Cliff Lovette is here to tell us about Circus Bim Bom, a cold war adventure, historical fiction, cold war fiction, with romantic subplots.
Read on for details...
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A Cold War Adventure
Historical Fiction/Cold War Fiction w/romance subplots
Date Published: 03-01-2026
Publisher: Bim Bom Books
There are no accidents in life, only opportunities wearing different
clothes."
When the first privately owned Soviet circus arrived in 1990 America as the
Soviet Empire unraveled, its elite performers expected to build cultural
bridges through spectacular shows. Instead, this prestigious troupe faced a
perilous journey through Cold War America.
Circus director Yuri had to navigate treacherous waters where American
mobsters, Soviet agents, and political forces circled like predators. Young
aerialist Anton dreamed of becoming a clown against his family's wishes, while
forbidden romances and unexpected connections bloomed between Soviet
performers and Americans who saw past the ideological divide. As high-stakes
conspiracies threatened to tear the circus family apart, they had to choose
between the authoritarian chains of home and the uncertain promise of freedom.
As The Ringmaster reminds us, "The best Soviet stories are like
vodka—they burn with suffering, intoxicate with conflict, keep you
stewing in reflection, and yearning for your heart's desire." This
genre-bending tale explores whether human connection can transcend
ideology—and whether storytelling can bridge the divides that separate
us.
THE MOST FORBIDDEN DESIRE: What a Soviet Circus Taught Me About Writing Sensuality
A Guest Post by Cliff Lovette, Author of Circus Bim Bom: A Cold War Adventure
Let me be honest with you, Tina — and with your readers — right from the start.
Circus Bim Bom is not erotica. It is a Cold War historical adventure novel with four romantic arcs, a fourth-wall-breaking narrator who calls himself The Ringmaster, and enough political intrigue, mob entanglements, and comedic chaos to keep a circus tent standing. If you came here expecting explicit content, I owe you the truth: the most daring scene in my book is what I’d call soft sensual — by your readers’ standards, probably a warm-up act.
So why am I writing a guest post for one of erotic romance’s most celebrated blogs?
Because desire, repression, and the courage to defy both are exactly what my book is about. And I suspect your readers understand those stakes better than anyone.
The Kittens and Their Keeper
In 1990, when Circus Bim Bom — the first privately owned Soviet circus — arrived in America, the young female performers in the troupe were not traveling alone. They were traveling under the iron supervision of Dominika Volkov, a stern Party-appointed chaperone the women had nicknamed, with no small amount of dark humor, The Führer.
Dominika ran bed checks. She swept hotel corridors. She monitored who the women spoke to, danced with, looked at. She referred to her charges as her “Kittens” — a term that said everything about how Soviet authority viewed them: as creatures to be herded, kept tame, and shielded from the contaminating influences of Western freedom. Her mission, as I wrote it, was “a crusade to preserve her Kittens’ purity against Western decadence — particularly men.”
The Führer was not a caricature. She was a system. She was the embodiment of a Soviet state that had, since Stalin codified it in 1934, made the regulation of human sexuality a matter of criminal law. Soviet anti-sodomy statutes remained on the books until 1993 — three years after this story takes place. The state’s reach into private life extended far beyond those laws. Sexual desire — particularly female desire — was treated as a threat to ideological purity, something to be rationed, policed, punished.
For a twenty-five-year-old Soviet aerialist named Raisa Lagolov, America was not just a new country. It was a door she had never been allowed to open.
King Kong. I Like.
Raisa is not a passive character. From the first page she shares with John Stagliano — whose porn star nickname is “Stallion,” a former UCLA-trained dancer with a complicated inner life and a dangerous uncle — she is the one making moves. She blocks his path on the tour bus with an outstretched leg. She meets his gaze with a dimpled smile and purrs, in Russian, “King Kong. I like.”
Stallion is instantly, helplessly caught. He is also, objectively, the wrong man. His Uncle Joe is a capo in a Las Vegas crime syndicate. His world is not Raisa’s world. That’s intentional. I wasn’t interested in writing a tidy romance. I wanted to put Raisa’s desire up against its most dangerous possible test.
Their courtship unfolds across language barriers — through translated letters and doodled drawings, a moonlit motorcycle ride on a machine Raisa had never been allowed to touch, and a waltz on a spinning carousel where letting go means being flung off entirely. Every moment together is an act of rebellion.
The Tightrope I Walked
As a debut novelist, I spent a long time wrestling with a single scene near the end of the book. It is, in my estimation, the culmination of everything Raisa’s arc has been building toward — her desire, her defiance, and the consequences of both.
I chose to frame it through the eyes of The Ringmaster and, by extension, the reader. You are not inside the scene. You are standing in a dim dormitory hallway, looking through a cracked door. You didn’t plan to be there. And now you’re not sure you should stay.
What you witness is Raisa dancing alone in front of a full-length mirror, to the dance music of the 1950s and ’60s — the Twist, the Pony, the Watusi — songs that seem corny now but were considered scandalously naughty when they first exploded across American Bandstand. Raisa learned these dances as a teenager from smuggled videotapes. She is not facing you. You see only her reflection, and occasionally what the mirror reveals.
I wanted readers to feel what I felt writing it: a mixture of voyeuristic pull and genuine moral discomfort. I wanted them to ask themselves whether they should stay. I walked a deliberate tightrope between sensual and sensational — I did not want it to be purely erotic. I wanted it to mean something.
Based on the early reviews, readers understood exactly what I was aiming for. One reviewer wrote that she was reeling from the scene long after it ended.
I don’t know if that’s erotica. I know it’s desire. And desire — the kind that has been locked up, legislated against, chaperoned, and denied — is the most powerful force I know how to write.
Cliff Lovette is a father, storyteller, and dog lover living in Sandy Springs,
Georgia. For over 40 years, he practiced entertainment law, serving as Senior
Vice President at LaFace Records and representing artists including Usher and
Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. His passion for bridging historical divides led him to
co-produce a groundbreaking reconciliation event between descendants of
Buffalo Soldiers and Lakota Native Americans. In 1990, when Bobby
Liberman—road manager for the first privately owned Soviet circus
touring America—became his client, Cliff discovered the true story that
inspired this debut duology.
