C.L. Gibson's Blog
July 17, 2020
Second book in The Devil’s Rules Series coming soon!
I’m currently seeking Agency Representation for The Grudge; When the prey becomes the predator.
Psychological Thriller
Here’s a taste: https://christilgibson.com/the-devils-rules#3aff7f17-f4a2-430c-809d-d51ca2392928
There’s a secret buried deep in prairie soil where four women suffer the cycle of domestic abuse.
It’s 1978. In a mansion sixty miles west of Chicago, a man and his wife are found dead. Ruled a murder-suicide, the house is sealed tight as a coffin, locking the remains of their domestic violence inside. Nothing is removed, except the bodies.
Eighteen years have passed, and Clarissa Trenton, the daughter, and only heir to over 9,000 acres of emerald-green fields, returns to the stately home where her father and stepmother died.
A tightly woven backstory reveals what led up to the deaths of the Trentons, and coincides with Clarissa’s return. Clarissa opens the mansion to the realization that her parents’ deaths weren’t the result of murder-suicide. It was a cruel, well-planned homicide. The murderer is close. Watching. Clarissa’s prepared to find the murderer before the predator returns to kill her. She hesitates, ensnared, and is grossly underestimated. Then the prey became the predator.
The Grudge is a standalone novel in The Devil’s Rules series of seven standalones. Its soul is envy. In the Devil’s game, the rules to win are to endure each of the seven deadly sins. Previously published is The Urge, and its theme is lust. Characters do not crossover in this series, locations do.
Currently seeking agency representation for this psychological thriller perched on the fence-post of horror. The Grudge: When the prey becomes the predator, an 89,000 word novel showcases the power of women living in the midst of abuse.
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July 11, 2020
Then came 2020
Let’s go back to December 2019 to answer the question of why you haven’t heard from me in eight months.
December second, my husband, Dean, and I were coming home from our Thanksgiving trip at our oldest son’s home in Dallas. The week prior Dean was having horrible indigestion, but wouldn’t go to the doctor.
“I’ll go when we get back,” he’d said.
He sucked down Mylanta like water from a gushing spigot. We went to Dallas. We had fun, but he wasn’t feeling right. Driving home, I became sick with a strange bronchial virus like nothing I’ve experienced. It hit fast and hard. Called the doctor on the drive home. Got in the next day. Got medicine.
That night Dean wanted to go to bed. Instead we went to the hospital. For him.
I was sucking down cough syrup while he’s having a widow-maker heart attack. An ambulance rushed him from the small rural hospital to a larger one.
Racing behind the ambulance, Christmas lights flew by my window. Holiday songs sprang from the radio. I’ve been here before, 2014 following the helicopter carrying my mother to the hospital. Same time of year. Same music. Same lights. Mom died.
Not again. Not Dean. Not again.
Dean was coded. He came back and went into surgery with two minutes, yes two minutes they said, to live. His LAD was blocked 99.9% and further down 88% blocked. Two stents in that valve saved his life. I could breathe again, although labored.
Into ICU for recovery. Immediately pulmonary complications set it.
All the specialist said, “We have no idea what is causing this.”
Who would’ve thought a heart attack was the least of our worries. Lungs are frightening organs. It was a lung whiteout. ARDS of BOTH lungs. I didn’t know that was a thing. It is. You don’t want it.
He tried to leave three more times, was coded, and came back. I lived with him in the Intensive Care ICU for the month of December 2019, learning, watching the nurses, the doctors. I couldn’t leave Dean, my husband of thirty-seven years. Wearing the same jeans, shirt, underwear that walked me into the first emergency room on December fourth. I could smell myself coming.
The loving, caring, amazing nurses at Northwestern Delnor Hospital arranged for me to shower down the hall. No makeup. Crazy hair. Didn’t care, I was clean. I bought a couple shirts at the gift shop. My eighty-nine-year old father, and our wonderful neighbors visited Jag our Akita, and Chicago the cat four times a day. Feeding them. Loving on them. I thank God for these people. They shoveled snow from our lane, walks, back steps so Jag wouldn’t slip going outside. Friends brought me toothpaste, a toothbrush, and snacks, although I don’t remember eating. Then my closest friend, Patricia Childers, came to Dean’s room pulling a rolling suitcase filled with clothes, shampoo, toiletries, slippers, pajamas, and underwear. I’m blessed to have these people in my life.
My three siblings were invisible. No calls. No visits. No shit. My father couldn’t bear to come to the hospital, it was too hard. Too fresh, too similar to losing my mother, his wife, just a few years before. He did what he could to help. He showed his love by taking care of my furry family at home.
Except the few times friends came, for the month of December I was alone in the room with my dying husband. His arms turning black with lack of oxygen to organs. Oxygen machines chuffed. His ribs expanded, contracted with each death rattle, searching for air. Alarms sounded constantly. A deep haunting, black symphony.
Our sons couldn’t come. One was in South Korea, the other we’d just left in Dallas. I was alone. Alone fighting death, pushing it out of the room. Blocking the door. Death moved from room to room. Cardboard coffins rolled past Dean’s room.
I washed his hair. Cleaned his body. Brushed his teeth. Preserved his dignity. I researched the medicines he was given, talked with specialists, all the while fighting with the VA to make them cover his medical costs. Dean’s a 100% (actually 240%) disabled Vietnam Veteran.
Just weeks before his heart attack we’d received a letter from the VA that read they were discharging him from the VA Cardiology Clinic. They’d determined his cardiac condition was stable. Odd decision considering his LAD valve, the widow-maker, was packed with seconds to close. Apparently the VA ignored that prevalent valve, which is right there in front, for all to see. Once I mentioned that letter, the VA was very cooperative.
I slept two hours a day. Not in a row. A catnap here. There. Life support came. Thirty-six hours, watching, waiting, revealed the color of hell. Its hospital gown green.
Our son from Dallas came, but had to leave. Dean told our son in South Korea not to come. Dean remembers nothing from the ICU, or that conversation.
The room filled with doctors, nurses. “I’m sorry. We don’t know what this is.” Again with that. “To find out, we have to intubate him. But.” And here was the kicker. “He will never be able to come off the vent once it is inserted.”
“We’re not doing that and I don’t give a shit what is causing it,” I said. “I want him to live.”
“You need to prepare yourself.” Somewhere in that conversation the words hospice care emerged.
No, my mind screamed. The room emptied. The nurse came back. “Say it again,” I said. She did.
A young doctor came in urging me to let them insert the useless vent that wouldn’t save my husband, just extend this hellish nightmare.
“What’s your first name?” I asked that doctor. He flinched as if I’d slapped him.
“Uh, it’s Nathaniel,” he said. “Why?”
“If you’re going to come in here and give me the worst news of my life, I need to know your name. My name is Christi.” I pointed to Dean. “That is Dean. We’re people, not numbers, not specimens.”
That doctor left. A nurse came in. “You’ve been so brave,” she said.
“Give me another option and I’ll take it.”
Sliding under tubes, again I climbed into bed with my husband and held him. “Don’t leave me now. Please don’t leave,” I begged.
It’s coming on Christmas. I wish I had a river. Joni Mitchell sang it. I felt it, and looked for that river to skate away on. There was none.
Dean came back.
“It’s a miracle,” the pulmonologists said.
It was. I took my husband home. Struggled to get him up the front stoop. Eight months have passed. He’s still on oxygen, steroids, a plethora of pills, and injections. I’ve become his caregiver. I had no idea the depth of this job. For better. Or worse. We’ve had the better. I don’t like the worse.
Send light and love to caregivers. They need it, along with clean clothes, toothpaste, and coping skills.
Now we know what ‘that’ was. Covid-19. For those in the backrow, the 19 means 2019 when we were in the hospital. It didn’t come to the USA in March. It was here, long before, banging on the door of Dean’s hospital room.
As of today 137,347 souls have left the United States of America, carried away by this disease. Each one is a person with family, hopes, dreams. They are not numbers, not specimens.
Dean’s still here fighting its effects. I’m still blocking the door. Holding the door. Hold door. Hodor.
Thank you for all your well wishes and hope, but if you REALLY want to help, wear a mask.
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August 12, 2019
Author Fairs are fun!
They are – Author fairs are fun.
However be forewarned.
There will not be a carousel, bumper cars, or a mouse game, but on the plus side there are no creepy clowns either.
Ahh, wait.
I did meet a few rather dicey folks at an author fair, or two, that could have qualified in the clown category.
It makes the fairs more interesting. Who doesn’t like a well-dressed bag lady that slings profanity at you, then proceeds to steal a book?
That didn’t happen at the DeKalb Public Library Fair last week. It was a beautiful setting, with extremely pleasant people. And I want to thank all that attended.
Please check out my upcoming events. Next week I’ll be at the Elmhurst, Illinois Public Library. Come and see me.
We can only hope this one has a mouse game. If there is, you’ll find me with the mice, throwing down quarters.
See you there!
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January 25, 2019
January 10, 2019
December 20, 2018
Go Stuff Your Stocking
Thanksgiving to Christmas is pressing time. Not a pressing time. Pressing time.
I’m on my back. A two-by-four covers my body from chest to feet. Boulders drop one, after another, after another onto the board. It’s a mammogram and I’m the flattened breast. I can’t breathe. Finally Joni Mitchell singing “River” comes from the speakers and takes me there, to the hospital, next to her bed. And the sobbing begins. Again, and again, and again.
That’s my happy holidays since my mother died December 12th, four years ago. My best friend. My confidant. My champion. Gone.
Thanksgiving of 2014 was her birthday. We celebrated, feasted and ate cake. Ten days later “a date which will live in infamy,” as Franklin D. Roosevelt said, was the last day I looked into my mother’s eyes, and she looked back. Her beautiful gray eyes met mine as her love rushed into my soul, and she squeezed my hand for the last time.
She’d had a massive stroke, been air-ambulanced to the hospital, and moments after that last squeeze, she left.
Her body remained, breathing on its own, but she wasn’t there. Dad stayed in the room with her body, hoping she’d come back for it.
That was Sunday.
Driving back and forth, to and from the hospital, Christmas carols resounded from the speakers. Colorful red, green, white, and blue lights lined the streets, draping houses, dangling from trees, and lighting my path to and from. From and to. Back and forth.
Friday at nine p.m., Mom decided that was enough, turned off the lights, and left.
Christmas cards weren’t sent. Cookies weren’t made. There was a tree, and lights draping the house. But that was only because they’d been put up Thanksgiving night. Ten days before “a date which…”
Christmas was growing closer and a funeral was being planned. The next Friday, the 19th, she was lowered into the ground.
Happy fucking holidays. They say time heals all. To that I answer, go stuff your stocking.
The load hasn’t lightened, but my tolerance has strengthened. I’m coping.
I’m making cookies and baking bread. It’s the first time, since…
But I want you to know, it’s still pressing time. The boulders are on the board, on my chest.
Oh I wish I had a river…
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November 1, 2018
Nominated Again for Cover of the Month contest – It’s On Baby! VOTE!
If you liked the cover of my book, The Urge: Who’s More Evil, the Pedophile, or the Killer of Pedophiles? (Devil’s Rules), please vote for it for the Cover of the Month contest on AllAuthor.com!
Cover Design by Patricia Childers.
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Click to Vote! https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/3007/
October 23, 2018
The Urge chosen to be reviewed by Mary Caliendo
Mary Caliendo’s Review site is dedicated to getting out the words of those who have written them. I was just notified that The Urge has been chosen as a book to be reviewed by Mary. I’m overwhelmed by this honor, and the many, many glowing reviews The Urge has received in these short weeks since its release.
Best Selling author Les Roberts said, “WOW! It was amazing to watch the characters grow–and often fall apart. This is truly well-done, written with power and care, and is a smashing intro to the series. I look forward to the next one. Thanks for letting me experience this.”
Best Selling author Jackie Barrett said, “I read This book twice !! It’s well written and kept me on the edge of my seat . The characters and plot take you down a dark road you want more of ! I highly recommend this book can’t wait for more from the author.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY Review of The Urge, author CL Gibson “Gibson’s The Urge is a fast-paced installment in her “Devil’s Rule” series, masterfully drawing upon fear, suspense, dread, and revulsion to propel the eerie storyline. Gibson’s prose is meticulously detailed and rife with intense passages that slowly unravel characters’ secrets. Gibson capably captures the horror of discovering that a trusted coworker, friend, or partner is a sadistic pedophile. Gibson’s novel shows restraint when it comes to gore, but chilling details abound. The storytelling will gratify fans of the horror genre, as the killers begin to inevitably face their karma. The author’s idea of basing each novel in the series around one of the seven deadly sins is morbidly creative. The author is careful and successful in revealing the inner workings and emotions of violent perpetrators, while still emphasizing the vileness of their deeds.” Credit The BookLife Prize
Mary Caliendo’s “To Be Read” review site is non biased and accepts all types of genre of the written word. She reviews both emerging Indie Authors to huge well known publishing houses. There is never any cost. Mary gives the author a real and true review. For the book reader/buyer,
Mary’s Caliendo’s web site provides an insight, and recommendations for readers. Finger’s crossed that she likes and recommends The Urge.
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