A Dark Beginning: A China Dark Novel (27 page)

This book never started out as anything more than an exercise in writing to  explore of a woman’s awakening to the pleasures of hedonism. I quickly realised that her journey would be far more interesting, and less like a porn film, and possibly even publishable, if there was a physical peril beyond the obvious emotional and social dangers of leaping the hurdles of society’s prescriptive moral boundaries. So it became a thriller (or at least, I hope so).

Many of the joys and choices that China experiences as she grows throughout this story are ones that men have historically taken for granted, and there is much hypocrisy surrounding a woman daring to cast aside the shackles of expected behaviour. Many recent books that purport to shine a light on the liberation of women’s sexuality actually still play upon an expectation of submissiveness. Whilst this can be a joyful thing, taken in isolation this continues to perpetuate the vision of a woman being validated by her acceptance of, and subservience to, a man’s demands. China may start out exploring new worlds through her desire to please her man, but soon discovers that life can be far more rewarding if the balance is more equitable, and that her demands are just as important.

It should be no surprise to you, and the ending of the book should be a rather huge and unsubtle hint if it is, that I have many more adventures in mind for China Dark. Returning to Italy brings the promise of lots more pleasure and danger for China. I wouldn’t want her to be bored after all.

Whether you wish to read more about China or not, I do not know. I will write these adventures anyway as I wish to find out what she does next myself and this is the only way. Whether or not I publish my ramblings does depend upon how well you like China Dark. I would love to hear from you on this, so please do let me know by e-mailing me at [email protected]

I would like to send out a huge thanks to my dedicated beta readers who spared their precious time to read these ramblings and point out the many typos and grammatical faux pas, places where the words did not make sense, or where the material just did not work for them. This is a better book because of you.

Thank you to Sam, Amanda, Jayne, Tracy and Samantha.

THIS REALLY IS THE END – GO ENJOY ANOTHER BOOK NOW