I'm a blogger and fledgling novelist. My first completed novel, Hidden Boundaries, a Novel of Slavery, explores personal conflicts and relationships in the context of unequal power. It's psychologically driven, with an undercurrent of romance that builds subtly and slowly. The two protagonists are a slaveowner and the young man who becomes his slave. Unlike most novels with a male owner and male slave, Hidden Boundaries is not about BDSM or erotica.

My fiction is concerned primarily with issues of personal freedom. My settings are either slave societies or societies in which the question of personal freedom is increasingly tied to extreme political, economic, and social changes.

I also blog about writing and reading, with occasional reviews of self-published books. If you'd like to know more about my stories and read some samples, visit Dark Boundaries.

Website: http://darkboundaries.wordpress.com
Blog: http://writingcycle.wordpress.com

abuse    alternate universe    betrayal    climate change    coming of age    crime    deception    dystopia    freedom    friendship    gay literature    horror    human rights    hurtcomfort    institutional slavery    male romance    malemale    master and slave    morality    nearfuture sf    prodigy    psychological horror    romance    science fiction    science fiction horror    secrets    short stories    slave    slave fiction    slavery    young adult   

AM Kirkby
Latest book: Not a Ghost Story. Published on December 2, 2012.

Ann Somerville
Latest book: Twin Effect. Published on April 5, 2013.
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Clodia Metelli
Latest book: Gaius and Achilles. Published on September 26, 2011. (4.50 from 2 reviews)
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David Brin
Latest book: Otherness. Published on October 26, 2012.
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Dusk Peterson
Latest book: Whipster (Michael's House). Published on June 2, 2012.
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View their blog. Latest post: "Poll time! Ebook and website preferences"

Jesse Gordon
Latest book: Losing Character (Short Story). Published on June 6, 2011.
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View their blog. Latest post: "Paternal"

Kate Paulk
Latest book: Impaler. Published on May 27, 2011.

Kathryn Anthony
Latest book: Persephone's Library and Other Short Stories. Published on October 7, 2011.
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Lazette Gifford
Latest book: Devlin's Team, File 2: Farewell to Summer. Published on May 16, 2013.
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Matthew S Williams
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Mel Keegan
Latest book: Flashpoint. Published on November 16, 2011.
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Michael Harrington
Latest book: The City of Man. Published on August 19, 2010.

Richard Herley
Latest book: The Pagans. Published on May 6, 2013.
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Ruth Nestvold
Latest book: Never Ever After: Three Short Stories. Published on December 31, 2012.
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Simon Cutting
Latest book: The Lunatic Messiah. Published on July 13, 2011.

• Going Down on July 23, 2010
  
  I'm a big fan of Ann Somerville's books, and while I enjoyed Going Down, I didn't think it was as strong as most of what she's written. The problem may be that's it's a novella rather than a full-length novel, and it wasn't possible to develop the characters in the way she usually does. Still, not a bad read.
  
• Games & Consequences (Remastering Jerna #2) on Aug. 06, 2010
  
  Games & Consequences is the sequal to Remastering Jerna. As usual with Ann Somerville's books, it's well-written and an engaging read. For anyone who loved Remastering Jerna, it may be a bit of a disappointment, since it's Ria rather than Jerna who's the central character this time. This time around, Jerna is so thoroughly a victim of circumstances and without the resources to fight against them, that it's much harder to relate to him than it was with the previous book.
  
• The Breaking (The Eternal Dungeon) on Aug. 15, 2010
  
  Elsdon Taylor, condemned to be executed for the murder of his sister, has been committed to the Eternal Dungeon for Searching and Breaking. The question isn’t about his guilt, but about whether there’s any reason why he shouldn’t suffer the ultimate penalty. Expecting to be tortured, he meets Layle Smith, the High Seeker, whose reputation is that of a fearsome torturer. He isn’t what Elsdon expected, and it turns out that Elsdon is also not what Layle Smith expected. Thus begins a story in which a tormented young man is pitted against a man capable of extracting the darkest secrets from his prisoners. The Breaking is the first part of Rebirth, part of the Eternal Dungeon series. The series explores the range of human emotions, from love to madness, all within the confines of a dungeon shut away below the “lighted world.”
  
• The Penal Colony on Sep. 22, 2010
  
  I normally don't read anything labeled as a thriller, but the sci fi tag and the generous excerpt drew me in. Once started, I was hooked. This is a well-plotted story of injustice, survival, and courage. There's plenty of action, but without slighting character development. The author also has an excellent eye for detail and gives the reader a real sense of place as the story progresses.
  
• Grace - A Short Story. on Sep. 23, 2010
  
  Not even interesting enough to finish reading. Very amateurish. Loved "I watched them pass through the peephole..."
  
• Waterman: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus of historical fantasy and retrofuture science fiction on Sep. 26, 2010
  
  This volume contains an excerpt and two complete stories. The True Master is one of my favorite stories from this author, so I'm somewhat prejudiced in advance of reading the Omnibus. Unmarked takes place at a much later date (centuries) and is set in a boys boarding school. The underlying theme of the stories is inherited power relationships, the effect on individuals of being unable to fit into the established hierarchies, and the wisdom of learning from those below you. Unmarked is, on the surface, a typical boarding school story, complete with fagging and footer (football). The hierarchy of master/slave that was at the core of The True Master, is now master/liegeman, but the conflicts remain much the same. Male/male sex is taken for granted, but handled very discretely, and focuses on hurt/comfort rather than hot man on man action.
  
• The Eternal Dungeon: a Turn-of-the-Century Toughs omnibus of historical fantasy novels on Jan. 14, 2011
  
  The Eternal Dungeon is one of those rare series that draws you from story to story, leading you on with deeper insights into its characters, and plot twists that take you completely by surprise. The world that Peterson reveals has a sense of authenticity that makes you believe it could be real. It’s a world that’s teetering on the cusp of modern technology, but still tightly bound to the past. Victorian England comes to mind, though Peterson’s world is stranger and more violent. Most of the stories take place in the Eternal Dungeon, an underground prison where the jailers are as much prisoners as are the men condemned to its cells. Torture, once used without limit to obtain confessions, is now a last resort. The goal of the Seekers, whose role was once that of torturers, is to help prisoners toward rebirth after death, by persuading them to confess their crimes. The relationship between Seekers and prisoners is a complex one, bound by the rules in the Seekers’ “bible,” The Code of Seeking. The most important rule is that Seekers must be willing to suffer for the prisoners. The emphasis in The Eternal Dungeon is on transformation and redemption, and it isn’t only the prisoners who go through the psychological changes that can take them out of their personal darkness. Reading these books will immerse you in a world like no other and leave you with the memory of characters who are, for the most part, neither completely good nor completely evil.
  
• Voices - A Special Abilities Novel Series on Jan. 31, 2011
  
  It sounded like a very interesting plot idea. Unfortunately, it only took a half dozen pages or so to realize that it was a good idea spoiled. The author is in serious need of some grammar lessons, especially in the use of commas and apostrophes. He also gets bogged down in petty details that do nothing to enhance the story or move it forward. This seems to be a first draft by a beginning writer, and shouldn't have been offered to the public without extensive rewriting and editing. Being free doesn't make it better.
  
• The Vampire from Hell: (Part 1) - The Beginning on Feb. 23, 2011
  
  Rayea is a young, sassy, very contemporary vampire with the normal concerns of any young woman: clothes, friends, actors. But one of her interests really pisses off her father, who prefers to be addressed as Your Highness. She wants to save humanity from him, and it isn’t going to be an easy job. It’s an interesting concept with a heroine who isn’t exactly the typical vampire. The story suffers from some sloppy grammar and editing, but not so much that it would be distracting for most vampire fans. It has all the signs of being the first novel of a young writer, with enough imagination to make the reader anticipate the next installment.
  
• Cold Front (Pindone Files #1) on March 09, 2011
  
  This is a good solid read for fans of mysteries. Somerville's novels are always well-written with fully developed characters that the reader can sympathize with. There's a good deal of gay sex, but it's part of a developing relationship that feels real. The mystery is a complex one, centering around a series of murders, and leads to an unexpected ending. It all takes place in an alternate universe where paranormal abilities are part of the culture, but the feeling is of a contemporary setting rather than someplace strange and exotic.
  
• The M and M Who Lost His Way on June 23, 2011
  
  Reads as if the writer is about five years old. Even free doesn't make up for incompetent writing.
  
• The Three Lands: an omnibus of fantasy novels set in the Great Peninsula on July 03, 2011
  
  Even in Dusk Peterson’s darkest stories there is hope and, when it’s needed, redemption. Characters betray their own vows, are betrayed by those closest to them, and make tragic sacrifices. The ending of their stories is always, if not happy, resolved with a feeling of rightness and inevitability. Hovering over all the stories is the mysterious figure of the Jackal god, who may be a myth, a real god, or a man in the guise of a god. Whichever he is, his demands are real and, often harsh. His greatest power is in the land of Koretia, but even the godless rule-bound Emorians can’t escape his influence. These are powerful stories, beautifully written, with characters who will linger in your memory.
  
• Broken Slate on July 13, 2011
  
  Broken Slate is one of those novels that proves the worth of giving a potential buyer a generous sample to read. To tell the truth, I was hooked well before coming to the end of Jennings' 50% sample. My slender book budget tells me I have to be pretty darned sure about buying anything over $2.99, but Broken Slate was worth it. Jennings does a wonderful job of getting deep into her central character's psyche and providing him with a convincing world in which to live. The background for that world, and how Martin wound up as contracted labor (a cot) is developed in a very natural way. This is a very intense novel, with an air of mystery that takes its time to reveal itself.
  
• Hidden Faults on Aug. 03, 2011
  
  Hidden Faults is written with the same skill and attention to detail of Somerville's previous novels. I wondered whether it's an alternative view of the earlier Pindone novels, or just takes place a long time after those stories, when society's attitude toward paranormal abilities has evolved into open hostility. The change is quite extreme and disturbing, but it's not something that would bother new readers. What kept me from giving this novel five stars was the prison plotline. I wish the author could have found some way to avoid the stale "fresh meat"/"you belong to me or else" cliches. Still, the protagonist's prison experience had some interesting twists and turns that were well done. Considering that I don't care much for paranormal stories, and have even more trouble with that genre when people use the power of their mind to enable them to fly, it's an exceptional writer who can keep me reading her books.
  
• The Vampire's Warden (Undead in Brown County #1) on Aug. 13, 2011
  
  If your book isn't good enough to stand on its own, then using spam SEO keywords isn't going to help.
  
• Smashwords Without Microsoft Word on Aug. 25, 2011
  
  As a freebie, this seven-page offering would be worth it. It doesn't claim to offer much, and it doesn't. It's a sketchy outline of what-to-do with very little how-to-do-it information. The links at the end are useful for those who are completely unfamiliar with the process of publishing ebooks.
  
• NaNo for the New and the Insane on Sep. 07, 2011
  
  This is a fast, enjoyable read for anyone who's thought about jumping into National Novel Writing Month. Gifford is a professional writer, editor, and publisher who's been a part of NaNoWriMo for years, and still loves it. She punctures misconceptions, makes it clear it's not for everybody, but might be exactly right for you. As if that isn't enough (and all for free), there's a good deal of practical writing advice that's worth checking out even if you think NaNo is a creation of the devil, to be undertaken at the risk of your creative soul
  
• Don Coyote de la Merika on Oct. 22, 2011
  
  This is just one story in a collection of five, and it's enough to make me look forward to reading the rest. Beautifully written, it's a subdued vision of a post-apocalypse world. We don't know what happened, or who's to blame. We're not even sure who the "good guys" are in the struggle for survival, but the young girl, Silene, through whose eyes we see it, already understands what it takes.
  
• A Not-So-Grimm Fairytale on Nov. 17, 2011
  
  A charming and amusing take on a classic type of fairy tale. A gay romance of love sought and found.
  
• Fly Up into the Night Air on Dec. 23, 2011
  
  Three and a half stars, since the five-star system is so inadequate. If it didn't have so many flaws, I would have given it an easy four stars. It's an unusual and engaging story that, even in a revised edition, still needs a strong editorial hand. Clumsy formatting, left-out words, and vocabulary errors were distracting, but didn't keep me from reading to the end. I just kept thinking that this obviously talented writer was too confident of his own editing skills. The primary weakness of the novel is that it's two stories, and probably not intentionally. After finishing it, I felt that Stilian's backstory was possibly overdeveloped to keep the novel from being too short. Many scenes in Harte's story felt skeletal and in need of much more development, if for no other reason than to balance out Stilian's. In spite of the problems, I do recommend it to anyone who enjoys an intelligent, thoughtful book with a strong sense of its setting.
  
• The Making of an Indie Writer on Jan. 07, 2012
  
  In some ways, this little book is a summary of all the complaints about the traditional writing path--the long, frustrating wrestling match with agents, editors, publishers. That's part of its strength. The other part is that it's a personal story that should speak to anyone who's still on the fence about whether to tread that traditional path or go it on their own. The end of the essay does a very nice job of summing up the traditional path. "When we were telling an artist friend of ours that agents and then editors often ask writers to rewrite their work, he frowned and said, “Isn’t that kind of like someone looking at one of my paintings and telling me I need to take this chunk of paint off here and paint this part of the canvas with a different color over there? And if I do all that, they’ll pay me.” “It is like that,” I said, “only it’s worse. Half the time they’ll ask you to make those changes but they don’t pay you for it. They end up saying, ‘geez, I guess I still don’t want it.’” It isn't about traditional publishing being evil; it's about finding the way that works for you.
  
• The Tide Mill on Feb. 24, 2012
  
  If you love historical fiction, you need to acquaint yourself with Richard Herley. His novels are not only rich in detail, they're beautifully written. His descriptions draw you in with the sounds, scents, and views of an often wild and unfriendly, but beautiful world. His nature isn't a passive thing that you merely look at. It's active and engaging, and always very much a part of the story. When he writes about a flock of seabirds swooping over the water, you can see and hear them. His descriptions of manual skills and handcrafts, often of another time and place are thoroughly convincing and contribute to the feeling of authenticity about the periods he writes about. I think his knowledge must be based as much on his own skills as on research. The heart of The Tide Mill is about the intersection of the lives of serfs, free men, and nobles. Characters defy their ordained destinies, suffer the consequences, or reap the rewards. Nothing about this life is easy, even for the highborn, who have to balance the opposing demands of their king and the church. The characters struggle against each other, and against nature, mostly in the form of the sea that edges the village. Most of all, they struggle against themselves. Two threads wind through the story, the forbidden love of two people from different social classes, and the construction of a new kind of mill that attracts the greedy attention of the Church.
  
• The Surrogate on March 11, 2012
  
  As the author says, this isn't a book for the faint-hearted. The characters suffer through incredible brutality, but find the strength, not only to survive, but to find happiness. It's a long hard road, and one that draws the reader into the emotional turmoil and the struggle of all three characters to recover a sense of their own worth and their value to the other two.
  
• Rise Above on March 05, 2013
  
  Beautifully written story with, as another reviewer said, a shocking revelation at the end. Shocking and heartbreaking.
  
• Egerius on March 05, 2013
  
  An interesting beginning to a novel that I'll probably want to read when it's published. But, as often happens, the author's deadline has long since passed. I hope the novel will be edited more carefully than this selection. Consistent problems: opening quotes turn to question marks, and the first letter is absent. Also, quite a few sentences with no space after a comma.