Eric Ross: Blog

Some stories burn through you before you even realize you’re writing them.

Afterglow is one of those stories.

I’m thrilled — and a little terrified — to finally introduce you to Afterglow, my latest novel, and to two of my favorite characters I’ve ever created: Ginger and Coco.

What’s Afterglow About?

It begins in a shadowed alley, with a reckless encounter between two strangers — Ginger, the steady, stubborn software guy who’s spent too long burying his wild side under Zoom calls and routines, and Coco, the untamed, silver-haired siren who drifts through life chasing thrill after thrill, never letting anyone get too close.

What starts as raw, physical chemistry quickly spills into something messier, deeper, and far more dangerous: real emotion.

Their story spans coffee shops, storm-drenched mountaintops, mirrored hotel rooms, Parisian rooftops, Rio’s Carnival streets, and the stillness of a glacier in Iceland — always on the edge of breaking, always chasing the afterglow of something they’re terrified to name: love.

Afterglow is a novel about chasing the fire, surviving the burn, and learning how to stay when every instinct tells you to run.

It’s filthy. It’s tender. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t ask you to tame yourself — it asks you to burn brighter.

About the Characters

Ginger — Freckled, stubborn, and more vulnerable than he knows, Ginger is the kind of man who follows the people he loves into the storm — and learns he’s stronger for it.

Coco — Wild, radiant, and haunted by old griefs, Coco has built her life on running. But Ginger challenges her to stop — not by caging her, but by keeping pace with her until she’s ready to rest.

They wreck each other beautifully. And maybe, just maybe, they save each other too.

More to Come

Afterglow is just the beginning.

I’ve been living with these characters for a long time — working through their scars, their triumphs, and the messy, gorgeous ways they grow together.

I’m excited to share that three more novels featuring Ginger and Coco are already in various stages of completion. Their story doesn’t end with Afterglow — it deepens, expands, and tests them in ways they (and maybe even I) didn’t see coming.

If you love raw, dirty, beautiful love stories about two people daring to be seen — and daring to stay — you’ll want to stick around for the next chapters.

Thank you for being part of this wild, wonderful ride. I can’t wait for you to meet Ginger and Coco the way I have — in all their wrecked, burning, stubborn, brilliant glory.

Chapter 1 (and shortly) Chapter 2 are already up. Enjoy!

– Eric

Mazeheart is my newest story.

When I set out to write Mazeheart, I wanted to create an erotic fantasy where the setting itself became a living, breathing force. Hedge mazes are fascinating—symbols of mystery, entrapment, and hidden desire—but what if the maze wasn’t just a backdrop? What if it wanted something too?

In Mazeheart, the labyrinth Javier built for his patron Eleanor rises against him, alive with its own will, testing, tempting, and ultimately binding him to Eleanor in a tale of surrender, discovery, and transformation.

I hope you enjoy it.

Eric

Yesterday morning, I posted the final chapter of The Veil of Shadows.

Thank you to everyone who read my first novella, and an extra thank you to those who voted or added it to your libraries—the feedback has meant more than I can say.

I wrote The Veil of Shadows as an erotic journey through shame, vulnerability, resilience, and redemption. At its heart, it’s a story of transformation—how desire, pain, and trust can forge new identities from old wounds. These themes resonate deeply with me, reflecting parts of my own journey, though without the kink that drives Elise and Rowan’s world.

Across twelve chapters, Elise and Rowan navigate a world where judgment is swift and intimacy is dangerous. The story opens with themes of injustice, obedience, and human frailty, as Elise steps into a secret club that both mirrors and defies the rigid expectations she was raised with. As she and Rowan collide and connect, they confront their shared sorrows and discover unexpected community.

The middle arc wrestles with compassion, failure, and the fierce, unglamorous work of reclaiming power after collapse. Their erotic connection becomes more than pleasure—it becomes a crucible for healing, defiance, and purpose—culminating in public acts that transform shame into pride.

The final chapters dive even deeper into vulnerability, sacrifice, and ultimate self-giving, culminating in a redemptive, hopeful way forward, where past pain becomes the raw material for creation.

Elise and Rowan don’t simply escape their cages—they transform them into art, into love, into something fierce and free.

I wanted The Veil of Shadows to be unapologetically sensual, ruthlessly emotional, and, most of all, deeply human. Because what is more human, after all, than love and sexuality?

Eric

The Mask and the Chain began as a response to a song I’ve always found both irresistible and deeply troubling: the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar. That riff is iconic. But the lyrics? They eroticize slavery and reduce a Black woman to a metaphor—“Brown Sugar,” sweet and nameless. It’s a song written entirely from the outside, a white fantasy that never considers the humanity of the woman it sexualizes.

I wanted to write an answer to that.

Amara, the protagonist of The Mask and the Chain, is not a fantasy. She’s a free woman of color in 1850s New Orleans, navigating a world that seeks to define her by race, by class, by gender—and refusing every label she doesn’t choose for herself. She walks into the ballroom knowing exactly how they see her. She walks out having rewritten the rules.

This story is about power, pleasure, and history. It doesn’t shy away from the brutal context of slavery or the legacy it leaves in every glance and touch. But it also doesn’t hand that history the final word. It gives voice—and agency—to the woman at the center. Her desire is not submissive. Her body is not a symbol. She owns her story.

The Mask and the Chain asks: what happens when the woman in the song finally gets to speak? And what if she’s not asking for permission?

Eric

Chapter 11 is the penultimate chapter to the Veil of Shadows.

After their performance at the gallery in Chapter 10, Elise and Rowan return to the club to reclaim it for themselves. It's a baptism in wax and rope, a ritual of trust forged in the wreckage of betrayal. Where once there were spectators, now there are only witnesses. Elise takes the lead with reverent hands; Rowan offers himself not in submission, but in devotion. Their scene unfolds like liturgy—sacred knots, candlelight, the sting of wax as prayer. And when the ropes are undone, what remains is not spectacle but stillness.

Enjoy!