AMANDA’S BOOKS
THE RISK IT TAKES TO BLOOM — queer erotica stories
Illustration by Aric K. Clark
The Risk it Takes To Bloom is an illustrated collection of ten sexy stories for the queer, the kinky, the unconventional, and the underrepresented. Unlike other erotica on the market, these stories are character-driven and heartfelt, oftentimes navigating the meeting place of neurodiversity and insecurity, and the courage to be your most authentic self. Among these provocative stories, a newly-open married couple meets an unexpected unicorn at a Pride weekend drag show, an acupuncturist invites a client to her home for a private session of pleasurable pain, and two lesbian co-eds sneak into a library for an erotic literature-fueled tryst. Love and compassion lace each plot, whether the characters have just met, or have been partnered for years.
Available in paperback and audiobook editions
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West Side Books (Denver)
Powell’s Books (Portland)
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"Amanda's writing manages to feel both relatable and deeply spiritual—not an easy thing to achieve with erotica! These stories beautifully explore so many facets of queer love and sex, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that can see a lot of my own personal journey in them."
— Rose Kalasz, co-owner of Awakening Boutique
"The Risk it Takes To Bloom is a lush and melodic string of memories compiled and gifted to its readers. Amanda E.K. writes with an unabashed and unbridled devotion that dances with arousing restraint and leaves us, at the end of each page, on the edge of our desires for more. Brief and intense, The Risk it Takes To Bloom is written with as much intrepid passion as the stories it tells."
— Té V. Smith, author of Exit Ticket
“The Risk it Takes to Bloom is a collection of erotic short fiction that will tickle everyone’s fancy in the queerest way possible. These stories encourage the reader to explore their deepest, most hidden desires by challenging their own ideals about sex, relationships, and gender norms. No matter your identity, this book has a fantasy that’s sure to bring you pleasure. Let your desires bloom, lose your inhibitions, and plunge deep into the fantasies between these pages.”
— Alanna L.P., founder of Magdalena Tarot Magazine
Illustration by Lonnie MF Allen
LITTLE GIRLS KNOW MORE THAN YOU — forthcoming story collection
Little Girls Know More Than You is a collection of nine stories told from nine distinct female-identified points of view.
Though none of the stories directly overlap, each protagonist is connected as though by a common ancestor. They are the girls and women doing the work for the generations before them who didn’t have the resilience or resources to rely on their own guidance. These are women with limited or no external source of truth, who receive messages from their own psyches via dreams, magical hallucinations, and periods of solitude.
“Shadow Puppet,” “Ramekin,” and “Venetian Ink” skirt the line of magic realism, while “The Crayon Ponyfish and Me” and “Devotion” overtly blend dimensions.
Opening with “Devotion,” we see Vianna, a young married woman, lose her sense of reality when spending too much time in isolation with a mysterious antique vanity during the weeks her husband is away on business. Through the vanity’s mirror, she lives out an affair as though in an alternate dimension.
“Creamsicle Lipstick” exposes the murky liminal space of sexual diversion through the eyes of a thirty-something high school teacher in denial of her age and her lesbian identity.
In “These Are My Butterflies,” nine-year-old Lucy Mae learns about the gravity of addiction when she takes an interest in a mentally-addled tenant at her mother’s boarding house.
In the concluding story, “The Crayon Ponyfish and Me,” we follow Divina post-divorce as she navigates the uncharted waters of single adulthood, and finds contentment in caring for an unusual pet.
Other themes addressed in the collection include the impact of untimely death, questioning one’s faith, and integrating the undesirable aspects of ourselves through shadow work and the rejection of self-delusion. Though often melancholic and contemplative, many of the stories are laced with levity and dry humor. Paired with each story is a three-song playlist and a three-card tarot spread that encompass the story’s tone and themes to provide a synesthetic, or cross-sensory, experience for the readers.
