“Mad About the Boy walks a nice line between erotica and genuine dissection of human relationships, and does it without preaching. With quirky prose reminiscent of Bridget Jones's Diary and a plot that rivals Boogie Nights, it will please a wide audience of erotica readers.”
Reflection’s Edge
Mad About the Boy
Mad About the Boy: About putting your money where your mouth is
I can't really talk about Mad About the Boy without talking about the cover. In this kind of genre you don't really get any say in covers. You might get shown them, and that's about that. I saw this cover for the first time on Amazon, and I was very upset. It's just not the book, in so many ways. Sophie, the main character is so not like the women on the cover of the book, and the second female character isn't really very high profile. The book is all about sexualising men. It would be nice if there were a man on the cover. Ah, well, roll on the reprint/me-getting-over-myself.
Anyway this book is about fetishising paying for sex, but also about the whole process of having a fetish and how to fulfil one properly one has to become very selfish and inward looking. It's also a love story. Sophie is with Rex, but then she meets male escort Mark Valentine, who can make all her darkest dreams come true – but at what cost?
It began with a half arsed sort of story novellas thing I wrote ages ago, which was sort of like Pretty Woman, but with the genders swapped. I had a phase of rewriting things with the genders swapped. You can read a bit of that novella/thing here – but remember this was never polished up to publications standard, so keep your expectations low – it's just here as a sort of glimpse behind the scenes.
I am very fond of this book. Sometimes I think it is a bit overshone by Peep Show – because that book is so gloriously filthy – and Equal Opportunities – which is more flashy stylistically. Shame about the cover though.
I wrote a side story for Mad About the Boy called Priceless which is in the Black Lace anthology 'Sex and Shopping'. I just couldn’t resist writing about Sophie with a theme like that.