When I saw Rayanna Jamison had written a spanking romance where she dealt with polygamy, I was immediately curious, especially as I've been watching Sister Wives and Breaking the Faith (religiously) for the last few months. In Holland we're probably a little behind the US in TV shows but I wanted to say at first that it was the fact that the shows were American and I missed all things American that I watched, but truly, I think it is as the idea of polygamy and the extreme ideas of the FLDS just sucked me right in.
Well, I reached out to Rayanna and asked if she'd write a post for me about this subject matter and she generously agreed so here she is. She's written a beautiful post and I'm impressed with the writing of this book. I couldn't have done it. Here she is.
* * * * * * * *
Up until
last year, I knew nothing about polygamy.
I had watched half of the first season of Sister Wives, decided
it was boring, moved on, never giving polygamy another moments thought.
Then I moved to an area where it is common, where a
polygamist family owns the house around the corner and “People of Walmart”
takes on a whole new meaning, and where one of the women from the show
“Breaking the Faith” makes your sandwich at the Subway on the corner. Here it is not uncommon to know a “lost boy”
or someone who owns a safe house and seeing women dressed like this is an
everyday occurrence.
So, I began to research polygamy. I watched “Sister Wives” until I was current
and then moved onto some of the newer shows.
I watched “Breaking the Faith” and “Escaping the Prophet”. It was when I watched the short lived
National Geographic series, “Polygamy USA” that I found a middle ground.
I was amazed when during the first ten minutes of the first
episode, one of the husbands took his wives on a date to my favorite sushi
restaurant that is less than a mile from my home. I was shocked, horrified and
hooked. If you haven’t seen it,
“Polygamy USA” was a show based on a sect of polygamists that had broken off
from the Colorado City FLDS in the 1980s and formed their own community in
Centennial Park, Arizona.
Unlike the mainstream “Sister Wives” polygamists who marry
for love, and the FLDS polygamists who…. Let’s not even go there right now, the
Centennial Park residents have a very unique set of beliefs when it comes to
marriage. In Centennial Park, the women
have all the power. Don’t get me wrong,
they don’t run the community or anything like that. They believe that a woman receives a word
from God, a vision, a dream, or just a strong sense about whom she is to
marry. Essentially, they believe that
God gives a young woman the name of the man she is to marry. Once she is ready, she takes the name to the
Bishop or Community Leaders, who then pray on it and then inform the intended
husband.
A young woman can begin praying early, and many even receive
their answer while they are still a minor, BUT she cannot see the Bishop about
it until she is 18.
I was intrigued by this
idea, and so that community of polygamists is the one that I eventually came to
base my book upon.
I seriously have too much I could say on this topic, but I
don’t want this to be too long. (Look
for more later, though, during the A to Z spanking blogger’s challenge.)
The last thing I want to touch on briefly is legality. It’s come up more than once in reviews and
other places. People either love that I
kept legality out of it, or they wish I would have touched on it, so I will
touch on it now.
While I was writing “Bride Two Soon” Utah’s anti-polygamy
law was overturned as un-constitutional, making polygamy as it is practiced
today legal in all fifty states. That’s
right, I said legal!
The majority of polygamists today do not have multiple
marriage licenses. There is usually a
legal marriage between the husband and his first wife, and the rest of the
marriages are “spiritual unions” much like many monogamous couples who live as
“life partners” or “common law married”. You cannot make it illegal to purport to be
married to someone. Period. End of story.
Most people do not realize this was part of the anti-polygamy law. I know I didn’t.
So there ya go, a little glimpse into my life and why I
chose to write a polygamy story.
* * * * Blurb * * * *
Mollie and Beth Anne have been fighting for weeks since the upcoming marriage was announced. But When Ben brings Beth Anne home to punish her, Mollie can't help but be protective of her friend, even though she's mad at her, and even though it gets Mollie herself in trouble.
* * * * Excerpt * * * *
After bringing Beth Anne a change of clothes, Mollie was back in the kitchen making tea and reheating the soup when Ben finally emerged from his office. He came up behind her and embraced her. “Thanks, Mollie, I really appreciate it, sweetheart. I know this isn’t what you planned for your evening, and I know it’s hard for you sometimes when Beth Anne is here, so I just want you to know how proud of you I am.”
She clicked her tongue and whirled around to face him, “Really, Benjamin, did you have to be so hard on her? She’s practically black and blue!” Mollie knew she was exaggerating, and she knew Ben knew it too, but she kept on anyway. “Didn’t you know it was her first time? What could she have possibly done for you to have to spank her anyway? She’s practically a saint, and you Ben Randall—you’re just a big bully!” she shrieked, waving her soup spoon near his face. She instantly knew she had gone too far, though, when she saw the muscles in his jaw harden and twitch.
“Enough, Mollie. It’s none of your business,” he growled, giving her a warning look, that she knew all too well, but ignored anyway.
“Oh really? If it was none of my business, then I guess you shouldn’t have brought her here and asked me to make you dinner. You made it my business when—oof!”
Mollie cried out in pain when Ben spun her around, pinned her against the kitchen counter, and grabbed her thickest bamboo spoon from the crock of utensils she kept near the stove. He gave her a dozen hard rapid fire spanks and she sucked in her breath at the unexpected blaze of pain that spread through her back side. Who knew a kitchen spoon could hurt so badly? She vowed right then to always be on her best behavior when in the kitchen with Ben—either that or hide all the spoons.
He let her back up with one last fiery swat to her tail end, then spun her around to face him. “Are you going to heed my warning, little girl, or do we need to continue this conversation in my office?”
She winced, and threw her hands back to cover her aching rear end. “I’ll be good,” she spat out with a grimace.
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