Today I’ll meet you with one of the most interesting ladies I had the pleasure to talk to during those spotlights. It’s been a busy year for the prolific and talented author Nia Farrell. She successfully mixes history, supernatural, menage, romance and BDSM in her stories and the audience responds to that. Recently Nia reached the final round of the Golden Flogger Award competition in the Menage category. But the bigger ocassion for which I invited her for her Author Spotlight is the release of her biggest book so far, a Victorian menage novel named As Wicked As You Want that was release on August 1st. You can read more about the novel’s plot, as well as enjoy a delicious excerpt in Nia’s promotional post here.
Lilah: Hello Nia, it’s a pleasure to meet you in your Author Spotlight. Congratulations on your new release and on getting to the final round of the Golden Flogger. How do you feel? Does such a praise make you want to write faster?
Nia: I was thrilled for SOMETHING MORE (THE THREE GRACES BOOK THREE) to be nominated for Best BDSM Book of the Year, Ménage Category. To have it make finals is a bit surreal. It was only my third release, and it’s a novella (around 20,000 words), but it’s got a novel’s worth of story and all the hot ménage action you would expect in a bigger book. It’s validation of the strength of a story that deals with post-rape PTSD and autism. And everything makes me want to write more, not just this! I love my job.
Lilah: You made your self-publishing debut in 2015 and you’ve been prolific ever since, from contemporary ménage to roleplay fantasy scenarios, Jane Austin retelling and historical debauchery. When did you start writing and how did you decide to put your work out there? What inspires you?
Nia: I joined RWA twenty-nine years ago. I know that dates me, but that’s the fact. I was a voracious reader raising two children and began writing romance at my husband’s suggestion. I’ve always been a reader, a storyteller, and a writer, penning my first time travel in junior high and selling my first magazine article in high school. I love history, world mythology, and Arthurian legend, but I find inspiration everywhere. My Three Graces series has been described as New Age New Adult, and all the metaphysical elements (reincarnation, psychic gifts, shamanism, etc.) come from personal experience (mine or one of my many psychic friends). Dark Hollows Press author T. S. McKinney took an interest in my work and suggested that I submit to her publisher. I did. They acquired the trilogy and published them as separate ebooks in August, September, and October 2015.
Lilah: Tell us more about your love of BDSM. In many of your novels the kinky practices are used for healing and relieving past traumas. When were you first introduced to that lifestyle and what makes you fascinated with it?
Nia: I love the psychology involved, the trust required for submission and the care that a Dominant must take. Truthfully, my earliest introduction to Dominance and submission was the Bible story of David and Bathsheba. When my sister started loaning me some of her erotic romance novels, many of them had themes of BDSM. The more I read and learned, the more I connected with people in the lifestyle. Or people that I’ve known for years find out the kind of books I write and reveal that side of themselves. In SOMETHING MORE, Rachel Givens has post-rape PTSD and submission becomes a tool for self-healing. Sadly, I know four women (and one man) with post-rape PTSD, and at least one of them uses BDSM for self-healing. One of the Dominants I know does scenes after hours at period reenactments. This dovetails with the theme for my Replay series, set at a BDSM resort where patrons roleplay in the past.
Lilah: How much of your stories are based on real life? Are any of your characters and plots projections of people you met and events that happened to you?
Nia: I write true-to-my-life fiction, based in my realm of experience. (When the bizarre becomes commonplace, welcome to my world!) Like Grace Murphy in SOMETHING ELSE, I’ve done psychic readings at Irish festivals, remember about seventy of my past lives, and have bathwater that defies the laws of physics, flowing backwards down the drain from going out of body when I meditate. I’ve done sweat lodges like Nico, ridden a motorcycle like J.T., co-written music like Anna, and been a waitress like Rachel. Having two autistic nephews allowed me to write realistically about Rachel’s daughter Hannah and life with a three-year-old autistic child. I have a harp and write music like Breanna in REPLAY BOOK 1: VIKING RAID, and I’m a huge Austen fan (to the point of naming our daughter Darcy). DARK MOONS RISING is an otherworldly sword-and-sorcery fantasy, and with this past-life recall of mine, let’s just say there’s a reason I’m fond of centaurs and leave it at that. AS WICKED AS YOU WANT was inspired by the story of Pinkerton agents who came to arrest a man who served his term but hadn’t officially mustered out, and by the hundreds of women known to have fought disguised as men. Future projects include TOUCH THE WIND, a series of romance novels written as Erinn Ellender Quinn that are inspired by one of my past lives in early 18th century Tidewater Maryland. RIDE THE WIND debuts October 1. The heroine is a beekeeper and an empathic, telepathic Wiccan healer who can communicate with trees and animals. There’s a ghost, a fiddle that plays itself, and a nature spirit who rules the woods and resents the man who owns her indenture and wins her heart.
Lilah: Your new novel, As Wicked As You Want, is a very detailed Victorian era novel. How do you do your research? Is there any research approach you’d recommend to young authors who are inspired to try writing a period story or novel?
Nia: I’m an armchair historian and a period reenactor. Actually, I’m an elected officer on the board of our Civil War brigade and write a column for our newsletter. Being familiar with the era helped immensely and minimized the research that another time period would require. I have an extensive library, do exhaustive on-line research, and am fortunate to find those rare gems that have the exact information that I need. For AS WICKED AS YOU WANT, I needed information on the 1868 Democratic National Convention (found a used book), on Kate Chase Sprague (found another book), The Fighting 69th (more books), and the transportation required to move passengers and freight from Chicago to London. I spent hours reading maritime intelligence reports (what ships docked, when they sailed, when they arrived at their destination) to determine what ship to use for Edward and Elena. My biggest find was a reproduced copy of THE TRAVELERS OFFICIAL RAILWAY GUIDE OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, published in June 1868, that details every departure and arrival of trains in the country and notes where the depot clocks differ. My advice to anyone considering a period story and novel is to read extensively and cross-reference where you can with primary source documentation. Prior to writing, do enough research to have a good understanding of the daily life—layers of clothing, foods served in season, household routines, customs, religion, social mores, etc.—to be able to move your characters through the story without having to stop and research, plus the occupations of the characters and any historical events that influence or impact the story. My romance novel RIDE THE WIND is set in the last year that they burn a witch in Scotland. Revealing herself as a witch puts my Scots-born beekeeper’s very life in jeopardy.
Lilah: How does one writing day of Nia Farrell go? Do you have any time of the day when words flow more easily?
Nia: I’m blessed to be able to write full time. My decision to go indie in May has meant long hours proofing and promoting and very little novel writing done of late. Most weeks, I work seven days a week. When I wrote my first screenplay last year, to finish researching and writing it in the timeframe they wanted, I wrote 60-80 hours a week for a month. Thankfully most days aren’t like that. I channel when I write, so the words come when I quiet my mind enough to hear. I can’t say that I’ve ever had writer’s block, but I did have a heroine stop talking to me because I didn’t know what she smelled like. Once I figured it out, she finished her story and I finished the book. It was wisteria, by the way.
Lilah: What should we expect from you in the nearby future? Do you make your writing plans in advance or you just write any story that inspires you on the moment?
Nia: Before I went indie, I listed the manuscripts that I had completed plus the story ideas I had, and I came up with a three-year schedule of monthly releases. That’s my goal, and my focus will always be on the next unfinished project on my list. I won’t put anything out that I’m not 100% thrilled with, so release dates are tentative, and will fall on the first of the month. (My newsletter goes out mid-month.) My Replay resort series file has thirty-nine story ideas (with historical roleplay and cosplay, the possibilities are endless). My FOREVER OURS series will follow soulmates Grace, Nico, and J.T. through their past lives. AS WICKED AS YOU WANT is set in 1868 Chicago and London. AS TEMPTING AS YOU ARE will be 1813 Regency England. AS WILLING AS WE WISH is 1720s France, and I’ll keep following them back from there. I loved their threesome so much in AS WICKED AS YOU WANT, I’d like to do an annual Christmas novella to update readers on how things are progressing for Edward, Elena, and Daniel, beginning with Christmas 1869. I’ll have some single titles, and I plan to revisit the world of DARK MOONS RISING with a dark erotic prequel and at least one sequel. Everyone wants Mordred to come.
Lilah: Thank you for your time and wonderful answers, Nia. As a goodbye question, is there anything your readers don’t know about you and that would shock them?
Nia: When I was in high school, I never dated boys my age, always older. When I was a senior, I dated a teacher.
Thanks to Nia for taking the time off her busy schedule to give you more insight into her as an author and her working process. Now, let me show you her work as well. We start with her newest release, As Wicked As You Want. Whatever choice you make I’m sure you’d be enchanted with her writing style and vivid characters.
As Wicked As You Want
Blurb: Elena “Lane” Davenport is a struggling artist who’s been living as a man since the Civil War. Suffering from “soldier’s heart” (PTSD), facing arrest for failing to officially muster out, Lane is about to lose everything when an offer of help comes from the most unexpected of places.
Edward Wainwright is a British history professor—and Lane/Elena’s stepbrother. A dominant man with forbidden passions, he comes to America with news of their mother’s death and finds himself twice tempted. There’s instant attraction between Lane and Edward. Reclaiming her true gender to slip past the Pinkertons should make things easier…except Edward wants both Elena and her studio assistant Daniel O’Flaherty. He hopes that Daniel will submit to him, too, but they’ll need to learn, when it comes to Elena, just how much Daniel is willing to share. Three soulmates are destined to find each other. Chance brings them together. Will Fate tear them apart?
The Three Graces Series
Something Else
Blurb: Grace Murphy is the local psychic medium who dreams of her soulmates – the two men she reincarnates with time and again. While reading at an Irish festival, she meets Nicolas White, a bisexual American Indian musician. A shaman with visions of his own, Nico recognizes Grace from his last sweat lodge as the red-haired woman in the south. Now that they’re found each other, surely the third one will come soon.
Six months later they meet J.T. Santiago, an ex-Navy SEAL and former cage fighter who owns a gym and teaches mixed martial arts. J.T. is a dominant, but he’s never had a male submissive and Grace and Nico are a package deal. It’s a learning curve for all of them, with J.T.’s initiation into MMF and MM relations and Grace’s introduction to BDSM. With Grace’s yin, J.T’s yang, and Nico’s center balance, the three of them come together as far as J.T.’s PTSD will allow, but forging a future means healing the past, however painful it might be.
Something Different
Blurb: Singer/songwriter Anna James is getting desperate. Even with a day job, money’s tight, and she’s wound tighter yet, having sworn off sex to reconcile with her mother who’s in chemo and her father who disowned her for her wild, wicked ways. No sooner than her psychic best friend predicts an end to Anna’s self-imposed drought, rock stars Jackson and Jacob Thomason come to town, with the dream of an indie album co-written with local American Indian flutist Nico White and his songwriting partner AJ McPherson.
Jackson and Jacob are attracted to Anna, who gives as good as she gets. Learning that Anna’s alter ego AJ puts the “twist” in Nico’s “tribal” music only makes them want her more. The part-Comanche Thomason twins need an album’s worth of songs. That means spending night after night, working closely, getting to know each other, learning how to co-create.
Anna’s never written music with anyone but Nico. They’re comfortable with each other. The Thomason twins, who perform as No Mercy, make her anything but. What’s a fangirl to do, when submitting to her rock star idols means exploring the darker side of passion?
Something More
Blurb: Loving a biker and his adult film star brother came at a terrible price. Taken by a rival gang, beaten beyond recognition, and sexually assaulted, Rachel Givens saw a chance to survive by claiming the identity of the other girl who was taken and killed. She spent months recovering from her physical injuries but still struggles with PTSD. Add her three-year-old autistic daughter to the equation, and Rachel (now Rae Simmons) has her hands more than full as she makes a new life for them in a quiet little town.
When her former loves walk into the restaurant where she works, it’s clear that the Colson brothers have come for more than the plate lunch special. Once Rachel gladly submitted to their domination, but she hasn’t been with a man since her ordeal. She has triggers and issues and a daughter whose needs come first. Cord and Cam don’t care whether or not Hannah is theirs. As far as they’re concerned, Hannah is Rachel’s and Rachel is theirs – and they’ll do whatever it takes to convince Rachel that they belong together.
Something More
Blurb: Grace Murphy is a psychic medium who saved herself for her soul mates, bisexual American Indian musician Nico White and Latino veteran J.T. Santiago. Grace is submissive, Nico is a switch, and J.T. is the dominant in their MMF BDSM ménage.
Before they met, J.T. had never been with a man. He’d never been serious enough about a woman to consider marriage. But Grace and Nico came as a package deal, and he’s fallen in love with them both. When morning sickness hits the house, both men bend their knees and plans are made for a very special honeymoon. They’re giving Grace the capture fantasy of her dreams at Replay, a BDSM theme resort where patrons role play in the past….
This new age New Adult erotic romance is a standalone sequel to SOMETHING ELSE. Reading the first book isn’t necessary but it is recommended. SOMETHING SPECIAL is an interracial paranormal LGBT story that includes MFM, MMF, and MM relationships between three reincarnated soul mates. Themes include metaphysics, psychic gifts, PTSD, shamanism, unplanned pregnancy, consensual role play, and BDSM activities. It is written for mature audiences only.
The Replay Series
Replay Book 1: Viking Raid
Blurb: Gunnar Falk portrays a Viking leader at Replay, a BDSM theme resort where patrons role play in the past. He’s the Dom everyone wants but no one has had…until the resort’s musical director Breanna Campbell makes him an offer he can’t refuse.
Gunnar isn’t looking for a permanent sub, but he’ll take what Breanna is offering—only because he can’t stand the thought of another Dom claiming the beautiful blonde harpist. Her music enchants him. Her innocence beckons him. She’s agreed to give him everything, but will one night be enough?
Standalone Work
Dark Moons Rising
Blurb: Deidra of Ravenhill is a daughter of light, a healer whose energy can be tapped by the one who marks her. Mordred, bastard son of Owain ap Coel, is determined to be that man. He’s captured the castle, killed her family, and forced her to train as a comforter, preparing her for his ultimate possession.
While Mordred is gone, having the brand made to claim her, Deidra manages to escape the castle. She nearly dies in the forest but is saved from falling into a poacher’s pit by Thorne, a dark lord, one of the race of giant shifters that she’s been taught to fear since childhood.
With dark moons due to rise on the most dangerous night of the year, Thorne must become a centaur for them to escape the monsters that roam with the god of chaos. He carries her to the safety of his brother’s hunting lodge, but is she truly out of danger? From Mordred, perhaps, but there are two dark lords who want her – if she’s willing to share.
Pride and Punishment: An Erotic Retelling of Jane Austen’s Beloved Classic
Blurb: PRIDE AND PUNISHMENT by Nia Farrell is an erotic retelling of a Jane Austen classic. Characters that you thought you knew…well, they’re ready to reveal their secret selves. Mr. Darcy is a Dominant. Miss Elizabeth Bennet is submissive. Jane Bennet might be the only “handsome” woman in Meryton, but puppy-like Charles Bingley needs a Mistress with a firm hand. Mr. Darcy believes that Jane lacks steel in her corset and separates the couple.
His growing lust for Miss Elizabeth leads him to confess his desire to dominate her – a proposition that she mistakes for a proposal. Already accused of less-than-gentlemanlike behavior, Darcy must find a way to win the submissive heart of a woman who abhors him.
Described as “Pride and Prejudice meets 50 Shades of Grey,” Pride and Punishment is not your mother’s Austen. This is a deliciously different BDSM erotic romance written for ages 18+.
The original dialogue has been kept intact when possible. Passages modified to fit this retelling are rife with subtext and laden with innuendo. The basic timeline is essentially the same as Pride and Prejudice, but the characters populating the pages now include Darcy’s bisexual cousin Hugh, his dominant Aunt Catherine/Mistress Cat, his “little” cousin Anne, his submissive sister Georgiana, kinky defiler-of-virgins George Wickham, lesbian switch Caroline Bingley, and militiamen who see more action in their bunks than out.
This erotic Regency romance includes MF relationships, MFM ménage sexual congress, and BDSM activities and is written for adults only.
Don’t be shy and pick some of those amazing titles for your weekend reading. Next week I’ll meet you with a lady who defies the typical “dark romance”.
Awesome interview..thanks for sharing!!
Reblogged this on Social Like Me.
Thanks for sharing, Naya!
Great body of work, Nia. It’s incredible how much you include of your personal history. Thanks for introducing us to this outstanding writer, Lilah.
Thank you, Tori!
I have a unique realm of experience, including being a Reiki master/teacher and a crystal healer. Others may not “get it,” but it’s certainly grist for my writer’s mill.