Good News, Everyone!

It's a Launch Day Extravaganza!

Sunday, September 1st, marks the launch of my newest book, What The Body Needs. 

I know! I'm excited too! And I've been thinking to myself, "Self, what could you do to make this even more exciting than it already is?"

Not bloody much, let me tell you.

But then it struck me. I'll make it free on Launch Day!

I hope you'll join me over on Amazon.com this Sunday for my Launch Day Extravaganza. It's going to be great! And if anyone wants to bring drinks, well, I won't say no...

What The Body Needs: Epic Cover Reveal!

What The Body Needs has a cover! And not just any cover: a really, really, awesome one!

Thanks as always to my Epic Rockstar Designer Jesus, also known as Zen Mateyka. Because of him, my work looks way classier than it probably is.

So without further ado...

Before you ask, yes. The book really is that hot. Can't wait for September 1st? 

Me neither.

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Goals, Endings, And The Hashtag

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." -Richard Bach

At first glance, the symbol now known as "the hashtag" doesn't look like much. Unless you're a mathematician, Tweeter, or obsessive tic-tac-toe player, it's one of those keys that doesn't get much air time.

I confess, I don't use it much, either. In fact, there's only one time it really shows up in my writing.

At the end of a manuscript.

That's really just a long way of getting to this: I finished my book!

When I first sat down at my computer again in mid-March, I had some pretty ambitious goals. I wanted to write 2,000 words per day. I wanted to live a more balanced life. I wanted to finish my first draft by June 1.

I stuck (mostly) to 2,000 words per day. Some days I wrote more, some, less. As for a more balanced life, there are still clothes languishing in the hamper, and the dust bunnies have grown so big I now regard them as family pets. An unexpected, two-week vacation meant I had to revise my finish date, so instead of June 1, I gave myself until July 1.

As of July 1, I had been finished for six days.

Goals are decidedly not my strong suit. I've always been something of a free spirit (read: scatterbrained), I have a toddler who insists on being fed regularly, and there always seems to be laundry to put away.

But they have their value, even for me.

When I'm nearing the end of a book, it's tempting to rest on my laurels and coast. I can drag those last couple chapters out for weeks. Having a set "done" date in mind is just the kick in the ass I need.

Nowadays, I need all the ass-kicking I can get.

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Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Back In Black

"It's been too long, I'm glad to be back..." -AC/DC, "Back In Black"

I've missed you guys!

I haven't been on my blog for a while now- for Thursday's Children, or anything else.  I've been *gasp* working.  But that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about villains.

I'm not the first person to post about them.  I won't be the last. I wouldn't even be writing about this at all, except a strange, diabolical, magical thing happened to me recently.

My villain turned evil.

All on his own. When I wasn't even looking. I don't know how, when, or what happened. All I know is I was writing a scene for him (a late addition to the book), and suddenly, it hit me.

This is one creepy son of a bitch.

I don't know how else to explain it other than to share the scene. This is the first piece of this book I've made public, so I hope you guys enjoy it! It's a tad long, and I should probably warn you: it's not for the faint of heart.

***

It was the red hair that made him hard.

He drew the soft lace curtain closed over the window.  He loved the Bay Area.  Lots of redheads.  Sure, there were redheads other places, but not like here.  They were everywhere here.  So many to choose from.  Pretty ones, ugly ones, thin ones, fat ones.  It didn't matter. As soon as he saw the hair, it was all over.

For them, anyway.

He looked down at the knife, smoothed a cloth over the blade.  Microfiber.  He'd discovered that by accident.  A happy accident, as it turned out.  Got rid of dust, dirt, skin cells, hair.  He paused.  Maybe someday he'd get to meet whoever invented microfiber.  He wouldn't mind shaking their hand.

Not that he'd be able to tell them what he used it for.

He ran the cloth down the blade one last time, admired the serrated edge, the burnished handle.  It had taken him a long time to find it.  He'd combed through catalogues, visited department stores.  At Bed Bath and Beyond, he'd been helped by a redhead.  A petite little thing, with an ass that made his mouth water.  She'd been so friendly.  So naive.  She would have been easy.

But he hadn't had the knife.  The knife was important.  The knife was the key.

He got a firm grip on the handle, and turned to the woman on the bed.  She was blindfolded, but she must have been able to feel his eyes on her, because she flinched.  The white nylon rope that tied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts seemed to glow in the darkness.

Bedposts.  That was another thing.  The bed always needed to have bedposts.

He approached, not bothering to muffle his footsteps.  He'd done this too many times to worry.  Her mouth was duct-taped.  She wouldn't make a sound.  Even if she tried, no one would hear her.

He trailed the tip of the knife gently down her cheek, lifted a red curl off her forehead with the blade.  She jerked.

Slowly, reverently, he slipped the blade down the front of her nightshirt.  It sliced through the fabric with scarcely any effort.  He drew it downward until both sides were gaping open.  She was crying now, blind, mute, but crying; a soft, wuffling sound.

He hardened still further.  It was so much better when they cried.

The scent of her cunt flavored the air around them.  He inhaled deeply.  That was the beautiful thing about cunts.  They were greedy.  Even when a woman didn't think she wanted it, her cunt did.  And unlike women, cunts never lied.

He would play with that in a minute.  But first, he had something to do.

The knife was sharp and effective.  Almost too effective; the first cut was so clean, it took almost a minute to bleed.  But bleed it finally did.  The woman thrashed.  A panicked sound rose in her throat, disappeared into the duct tape over her mouth.  He cut her again.  Another sound.

This was too good to waste.  He slid his free hand down the front of his pants and cut her again.  And again.  And again.

He stepped back and admired his handiwork.  The woman's belly and breasts were covered in neat, artistic gashes.  The sheets on the bed were soaked red.  Beautiful red.  Why did it always come back to red?

He crouched between her quivering legs.  Unzipped his fly and freed himself.  Glanced down.

Good.  He was still hard.  After the first time, he'd had some... concerns... over his performance.  After all his careful planning, to discover he was pushing rope wasn't just frustrating.  He'd gone there to offer himself to her.  To show her how much she meant to him, how much she'd always meant to him.

Instead, he'd been humiliated.

Fury welled up in his chest.  Underneath him, the woman screamed, cried, fought to buck him off.  Between the blindfold and the duct tape, she was as good as faceless.

Which was perfect.  It meant his imagination could give her the face of the woman he really wanted there.

Jak O'Mara.

He settled in and proceeded to punish her.

###

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Into The Breach, Meatbags...

 
Happy Launch Day, everyone!  All That Glitters is now available for purchase on Amazon, as well as in multiple formats on Smashwords.  

Thank you all for your love and support.  I can honestly say I couldn't have done this without you!  Enjoy!

Ava Faraday has spent her life running- from love, from her past, from herself. Now she has only one place left to go: home.  She arrives in Nome, Alaska determined to make a fresh start.  With no other options available, she joins the crew of her estranged father's dredge, and does her best to learn her new- and dangerous- job before she dies trying.  The last thing she needs is to fall in love.

Gold dredger Ethan Calhoun has struggled to put the ghosts of his own troubled past to rest.  After five long years as an outsider in Nome, he's finally made good.   When Ava comes to town, she stirs up feelings in him he can't control, and isn't sure he wants to.  The closer they become, the more Ethan wonders: will those feelings destroy everything he's worked for? 

In Nome's dredging community, loyalties change, and trust is anything but guaranteed. When they are faced with a common threat, Ethan and Ava realize they must work together to survive.  Can two lifelong runners trust each other?  Can they convince each other- and themselves- that love is worth the risk?

Excerpt from All That Glitters

Even her suitcase was conspiring to make her life hell.

Ava Faraday stared down at the jumbled mess of clothes at her feet.  Then she glared at the now-useless latch on her weathered carry-on.  Who had ever heard of a suitcase lock springing open like that?

She fought back the hysterical, helpless laughter that threatened to bubble out of her.  She hadn’t even been back in Nome for a full day, and already things were going sideways.  Flashing her underwear collection to half the town’s male population was hardly the homecoming she’d had in mind.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Ava began collecting her clothes.  It was all she could do to ignore the wagging eyebrows and not-so-subtle whistles from the men working the docks around her.  What the hell was she doing here?  It had been years since she’d considered coming back.  She’d convinced herself there was no point; everything she wanted lay in front of her, not behind.

Ava swiped a strand of black hair from her eyes.  It was that damn letter.

She hadn’t been surprised to find out her father was in trouble.  She couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t needed to borrow money from someone or the other.  And she hadn’t really cared.  Lord knew she didn’t owe him anything.

Yet here she was, in a place she didn’t know anymore, looking for a man she wasn’t even sure she’d recognize.  Something about that letter had drawn her back.  Maybe it was the tone.  Maybe it was the memories it conjured up.  Not all of them were bad.

Then again, maybe she was just out of places to run to.

Ava straightened and looked around her.  The piercing blue of the water in the harbor bled into the horizon.  The sky was nearly black with guillemots, their blood red feet flashing as they looped and dove.  She’d never quite gotten over leaving this place.  She carried it all with her, in the faintly native shadows of her face, in the darker recesses of her soul.  She’d left too suddenly, and she’d always felt like there was a piece of her inadvertently left behind.

Now was her chance to find it.  When she did, she'd finally be able to leave Nome for good.

Ava shoved the last of her possessions back into her suitcase and took a brief visual inventory.  It looked like everything was-

Wait.

Her cheeks reddened.  She tried to seem nonchalant as she looked around.  Of all the things to be missing…

“Lose something?”

Ava froze.  The deep, honeyed drawl reverberated through her.  She hadn’t known it was possible to actually feel someone’s voice.  Her nerve endings hummed.  She stood, and found herself eye level with the finest chest she’d ever seen.  She swallowed hard against the irritating flutter in her stomach, and looked up.  A pair of bright gray eyes twinkled back down at her.

The man was built like someone who worked for a living, broad and strong.  Under his weathered baseball cap, his sandy blond hair was slightly shaggier than was strictly respectable.  His face looked like it had been chiseled out of the same granite as the breakers in the harbor, and his lips-

Ava tore her gaze away from his lips, but not before she caught the edges twitch.  Heat flooded her face.  She opened her mouth to speak, when a flash of red caught her eye.

Dangling from one of the man’s long, perfect fingers was a pair of red lace panties.

“I’m afraid these aren’t really my color.”

### 

Available for purchase on Smashwords and Amazon

The Out-Of-Town Preview...

 

 Excited to report the amazon.com preview for my novel, All That Glitters, just went live!  Come on over to read the whole first chapter!

All That Glitters Preview

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Okay, so maybe Julius Caesar's "I came, I saw, I conquered is a tad melodramatic for a blog title, but it's how I'm feeling right now.

I finished my book!

I mean, technically it's only the first draft, and technically I still have a lot of work to do before it's ready to see the light of day, and technically there's no real guarantee it'll ever go anywhere, but...

I finished my book!

Way huge, folks.  I mean, way huge.  This is the first book I've ever started that I've finished, which considering the number of books I've started, represents a major milestone for me.

Come to think of it, I've had trouble finishing most things I've started in my life.  I'd always convinced myself it was because I was such a "free spirit".  While that's probably partially true, I don't think it's the whole story.

I think what it really comes down to is direction.

Specifically, the fact that I never really had any.

I've kind of floated through my life for as long as I can remember.  I always knew that "conventional" jobs and education and relationships weren't really for me; unfortunately, that left me with a lot of "maybe"'s, but nothing really to work for.  I mean, it's easy to figure out what you don't want.  What's harder is finding what you do.

That's not to say there aren't constants in my life.  I have a wonderfully kind, blessedly patient husband who is my absolute rock.  I have an ever-expanding circle of friends who are way cooler than I probably deserve.  And I have a sweet, supernaturally gorgeous baby son.

It was actually when I found out I was pregnant that I realized my approach to life had to change.  My then-current approach had been working all right, but it was incredibly unstable.  And I couldn't afford to just bounce from job to job anymore; I had to start thinking about an actual career that could work for us as a  family.

No pressure.

Fortunately, Nature gives us nine months to get our shit together, so by the time our son was born, I had more or less cobbled together a plan.  Basically, to write like hell, finish a book, and see what happened.

I realize that doesn't sound even remotely like a plan.  But it was as much of a plan as I've ever had.

Along the way, I've fleshed it out a little.  Now my plan isn't to just finish the one book, it's to finish lots of them.  And sell them.  And create my own brand, and market that to people who might be interested, and reach out and find as many of those people as possible, and... and...

Basically, instead of my plan being a nuclear bomb, it now resembles more of a shotgun blast.  Still a bit out-of-focus, bordering on haphazard, but growing clearer and more precise by the day.

And I finished my book, which means it's already working.

200-Page Party!

This is big for me.  Today, my manuscript reached 200 pages!  Even though I still have a few chapters to go, already this is the longest, most complete piece of work I have ever done.  All my previous writings usually fizzled out at around page 50.

So to celebrate, I decided I'd post my synopsis of the book, as well as the customized playlist I've been writing to.  This is about as much as anyone's going to get out of me until the book's finished, so enjoy!

The Synopsis

It's taken him five long years, but Ethan Calhoun has finally paid off his gold dredge.  In a tough town like Nome, Alaska, dredging is one of the toughest ways to make a living, but Ethan's a tough man.  With plenty of hard work and a little luck, this summer is looking to be his most profitable season yet.

The arrival of Ava Faraday catches him right between the eyes.  Ava is tough, beautiful... and the last thing he needs.  Ethan has worked hard to put his difficult past behind him, but when he's around Ava, he's forced to face a side of himself he'd tried to forget.

Ava has long convinced herself she's better off on her own.  Exiled from what was once her home after the traumatic death of her mother, she's learned the hard way that people can only be relied on to do one thing: let you down.  She's spent most of her life adrift, doing what she can to survive, but lately it's become increasingly clear that all she's doing is spinning her wheels.

An unexpected cry for help gives her the excuse she needs to return to the only place she ever really belonged.  But what is supposed to be a fresh start is complicated by her inescapable attraction to the charming Ethan Calhoun.  He's gorgeous enough to be tempting- and just kind enough to be dangerous.  Wary of her overwhelming desire to trust him, and unwilling to risk her fragile heart, Ava knows the best thing to do is put as much distance between them as possible.

But a storm is brewing.  The son of Nome's most successful dredging family has been watching Ethan, and he doesn't like what he sees.  How dare an out-of-towner start scooping up gold on his turf?  With the help of someone on Ethan's own crew, he has a plan to get rid of Ethan- and Ava- for good.

The Playlist

You can tell a lot about the storyline of a movie based on it's soundtrack.  What does this playlist reveal about the book?

1) "Flower", Moby
2) "Gold In These Hills", Brandon Michael Kinder
3) "Cold Hard Bitch", Jet
4) "Witchy Woman", The Eagles
5) "Black Magic Woman", Santana
6) "Stormy Blues", Billie Holiday
7) "Tumblin' Down", Jenna Andrews (Quick Note: if you want to know what Ava Faraday looks like, find a picture of Jenna Andrews; I based Ava's appearance off of her!)
8) "One Of These Nights", The Eagles
9) "Black Cat Bone", Lee Rocker
10) "Heartache Tonight" The Eagles
11) "Runaway", Bonnie Raitt
12) "Luck Of The Draw", Bonnie Raitt
13) "Mystery", Indigo Girls
14) "Wonder", Megan McCauley
15) "Trouble", Pink
16) "Fuel", Metallica
17) "Reindeer Herding Song", Pamyua
18) "All That We Let In", Indigo Girls