Sencha Skeete Book Blog

I have noticed recently a number of BWWM writers of erotica and dark romance commenting about reviews they are receiving about their books. Some people are hurt and discouraged, others are defiant, but the issue is the same. For some readers, Black women don't belong in dark romances, and they especially don't belong in dark romances if the hero is not Black.   I get it. Historically, Black women have been treated very poorly in the west. We struggle under the weight of a lot of prejudices and stereotypes. We are often considered less attractive and less feminine than other women, or as hypersexual beasts who can't control ourselves. The same behaviors -- one night stands, getting swept away by lust, accidental pregnancy, submissiveness -- that is seen as mildly negative or neutral when white, Asian or Hispanic women do it, is considered differently from us. All these behaviors feed into stereotypes in some people's eyes and so our heroines must be moral, emotionally st...

In January, I did a blog post where I said I would be writing three books this year.  Here's my progress: 1. Aldon and Alisa's story. If you read  Underneath the Tree  you know that Chris's driver and Emily's assistant are much closer than we knew about in An Arrangement series. What's going on with Alisa? Why did Aldon bring her to Pineridge? Why didn't she want to talk to Craig? This book will be full of the suspense and steamy situations you got used to in  Ebony Ivory Harmony . 2. Joseph's story. Who is this guy anyway? Why is a lawyer who grew up in a super rich family working as an executive assistant? Does it have something to do with his family's shady reputation or is it simple rebellion? And who in the Abramovich's circle was he getting "buck wild" with when Chris called him on the night of Emily's accident?    Bad Girls Do It Well -- Out Now 3. Tolik's story. You knew you'd hear more about this Russian hulk, right? A ...

 Hi all! I'm doing a virtual book tour and giveaway with the wonderful Silver Dagger Book Tours . Maia Gomez is just amazing, and did a fantastic job of putting this together. I'm just 🙏 to this lady. Look at this enticing promo image she made for me: Yes, ladies (and gentlemen -- I should not presume), the book is just as tasty.   Below is a list of tour stops.  If you'd like to enter the giveaway, the prize is a $10 Amazon Gift Card. Please drop in and comment if you feel like. I will be checking in on each of the tour stops on the day and after, and will respond if you leave a question or comment for me.  See you there! Jun 18 kickoff at Silver Dagger Book Tours A Pinch of Bookdust   Jun 19 Nicole's Book Musings   Jun 21 All Things Dark & Dirty     The Book Dragon   Jun 22 Word Processor, Romance, Cats, Kids and Creed   Inside the Insanity   Jun 23 Momma Says: To Read or Not to Read    Twisted Book Ramb...

Expansion! The Sencha Skeete experience is expanding to more platforms!  Up until now, my books have only been available on Amazon. You can now purchase "Ebony" in more places:           

 Hi guys, I just did an interview with Brooke Nichelle for her podcast "Let's Talk with She Blurbs." We had a nice chat about Underneath the Tree, upcoming releases, my hobbies, and other topics.  Check it out now! https://anchor.fm/letstalkwithsheblurbs/episodes/Lets-Talk-With-Author-Sencha-Skeete-eq3cq9/a-a365bue

 Underneath the Tree  (A Christmas BWWM Small Town Romance) It's Here ! Georgia left home after high school to see the great big world, but she's back home now. Big cities and global travel were fun, but there's no place like home. It's her first Christmas since moving back to Pineridge Falls, and she's busy as a beaver trying to get her new bakery off the ground. Since Craig met Georgia in New York City, she's never been far from his mind. A weekend in Paris, passionate trysts wherever they could slip away from their demanding bosses, and hours of long-distance video calls. He's fallen madly in love. But Georgia's had enough of the globetrotting life, and she doesn't believe Craig is ready to leave it behind to be with her. Can Craig convince her that he's ready to be her man? He's got to get through a Christmas obstacle course of carnivals, cookie contests, broken arms, and hotel mix-ups before that can happen, but he's got something sp...

  Coming soon...

 Christmas Book Hi all!  I'm working on getting a book out before Christmas. It's a steep climb, but wish me luck. This is going to be Craig's story.  What you say?  Craig has a life?  Believe it or not I wasn't planning to give Craig a romance, but I'd already plotted out books for many of the other major characters in An Arrangement series, and I also wanted to put out something for Christmas. Of all the people in those previous books, I felt like Craig was the one most suited to getting a sweet, small-town romance.  Well, sort of.  Definitely sweet, definitely set partly in a small town, but also a bit of a globe trotter as well.  More to come soon on this. I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking for the mysteries left over from Harmony to be solved in the next release. That's a WHOLE other story, a whole other type of story even that will be fleshed out a little in the book after the next story and then really resolved in either the one...

 Hi guys.  It's been a couple of months since I updated this blog as I've been working on getting Harmony (An Arrangement Part 3) completed.  It's been harder than I expected because I wanted to give these two characters (Emily and Chris) a happy ending they both deserved. Chris was such a jerk to begin with and I wanted more for Emily than just "going along to get along" for the rest of her life.  These characters both had a lot of difficult life experiences that made them who they are, but I didn't want that to mean they got anything less than the best kind of life together.  So that took some figuring out.  Anyway, you can check out Harmony on Amazon.  It's $3.99 or free with Kindle Unlimited.  If you like it, I'd also love you forever if you left a review. As an independent author I don't have a marketing department behind me, so it's fans like you that make it possible for me to keep going.   I'd also love to hear directly from you...

I've been spending as much time as I can writing.  I've been writing for a long time, so the process of putting words on the page isn't hard.  The hard part is doing it every day, consistently.  It's like exercise.  Going to the gym when you feel like it is no big deal, but going to the gym every day, no matter what you feel like, no matter what else is going on in your life--that's hard. You might say that exercise gets easier the more you do it, a habit forms and the habit takes the place of your old indolent ways, but habits are so easily broken, aren't they?  At least the productive ones are, in my expereince.  Always choose fruit over cookies until you don't and then you don't again and before you know it you've gained ten pounds.  Or always sock away some money for a rainy day, until you really really want something and your rainy day fund is...dry.  No, I think no matter how much of a habit something becomes there is always that moment when...

This post, once again, has nothing to do with my writing, mostly because I'm simultaneously trying to distract myself and intensely focus on finishing the third book in the "An Arrangement" series.  You create all these obstacles and barriers to keep two people apart and then you have to somehow get them past all of that so they can be happy together.  It's easier in books at any rate. I was watching cooking fail videos with my daughter when we came across the phenomenon of rice-cooker pancakes.  We love pancakes and I'm always looking for something to make the same old foods interesting and new.  I found a couple of cool YouTube videos like this one  here  , and then took a slight detour here , where I learned about Japanese souffle pancakes, which look amazing, but I worry might be eggy.  I don't mind eggy, but my kid hates eggy and will ooh and aww over the look of the food and then refuse to eat it.  The whole point of this exercise is to get ...

I've been a little disappointed this year because I had been looking forward to taking my daughter (5) to see the fireworks.  In prior years we couldn't go for one reason or the other, but I'd decided months ago that this would be the year.  Unfortunately, COVID came around and all the local fireworks shows were cancelled.  Because we live in Los Angeles I thought buying fireworks and doing our own little show was out of the question.  But... My neighbors around the city had other ideas.  Starting around sunset the loud booms started.  I'm used to hearing but not being able to see the fireworks from my house, but my daughter ran in from the back patio and told me she could see fireworks.  We went outside the front of the house and we could see fireworks of every color exploding in the sky to our south and east.  She jumped and squealed in excitement.  We walked down the street a bit to get a better view and I ran into several neighbors out on...