I'm an urban professional writing about urban professionals having kinky sex. I write under the pseudonym Christina Thacher because of my day job as a bankruptcy lawyer: my boss is always teasing me about reading "smut," so I'd go through hell if my work colleagues discovered I actually write BDSM erotica! My novellas The Locked Heart, The Frozen Heart, and The Secret Heart form an erotic romance series set in a private BDSM sex club called "The Aerie". Here's a Q and A I did for my publisher: Q: What kind of feedback have you been getting from readers? I’ve gotten some lovely emails from readers, which has been great. Personally I get shy about contacting my own favorite authors, but it’s absolutely true: one of the nicest things that can happen to an author is to hear from a satisfied reader. I’ve also gotten some wonderful reviews by readers at the various places where you can say why you liked a book (e.g., Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.). The reservations expressed by readers are often quite insightful. I read them with a lot of interest; those comments do help me get better as a writer. Q: The erotic romance sub-genre seems to be increasingly hot right now … why do think that is, and do you think the trend will continue? “Increasingly hot”? Did you intend that pun, or are you just glad to see me? LOL Well, 50 Shades of Grey has brought erotic romance to a lot of readers, some of whom perhaps didn’t know that such books existed. Of course, sexy romances have been around since the days of the so-called “bodice ripper,” but there are some key differences. The strength of E.L. James’s trilogy is that her characters are relatable while still being larger-than-life. Twenty-seven-year-old billionaires aren’t exactly run-of-the-mill guys, but that feeling of falling in love and being desperate to maintain the connection with another person: that’s something a lot of us have experienced or want to experience. What the sex adds to such a story is a universal point of connection. I could write about Xavier and Angela (my hero and heroine in The Secret Heart) intensely playing backgammon, but a lot of people have no experience of that game. Sex, on the other hand, is frequently fun to do and fun to read about. Finally, 50 Shades of Grey focused on the core of two people falling in love. There was a modest suspense subplot, but most of the three books was taken up with the relationship. I like stories like that: they look at the two people and what they’re dealing with in the course of falling in love. Sex and intense emotions: my favorite sides to a main dish of romance! Q: Without spoiling things too much, is The Secret Heart the last we will hear of The Aerie? I may come back to visit from time to time—I do love these characters—but it’s tough to present them as viable characters after their HEAs (happy-ever-afters). Part of me would love to see Kai and Jenna’s wedding, or Darby and Damien’s domestic bliss after their baby is born. And Xavier owns a Queen Anne Victorian that I’m just itching to visit. But a little of that can go a long way, and as the characters themselves are stable, what would I write about them? Part of the HEA is the assurance the writer gives the reader: “They’re okay. You don’t have to worry about them anymore.” That said, I’m currently working on a short story, Roman and Juliet, that pairs off a visiting Dom and one of the usual subs at The Aerie. So I’ve not locked the doors to The Aerie yet!