BRAINTREE, U.K. – April 5, 2013 – PRLog — THE STARLIGHT SERIES – AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
This series of books was formed early in 2012 when I had an idea for a novel earlier this year. I was inspired by an incident in my home county of Essex in the UK. Some poor woman was driving along minding her own business and got hit by a bucket of concrete thrown from some idiot on the footbridge on the motorway.
I started thinking ‘Imagine if that had been a body, someone perhaps jumping off the bridge. What a story that would make. And if that person was injured and this event led her to meeting the man of her dreams, what a romance that would be.’
I pondered on it, got inspired on the leading man front by someone I really admired, the wonderful Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch, put fingers to keyboard and seven weeks later I had Cassandra by Starlight, my first published novel.
Through a series of really strange karmic events, all linked in with the actor I admired who formed the inspiration for my hero, Bennett Saville, I came across Boroughs Publishing. I submitted the novel to them, eight weeks I later did the required follow up call, was told they were interested and the offer came in via email a while later from my editor. It took some time to sink in but the excitement hasn’t stopped since then. And the press coverage I’ve received has been fairly amusing as well.
I’ll be very honest. I had never considered writing a romance novel. I’m a Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Jonathan Kellerman reader myself, loving horror, sci-fi and psychological thrillers. Writing a love story was the furthest thing from my mind. But I’m glad the story developed the way it did. It’s given me a genre to write within that I’m truly enjoying, letting me create fantasies and worlds that some of us can only dream about.
I’ve been asked,’ If your book were ever filmed who would you choose for the hero and why?’
That’s a very easy one because I started writing the book with the Machiavellian plan that if one day it was turned into a film, I’d ask him (the actor who inspired me) to play the male lead. I was originally intending this novel as a drama screen play to the BBC as well. I’m glad to say I have since completed this challenge and submitted it to them.
The actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, has become a well known name in the UK as well as abroad and he was my inspiration for Bennett without a doubt. So he’s the perfect choice.
I had to giggle when my local newspaper came to interview me. Despite me telling them that my books weren’t all that much like Ms. James, they decided to go with this premise anyway. I suppose it attracted more attention this way. My books are sexy, spicy and fairly action packed, being both romance and suspense, and deal with some fairly contentious issues such as the subject of female on male rape.
IThe subject of female on male rape has always seemed to be a point of controversy. I first wrote about it in my debut novel, ‘Cassandra by Starlight’, not thinking at the time that it would have such an impact on people or indeed, on me. When the male lead in my book, Bennett Saville, is stalked, kidnapped, forcibly restrained and raped by his crazed female stalker, I knew then that this wasn’t a normal theme for a contemporary romance novel. It was an event born of the way the story developed and I wanted something visceral and different to distinguish my story from anyone else’s.
Like a good writer should, I researched the topic before putting pen to paper. I joined online male rape and counselling forums, looked up accounts of male survivor’s experiences on the internet and read some clinical dissertations and papers on the subject . I set up Google Alerts and read what people out in the ether were saying. Some of the opinions appeared downright dangerous in their misconception. Others expressed what I thought was the voice of reason and support.
But the bottom line seemed to be a mix of opinion on whether a man could actually be raped by a woman. The physical properties of the penis were debated, the reaction of a man to stimulus was hotly debated, male sexuality was bandied about as being almost a case of ‘any man would be happy to have a woman take that much control and give him sex’. It was such an eye opening experience I decided that I was definitely having this scene in my book, if it might provoke this kind of talk and heated debate.
I used the real life event of a man called James Landrith to put my perspective into my book. James had been there, been raped and wore the t-shirt to prove it. When I was writing the story, his bravery at telling his story and sticking to his beliefs was inspirational to me.
I formed my own opinion based on everything I’d read:
Yes, a man could be raped by a woman
Yes, a man can get an erection even if he doesn’t want to –it’s a physical thing
Yes, a man can feel shame and guilt after being raped by a woman
Yes, it is a crime, despite what anyone might say.
One of the most amazing events in my new life as a novelist was that when I finally published my book and started to ‘tweet’ out the key points into the world of Twitter, James actually contacted me direct, telling me he’d experienced such an event. Imagine how good it felt to be able to tell him that his story had been the inspiration behind mine. Karma just doesn’t get any better than that.
James and I now talk often and I occasionally watch him appear on certain online forums to discuss his experiences with other rape survivors. He was also good enough to write a wonderful blog post on my book which you can see here as well as my previous posts on the subject.
https://jameslandrith.com/
http://www.susanmacnicol.com/
I leave this controversial topic with you, dear reader, to determine where your opinion lies. But please- do at least think about it.