So if you are a regular bully-book reader and feel that my story is unusual, that’s probably why.
Just to be clear – I don’t like bullies.
But I do like to write “unlikeable” characters – i.e. – anti-heroes. And I like to try and make them, if not lovable, at the very least redeemable, by the end of the story.
Almost every book of mine has an anti-hero in it. And in romance this can fall under quite a few tropes such as “Enemies to Lovers” or “Alpha-Asshole” or “Anti-hero” or “Bully”. There are probably more, but you get the idea.
But a bully book is rather specific. Because our “hero” is a jerk. This goes beyond alpha-asshole because our hero is generally very young, so they act their age. i.e. – they act immature. And this differs from an Alpha-Asshole (in my opinion), because by the time they reach they alpha-asshole stage, they should at least be capable of acting “mature”. They should at least be able to control their urges and focus their “mean-ness” in a specific direction for a specific reason – even if that reason is unreasonable.
Bullies don’t know what the fuck they’re doing or why they’re doing it. It’s nothing more than a childish lashing out.
It’s a COMING OF AGE story.
Now this – I like. A lot.
I LOVE coming-of-age stories. And I could write a whole lot more about that but I already wrote an entire book about coming of age called “Eighteen” that pretty much spells out how I feel about being a “new adult” and what that age meant to me, personally. (Because the book, 18, is ABOUT me.)
So Cooper is a complete dumbass all the way into Ruling Class.
He has almost no redeeming qualities in chapter one of Bully King and by the time that book ends – well, he’s not much better. He didn’t make any amends by the end of book one BUT he did come to a new conclusion about himself.
He grew some balls, for one.
He had a good end scene standing up to his father.
But listen, he was an asshole. What he did to Cadee when she was fifteen is almost inexcusable.
But, as I wrote in the Bully King EOBS, forgiveness is a thing. And it’s got nothing to do with Cooper, as I explained, it’s all about Cadee. But when Cooper realizes that SHE forgave him – this opens him up to the idea that HE can learn to forgive himself.
So Ruling Class is about four things:
(1) Cooper is learning how to forgive himself and become a better, more focused, more intent-ful person.
(2) Cadee is caught up something she doesn’t understand and is losing control.
(3) They BOTH need to find a way to separate who they ARE with who they WANT TO BE.
(4) Bringing down the darkness that permeates the school and the families that live around the lake.
I would’ve liked to add one more thing to this list. I would’ve liked to add:
(4) Understanding WHY all this stuff was happening.
But explaining it felt like an “out” to me because there is no way to explain evil.
It’s just evil.
And this story is NOT about a satanic cult (or whatever the proper term is for what these people are – “satanic” feels like an “out” as well but I have no interest in digging deeper into that world.)
This story is about Cadee and Cooper figuring out where they belong in this world, how to come to terms with the “position” they were put in at birth, and how to relate to each other.
It’s fucking romance. Not a thriller.
And so if you’re disappointed that I didn’t go into more detail about the cult, I’m sorry. I decided to keep it vague for the reason above and because there’s enough darkness in this world. Right?
Cadee felt it in the end. She had all the answers she ever wanted – but did she REALLY need those answers?
Were those answers going to make her a better person?
I think those answers DID make her a better person by the time she built up the courage to seek them out in the attic, but would it have helped her to know right away when she got to North Dakota?
I don’t think so.
I think knowing certain answers can hold you down if you’re not ready to put them in their proper context.
And thinking back on this – like… if I had to do it again… I would probably find another way to tell this story. The cult thing is interesting and cool. And I could’ve written a lot more about it. I’m not sick of the “conspiracy stories” by any means. I’ve written a lot of them. In fact it’s pretty much my MO at this point, right?
But while I was doing research for the Creeping Beautiful and Bossy Brothers series’ I stumbled in to some weird shit that I had never seen before (as far as conspiracy theories go, anyway).
I mean, I’ve done a lot of research on this stuff – I’ve been writing these books for over 8 years now. I thought I knew every conspiracy theory out there but nope. Turns out there’s some dark shit that I had never seen before. And even though I had already set up this cult stuff in Bully King I decided when I started to write Ruling Class that I wasn’t going there.
Obviously I HAD to go there – it’s part of the story. But I didn’t have to go deep.
And I didn’t.
I give you just enough of the cult stuff in this book to understand what they are up against. But I wasn’t in the mood to go into details. I’m sure you can use your imagination.
If this wasn’t a romance I might’ve gone darker.
But do we really need to get that dark right now?
I don’t.
So if you’re disappointed that I didn’t give more details on the cult I apologize for that. I just didn’t want to contribute any more darkness to this world than I needed to in order for Cadee and Cooper to find their HEA.
And it’s not that I don’t like a good dark story, because I do. I’m writing a really dark story in this next book (not Bossy or Creeping related, something new). And I’m gonna go pretty dark with that. But there are no fucking blood sacrifices going on. lol Because that’s what was happening here in Ruling Class (if you didn’t figure it out, there it is.)
Also, I’m not going to write another bully book and the reason this is only a duet and not a trilogy is because this was just an experiment for me. I was honestly just fucking around with this bully book. Ruling Class is super long coming in at nearly 110K words. I didn’t plan it that way, but this ended up being a HUGE story.
Like way bigger than I actually intended.
And I’m not saying that these characters won’t be back.
I’m kind of interested in Cooper’s father. (He won’t get a book, don’t worry). And Ax, of course. And Isabella and Mona. There are a lot of characters in this world that I fell in love with.
Mona stole the show in Bully King but Ruling Class was all about Isabella. And I love that she came into herself by the end.
And it’s weird but I worry for these characters. Knowing that I won’t be going back in (any time soon, at least) to take care of them. I worry that Isabella will get lost in this new dangerous world of modeling. And Mona and Dante will get caught back up in the evil and darkness surrounding High Court. And Ax will never get over being cut open. And Lars will never get to shine the way he should. I worry that Sophie is going to regret going to LA and, weird as it may sound, the only one I feel one-hundred percent good about is Elexa! lol