Fifty Shades: The Movie Has Arrived

Here we go!

I went to a press screening of Fifty Shades of Grey last night and was pretty amazed - at how well they had transformed the material into a classic Hollywood romance with dark undertones, and how well cast the movie is.  Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan (from whom I kept on expecting a lapse into his native Irish accent and NEVER heard the slightest brogue once) have great screen chemistry. The seduction is movie-real enough. Dornan's damaged alpha is really good.  And Dakota plays Anastasia Steele with a lot more spunk (and no inner goddess) than the novel. So even in a crowd full of seasoned professionals, when the curtain closed at the end of the film, they asked, "that's it?"

This is going to be HUGE. Think How Stella Got Her Groove Back meets Twilight with a big dash of 9 1/2 Weeks. Expect it to put the bullet to Sniper.

My plus one, also a seasoned movie reviewer (actually I was her plus one), turned to me and said, "it's not my kink, but this was well done."  And it is, from the soundtrack to the clothing and all the book-related details.  BTW, the red room of pain is gorgeous.

If you love the books, you'll love the movie.  If you somehow hadn't read them yet, you'll be downloading them on your kindle tout suite.  And if you hated the books, you just might like the movie anyway.

But if you run out of Fifty Shades books to read, and don't want to reread them, we have a few titles for you.  First of all, you really should read NY Times best-selling author Marc Shapiro's unauthorized biography, The Secret Life of EL James  (http://riverdaleavebooks.com/books/5161/the-secret-life-of-el-james) in which he literally gives you a step-by-step guide to how she wrote and marketing her book.  It's a fucking blue print.

Marc returned to the Fifty Shades well to write two riveting bios on Dakota Johnson (http://riverdaleavebooks.com/books/5162/the-real-steele-the-unauthorized-biography-of-dakota-johnson) and Jamie Dornan (http://riverdaleavebooks.com/books/5163/inside-greys-anatomy-the-unauthorized-biography-of-jamie-dornan), both of whom have surprisingly rich and varied pasts.

But if that's not enough, Jeffery Self made the #1 spot on the Amazon Gay & lesbian bestseller list with his 50 Shades of Gay, (http://riverdaleavebooks.com/books/27/50-shades-of-gay) which retells the tale from a M/M perspective and sets it in Hollywood.  Funny and hot!!

And KT Grant, one of my favorite lesbian pop culture writers, brings us 50 Shades of Pink, which tells the story from a lesbian perspective set in the world of New York City publishing.

But wait, there's more!

We are launching a new mystery line this month, Dagger, and our first title is Fifty Shades of Grey Fedora, edited by the Private Eye Writers of America with new stories by the likes of Sara Paretsky, John Lutz, Parnell Hall and other big name authors.

And we also are offering a FREE sample of 50 erotic romance author in Beyond 50 featuring the works of Laura Antoniou, Cecilia Tan, Violet Blue and many others, which will be available on the RAB website, as well as Amazon, Banes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes, etc.

So enjoy!