to win it and I look forward to the next part 🙂
Innocence is such an underrated thing in m/m, so it is refreshing to see all the stops on the journey!
Thank you for the insight about the ‘pet hate’ and how inexperience can be great for the story.
Thank you for the interesting post. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the words “pet hate” (well..until now)on a blog. The other stuff yeah…but not those exact words.
Great post, I find the public side of this to be another thing that is troubling. Someone that has been uncomfortable with their sexuality or unable to accept it suddenly deciding to be out and proud because they’ve found their “one” seems unlikely to me. It’s not as common as the virgin/porn star transformation but I do see it.
Yes! And in fact I think that’s on the same continuum – because the root of it is, the author using what ought to be an important facet of a character as a disposable plot device. If being closeted is part of the initial conflict, it’s lazy to just wave that away and say, ‘it’s no longer a problem, happy ever after’. Basically – looking at it purely in book-construction terms – it’s cheating the reader as much as any ‘convenient never-heard-of millionaire uncle leaves a fortune in will’ type deus ex machina.
I don’t think I have a pet hate so much as a zoo of them, and even then a good writer can take one of the things I thought I hated and make it work for me. But one of my pet loves is when a writer thinks about this stuff realistically, so I would love to be entered for a chance to win this one. Thanks!
woo hooo! congrats on your new exploits!
-kkm
This is a new author to me and would love to read this book!!
Great post, KJ! Virgin turned porn star is one of my pet peeves too (one among many :)) and I always appreciate a story when there is a bit of fumbling the first time and like Kaetrin said – it leads to talking and figuring out how to make it better the next time.
So looking forward to reading this story! Thanks for the giveaway!
I just read a book like this! (One that has a naive virginal superstud, that is.) Threw me right out of the book.
HI KJ, I agree with your pet hate, I am always amazed at how in some books the inexperienced virgin becomes almost a porn star over night…really?! I look forward to reading your book. Thanks for the giveaway.
Great book, can’t wait to see more of Curtis and Daniel. It feels they have to go through a lot of things yet to reach what a real relationship between two men is in times like those.
It’s possible that I have a slight fetish for the inexperienced virgin trope. And I hate it when it’s ruined by having said virgin having absolutely no problems or doubts about sex. “I’ve saved myself for various reasons for all these years, but now that I met you, let’s throw it all out the window and reveal my inner slut!” Wha?
OMG, I have an OBSESSION with the inexperienced virgin trope. Come over to the dark side with me Ashley!
Are there cookies?
Nah, I don’t need anymore encouragement. Dark side, here I come!
Yes, with me there are ALWAYS cookies. And usually pie.