CONTENT WARNINGS * SPOILERS * AUTHOR’S NOTE
Notorious includes descriptions/depictions of: suicidal ideations, attempts at self-harm, a loved one’s death by suicide, violence and gore, violent sexual assault (not by either of the two romantic leads), sex worker shaming, homophobia, recreational alcohol and drug use, vomiting, hospitalization, mental illness, chronic illness, and financial instability, as well as the usual explicit sexual content and swearing. If I’ve missed a content warning I should include, please let me know at info@lesliemcadamauthor.com. Same goes for typos—rather than report them to Amazon, please email me so I can fix them.
If you’re feeling suicidal, please seek immediate professional help. In the United States, one resource is the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which you can contact by texting or calling 988 or chatting at 988lifeline.org.
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Dear Reader,
Please forgive the overly personal author’s note, but I want you to know what you’re getting into with this book and why it matters.
This story is inspired by my own experience being strip-searched and locked up in a behavioral health hospital due to suicidal ideations. “That was when I learned I had several mood disorders, including depression,” she says. (I can imagine my editor wondering why I switched to the third person in that last sentence. I feel vulnerable, so I need to distance myself. I’m still raw, years later. Humor helps. So does portraying my experience through the lens of a tall, drawling, porn star cowboy. Then I can pretend it’s fiction.)
Anyway, after about a year and a half of intense care, I recovered. Completely. If you’re interested in the details, I’ve talked about it a lot on my blog at www.lesliemcadamauthor.com/blog.
Part of my recovery included realizing that the only thing I’d ever wanted to do was to write—and then letting myself do that. It’s not an exaggeration to say that writing is literally a life-or-death issue with me, and I’m grateful that after lots and lots of help I’m now strong enough to tell Johnny and Kurt’s story. I wasn’t when I started out. I wasn’t a year ago. I’ve also become an advocate for taking the stigma out of mental health issues, which means I talk about them often.
But just because I’m in a space to finally write this story does not mean that you’re in a place to read it. Like they say on the edge of old maps, hic sunt dracones (here are dragons). Please do not read further if it will harm you in any way. Part of taking care of your mental state is knowing when to stay away because it’s safer. Only you will know the answer to that question for yourself, but if you’re in doubt, don’t read this book. This story includes depictions of sexual assault and suicide attempt(s) that were uncomfortable to write, so I’m going to assume they’re uncomfortable to read. Skip this book if you think they might harm you. Just because I think they’re essential to the plot doesn’t mean you have to read them. I’m harping on this because your mental health is of paramount importance.
I mention my past because my inpatient experience in a mental hospital—where, yes, the mountain lion encounter Johnny describes really happened—will not be someone else’s experience navigating the territory of mental health. This is my truth, my experiences, my recovery, told through fiction; I’m not saying that anyone else’s journey would be like mine or Johnny’s or that this depiction is universal. It clearly is not. Humans are complicated, and this variation in experience is what I find fascinating. Don’t assume that because I portray these characters experiencing mental illness and recovery in a certain way means I think that some other way is invalid or couldn’t happen; I don’t.
An additional warning on tone: There is teasing in this book about suicide. If that will offend you, stay away. As someone who got close to suicide, I don’t think it’s a topic to take lightly. But I also don’t believe we need to shy away from whatever coping mechanisms we need to talk about our problems, and humor can be one of those mechanisms—at least it is for these two love bugs. But again (again? again!), if that portrayal will cause you harm, please pick a different book.
On a separate note, as far as reality goes, I intend the IOU series to be comfort reads, meaning a relatively low-angst series of M/M novels where generally nice people get their happily ever afters in an environment with minimal homophobia. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in, and it’s become my routine to request that you suspend some disbelief in the fictional world that I’m creating. I could provide you with a list of things in this book that I’ve stretched reality on, but let’s just round up and say all of it. If you’re going to get distracted by details like election timelines, procedures for getting married in Las Vegas, or where on the map Kurt’s home could actually exist, this will not be the book for you.
But if you want to read about two broken men who fall sweetly in love … by accident … and you feel this story won’t be harmful to your mental health—then keep going. This is the book for you.
Regardless of whether you keep going or stop here, thanks for checking out Notorious. This is the longest and most emotional book I’ve ever written, and I intend it for the people who don’t feel seen. Who suffer from the harsh things they tell themselves, like “you aren’t enough” or “you don’t do enough” or “you can never be enough.”
I see you. You are enough.
My love and best wishes to you all.
Love,
Leslie
P.S. This book includes many Easter eggs, including Johnny’s therapist, who appears in my debut novel, The Sun and the Moon (M/F). With Johnny’s story, things come full circle.
Here’s the blurb:
Picking up your favorite adult film star at a bar in Vegas is a bad idea—especially when you wake up the next morning married to him. Ask me how I know.
Before I met Velvet the Cowboy, the public knew me as an innocuous guy who was running for office.
Now I’ve gone from boring to notorious in twenty-four hours.
The hot stranger’s ring on my finger puts a damper on my political ambitions, since his day job isn’t voter-friendly. An annulment is a no-go, and a quickie divorce would make me look unreliable.
In any case, when I find out Velvet’s dark plans, I know I can’t let him out of my sight. Which means I’m taking a gorgeous, 6’6”, slow-talking cowboy home with me to protect him from himself.
Being with him might light my career on fire. I’m just not expecting it to do the same to my heart.
Notorious is a stand-alone contemporary romance about Johnny Haskell, a cowboy turned adult star who stops to pet every good dog (and they’re all good dogs), and Kurt Delmont, a senatorial candidate who wants to save the world. It features recovery from a mental health crisis, healing from old wounds, and love that takes these two by surprise. This book contains sensitive themes; a detailed description of the contents is in the author’s note in the book preview. Happily ever after guaranteed.