31 March 2008
My Brother’s Keeper
Posted by Denise Kendrick under: Uncategorized .
Oh, My Brother’s Keeper… how I do love thee.
Years ago I came to RD with this story idea and I said two things. One, that I wanted it to be a story we published eventually. She thought I was nuts, but she liked me so she was willing to play along.
The second issue was the slavery. I never quite developed an understanding as to why people enjoy whippings and beatings in their fiction. And so I said, “This is what I want. Ciaran’s brother is very angry with him. He makes him a slave, but he must never beat him as a punishment. Is that doable?”
And she, being generally less skeptical than I am about everything, said, “Sure!”
Malik, you might be interested to know, became a much softer character under her influence. His anguish under her hand became a thing of beauty, making poor Ciaran look almost heartless in places.
Of course, it’s really the twincest that people get hung up about. And we respect that. There are many kinks that I don’t understand and I may secretly believe are wrong.
We’ve had several people tell us that My Brother’s Keeper wasn’t what they expected. They expected it to be dirtier somehow, naughtier, not the honest romance it ended up being. And we just can’t grasp what they mean by that.
For us making them twins was a way of establishing a connection deeper than any other. The love was the foundation of the story. The challenge was for them to come to grips with who they had become as adults and everything life had placed between them. It was never a gratuitous fantasy about sex between twins, like the sterotypical example of a guy wanting to sleep with identical twins.
For Ciaran and Malik, being twins just upped the angst ante. Not the porn value.
Anyway, tomorrow is the last day the book will be available before Dark Eden Press closes. We were grateful to them for being willing to publish the story and are proud that it was one of their bestsellers. (Second to another twincest book, by the by.) People do seem to be interested in reading about brothers and twins, and we’re grateful to the readers most of all for showing us that this is so.
A couple of people have asked us what will become of the My Brother’s Keeper universe, particularly the prequel, Triangulations, that was scheduled to come out this month. The answer is we’re not sure yet. But if you want to be emailed when we know more, feel free to send us your email address (send to: solange @ slightlyslashy.com) and we’ll keep a list. Or you can just read this blog. 
One Comment so far...
Deb Says:
31 March 2008 at 5:45 pm.
Your book and the other twincest were my two top sellers every month. What does that say about people you think? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
