Let’s (not) talk about sex again
I have been spending some of my time recently removing the sex from the Lagotti Family series and it has been an interesting experience for me.
Okay, when I say interesting, that is of course a euphemism. Overall, there are a lot fewer words used to cover the sex scenes that I remembered – and The Heist was my first crime fiction novel so I wrote it about five years ago. However, the element I completely blanked from my memory was the kind of language I used. The sex scenes are described so brutally and in a far more explicit manner than I thought I had done. This is not an apology, just a genuine statement of surprise on my part. And [SPOILER ALERT], the scene containing sexual violence has been almost entirely retained because it is a description of a violent act.
The Getaway and Powder both had little steamy side to them as the storylines didn’t allow for much intimacy so there was less work to do with them. But Mama’s Gone also had more than its fair share of sexual descriptions. But the most that any book has lost has been around 2000 words – and for reference, each book is 70-80k in length – which means that the actual sexual content was fairly low.
And this brings me to my final point, which is that the impact of those sex descriptions had a much bigger impact than I realised and intended – hence my decision to exorcize them from the series.
Now before you rush out to download the new versions, I must warn you that they are not ready yet. I have taken advantage of my opening up of the files to give the text a spring clean (another edit) and I will be relaunching all the books with new covers (apart from Mama) and this will happen by the end of the month. At least that’s my plan. Either way, I will let you know once the relaunch has officially happened. I might even offer a discount for purchases made direct on my web site. Stay tuned for details.
Finally, I am thinking of writing a prequel to the Bowery Slugger before pushing hard into book 3 of Alex Cohen, which is called the Midtown Huckster. I have yet to flesh out either storyline so I can’t be specific but… the prequel will either focus on Alex in the Ukraine just before the family moves to America or on Sarah in the months before she first meets Alex. Huckster has had more work done to it and it will cover the 1930s when the mobs needed to find fresh revenue streams after the demise of Prohibition.
I’m looking forward to it all and hope you’ll carry on supporting me on this literary journey of mine.
Leo
