Alice Orr's Blog, page 22

Why I’m Counting Down to Summer – Riverton Road Monday

It’s all about the learning curve – or at least a lot of it is about the learning curve. And independent publishing has a steep one. In fact getting my own books out there is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

A Wrong Way Home is out there in the world right now. I needed my ice axe for scaling that mountain because it was almost vertical and sometimes I felt cold and alone and desperate for a toehold. I slipped – meaning I made mistakes. So many that I’m releasing a revised version later this year. But it will still be Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series – Book #1.

A big thing I learned on this curve climb is that it’s a good idea to write a series. Current wisdom is that readers love reading a series. What’s most important to me is that I love writing a series. I live in Riverton as surely as my characters do. When the Kalli family sits down to dinner I’m right there with them putting my two cents into the conversation then writing it down.

Book #2 – A Year of Summer Shadows – was even more fun to write. I’m hooked deeper in than ever. I want to order a scone at Ginny’s Coffee Corner. I want to stroll around the Promenade in the July sun. But most of all I want to save these people I’ve grown to care so much about from the dangerous force that murders Finley Yates in the Prologue and is hell-bent to kill others too.

Plus there’s Mark and Hailey’s love story. I’m reminded of an old song. “If you don’t believe I love you look at the fool I’ve been. If you don’t think I’m sinking look at the hole I’m in.” These two could sing those lines to each other on every page. Or we could sing those lines for them as we wonder how they can possibly get as together as we want them to be.

Now I’m wondering how I’ll stand the wait until June 22nd. That’s a big day for me. A Year of Summer Shadows launches – along with summer on June 22nd. I’ve got a lot more climbing up that steep learning curve before then. The most precarious part is getting the word out that this launch is happening. The first step on that path is telling you about it here.

I’ll edge out further onto a perilous perch and ask if you’d like me to send you an Advance Reading Copy so you can review the story on Amazon and Goodreads. Wow! Am I in danger of falling off this mountain Orr what? If you’re interested just email me your regular/ground mailing address at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. I’ll send you the print version and sign it too.

I’m suddenly feeling a bit oxygen deprived from the altitude and I need to save my breath for counting down. One day. Two days. Three days. Before I know it June 22nd will dawn. It will be the second morning of summer and the first day A Year of Summer Shadows steps all the way off the ledge into the world. I’ll be there. I hope you will too. Mark your calendar please.

RR

Forgive me for mentioning one more time that my next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launching with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr and on other digital platforms too. This is my lucky 13th novel.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

 

How I Escaped Chapter 29 – Ask Alice Saturday

Question: What can I do when my story gets stuck?

 Answer: I’ll tell you what I did. It happened in Chapter 29 of A Wrong Way Home. I was in trouble. This was the first book in a series and if I couldn’t make this story work I couldn’t make the story work. Still I was worse than stuck. I didn’t want anything more to do with Chapter 29.

The demon in my head even suggested I didn’t want anything more to do with the whole damned thing. The book – the series – all of it. I’d come all this way. I’d written 28 chapters but it was simply getting too hard. That was the theme of my whining anyway. So I tripped into something I do too easily – the avoidance dance.

I decided our bedroom must be rearranged. Heavy furniture needed moving so I recruited my husband. He had no idea I was really avoiding Chapter 29. An important step in the dance is not to tell anyone you’re doing it. After 42 years together my husband knows it’s sometimes better just to go along with things so he hefted the heavy stuff.

[That’s us on our hippie wedding day all those years ago. We weren’t moving furniture or avoiding because we were too busy dancing.]

Back to my story. The bedroom did look better and I gave hubby a hug and loads of gratitude. But Chapter 29 still loomed large on my laptop. I needed another detour. As I gazed around our newly imagined bedroom it occurred to me that we needed to be better entertained there too. Behave. I hear your sniggers. For once I’m not talking about sex.

I decided we couldn’t survive without Amazon Prime on the bedroom TV. Again I enlisted my husband as unwitting accomplice. He was more enthusiastic about this project than he’d been about moving furniture. The prospect of binge watching Ray Donovan all weekend lured him in. He took over the lengthy signup process I dread then binged away.

Unfortunately Monday arrived and Chapter 29 still lurked. I did my best to avoid my laptop. But I was beginning to feel some shame. I needed a truly justifiable diversion this time so I decided to pay the bills. There’s usually nothing I hate as much as the tedium of bill paying. Apparently I hated Chapter 29 more.

Monday turned to Tuesday but not before I developed a convenient cough in between. I told myself I had a summer cold coming on. It was August at the time. My grandmother used to say “There’s nothing worse than a summer cold” and Grandma never lied. So I downed a couple of pills that put my brain in a fog and that took care of Tuesday.

The next morning inevitably dawned and it was just as inevitably Wednesday. Hump Day. The day I had to get over the hump of Chapter 29 or give up altogether. Would the previous 28 chapters ever forgive me if I gave up? Would I forgive myself? Then I remembered that the most important writing exercise is to put your butt in the chair. So I did that.

I opened Chapter 29 and there he was – Matt Kalli – the hero even I’m in love with in A Wrong Way Home. Matt knew I’d been gone but he was only partly happy to see me back. “You have to make something happen here,” he said. “Something that kicks up more trouble between me and Kara.” She’s the heroine I also love in this story.

Suddenly the solution popped into my head. Secrets and Lies. My two favorite plot thickeners are also wonderful story movers. Have somebody keep a secret or tell a lie and the story suddenly gathers new momentum. I needed to plant a lie and a secret here. I went back to the end of Chapter 28 and started planting.

Kara finds out that Matt hasn’t told her something crucial – a lie of omission. But she’s not going to tell him she’s found out – a secret. Matt is worried about where she is at the beginning of Chapter 29. When she shows up she’s boiling angry and won’t tell him why. Kara knows why she’s red-hot mad. We readers know why. Matt has no clue.

This creates tension and drama and a “What will happen next?” feeling. That question and the suspense that come with it carry us all out of Chapter 29 at last. I’m so relieved I can’t help but have a mischievous thought. I even say it out loud. “What if all this red-hot anger in Chapter 29 turns into red-hot lovemaking in Chapter 30?”

Voila! The story is unstuck. And so am I.

RR

 I’m Alice Orr – author of 12 novels, 2 novellas, a memoir and No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells – soon to be updated and on sale online. I’m also a former book editor and literary agent. Now I live my dream of writing full-time. Plus I present workshops on writing for publication and/or pleasure. I have 2 grown children and 2 perfect grandchildren and live with my husband Jonathan in New York City. Occasionally we partner each other in the avoidance dance. This is us on our wedding day over 42 years ago – just dancing.

Find my books at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. Email me at aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Visit my website www.aliceorrbooks.com. Regular mail me at P.O. Box 6224 – Long Island City NY 11106. I’d love to hear from you.

 

Writer’s Business Plan Step #1 – Orr What? Wednesdays

When I started the literary agency that was my last profession before becoming a full-time writer – somebody told me I had to have a Business Plan.

I wrestled with that for a long time. I read books on business plans. I did internet research. The suggestions I found all felt too dry and bloodless for what I was embarking upon. I was beginning an adventure.

So I settled on a single sentence. “Let’s see how far I can go.” I still stand by that sentence. But my experience of running a successful agency taught me this. There’s more to getting where you want to go than that one thing.

Now I’ve leapt into a new professional adventure and I need a new Business Plan. I look back on my former experience and ask myself this question. “What was my finest moment and what made that moment happen?”

The moment memory comes easily. A scene at a national writers’ conference. I’m hosting a client dinner at the top of the conference hotel. Solid windows all around and a revolving floor. The wait staff know it’s to be an evening of endless champagne. We’re celebrating 24 clients nominated for national awards.

I look around at everybody laughing and chatting and ask myself this question. “How can it possibly get better than this?” That was an apex of accomplishment for me. What made it happen? One answer to that shouts out loud and clear. I worked my you-know-what off.

This answer transfers seamlessly to my current adventure as not only a full-time writer but a full-time independently published author too. This is possibly the fullest plate I’ve faced in all of my working life. I’m an entrepreneur again.

How did I manage that so well in my agent days? To some degree I made it up as I went along the same way I make up stories now. Some up-front planning. Then I stay flexible and take advantage of inspiration and opportunities when they come my way.

I also studied everything I could find about the publishing business. Now I study book marketing. I feel close to overwhelmed sometimes by how much there is to learn. But I keep on studying anyway. Plus I try new things and use my ingenuity.

I succeed sometimes. Other times I fall short.  A Japanese proverb tells us to Fall down seven times – Get up eight. I’m far past those numbers now but I keep on falling down and getting up again. I pray I can continue to do that.

All of which amounts to Step #1 of the Writer’s Business Plan. We work our you-know-whats off.

RR

My current novel is A WRONG WAY HOME – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #1 – available at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. Next is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – launching with summer on June 22nd. These are my 12th and 13th novels and I worked my you-know-what off on both of them. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

 

Plots Thicken in Mom’s Kitchen – Riverton Road Monday

Maybe this is a backhanded way to celebrate post-Mother’s Day. But I can’t help pointing out what great story complications can grow from the seeds of mother-child relationships.

In my workshops on writing mystery and suspense I often mention that there’d be far fewer fictional serial killers if it weren’t for fictional mothers screwing up their sons. Not at all fair to real life mom’s but we’re talking about make believe mom’s.

My favorite example is the super crazy and super delusional villain of Thomas Harris’s The Red Dragon. I don’t believe a writer must provide readers with a reason to like or even sympathize with an evil character. I do believe the writer must give us a way to understand the character.

A brief flashback scene does exactly that in The Red Dragon. A scene in a pantry between then young Francis Dolarhyde and his mother. The details are too gruesome to recount here. I will say that after reading this scene we recognize the genesis of the monster adult Francis to come.

The mothers in my Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series are nothing like the Red Dragon mom. But they generate story complications anyway. That’s the role of secondary characters. To complicate plot and add more obstacles the main characters must climb over to succeed.

In the first book of my series A Wrong Way Home the heroine Kara’s mother is no longer around. Still she remains a stumbling block from the past that intensifies Kara’s struggle to come to grips with the present.

The hero Matt’s mother Angela is a continuing character. She’s the matriarch of the Kalli family at the center of the series. I want readers to be drawn to her and empathize with her. But if she’s totally likable she won’t work for the story in terms of causing conflict for other characters.

Angela is a strong woman – mostly in ways we admire and her son loves her dearly. On the other hand – in a past incident he knows nothing about – Angela overstepped a boundary she should have respected. Matt and Kara are now paying the price of his mother’s intrusiveness.

BUT – the story is stronger because of it. More conflicted. More complicated. Creating more trouble for the characters we care most about. Thank heaven for conflict/complication/struggle producing mama’s.  (Find A Wrong Way Home at www.amazon.com/author/aliceorr.)

And wait until you see the plot twists two of these mothers come up with in Book 2.

RR

 A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story . Launches with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr . This is my 13th novel and there are moms thickening the plot for sure.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

 

How to Be Kind to Your Author Self – Ask Alice Saturday

Question: How can I take better care of myself as a writer?

Answer: You can be kind to yourself as a writer by changing your attitude about the hard times in your career.

You can and will make it through whatever hard times you may have in your writing career. You can make it because you have the skills and resources you need to do that. You will make it because that’s your only choice if your passion is to write and bring your writing to the world.

Your first step is to fight back fear. You must struggle against fear as relentlessly as the heroines of your stories struggle against the obstacles they confront in their journey to survive and go on to thrive in the end. Will yourself through the scary places.

Every morning say to yourself – “I will not be afraid today.” “I refuse to let anxiety infest my spirit today.”

Fight back fear by changing your thinking about now and the future – about today and tomorrow – especially in terms of your goals for yourself. Stop thinking about your goal as far away. Stop thinking of your progress as painfully slow.

That kind of thinking ends in discouragement and drains your hope. You lose what Ralph Waldo Emerson called The Power of Enthusiasm. Never let go of your Powerful Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the energy you need to fuel you through testing times.

Get your psyche on your side. See your goal as right here with you today. See yourself as progressing toward that goal today. If you see any progress at all – even a small step – then this is a successful day. A day when you’ve made progress toward your goal.

Do this every day. One day at a time. Set a goal for each day. Know what you want to accomplish that day. Make sure it’s a realistic goal. Don’t defeat yourself before you start by filling your plate impossibly full.

If you want your psyche on your side make sure your To Do List is on your side. Beware the tyranny of the To Do List. It’s the monster you create for yourself all by yourself.

Set a reasonable realistic self-sensitive goal. Pursue that goal that day deliberately – with intention without anxiety or rushing. Haste really does make waste. It wastes your ability to experience your achievements and savor them as they happen.

Do each day intentionally and well. Think of each day as a jewel on the thread of your career. Place it artfully and never underestimate its worth. Most important – never forget to admire its beauty.

RR

My next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Available May 15th at amazon.com/author/aliceorr . This is my 13th novel and I was kind to my author self the entire time I was writing it.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

A Kick-in-the-Butt Starter – Orr What? Wednesday

I haven’t been blogging much lately and here’s why. I didn’t get off my butt to do it. I was indulging myself. I needed a Kick (in the Butt) Start but I wasn’t in a kicking frame of mind.

Often when I’m doing nothing I read how-to books to create the impression I’m doing something. I finish a few chapters then they languish on my bookshelves – these days on my Kindle Book Shelf.

So I began reading How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn. The title appealed for two reasons. First I need to market my new books successfully. Second I doubt I’ll be able to market my new books successfully.

I was looking for specifics from Joanna. Social media tips. Email list building ideas. That kind of thing. I didn’t think I needed her to mess with my psyche. I didn’t want her to mess with my psyche. Consequently that’s exactly what she did.

She began by snooping around in how I spend my time. I was sure I could ace that one because – even in slough-off periods like lately – I’m a hard worker. I was about to skip time management altogether when I remembered the mantra I press on everybody else to Do It Anyway and did it.

How do I spend my time now Joanna asks? Easy question. I listed my activities plus some ways to do more. When is my most creative time? Easy peasy again. Mornings. Where do I want to be in five years? I had some fantasy fun with that one.

Finally – What would I be willing to give up to make time for writing and marketing activities? I’m not going to sell the TV but I can do social media while it’s on. Then it occurred to me to modify the question. How do I indulge myself in ways I could give up to make more time?

Especially how do I indulge myself mentally? I’m going to be very honest as I answer this question here publicly. I hope I encourage you to be equally honest when you answer this question wherever you are privately.

I indulge in brooding. Mostly about things I can’t possibly change. Like other people.
I indulge in worry. Mostly about what’s already happened and thus also can’t be changed.
I indulge in self-doubt. Mostly about what I fear I can’t do but haven’t yet tried.
I indulge in anger. Toward too many irreducible targets to list.

My indulgences occur in chunks of effort and in sporadic moments. Each one is a time waster. How much productive potential would I recoup if I quit them all? There’s a kick-in-the-butt question. Or maybe it’s a kick in the head that I really need. Come on over Joanna. I’m ready.

RR

My next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launching with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and it’s a kick-in-the-butt story for sure. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Social Media and You – Ask Alice Saturday

Question: What’s the most important thing to know about Social Media?

Answer: The most important thing about Social Media and You is this. Your Presence there. Your Presence is how you Present yourself. The nature of that Presence should be a conscious – even a calculated choice.

Ask yourself this crucial question. How is it in my best interests to be seen? That means you must first ask yourself another question. Why am I on social media? What do I NEED to get out of being there? That was two questions. I know. So sue me.

Case in point. My last snarky comment – “So sue me” – might be out of sync with the way I want/need to be seen – the Presence I intend to Present. I’m on the internet mostly as a book author. I want to attract people to me. In turn I hope they’ll be attracted to my books.

I want/need to be likable/approachable/pleasant. Somebody you’d enjoy a chat with. Snark may not accomplish those ends. Snark could turn some people off and I must think about that. The point is that I must be what we now call Intentional about such choices.

You should be Intentional too. You might ask “Why bother?” And I would answer “Because of visibility.”

Social media isn’t a peephole only accessible to your chosen friends and followers. Social media is an unbelievably wide picture window. All it takes is Google and your name for anybody and everybody to look through that window at you.

They may be casual browsers or prospective employers or potential consumers of your work. What they see through the world wide web window is the Presence you Present. So you must think very seriously about what you want and need that Presence to be.

If you want/need to be seen as a political firebrand – or any brand of firebrand – rant away. If you want/need to be seen as a sex pot – vamp away. I’ve got no dog in your fight. I’m just advising you to make a savvy and considered choice regarding what breed your dog will be.

Social media as I see it isn’t a come-as-you-are party. It’s a come-as-best-suits-your-agenda party. Is that manipulative? You can bet your pugilistic pooch it is. Oops! Was that me being snarky again? Must be that’s an aspect of the Presence I intend to Present.

RR

 My next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Launching with summer on June 22nd at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and it is full to the brim with the Presence I intend to Present.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Home Is Where the Heart Is – Riverton Road Monday

In my adult life I’ve done a lot of what the English refer to as “moving house”. I can’t blame my birth family for my restless spirit and its long-time quest for something new wherever I happen to be. They lived in the same house from the time I was six months old until I left for college. Once the possibility of selling our gray-shingled bungalow was simply mentioned and I cried my eyes out for days.

What is Home anyway? We talk a lot about it. We’re forever searching for one or running away from one or missing one so much we’re stricken with Homesickness. All of which is pretty intense. We’re never lukewarm about home. We either burn to be there or yearn to get away. Anywhere that falls short of that kind of passion for us is just a resting spot. A temporary stopping-off point on the road to our heart’s true destination.

That’s part of what fascinates me about Mark Kalli and Hailey Lambert in A Year of Summer Shadows. They are and always have been Home in terms of the town they live in at least. The town of Riverton, New York. Mark was born and raised on Riverton Road at Kalli Corner in the same homestead with only a few years away for college. But in this story – his story and Hailey’s – Mark finds his own restlessness. To find his own new heart place near Kalli Corner and Riverton but separate from it too.

Hailey’s relationship to home has a more complicated past. As a child home was two places. Her family’s place and her friend Julia’s more stately Hargate House until that went sour.  Her father died soon afterward and her mother lost her bearings. Hailey didn’t feel at home again until she returned to Riverton after her own college years. She’s lived by herself ever since and would be content to go on doing so if not for the confusion Mark Kalli has become and the danger Julia’s reappearance brings.

What remains constant about Home for Mark and Hailey is their love of Riverton. I love Riverton too. The details of this town aren’t just the specifics of Mark and Hailey’s heart place. They’re the specifics of the heart place of my Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series.  Riverton, New York isn’t only where the stories happen. It is another character in the stories themselves. Riverton’s as real to me as the people who live there and the struggles they go through. And Riverton grows more real with each story of this good town where bad things can and do happen.

Riverton is more than the home of Mark and Hailey and all the rest. It’s the heart of this series because we grow to care more about the place as we travel through each struggle and adventure that erupts there. As we care more the place becomes more real to us. Until – at least in our imaginations – Riverton evolves into a town we can also call Home. I know that’s true for me. After a lot of moving house – when I roam through the streets and mysteries of Riverton I’m Home.

 RR

 My next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Available May 15th at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and a home for your heart as well as mine.

  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

 

 

A Handsome Hunk of Beef – Orr What? Wednesday

A Recipe for Writers (But civilians can try it too)

This is my husband Sweet Jonathan – foxy at the fence. The recipe is one of his favorite dishes other than me of course. I can smell it slow cooking now. Set up in the early a.m. so I can simply flip the switch later on. In between – because I’m a writer – I compose a sexy scene. Handwritten for a more sensual experience.

Ingredients:

Approximately 3 pound bottom round roast (or another cut if you prefer).
1 large onion peeled and cut in half-inch slices
1 ½ tsp. each cinnamon, paprika, garlic powder.
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 package onion soup mix
1 cup beef broth or bouillon

Instructions:

Mix together cinnamon, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
Wash beef in water and pat dry with paper towels. Rub beef all over with cinnamon etc. mix.
Heat olive oil in skillet to sizzling. Brown beef on all sides 2 minutes per side.
Place onion slices in a layer to cover the bottom of your crockpot/slow cooker.
Place browned beef on top of onion slices.
Combine onion soup mix with broth or bouillon.
Pour over beef in crockpot/slow cooker.
Cook on high for 6 hours.
[Optional – Add peeled potatoes and carrots cut in large chunks halfway through cooking time.]

This is an author-easy recipe that pleases all the senses with its deep dark aroma – juicy tender texture – reassuring sizzle – and rich reddish-brown color. Plus it tastes delicious. At least that’s what my own handsome hunk (see photographic evidence) Sweet Jonathan thinks. Try it on somebody you love soon and please let me know what they think of this Recipe for Writers.

 GOOD NEWS!!! – This post is part of the Authors in Bloom Blog Hop. Which means there’s a prize in store. A free copy of the ebook version of A Wrong Way Home for one lucky person who leaves a comment on this post. So Comment Away and Win a Read.  Alice

Alice’s Website – www.aliceorrbooks.com
Alice’s Amazon Book Page – www.amazon.com/author/aliceorr

RR

A WRONG WAY HOME – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series  Book 1

Going home can be dangerous…

Kara Cartwright returns to her hometown the same night Anthony Benton is murdered. But she doesn’t know anything about that. She only knows she vowed never to come back to Riverton, New York or to see Matt Kalli – the man she once loved and still lusts for.

Matt has made a vow of his own. He’ll never forgive Kara, the woman who loved him then betrayed him nine years ago. And he can’t forgive himself for the way she’s stuck in his heart – and in other parts of his body too.

All these two have in common is sexual attraction and their hatred of Anthony Benton. Now Benton’s dead and people they care deeply about are suspects. That gives Matt and Kara something else in common – a dangerous search for the real killer before he murders again.

A Wrong Way Home is Book #1 in The Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series featuring the Kalli family & others who find safety & a warm welcome at Kalli Corner on Riverton Road. A Year of Summer Shadows is Book #2 in the series and launches on May 15th.

 

Hello & Goodbye to the Victim – Riverton Road Monday

A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS –  Mark & Hailey’s Story – Riverton Road Series – Book 2   Contemporary Romantic Suspense

  Finley Yates

 Finley Yates was bigger in bulk than he was in character. He’d have said that about himself with a sneering laugh, but he wasn’t sharp enough mentally to think that way. He wasn’t ashamed of the kind of man he was either. Finley didn’t bother himself with useless feelings like shame or guilt.

“Why waste your head on crap like that,” he’d say.

Finley had enough to do just carrying around a body that could fill up a closet or maybe even half of a small room. He preferred planting himself in a sitting position as much as possible, and once he got into that position he wasn’t going to use up his time or energy worrying about useless crap. He was going to put his feet up and let the punks around him do the worrying.

Finley really didn’t like to bother with dragging himself out of doors after dark on a night like this, or any other night for that matter. It might be summer, but he’d rather be indoors in his oversized chair, taking a load off in front of the TV. The news guy had been bragging about how beautiful the temperature was, but Finley didn’t care a rat’s behind about that.

Those weather jerks got all worked up about summer because this place was so far north in New York State it was almost Canada. Any weather that wasn’t a blizzard was news in this town. Summer went into winter, bang, just like that, so you hardly got to notice any fall. Still, Finley wasn’t going to send up fireworks just because it was warm outside for a change.

Besides, it wasn’t that warm tonight. Whose idea was it to meet outdoors anyway? Not Finley’s, that’s for sure. He had more sense than to come up with crap gangster movie stuff like having everybody get together in a parking lot late at night. He’d been in on enough left side of the law deals to know most of these meet-ups happened in barrooms.

He’d love to be in a barroom right now. The Tick Tock Tavern was his favorite. It was so loud in there nobody’d be able to listen in on what they were saying or anything else. At the Tick Tock, he’d be tossing back a shot with a cold beer to wash it down. Instead, he was out here messing around in a parking lot on the back end of town.

This is what happens when you do business with amateurs. You end up dragging yourself outside on a damp night, thirsty for a beer and a bump, shuffling through gravel, stepping in who knows what. He’d just as soon take off out of here right now, and he might do that. Except then he wouldn’t get the money.

A grin cut a crease across Finley’s lumpy face, and for half a minute he stopped thinking about all the stuff he didn’t like about tonight. What he did like was the money. Lots of it, in his own damned hand pretty damned soon now. He was getting a kick out of the thought of that so much he didn’t notice the low rumble of an engine at first, off to his right.

You’d think a guy like Finley would get a tipoff from somebody when the big one was coming his way. Small time connected was all he’d ever been, but connected all the same, and that meant he had ways of knowing what was going down. From day one, he’d been real careful too and never let his guard down like he was doing right now for a minute or two.

That’s all it takes to do you in sometimes. A minute or two. He’d tell you that himself, if he had time left to tell anybody anything. Maybe it was because of it being amateurs he was dealing with. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t paying tiptop attention tonight.

The bottom line is this. Finley didn’t figure out what was happening soon enough to save himself. By the time he heard the car engine and wondered why he wasn’t seeing any headlights to go with it, his ticket was punched for good.

He didn’t really feel it happen either. The bumper caught him from the side, aimed square and hard enough to knock him down flat so fast he almost didn’t feel a thing.

“What in hell’s going on here?”

That was the last thing he asked himself before the car barreled all the way over him and put him under so far he didn’t mind that in the next minute the engine revved again and the tires screeched into a tight turn then headed back at high speed toward the spot where the bloody, fleshy layers of Finley Yates lay waiting.

 RR

 My next story is A YEAR OF SUMMER SHADOWS – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book #2 – Mark & Hailey’s Story. Available May 15th at amazon.com/author/aliceorr. This is my 13th novel and the above is the dramatic opening.

  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com