Not Here to Be Healed. Here to Be Wrecked.
- Madison Chase
- Feb 13
- 4 min read
Let’s talk for a minute. Why do we crave yearning instead of instant gratification?
There’s a little science behind it but don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the lecture. As humans, we crave dopamine. The “almost.” The “Not yet.” The moment when Mr. Darcy lightly brushes Elizabeth Bennet’s hand and suddenly the air feels electric.
As readers, we live for that build. That tiny flicker of anticipation that makes you want to scream, “Just kiss already!”
Because if everything happens instantly, the magic disappears. There’s no burn. No ache. No tension simmering just beneath the surface. And without that? You’re left with something flat. Forgettable.
We want love that feels earned. The reward after fighting fate. After battling their own darkness. After choosing each other when it would have been easier not to.
Let’s be honest longing is emotional foreplay. Readers crave it. Writers crave it. We want to feel that slow unraveling. That dangerous pull.
We want our Mr. Darcy.
…or in some cases, our very own Lucifer.
Now, we don’t necessarily want a Frank Essex in real life however that’s a conversation for another day.
We don’t necessarily want the asshole who ruins our lives for the worse.
Granted, if you asked Charlotte, she might disagree. Lucifer is the bane of her existence… at times.
So why do we crave morally gray men?
No, really. Why?
Is it because deep down we’re all a little masochistic? Maybe.
Or maybe the morally gray man isn’t destruction, he’s confrontation. He’s the lesson our leading lady refuses to learn. The mirror she doesn’t want to look into. The force that tears down the walls she built to survive.
And maybe, just maybe ,watching her break those walls down helps us examine our own.
Or perhaps it’s simpler than that.
Maybe we just want to be wrecked in fiction. To step into a space where intensity doesn’t have consequences. Where obsession is devotion. Where danger feels like desire.
Both can be true.
The Updates
It’s safe to say M and I are about 89% done with Devil in the Details.
We’ve been working relentlessly to get this into your hands and yes, we’ve been drafting and revising at the same time. (If you’re a writer, you already know that’s chaotic behavior.) But it’s working. And the progress has been worth it.
Which means…
The book will be heading to beta readers in the coming weeks.
Our alpha readers have already been navigating the beautiful chaos that is our drafting process and we’re so grateful for them.
We’re close. Closer than we’ve ever been.
And we cannot wait for you to see what happens next.
If you’re interested in beta reading, keep an eye out, sign-ups will be opening soon.
And speaking of updates…
We’ve officially reworked our Discord for anyone who hasn’t seen yet. If you’re looking for a more personal space to chat, scream about morally gray men, and get behind-the-scenes chaos from us in real time, that’s where we’ll be.
We’re really leaning into building community this year — more than just a once-a-month newsletter drop.
But if newsletters are your bread and butter? We love you here too. No pressure. Just different doors into the same world.
Come Find Us!
Our next events are coming around the corner.
We will be at Planet Comicon in Kansas City, MO March 27th-29th with quite a few of our fellow local Indie Authors. We’d love to see you! IF you want to find out more about that please check out KC Book Beat page for the line up!
The next event should be May 30th with Myths and Legends! If you’d like to get our books or even the other amazing authors. Please check out the link below.
Feature of the Month
USA sports serve a different sort of competition as figure skating’s frosty ice queen meets hockey’s golden retriever.
Imani Gray is known as winter sports’ ice queen, and she’s smart enough to know that moniker has a dual meaning. Her whole life has been one battle after another, but it’s all been leading up to this: the chance for figure-skating gold.
Nothing is going to stand in her way: not the Russian favorite, not the reporters who keep using microaggressions that cause her to tank interviews, and certainly not Blake Floquet, the arrogant masc hockey player who she’s forced to room with at the games.
As her career reaches a peak, she starts to unravel, but there’s one unlikely person who stands ready to catch her, and their dimpled offers to help might just be her saving grace on the way to win it all.
This is an FX kinky sports romcom featuring two messy lesbians. Please check the author’s website or front matter for content notes, and if you have any questions, please reach out to the author.
A Gold Medal in Love is part of the Love On the Podium shared queer romance series.
Because of the way I speak, everyone judges me the moment I open my mouth. Even though I’m 6’5 and two eighty, they see me as weak. They always have.
Even my father who passed me over as his heir.
Behind the mask with the automated voice, I’m not weak. Women desire me, and men fear me.
As fortunes change within my family, I need to correct my impediment. That’s why I seek out one of the best speech pathologists on the East Coast. On paper, Dr. Sarah Whitfield looks boring and rigid.
But the good doctor is hiding a secret: she has a kink for Masked Men. She sheds her professional facade on weekends when she attends Masked Events.
And I’m here to fulfill her fantasies of being kidnapped by a masked man.
But this time, it’s for real.
She’s a witch. He hunts killers.
Solving murders is just the foreplay.
Maggie Maxwell didn’t mean to become the town’s newest scandal.
But moving into her dead uncle’s haunted manor came with more than creaky headboards—it came with murders. Multiple. Right in her backyard.
And a six-foot-four officer, built like a wall of muscle and her filthiest desires, babysitting her like she’s breakable. He’s brooding, bossy, and overprotective—and Maggie? She’s sworn off quick flings. Especially since her love spell has a new side effect: obsessive, zombie-like exes who abandon their families just to worship the ground she walks on.
Oops.
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