Why can’t I just play nice?

Why can’t I just play nice? Why can’t I just write a book that every single person loves? Why can’t I just give people what they want? I don’t know. Maybe because I’m contrary, and they should have called me Mary. No, that’s not the reason. The Ruthless Beings series, and subsequent Ruthless Beings World novels, cover a range of “not nice” topics. Life is unfortunately not nice sometimes, and we are surrounded by Ruthless Beings. Why do I write about things that people have to live with? Why can’t I write something nice and fluffy and joyful?  Who says I don’t? There are ups and downs, ins and outs, highs and lows, troughs and peaks. That’s life.

I write about crime and psychology and I seek to entertain, to educate and to show other perspectives. People who read these books start off feeling a certain way about things and then find themselves changing their mind about people once they know more about them. Sometimes their initial view is confirmed. Sometimes it swings back and forth.  I enjoy telling stories and I do it in a way that’s different to other books you may have read, but it doesn’t make it wrong.  It’s just different. I work through things like:

• dealing with loss,
• naively entering a world you don’t know much about,
• learning about people and love,
• gaining skills of independence and self-reliance,
• dealing with crime that hits close to home,
• learning about what love really means to you,
• giving in to passion,
• putting yourself on the line to protect someone you care about,
• losing yourself in your goals,
• dealing with depression,
• building other people up,
• frame of reference,
• learning to be part of someone else’s family,
• taking on the role of step-parent,
• balancing commitments,
• new parenting,
• dealing with unknowns and working through ‘what ifs’,
• child abuse,
• personality disorders, paraphilia, manipulative people,
• good triumphing over evil,
• family relationships,
• mental health and physical illness,
• domestic violence,
• sexual assault,
• sexual discovery…. and more.

Why can’t I play nice? I’d rather give people the courage to accept life, to learn how to deal with hardship and build resilience, and to have absolute faith in love.  That’s what all my books are really about… life and love. Be entertained, ride the emotional rollercoasters, have compassion for your fellow man, and love. Love, love, love.