Q & A with Ella Dominguez

Title:  The Art of Submission

Author:  Ella Dominguez

Genre:  Erotica/Romance

Page Count:  336

Published:  August 2012

Available:  Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords ~ Createspace

Written in 1st person from both his and her perspective.

Warning: Written for mature audiences and includes profanity, graphic sexual encounters and mild BDSM themes.

Romantic, erotic, deeply emotional and humorous.

Isabel is a shy artist with an abusive past who has a very vivid fantasy life and unexplored unusual sexual tastes. When her very private and naughty-natured artwork is sold without her permission, she sets out to try and retrieve her precious paintings, unaware that the buyer has dark sexual tendencies.

Dylan Young is an eccentric businessman and art collector with very specific tastes in women and sex, and serious trust issues. When he comes upon a very erotic set of paintings, he purchases them and they ignite a want and need for the alternative lifestyle he was forced to give up.

When the two meet, Dylan immediately picks up on Isabel's submissive nature and hatches a wicked plan to teach Isabel about his alternative lifestyle. He wants nothing more than to get his hands on more of her paintings and to dominate the submissive beauty.

Their affair is intensely physical and despite Dylan's wanting only a sexual relationship with distinct boundaries, he can't resist her spirited nature, her eagerness and lack of fear to learn about BDSM, and most of all - her immense talent. But Isabel has a hidden dominant streak of her own that only Dylan brings out and as they're drawn closer together, their unconventional relationship is threatened as they each struggle with their pasts and for control.

You can see my review of The Art of Submission here!




Q & A with author Ella Dominguez

Q:  When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
A:  At a very young age. I started reading when I was 4 and writing shortly after. I remember writing stories as early as kindergarten.

Q:  Tell us a little bit about your leads, Dylan and Isabel.
A:  Dylan is an entrepreneur alpha male with fond taste for art and whose past is laced with BDSM and bad choices in women. He was forced to give up his alternative lifestyle in order to maintain a clean ‘public image.’ He yearns for kinky sex and a woman he can dominate. Isabel is a closet artist with an abusive past. She’s bored with vanilla sex and yearns for a man who can dominate her and fulfill her sexual and emotional needs. But she also has a dominant streak that she wasn’t aware of.

Q:  Do you have anyone in mind who would be perfect to play Isa and Dylan in a movie?
A:  Not really. I’d love the roles of my characters to be played by total unknown actors or actresses, that way there would be no preconceived ideas of who they are.

Q:  What was your favorite scene to write?
A:  The work office scene when Isabel goes to get her artwork back from Dylan. It was fun to write and left me a little flustered, to say the least.

Q:  Could you give us a teaser from book 2?
A:  Erika makes her presence and refuses to let Dylan go. Dylan’s past is finally revealed and his dark secrets threaten his engagement to Isabel. Isabel’s father tries to force his way back into Isabel’s life, but only to make her life miserable and not to make amends for his atrocious behavior.

Q:  How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
A:  I was raised in a very sexually repressed strict Christian household, if you can imagine that. I think keeping all of those sexual feelings at bay for so long made me all the more curious and experimental regarding sex. So, for me to write down all of my fantasies, came second nature. I figure, since I wasn’t living it, I might as well write it down.

Q:  Tell us about the cover art. Who designed it and what was that process like for you as the author?
A:  The image on my cover was initially my first choice, but I had to get permission from the artist, Rebecca Ivakson. I didn’t hear back from her and so I wrote it off and chose another image all together; something more ‘traditional’ to erotic romance. I.e., a hot couple in a sexual embrace kind of thing. I had already paid for that cover image when I finally heard back from Rebecca, agreeing to allow me to use her painting. Corinna Parr actually designed the cover for me and I was very happy with her work (and her patience!). Overall, the cover project was very time consuming and tedious because it’s just so hard to try to convey in an image what your book is about and also trying to make it appeal to a broad audience.

Q:  Was Isa's art in the book something you made up, or were your descriptions based on something real?
A:  I’m an artist myself, but my art is nowhere near to what I had imagined Isa’s talent to be. So in my mind, I had the images painted, but they were not ‘real’ images. I got totally lucky to find Rebecca’s artwork and that it matched what I was looking for.

Q:  What do you do to unwind and relax?
A:  Nap! I love a totally unplanned nap. I also love to draw and paint, and of course, write. All of those things, to me, are very relaxing. Unless, of course, I’m drawing or writing about something erotic. In that case, it can be very frustrating, depending on whether or not my husband is home to help me further ‘unwind.’

Q:  What book are you reading now?
A:  I’m currently not reading anything as I’m in the middle of writing Book 2 of the ‘Art’ series, but I just finished a novella by Corinna Parr (yes, the very one who designed my cover) called Love, Ink and Lycanthropes. It was fabulous!

Author Contact: 

Blog:  http://www.elladominguez.blogspot.com/

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6472437.Ella_Dominguez