Alison Kent's Blog, page 4

Easter at The Second Chance Café

Shortly after the husband left this morning to log his third oil well of the week, I started thinking about Easter food, and how our family historically has eaten barbecue. Which got me to thinking about the Easter scene in THE SECOND CHANCE CAFÉ. I made sure to time the book around it’s actual release date (I do that a lot) so Kaylie and Ten (and Luna and Mitch and Will) are all in the Easter barbecue scene at Meadows Land, the Meadows’ family sheep farm near Hope Springs. Here’s a snippet from that scene! Enjoy!

Shaking off the strangeness of the moment, she saw Ten walking toward her, a sugar cookie frosted with thick yellow icing in his hand. Flutters of unexpected delight tickled her as she breathed in, then worked their way lower to coil in her belly and burn. They made the next breaths she took a struggle, yet she held on to them anyway, digging her nails into her palms, letting the flutters fill her.

Ten said nothing as he stopped beside her, watching with her as the kids lined up at Luna’s command. She raised one hand overhead until all eyes were on her. Then with a flourishing sweep of a scarf, she brought her arm down to signal the race was on, jumping and clapping as the kids nearly mowed her down.

Kaylie was pretty sure the other woman was having more fun than the children. She bumped her elbow against Ten’s. Accidentally, she told herself, though she wasn’t sure that was the case. “Did you ever hunt Easter eggs when you were a boy? You and your brother and sister?”

He grunted. “Is this your way of getting me to talk about them? Or to find out why I don’t talk about them? Except, it seems, to you.”

“Either. Both.” It had actually been neither. She’d only been asking about eggs. But to know that he felt free to talk of them to her… Her heart tumbled at that, the honor, the privilege. She felt flushed with a satisfaction almost too intimate to bear.

Ten popped the rest of the cookie into his mouth, talked around it. “How ’bout I just say yes? My brother and sister and I hunted Easter eggs as kids.”

“That’s it?” she asked, looking up.

Brows furrowed, he looked down. “What more do you need?”

She was hungry for everything about him. His hair in the sun. His eyes on hers. His tongue flicking out to catch cookie crumbs. His Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Did you hunt them at home? After Sunday school? With the other children in the neighborhood?”

“Again. All of the above,” he said, and turned back to watch the kids as if having changed his mind about sharing things about his family with her.

Fine, but he was the one who’d opened the door. “If you don’t talk to your sister, why did you ask her to come by?”

“Because you wanted to put in a garden,” he said, shrugging as if it were obvious. “And no one knows gardens like Indy.”

He’d done it for her. Put what she needed for her café above his desire for the separation from his family even Indy wasn’t clear on—a thought that had her returning to Winton and May and the way each looked to the other’s needs first.

“Thank you,” she said, asking, “What?” when he responded with a weighty sigh.

“Nothing,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re welcome.”

She reached for his arm, tugged him to face her. “No, it’s not nothing. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He puffed out his cheeks, then puffed out a gust of air. “I just don’t want you to think it was a tit for tat thing. I’m not expecting anything in return.”

“Anything?” Oh. “Like another kiss?”

“I’m not expecting another kiss, no.”

But the way he said it… “Do you want to kiss me again?”

“Kaylie—”

She raised her chin, looked up at him, shading her eyes from the sun when it got in the way of her drinking him in…the way he ground his jaw, the stubble of beard he hadn’t bothered to shave, the curl of hair that cupped his ear because it wasn’t as long as the rest hanging over his collar.

She remembered the feel of it in her hands, the strands coarser than corn silk, and textured, like raffia, or hemp. She remembered his scent, and caught hints of it now, spicy and fresh and of the woods. His mouth had been fresh, too, wet and warm and sure. And the discoveries she’d made of his body…

She used the hand at her eyes to push her hair from her face, catching back strands stuck on her lips where she’d slicked them with her tongue. “I want you to kiss me again,” she said into the moment bubbled around them, close and fragile. “I want to kiss you.”

He said nothing as he lifted one hand, hooking a flyaway lock of her hair behind her ear. She leaned into his touch, the bubble tightening, the holiday crowd and noise and watercolor eggs fading into the watercolor distance.

She nuzzled her cheek to his hand, and he swallowed hard, his throat working around the words caught there. “You’re making it hard to say no.”

“Then don’t say it,” she said, wondering what he had done to her, because she was not herself at all.

“Time and place, sweetheart,” he finally said, as if it had taken him longer than he’d expected to find a response. “Do you think either is right?”

“No.” But that didn’t change any of what she was feeling.

“Later,” he said softly, leaning closer to whisper, “Promise,” against the shell of her ear. “You and me. No distractions.”

Digital: Kindle

Print: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Books A Million | Indigo/Chapters

Audio: Amazon – CD | Amazon – MP3 | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million | Indigo/Chapters

A #Montlake Romance RITA #Finalist #Kindle Giveaway!

I was so super excited to see Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint show so well in the 2013 RITA contest though honestly, anyone who doesn’t think Montlake titles can’t compete hasn’t been reading them. The editorial team is top-notch, whipping us into shape. ;) I have the ongoing scars to prove it, heh.

Anyhow, I thought to celebrate, I’d give away one Kindle copy of each of the four titles. To be eligible to win, just leave a comment telling me which book you’d like to have – and there should be something to interest everyone as several categories are represented. You can see the four books below, and you can click on the authors’ names to learn more about them!

Post by Sunday, March 31, 2013, 11:59 p.m. CDT. I’ll draw the winners sometime on Monday, April 1, 2013.

 

Best First Book Finalists

Crazy Little Thing by Tracy Brogan

Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance

Kelli Martin, editor

 

 

 

Forged in Fire by Trish McCallan

Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance

Lindsay Guzzardo, editor

 

 

 

Contemporary Romance Single Title Finalists

Sugar Springs by Kim Law

Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance

Kelli Martin, editor

 

 

 

Paranormal Romance Finalists

Edge of Oblivion by J.T. Geissinger

Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance

Eleni Caminis, editor

 

 

 

Romantic Suspense Finalists

Forged in Fire by Trish McCallan

Amazon Publishing, Montlake Romance

Lindsay Guzzardo, editor

Welcome new readers! This is who I am! This is what I do!

I’m hearing from many of you who’ve read me for the first time with THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE. Amazon is really good at sending out emails with book suggestions, and I know some of you gave the book a try because of that email hitting your inbox. I’ve also heard from several people that the book is a screensaver on their Kindle, so it’s reaching more readers than I ever could on my own through Amazon’s amazing marketing efforts. Yay, Amazon! And yay readers! You’re the ones making this happen, and I thank you! It was certainly not my doing that put the book in the Kindle top twenty! Yes, it’s a good book (if I do say so myself), but word of mouth and discovery are out of my hands. One reader on Twitter told me she baked a batch of brownies using one of the recipes in the book and took them to work, prompting two of her coworkers to buy the book to get the rest of the recipes! I love this so much!

A lot of you are asking about my next book, and are looking into my previous releases, prompting this post. You see, THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE is a bit of a departure for me. My previous books have mostly been sexy, even erotic, and Kaylie and Ten’s story is a much softer one. I would hate for anyone to grab up UNDENIABLE or UNBREAKABLE and be put off by the more explicit nature of those characters’ relationships.

Thing is, their relationships are just as romantic, just as emotional, and possibly even more wrenching. But because those two books in particular are billed as erotic romance, much of the conflict is played out in bed. If you enjoy the sexuality in Sylvia Day’s books, or Lauren Dane’s or Jaci Burton’s, you will most likely enjoy my previous titles. Lauren, Jaci and I all write for Berkley Heat. Sylvia and I both used to write for Kensington Brava, and shared the wonderful Kate Duffy as our editor. That’s not to say the character dynamics or even the plots of our books are similar, but the openness of the sexual encounters are. In fact, Sylvia and I wrote completely different books for Brava. Sylvia wrote lush historical romances, and I wrote gritty romantic suspense.

If you’re not a fan of the spicier reads, you might prefer my Carina Press novella, THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. It’s available digitally now, but will be released in print in the HOLIDAY KISSES anthology later this year. I also have a short story, 21 HOURS, written in the same softer vein as THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE. My earlier books, all available digitally from multiple retailers (LOVE ME TENDER, LOVE IN BLOOM, PLAYING LOVE’S ODDS) are less explicit, but those books are also older, my writing style less … refined, and maybe not as good as it is now, heh.

I love writing books with a sexier tone. I love the vulnerability of a hero whose physical connection to the heroine brings him to his knees. I love the beauty in the expression of emotions through hands on backs, and soles on calves, and mouths measuring heartbeats at the base of a neck. I love the fire in a hero’s eyes as the heroine watches him undress. I love the anticipation between two characters meant for each other who don’t learn that or understand that until their bodies show them.

My Hope Springs series, however, lent itself to a softer feel without the sexual explicitness. Luna’s book, BENEATH THE PATCHWORK MOON, and Indiana Keller’s book, THE SWEETNESS OF HONEY, will both be out sometime next year. My final Dalton Gang book, UNFORGETTABLE, hits shelves in August.

So let me invite you to check out my bookshelf page. There you can find links to all the books and novellas I’ve written, and each book’s page has an excerpt. As always, feel free to use my contact page, The Faqs, to email me with questions, and that page also has a sign-up link for my newsletter which I use only to announce new releases.

Again, thank you so much for enjoying THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE.

The Second Chance Cafe – a steal at only $4.99 for the Kindle!

THE SECOND CHANCE CAFE released on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I was busy playing Grammy to a couple of pancake-loving munchkins and didn’t have time to post. I didn’t have time to do much of anything, really, but feed and listen and entertain and supervise and referee and enjoy. (There’s a reason I had my first kid at 21. I had the energy then to keep up with his nonstop days.) Anyhow, Kaylie and Ten’s book is out in the wild. Here on the book page are links to buy it at several retailers. Only Amazon has it available digitally, but you can get a Kindle app for your tablet or smartphone or pc, meaning anyone can take advantage of the $4.99 price tag! It’s been great fun watching the Kindle rankings on this one (even though I’m banned by a group of friends from looking at reviews and rankings, heh). It’s published by Amazon’s Montlake imprint, so having the publisher also be the retailer offers a lot of perks. Also, Montlake sends flowers for first releases. How cool is that?

The book is getting some really nice reviews, and I’m so excited about this. I’ve been writing faster-paced and sexier romances for so long, I wasn’t sure how readers would receive a softer sort of story from me. So far so good. I really loved this recap at Heroes and Heartbreakers which talks about the second chances everyone in the story – including Magoo, Kaylie’s dog – receives. It’s also nice to see comparisons to Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series as VIRGIN RIVER was the book that made me want to try my hand at a story of this tone. Originally, the second book was scheduled for September, but it’s been pushed back. I don’t yet have a new release date for BENEATH THE PATCHWORK MOON or one for the third book, THE SWEETNESS OF HONEY, but I can tell you that these two books tell Luna’s and Indiana’s stories.

After the cut, there’s an excerpt showing that even in a softer romance, there can still be plenty of steam. And I’m going to pick five commenters to this post to receive a Kindle copy. Deadline to comment is noon CST tomorrow, Friday, March 8, 2013. Just leave a comment telling me how you feel about soft romances and steamy romances, and if you prefer one over the other, or if you read anything as long as the book is enjoyable.

He backed her into the wall beside the door, against the space where the refrigerator would go. The big commercial refrigerator, with half-glass doors and shelves for industrial casserole pans and bushels of lettuce and crates of tomatoes.

The spot was tall and wide and there was plenty of room for both of them to fit. He laced their fingers and raised her hands to her shoulders, anchoring her with his body, his feet on either side of hers, his thighs, too, as he lowered his head, his eyes bright, his nostrils flaring as he breathed.

She was frightened, but not of him as much as herself and the things she didn’t know. She’d been here before with boys who thought themselves men, but not with these feelings, her belly, her heart, and not with Tennessee Keller. He smelled of a day’s work and sawdust and worn cotton and a woodsy spice she’d noticed before in passing. It was subtle and she wanted to close her eyes and savor it, to remember it later when he wasn’t so near. But closing them meant not seeing him and she wanted that most of all.

His lashes were long, the same turned-earth brown as the stubble of his beard. She wondered about the hair on his chest, on his legs, in private places. His lips parted, smiling, inviting, she didn’t know. Before she could figure it out, time jumped forward and his mouth was there covering hers. He moved gently against her, soft and coaxing, the pressure of his lips imploring more than demanding, and at odds with the shackles of his hands.

The heels of his palms pushed against her, pushed her wrists against the drywall, pushed her knuckles, too. But his mouth didn’t push. It begged, and she breathed deeply and parted her lips the way she knew he wanted. The way she instinctively wanted as well.

He slipped his tongue into her mouth, softly at first then more boldly, going deeper, then sweeping harder as he learned her, coaxing her to follow his lead, to mate her tongue with his, to come with him into his mouth, to stay. She curled her fingers into her palms, her nails digging into her skin with her need to hold him, to grip his shoulders, to cup his nape and thread her hands through his hair.

She wanted more than this and her chest ached and her eyes, closed now, grew heavy with tears because she had no other outlet for the feelings bursting inside of her. Ten was here, touching her, his hands, his thighs, his chest when he leaned into her, his tongue and his lips as he loved her mouth with his.

Reality fell away leaving magic, Ten’s magic, here in her kitchen, the only sounds in the room their breathing, the tiny moans of the house, the wind through the breezeway stirring the bamboo chimes, a clutch of a whimper in her throat when he rubbed his thumbs over the heels of her palms.

He caught at her bottom lip, holding it, slicking it with tongue then finding hers and slicking it, too. He tasted of the coffee he’d last drank, and he tasted of salt, and he was warm, hot even, his lips softer than she’d thought they would be, the stubble of his beard as it rasped over her chin arousing. Her nipples pebbled, and the whimper in her throat clawed loose in desperation. The sound, barely audible, was enough.

Ten stopped, his mouth a hair’s width from hers, his breathing ragged, the brush of air as he exhaled like a furnace at her cheek. And then he released her, backing away, holding up both of his hands as if to show her she was free and he was… Sorry? Displeased with what they’d done? Regretting the way he’d pushed her and held her and taken her as if giving her no choice? Except that wasn’t how the kiss had happened at all. She’d been completely willing and involved.

Another moment, and he spun away, crossing the room to return to packing away his things. She shook off the daze keeping her pinned in place, scraped the loose hair from around her face, touching her fingertips to her mouth, still feeling him. Still wanting him. Not knowing how to tell him that when he’d been the one to walk away. She was so tired of people walking away.

“Look. I didn’t mean for that to happen—”

“Don’t.” She bit off the word so sharply, he stopped in the act of locking his toolbox and turned. Her chest was heaving. She tried to stop it, to control her breathing, but everything around her had changed and she didn’t know how. “Just don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t say you didn’t want that to happen.”

“That’s not what I said. I said I didn’t mean for it to.”

“Is that different than you didn’t mean it?”

“I meant every second.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t believe him. She was certain he knew exactly why, but that he wasn’t comfortable telling her. Or comfortable with admitting it to himself. And as much as she didn’t want to accept the truth, he’d been right to stop. She’d been angry. He’d been reacting to that, not to her. Yes, her experience with men was limited, but she knew the heat of the moment did not lend itself to rational thought.

Still, she couldn’t let it go so easily. “If you want to kiss me, then kiss me. Don’t work out your frustrations with your family or use me—”

“I’m not using you, Kaylie. This… It has, had, nothing to do with my family.”

“But you stopped anyway.”

“I stopped because things were about to get out of hand, and this isn’t the time or the place…” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not going to take you up against a wall in an empty house. You deserve better than that.”

“You kissed me because you were angry.”

His head came up at that. “I wasn’t angry. I was…aroused.”

“Oh, I thought…” She stopped, because she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking. Or if she’d been thinking at all. It had become habit, assuming the worst. She knew better, but old habits died hard. “I think I’m embarrassed now.”

“We kissed. I got hard. It’s what happens. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“No. I mean I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize why you backed off. I thought…” And here she went again. “I thought you didn’t want to kiss me.”

“How could you get that out of what just happened?”

“Because you stopped. You walked away. Because you’re over there packing your tools and I’m just standing here.” Like a fool, she wanted to add, but didn’t. The words she’d already spoken had said it loudly enough.

He dropped the roll of tape he’d been holding, watched it bounce from the toolbox lid to the floor. Then he walked to the sink and planted both hands on either side, leaning into them and staring out the window.

From her vantage point, Kaylie could see Magoo sprawled out asleep in the driveway, but didn’t think Ten was looking at her dog. She pushed off the wall, waved a hand distractedly. “I’m just going to go make sure I didn’t leave anything in the Jeep. Maybe throw a ball with Magoo for a bit.”

“You’re going to walk away? And leave me standing here?”

A flush climbed from her chest up her throat, heating her skin and no doubt turning her the color of a watermelon. “Ten—”

“No, Kaylie. We’re going to finish this.”

“I thought we did.”

He bit off a sharp curse, slammed a fist against the countertop. “No, sweetheart. We were just getting started. I don’t want you walking outside thinking anything else. Or thinking I don’t want you. Or thinking if you said the word, I wouldn’t be dragging you upstairs by the hair.”

She tried to laugh, but her heart wouldn’t let her, thumping all the air from her chest. “That sounds rather caveman.”

“I can be caveman. But I’m trying to be nice.”

At that, she swallowed, her throat working around unfamiliar emotions. Among them, a terribly unseemly longing that he show her the side of him that wasn’t nice. “I’m…not very good at this. At reading signals. Usually when I’ve had someone walk away it’s meant they’re not coming back.”

Another curse and he straightened, facing the window as he shoved both hands through his hair. Frustration poured off him in waves, and in many flavors, and she wanted to go to him but held herself back, waiting, curious. Anxiously desperate to know what happened next.

“When I kiss a woman,” he said, “or when…things get intimate, I’m there for more than what’s happening physically. That means I’m not going to walk away afterward. Unless it’s to slow things down. And sometimes that means—” he gestured toward his toolbox “—cleaning up at the end of the day. That’s all this is. I promise.”

“I was worried that I was the only one having a good time.”

He held her gaze, the line of his jaw taut, his pulse a tic in his temple, the sun through the window glinting like fire in his eyes. She thought he might be trying to frighten her off, or see that she kept her distance because he couldn’t be trusted to keep his. But she wasn’t frightened. She was full of something big and grand, and thought if she didn’t escape, she’d explode with it.

And because she was done with picking up pieces, and because he was obviously done with trying to explain, she pushed open the screen door and left him there, knowing without looking back that he watched her all the way to her Jeep, then as far as he could as she headed to the front of the house.

From there, he wouldn’t be able to see her. It was the best place for her to be until she settled the feelings he’d whipped up inside her like tornado winds.

21 Hours

21 HOURS was my story in the SEAL of My Dreams anthology. It’s available now for purchase as an individual title. The monies for the anthology, which is still on sale and will continue to be, goes to charity as explained on the SEAL of My Dreams website. The money for this solo title does not. It comes to me. ;)

If you’ve read UNDENIABLE or UNBREAKABLE, you’ll have read about Teri Gregor, daughter of Nora and Gavin Stokes who own the Blackbird Diner in Crow Hill, Texas. 21 HOURS is her story.

You can download the story at Smashwords, at Barnes & Noble, and at Amazon. Eventually, Smashwords will have the story distributed to Kobo, Sony, Apple, and Diesel, but you can get the compatible file directly from them in the meantime.

And nice cover, eh? Thanks to Croco Designs for this one!

The moment when UNBREAKABLE was born

The best parts of writing are the magical moments, those unexpected that turn a book into what an author wants it to be. The excerpt below was the magical moment for UNBREAKABLE (

Before heading from the bank back to the ranch, Casper swung once more by the house. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. Nothing in the last hour had changed. The place was still the nightmare it had been for years. Paint peeling. Shingles ripped away by high winds and branches. Weeds and rotting wood and broken windows and heinous neglect.

It was a home fit for rats and rattlesnakes, spiders and cockroaches—all apt descriptions of the woman who’d had no interest in bringing him up.

He shook his head free of childhood memories no adult should have stuck there, thinking it strange the neighbors on either side hadn’t gone to the city to have something done. Or maybe they had. Before returning to Crow Hill for good this summer, he’d only stopped by twice in sixteen years. Neither time had been to catch up.

The house had seemed an obvious place to recover after getting hung up to a couple of rank bulls. He’d stayed out of sight and mostly drunk. He hadn’t wanted anyone to see him busted all to hell. He sure hadn’t wanted any curious sorts offering to nurse him back to health, coming into the house where he’d lived to do so, sniffing around, getting all nosy and breaking out their holier-than-thou.

Snorting under his breath, he climbed down from his truck and hopped onto the roller coaster of a sidewalk, tripping once before getting his feet solid under him. Most likely, the city had finally found his old lady plying her wares in Vegas, instead of on the interstate at Bokeem’s, and told her to do something with the property before they did. As always, her solution had been to pass the buck, this time leaving him the one in a bind.

And because of that bind, if Faith was willing to talk tonight about the money he needed, because he couldn’t imagining her wanting to talk about fucking him, it might be a good idea to decide where to start spending it rather than jumping into a time-suck of a renovation with no plan. Though really. Talking about the money was easy. Coughing it up was going to be the hard part. The woman was tight with a capital T.

So tight, in fact, he doubted she’d spare a thought to squeezing out the sign he’d told her to give him—even if everything he’d seen in her eyes told him the idea of doing so heated her up. Faith was a prize. More of a prize than he deserved, for certain. That didn’t mean he’d turn her down if she offered, the Dalton Gang’s no-sisters rule be damned.

Really, though, he couldn’t see the two of them together. He was a broken down son of a bitch who owned a ranch on the edge of belly up and a house turned over and waiting to be scratched. What he didn’t have was anything to offer a woman like Faith.

Anything, he mused, but his damn fine cock, nearly losing his footing as he stepped over a tree root and into an ankle deep hole. Served him right for going there, he supposed, and hell if the inspector hadn’t been telling the truth about the grade of the lot.

‘Course since rain wasn’t an issue, neither was standing water, but cleaning the trash from the yard—newspaper, dead leaves and acorns, aluminum cans, cigarette butts, Styrofoam cups and downed limbs—and getting a tractor over here along with a truckload of soil would go aways toward making the place more picture perfect and less of an eyesore.

Set up a couple of spotlights, and he could get it done in three or four days, an hour or two a night as long as the neighbors didn’t complain about the disturbance to their peace and quiet. Though where he’d come up with a generator and fuel to run the lights since the electricity to the place had been turned off ages ago…

Why the hell did everything have to depend on money?

He’d made a good bit on the PBR circuit, blown what he didn’t spend on his gear on good times. But when he’d come back to Crow Hill, he’d poured what was left into the ranch’s empty coffers. That investment could’ve given him more than a third of the ownership, but when Boone and Dax had made the point, he’d told them to make a fist and use it.

The Dalton Gang had always been an all-for-one, one-for-all proposition. As teens, they’d worked the ranch as a group. As adults, they’d inherited the business together. Things should’ve been just peachy. He was doing what he loved best with the guys he loved best.

But money was still making a big fat mess of his life—just as it had every day he’d spent here as a kid. Even after the piece of shit who’d been his old man had split, nothing had changed, he realized, glancing up as he rounded the northeast corner of the house where he’d taken most of his beatings from that man.

And that’s when he saw the dog. Some kind of shaggy mutt, looking about as broken as he was feeling. It hadn’t been here earlier, though with the gate unhinged it would’ve been easy enough for anyone to come through. The question was why? There wasn’t any garbage for it to dig through, and there sure as hell weren’t any enticing smells of home-cooking to lure it close.

The animal had a round head, floppy ears, fur that should’ve been white but was the color of coffee and mud. It lay on the back porch, between the swing hanging from one chain and what was left of the railing, chin resting on front paws right at the edge. Its black eyes were the only part of the mutt that moved, following Casper’s every step as he zig-zagged closer.

A dog meant dog shit and one more thing he didn’t want to have to clean up. He picked up a stick, aiming to shoo the thing on its way, but had only taken two steps when the back door opened, and there stood a kid, maybe thirteen, fourteen, as unkempt as the mongrel and asking, “Who the hell are you?”

Huh. He was pretty sure that was his line.

“If you’re vandalizing, I’m the guy who’s going to call the cops,” he said, knowing he wouldn’t but watching the kid for a response. He got nothing, no fear, no attitude…just nothing. Had the kid and the dog been inside earlier? Watching while the inspector checked the outside of the house? “If you’re squatting, I’m your landlord come to collect the rent.”

The boy let go of the screen door. It banged shut behind him as he disappeared into what had been designed as a pantry and mudroom but hadn’t been used for anything but trash storage during Casper’s day. Grumbling, he headed for the steps, stopped by a growl and a baring of teeth. He didn’t retreat. He’d lost a couple of rounds today already, and sharp canines or not, he was not backing down from this fight.

“Hey. Kid. Call off the dog or I’ll shoot him dead.” He wouldn’t do that either. He wasn’t even carrying his piece, but the kid didn’t have to know it.

“Kevin,” came the boy’s voice from inside the house. The dog quieted, returned to watching Casper with those big dark eyes.

Kevin? Seriously? He climbed the steps slowly, his eyes sticking to the dog as he pulled open the door. Blowing out an audible breath, he passed through the garbage dump into the kitchen. The dog followed him, catching the screen with his snout before it banged closed.

Even without shades hanging over the windows, it was dark inside, the film of dirt on the glass shutting out what light the trees didn’t block, both keeping the room cooler than he would’ve expected to find. The floor tiles, never as white as originally billed, were now as brown as the yard.

Dishes were scattered from the kitchen island to the stovetop to the acreage of counters. Cereal bowls. A pan his old lady had used to heat Chef Boyardee and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. Beer cans. Aluminum TV dinner trays. Empty bottles of Jose Cuervo and Jack.

A box of Frosted Flakes had been knocked from the top of the fridge and torn open by varmints. Claw and teeth marks showed on the shredded cardboard and Tony the Tiger’s head. And it was quiet. Quiet like a crypt, consuming memories and breathable air and dirty little secrets. A time capsule best left unopened. Or as he liked to call it, home sweet home.

The smells kept him from getting totally maudlin. Mold and rot and urine and things once living that had to be dead. He shook it off—he’d deal when the time came—and followed Kevin, who seemed to know where he was going, from the kitchen down the long first floor hallway to what would’ve been the front parlor had the Jaynes had use for such a thing.

There he found the kid sprawled on a sleeping bag, a paperback thriller in one hand, a backpack for a pillow. Some of the odor was coming from in here. The boy could use a bath. Tough to manage with the water off, but otherwise…

Casper looked around. Kid had certainly made himself at home. Matches, a candle, a flashlight. Crumpled foil and soda cans and takeout containers that looked an awful lot like they’d come from a restaurant Dumpster.

He’d been here awhile. And with no water. Which brought to mind the question of what he was doing about a toilet, and that was an answer Casper wasn’t exactly excited to hear.

He pushed up on the brim of his hat, his hands moving to his hips. “Let’s try this again. What are you doing here?”

“Trying to read,” the boy said, his face hidden behind the book. “Do you mind?”

“And you’re doing it in my house why?”

All he got in response was silence, so he moved closer, kicked at the worn sole of the kid’s tennis shoe. “You answer me or you answer Sheriff Orleans.”

The boy slammed shut the book. “That’s uncool, dude, calling the man.”

“I’m the man you need to worry about,” Casper said, shaking off the idea of being the very authority figure he’d had his own skirmishes with in the day.

“I found the house,” he said, rolling up to sit, legs crossed, shoulders hunched. “It was empty. I needed a place to crash, okay?”

A fourteen year old should not need a place to crash. Casper might not know much, but he knew that. “You got a home? Family?”

“Would I be here if I did?”

Yeah. That’s what he’d thought. “You got a name at least?”

The boy hesitated before offering, “Clay. Whitman.”

Whitman. Casper blinked, frowned. “Do I know you?”

“You just asked me my name, dude.”

Fucking smartass. “Okay, then. One more time. What are you doing here?”

The boy held Casper’s gaze as he gained his feet. He was all gangling limbs, awkward, but a solid five foot eight. Still growing. Still figuring things out, finding his place. On his way to being a man.

“I came looking for you.”

My So-Called Amish Hermit Life

In April of last year, I wrote this post explaining why I often take extended breaks from the wonder that is the Internet. Oh, how much fun is the Internet! So much to do and to learn and to distract me from my work. Social media is the worst. Authors are encouraged to engage our readership through our blogs and Facebook pages and on Twitter. And I love doing all of that. Need a recipe? Ask on Twitter. Readers know EVERYTHING. Alas, readers are so interesting, I lose time chatting and look up and realize I’ve lost hours I should’ve spent deep in the cave of my mind. So it’s nice to find other writers recognizing that sometimes holing up in the brain cave for awhile is a good thing.

From J.A. Konrath’s annual resolutions for writers post:

Trust me, it is liberating to be free of the opinions of strangers. We all need to focus on our writing. Because the millions of readers out there don’t care about your blog. They aren’t searching for you on Twitter and avoiding your books based on the comments of others. They aren’t taking one star reviews seriously.

It’s very easy to obsess in this business. But I haven’t seen a single shred of evidence that obsession helps careers.

The thing that I have seen, over and over, is people finding success by writing good books.

I really think it is possible to make a very nice living by writing and not worrying about anything else.

We all want to believe we’re doing something good for our careers, so we abuse social media, buy ads, rigorously defend our good name, cultivate media contacts, make appearances, and celebrate our own very minor celebrity.

Let it all go. Spend your time working on your books. That’s the only thing that really matters, and the only thing you have control over.

From Chuck Wendig’s 25 Writer Resolutions for 2013 (And Beyond):

7. STOP LETTING PASSION FERMENT INTO POISON

Passion can be a paintbrush — or it can be a gun. It can be a warm cup of go-go juice or an icy syringe jacked up with blowfish toxin. Passion is a horse that either carries you racing across the sunlit plains or stomps you bloody into the mud. Creators are passionate people; they have to be. Passion drives us to do what we do. But that passion easily goes septic and next thing you know, instead of pointing it toward our work and our desires, we’re instead letting it fuel some bullshit argument or be the rope that binds us into some crass emotional tangle. Writing the next great story from the deep of your heart is so much more valuable than EGADS SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERTUBES I WILL EXPEND MY CREATIVE ENERGON CUBES ASSERTING MY SUPERIORITY.

14. FIND SIGNAL IN NOISE

We can either fill our lives with meaning, or bog it down with distraction. The latter is easier, frankly: it’s so much simpler to lose ourselves to the Internet or video games or stupid arguments or Russian elk porn. But a life of writing requires focus. It demands that we tune out the noise and zero in on the signal. Signal will save us. Noise will drown us.

From Paul Ford’s 2005 Followup/Distraction post (I found this via a Twitter link from author Jeff Abbott whose Sam Capra novels are must read suspense!):

It is a wonder of the world, the Web. I have facts at hand by the thousands about everything from the different kinds of government to the names of the stars of television shows I’ve never even seen. I’m smarter, then, with my computer on, but not much deeper. I worry that my knowledge of the world is actually growing shallower, in fact, because for every idea there are a dozen articles and Wikipedia entries to read that allow me to avoid thinking for myself. And it’s not like any of that is going away, nor will I be staying away from it. Just putting it aside for a few hours a day so that I can think without the world humming in my ear, sitting in front of my blue screen with gray text, or stretched in bed with my little portable keyboard, a working setup so bland it’s actually inspiring.

Actually, this final post is worth reading and reading and reading. There’s so much to think about (the kitten analogy especially) here and I love that this was written in the infancy of social media, proving distraction has long been an issue for those of us who need to keep our brains engaged elsewhere!

Ooh, SHINY!

So when I disappear, don’t worry. I’m still here. Slaving away. ;)

My Pretty in Pink! And Blue! And White!

One of the crazy things that happened during the last month is that my editor at Montlake left the company to pursue her own writing dreams, and I was assigned to a new editor, who was so lovely to send me the full cover of The Second Chance Cafe. If you buy the book in print, you’ll get this gorgeous wrap-around version! Of course, the front cover will be the same on the Kindle copy. I LOVE this cover so much!

Isn’t it pretty? You can read a short excerpt at this link and find some pre-order options!

Happy New Year & John D. MacDonald for 2013!

It’s New Year’s Day. As is tradition, we eat black-eyed peas and cabbage. The husband is in the kitchen with the peas in the pressure cooker and putting together Smitten Kitchen’s cabbage roll-ups (minus the parsnip because I didn’t have any, plus jalapeno and ancho peppers, feta and parmesan cheese). (On Sunday, I made Deb’s Jacked-Up Banana Bread (minus the bourbon which I did not have) and it was great! I’m noshing on a chunk while I type this!) The smells coming out of the kitchen… Mmm-mmm. There’s a reason I married this man. :) Oh, and now he’s making pecan pie (registration required to view that recipe, sorry)!

The last several months have been insane around here, so there has been no blogging, very little posting to Facebook, and only recently have I been active on Twitter after taking a break. There were SO many family things happening, immediate family, extended family, that I’ve had time for nothing but work. Almost no TV or movie watching (though we did see The Hobbit), and very little reading at all (finished The Quiet Game (LOVED all 640 pages) and am currently loving The Survivor by Gregg Hurwitz).

I’m working on BENEATH THE PATCHWORK MOON, the second Hope Springs book, and I finished UNFORGETTABLE, the third book in the Dalton Gang series. Everyone here is fine, but I’ve been inside too many hospitals lately, visiting folks following surgeries. And I did every bit of my Christmas shopping online this year because I’ve been nursing an injured knee now for weeks and walking sucks. And that sucks because I’d been walking three or four miles a day when I hurt it. And the suckage increases because this is the best time of year for walking because there is no risk of heat stroke!

While waiting for the fireworks to die down last night, I read a sample of a new romance, one by a very popular author readers love. The sample bothered me a lot. If the book was edited, it was done poorly. If it wasn’t, well, I won’t even go there. Yes, we all miss things. I don’t read my finished books for this very reason. But this was no more than ten pages, and these ten pages should’ve seen copious use of a red pen.

Obviously, this author is a great storyteller because readers eat her up, but as a reader and as an author, I want great storytelling done with clean, exacting, polished prose. I strive for that in my own work, though I know I don’t always succeed. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of my first sale, and yet I am still learning how to write with every word I put on the page. Which brings me to the piece I’ve been posting every New Year’s Day now for seven years. I love this piece, what it says about craft, about reading everything (ergo, my midnight sample) with “grinding envy or weary contempt.”

This is John D. MacDonald’s introduction to Stephen King’s NIGHT SHIFT. Enjoy!

I am often given the big smiling handshake at parties (which I avoid attending whenever possible) by someone who then, with an air of gleeful conspiracy, will say, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to write.’ I used to try to be polite.

These days I reply with the same jubilant excitement: ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to be a brain surgeon.’

They look puzzled. It doesn’t matter. There are a lot of puzzled people wandering around lately.

If you want to write, you write.

The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that would not be a useful approach to brain surgery.

Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes.

So he wrote Carrie and Salem’s Lot and The Shining, and the good short stories you can read in this book and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wretched to ever publish.

Because that is the way it is done.

Because there is no other way to do it. Not one other way.

Compulsive diligence is almost enough. But not quite. You have to have a taste for words. Gluttony. You have to want to roll in them. You have to read millions of them written by other people.

You read everything with grinding envy or a weary contempt.

You save the most contempt for the people who conceal ineptitude with long words, Germanic sentence structure, obtrusive symbols, and no sense of story, pace, or character.

Then you have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet.

Okay, then. Stupendous diligence, plus word-love, plus empathy, and out of that can come, painfully, some objectivity.

Never total objectivity.

At this frangible moment in time I am typing these words on my blue machine, seven lines down from the top of my page two of this introduction, knowing clearly the flavour and meaning I am hunting for, but not at all certain I am getting it.

Having been around twice as long as Stephen King, I have a little more objectivity about my work than he has about his.

It comes so painfully and so slowly.

You send books out into the world and it is very hard to shuck them out of the spirit. They are tangled children, trying to make their way in spite of the handicaps you have imposed on them. I would give a pretty to get them all back home and take one last good swing at every one of them. Page by page. Digging and cleaning, brushing and furbishing. Tidying up.

Stephen King is a far, far better writer at thirty than I was at thirty, or forty.

I am entitled to hate him a little bit for this.

And I think I know of a dozen demons hiding in the bushes where his path leads, and even if I had a way to warn him, it would be no good. He whips them or they whip him.

It is exactly that simple.

Are we all together so far?

Diligence, word-lust, empathy equal growing objectivity and then what?

Story. Story. Dammit, story!

Story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about. It can happen in any dimension – physical, mental, spiritual – and in combinations of those dimensions.

Without author intrusion.

Author intrusion is: ‘My God, Mama, look how nice I’m writing!’

Another kind of intrusion is a grotesquerie. Here is one of my favourites, culled from a Big Best Seller of yesteryear: ‘His eyes slid down the front of her dress.’

Author intrusion is a phrase so inept the reader suddenly realizes he is reading, and he backs out of the story. He is shocked back out of the story.

Another author intrusion is the mini-lecture embedded in the story. This is one of my most grievous failings.

An image can be neatly done, be unexpected, and not break the spell. In a story in this book called ‘Trucks,’ Stephen King is writing about a tense scene of waiting in a truck shop, describing the people: ‘He was a salesman and he kept his display bag close to him, like a pet dog that had gone to sleep.’

I find that neat.

In another story he demonstrates his good ear, the ring of exactness and truth he can give dialogue. A man and his wife are on a long trip. They are travelling a back road. She says: ‘Yes, Burt. I know we’re in Nebraska, Burt. But where the hell are we?’ He says: ‘You’ve got the road atlas. Look it up. Or can’t you read?’

Nice. It looks so simple. Just like brain surgery. The knife has an edge. You hold it so. And cut.

Now at risk of being an iconoclast I will say that I do not give a diddly-whoop what Stephen King chooses as an area in which to write. The fact that he presently enjoys writing in the field of spooks and spells and slitherings in the cellar is to me the least important and useful fact about the man anyone can relate.

There are a lot of slitherings in here, and there is a maddened pressing machine that haunts me, as it will you, and there are enough persuasively evil children to fill Disney World on any Sunday in February, but the main thing is story.

One is led to care.

Note this. Two of the most difficult areas to write in are humour and the occult. In clumsy hands the humour turns to dirge and the occult turns funny.

But once you know how, you can write in any area.

Stephen King is not going to restrict himself to his present field of intense interest.

One of the most resonant and affecting stories in this book is ‘The Last Rung on the Ladder.’ A gem. Nary a rustle nor breath of other worlds in it.

Final word.

He does not write to please you. He writes to please himself. I write to please myself. When that happens, you will like the work too. These stories pleased Stephen King and they pleased me.

By strange coincidence on the day I write this, Stephen King’s novel The Shining and my novel Condominium are both on the Best Seller List. We are not in competition for your attention with each other. We are in competition, I suppose, with the inept and pretentious and sensational books published by household names who have never really bothered to learn their craft.

In so far as story is concerned, and pleasure is concerned, there are not enough Stephen Kings to go around.

If you have read this whole thing, I hope you have plenty of time. You could have been reading the stories.

The one where I give three readers a book to read!

October 2012

Cassidy Clarke once climbed the world’s highest mountains, but after an unexpected illness ends her career she’s back in her hometown, broke and hoping for a little luck. But the townsfolk aren’t exactly putting out a welcome mat for the woman who once snubbed them in the media, despite her apologies now.

Mitch Anders knows someone has set up camp on the grounds of his plant nursery, and he’s surprised to find his sexy high school crush ducking questions about where she’s staying. Though he’s sworn to stop cleaning up other people’s messes, Mitch offers Cassidy a job and a place to stay—his place. Bedsharing optional, but definitely welcome.

Out of options and too attracted to Mitch to keep things platonic, Cassidy says yes to his offer. She wants to get back on her feet financially and start a new career. She never expects to suffer a different kind of fall, one that has her believing Mitch just might bring her something bigger and better than luck.

A Kindle copy, or a Nook epub copy. Winner’s choice. Post a comment here telling me which version you’d like by 10/25/2012 noon CST and I’ll draw three names to win.