When Your Erotic Mysteries Are Set At A High School…
Okay, calm down everyone. The setting is a high school, yes. But the main protagonists are two teachers. Everything you read about in the novels is between two consenting adults. Whew! But even in this day and age, you’ve got to be careful.
I write the Skyler Foxe Mysteries. Skyler Foxe is in his first year as a high school English Lit teacher. But he has a penchant for stumbling upon murder and has the need to solve them, whether it’s to discover who killed his principal’s son, sleuthing out the murderer of an old friend from college, or, in the case of the latest, FOXE FIRE, if the recent firebug and murderer might just be one of his students.
The other main character, Keith Fletcher, is a high school football coach and Skyler’s main squeeze. Oh, and (*spoiler alert for the first two books FOXE TAIL and FOXE HUNT*) he also happens to do a little freelance undercover work for the FBI. They don’t necessarily do their sleuthing together, but they do get into some dangerous entanglements…and some of those are in the bedroom!
But as Amazon and other book buying sources get uncomfortable with overtly sexual covers and sexual content (and funny, isn’t it, that they don’t get all squirmy over heterosexual sexual content, just the gay stuff), I’ve had to be extra careful to make certain that the minors in the books don’t get down and dirty, even though there has been a blossoming romance between two male teens in the series. Whatever happens to those two are off stage, though they will get their own tasteful story in an upcoming and yet-to-be-written novella of the gang on summer vacation.
The Skyler Foxe Mysteries also has a lot of humor. Many scenes are played for laughs. Humor helps to cut the tension in some of the heavier scenes and adds to the fun and adventure of solving the mystery. Skyler is a twenty-five-year old man and quite the player. Or at least he was until he met hunky football coach Keith Fletcher and decided to try “homogamy,” much to the amusement of his group of friends who used to be lovers, coined the “Skyler Fuck Club,” or SFC.
The students in the piece help round out the action and show the many levels of Skyler’s sometimes complicated life, from dutiful son, playful lover, good friend, and finally “Mr. Foxe” to his students. The cadre of teens—two female friends standing by the two boyfriends, with more added to the bunch—creates authenticity to the proceedings and drama as well as humor to bounce off the main characters.
When I started writing the series way back when (and then put it aside for a few years to concentrate on writing a mainstream series), I had a son in high school and had ready research available to me about slang, dress, and behavior of high school kids. I even used some of the real hi-jinks at his school as part of the mysteries in my books (I’m telling you, truth is stranger than fiction!) But now that he is long out of high school, I have to do my research in other ways. There is plenty in the news to inspire me: bullying–both in person and on the internet–prom disagreements, bigotry…you name it, it’s all still there.
One subject I do stay away from since I like to keep the books somewhat light-hearted despite the nature of murder, of course, is school shootings. I think this is too close to home for many, so we won’t be going there. Mostly I pump my gay friends for insight into growing up gay in high school and what issues they would like to see tackled by their favorite twink teacher, Skyler Foxe. If not for the erotic content, the books might have been suitable for young adults (as if they don’t know anything about all that. Right.) But it is what it is. I get a lot of letters from men who said they wished they had had a teacher like Skyler when they were in high school. If only. It’s getting better for kids, but constant vigilance is still necessary. For instance, kids may not know that by federal mandate, they are allowed to bring whomever they want as a prom date. And they are allowed to start a Gay-Straight Alliance in their schools. The administration and even the local school board may not prohibit it. But that doesn’t mean the fight is over.
I enjoy tackling these issues in the stories. Obviously. I like to say what needs being said in a fictional setting and couching it within a mystery so it’s not too preachy. Despite the erotic content, I do think kids would enjoy the books (and I already know that some are reading them) and benefit from what is discussed from safe sex to dealing with relationships. The funny thing is, mixing up high school with murder is okay. Mixing up high school and sex is a no-no in our culture. What’s wrong with that image?
You can see the Skyler Foxe books at https://skylerfoxemysteries.com/