Romantic Fiction, Reality Shaping and The Work

Mari said:
I´m on the last, 4th book Sons of Sin series.
I´ll try not to reveal a lot of spoilers.... ;-)

2. Book: A Rake's Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell

Second book was just beautiful. I loved the characters and their development, their sacrifice and their internal beauty.
Richard would never forgive his mother if he hadn´t felt his love he feels for Genevive.
The end brought me to tears when Richard finally founds his peace with himself and with his mother. That end was the peak of emotion.
The making love parts didn´t affect me as it was in the first book; they only brought sense of love, beauty and two souls bonding together.

3. Book: What a Duke Dares by Anna Campbell

The third book was even better! I loved the adventure parts and how they revealed the feelings of the characters.

Oh, how stubborn they were....
But one cannot blame Cam; he was a bastard all his life and a Duke no less! (I´ve actually had to search online noble titles at one point to get familiar with the ranks. I.e. Noble Titles and Ranks in a Monarchy)
The shame was his companion all his life and he´ve grown to be proud and emotionless.
All his life trying to be perfect a cold.

I think the point where he cracked his cold hart was:

How I see this; the point here is not about satisfying a woman, but he completely put himself in a position to give himself to her. From that act of giving, he would be given too. Not that he knew that, but it is a simple example how doing things from your deepest soul urges lead to something beautiful.
So this wasn´t an act of ultimate pleasure for her or him, but a start of a circle of giving oneself and being given in return.


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As I was reading these books I‘ve noticed the same pattern; people were hurt on both sides, but not love was the key to happy ending - it was honesty, courage, understanding, opened conversation and compassion. Those were the keys to that unlocked all problems.

And then look at the people today; they are missing all of that.
Divorce numbers are rocketing and people are so self centered that on first sign of trouble they flee.
And who is getting married today? Self-centered millennials, mama´s boys and daddy´s girls....
"Everybody is a winner", "one is always right", "no man can tell you what to do" and that kind of motto to raise up children...

There is nothing today about values like compassion, empathy and basic conversation, where one can talk out: "ok, that was good, that was bad, but here was the situation...."
Nobody talks to each other today.
And I even don´t want to go here in the perverse and twisted vision of sex and partnership that is presented as normal today.
In these stories, there are always specific situations seen from angle of every character, but the will, the courage and honesty to talk about things is what prevails and saves story to happy end....


These books gave me one more push to make my own relationship working.
I wanted to write about it here many times but my ego and lack of courage failed me.
Enough to say now for the sake of this topic is that we‘ve both been very hurt; he hurt me deeply and then I´ve hurt back.

After reading these books I´ve got the push and means for realizing happily ever after possibility and to give one more try to wake that really deep love I´ve felt and then buried.
...so, God, help me....
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There is one more small book in that series. I Finished it Yesterday.
Its called Days of Rakes and Roses ( Sons od sin 1.5). It is a very small book and it can be read very fast.
I mentioned it because maybe you will want to read it too since you read the whole series. It comes after the first book Seven nights in a rogue's bed.
 
Konstantin said:
There is one more small book in that series. I Finished it Yesterday.
Its called Days of Rakes and Roses ( Sons od sin 1.5). It is a very small book and it can be read very fast.
I mentioned it because maybe you will want to read it too since you read the whole series. It comes after the first book Seven nights in a rogue's bed.
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Thank you! :-)

I´ve actually saw that one, but since Laura said to stick to books she recommended, I´ve skipped it. :-[
Here is the list in order Sons of Sin Series by Anna Campbell - there is also 4.5 at the end of the series.....
Anna Campbell

BOOK 1: Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed

BOOK 1.5: Days of Rakes and Roses

BOOK 2: A Rake's Midnight Kiss

BOOK 3: What a Duke Dares

BOOK 4: A Scoundrel by Moonlight

BOOK 4.5: Three Proposals and a Scandal
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I avanced in a sweet rythm reading the novel by Jennyfer Ashey. It is like to be in a carriadge.
I like her very much. She is a good writer and she have two very important qualities that I admire in writers: she writes with simplicity (and it is very hard to write like that) and she permits silence. Silence is very important when reading a book, in silence you can see, you can feel and you can undertand what you see and feel.

The details, the little details are so important in this story: they are part of the imagination of the characters. We can undertand what Ian is feeling with the details he is seeing when with Beth. The details are part of the imagination, fire that is food when desire is there. Without imagination sex is just sex. And in romance sex is not just sex, hopefully!

Because of the sweet pace of the novel we can enter in the past of the characters with sweetness, slowly and with silence. I like that.

I really enjoy this novel, it calms me. Maybe I will start to see my husbad in a different way, looking for details, looking at him with silence and not inside a turmoil.

I imagine that with time complicity will enter between Ian and Beth., the most important thing between a man and a woman in a couple. I will see.
 
Mari said:
Thank you! :-)

I´ve actually saw that one, but since Laura said to stick to books she recommended, I´ve skipped it. :-[
Here is the list in order Sons of Sin Series by Anna Campbell - there is also 4.5 at the end of the series.....
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Yes, I was thinking the same, but since it was very small, I decided to read it. It is part of the same series, It cant be very different.
 
This subject is a real gold nugget! I've read almost every post on this thread and it's amazing what it teaches me about desire, sexuality, and healthy relationships with this male/female balance. I bought Mackenzie's first book and it will be read soon. First I would like to express and share with you what has been going through my mind for years on these subjects.

Today's hypersexuality has really numbed me and led me to think that sex was bad, a pure STS desire that only feeds 4D STS beings, to the point that when a sexual impulse manifested itself in me, I didn't feel good because it prevented me from concentrating on something else. I came to think with this thread that what I was doing was just turning off my creative power and thus symbolically killing myself in my interaction with life. It's the same when I meet a woman on the street for example for whom an attraction was emerging, I thought, it's just hormonal, it's an STS trap to get you out of your way. "True love must be first of all psychic, intellectual, the physical body is secondary" as if I was ashamed to "sexually desire" the other one ... now I tell myself what a horror to think like that and it's normal that I've been single for 3 years, I'm not ready to receive someone in my life if I think and act that way. The consequence of all this and that internal conflict is very tiring. By reading you perhaps that these books are going to recabler me on true principles of desire, morals, "clean" sexuality (I don't know how to express it otherwise). In the end the fear that seems to emerge is that of being attracted to the opposite sex only by the body. I have had relationships in the past but I don't want to make the wrong choice of partner anymore, there seems to be a huge difficulty in "finding the other". In any case, the human being is a social being made to connect, to love, to share, however I doubt one day to find someone collinear, focused on all this fabulous work of testing the forum and all this great project towards 4D. At a time when social links are destroyed, I may be wrong but the chances seem very low.

I'm aware that I've talked about myself in this post in relation to what others have already shared but it seems important to me to show the now (before the reading of the books) and the after where I will publish in another post the changes (sensations, emotions etc.) that have emerged after these readings.
 
Konstantin said:
Yes, I was thinking the same, but since it was very small, I decided to read it. It is part of the same series, It cant be very different.
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Yes, the add-on books are interesting too, I just didn't add them because they were not about the main characters. The last one is interesting in that it gives further details of Jonas and Sidonie....
 
reilpmeit said:
I will try to put my words in most sincere way about this topic,even if it will get me banned from this forum.Maybe it will be very "unpopular" but it will be sincere.
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IMO This kind of thinking is just so counterproductive and an easy way to trap yourself in pointless neuroticism.

When you throw a moral framework and rigid rules onto something that doesn't need a moral framework, and try to deny a biological function due to a moral imperative, (at least where there is no coercion or manipulation or otherwise violation of free will happening), you just end up being like a self-righteous vegan, or worse, a breatharian. Think of what a healthy way to approach food is.

With food, there is nuance - good food and bad food. You can generally just avoid unhealthy food because it is unhealthy, with no extra emotional energy spent on that choice. But when you start avoiding unhealthy food because it's "sinful" instead, you end up with an eating disorder.

It seems kind of similar with many people when it comes to sex.

For instance, generally its best to avoid super stimulating video pornography because it's analogous to straight sugar - it satisfies cravings with no nutrition per se, desensitizes you to more wholesome 'food', and is not good for the brain. But its not necessarily a moral peril or something to obsess over - it's just actions have consequences.

Similarly it's best not to drunkenly engage in sex with a total stranger at 4AM, for quite a few reasons, just as it's not particularly healthy to drunkenly eat a McDonalds at 4AM. It also probably doesn't mean you're going to burn in hell either.

On the flip side, it's also not healthy to entirely deny it. If you try to stop eating food all together because it is STS and evil, then you probably abstain for a long period and then binge on terribly unhealthy foods as the pendulum swings back. And with sex, end up engaging in the kind of behaviours described above.

So why not just practice it in a more sustainable and manageable way and cut all the energy-draining internal chatter, allowing yourself to focus instead on all the other endless wonders and curiosities of life?
 
Mari said:
I think the point where he cracked his cold hart was:
How I see this; the point here is not about satisfying a woman, but he completely put himself in a position to give himself to her. From that act of giving, he would be given too. Not that he knew that, but it is a simple example how doing things from your deepest soul urges lead to something beautiful.
So this wasn´t an act of ultimate pleasure for her or him, but a start of a circle of giving oneself and being given in return.
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I agree that What a Duke Dares is so far the most powerful and nuanced of the first three (started the fourth but so far it hasn't delivered yet). I found the parallel story of Harry and Sophie annoying though.

The quote above is still at the level of Cam's intellectual chivalry. He regrets how their first conjugal union went on because of his assumptions but even if things get a lot better, it still is not enough for Penelope and Cam until they come to complete mutual and self 'viceral' understanding/knowledge after the incident in Liverpool.
Maybe I was too invested in Cam and Penelope's story because some things Cam said reminded me of things I would say myself, so the assessment may not be completly objectif.
 
I finished 'Courting Julia' and am back to 'Dancing with Clara.' The way these books are written, they definitely should be read in order. There are some of the same families and characters in the second book and one needs to know what Frederick attempted to do in the previous book. Daniel wasn't too hard to figure out but Frederick... I have the feeling there's more to him than could be explained by the term sociopath.
 
3DStudent said:
Do any of those services let you have an mp3? I'd need the mp3, as I would plan on speeding it up and putting it on an old iPod. I looked into Hoopla and it seems you can only download it to a mobile device, and the file is encrypted so no editing possible.

I may have to just go with Audible.
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With overdrive, when we borrow title, it copies odm file on to the local drive. odm is overdrive media file with copy right protection. I tried to copy odm file to my ipod, but it didn't work. But, you can download the files to local ipad or mobile for offline listening after borrowing the title using overdrive or hoopla.

There are some software that converts odm to mp3, but I haven't tried as I can use offline ipad using their app instead of ipod.

I haven't checked with hoopladigital. I suspect it is the same. Once you borrow, I download the files for offline listening or reading using their App ( overdrive or Libby or Hoopladigital).

Some body mentioned that there are audio of some the titles in you tube , but I haven't checked totally. Whatever I searched I couldn't find it.
 
genero81 said:
I finished 'Courting Julia' and am back to 'Dancing with Clara.' The way these books are written, they definitely should be read in order. There are some of the same families and characters in the second book and one needs to know what Frederick attempted to do in the previous book. Daniel wasn't too hard to figure out but Frederick... I have the feeling there's more to him than could be explained by the term sociopath.
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You may be very, very surprised.
 
Laura said:
I found the story of Harry and Sophie annoying too, but it had a plot purpose: to create the situation for the resolution between Cam and Pen. And, you gotta admit, it was pretty dramatic!
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Very dramatic and impactful. After the false starts, the ups and downs, it's as if fate subjected them to all that chaos so that their true selves emerge to each other. Something like that.
 
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