Marie Sexton's Blog, page 8

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 30: Recap, and Looking Forward

Well, I made it through all thirty posts without missing a day. This last post will be a bit of a hodgepodge, but if you’ve followed along this long, you know that’s not necessarily anything new.

Recap

So, was the blogging challenge a success? Yes and no. Given that my primary goal was simply to give myself something to do each day, the answer is yes. The blogging challenge game me a reason to sit down at my keyboard after sending my kid off to school.

At the same time, the challenge was a failure. I hoped that forcing myself to write a bit each day would help jump-start my creativity, but it didn’t quite work. What I’ve learned is that blogging uses an entirely different part of my brain than writing stories. So although I had fun, I won’t be continuing with the “one post per day” theme.

What’s Next?

I don’t really know the answer to that.

The thing is, I announced this hiatus back in August, so to readers, it probably seems like it just started. Like I haven’t really been away yet at all. But that post wasn’t when the hiatus began. That was just when I finally decided to share it publicly. For me, this hiatus has been going on for quite some time. It started all the way back in January.

It’s scary, when I look at it that way: I haven’t written anything in ten months.

Nothing At All?

Well, no. That’s not quite true. Technically, I have three works in progress, but none of them are romances. One is a scifi adventure that I’m cowriting with another author. One is a YA adventure with dragons, as requested by my daughter. The third is a regular old (non-romantic) thriller. But despite having all these stories, only one of them qualifies as “in progress”. The scifi story is slowly moving along, thanks to my coauthor.

The other two stories are completely stalled at about 10k words, and have been for months.

So you see, this hiatus isn’t at all new for me. In fact, at this point, it’s getting a bit old. So, does that mean I’m ready to dive back in?

I wish I knew.

One thing I’ve been halfway considering is Patreon. It’s not that I need the money. It’s more that I have this half-fledged hope that the enthusiasm of subscribers would help ignite some of my old enthusiasm for writing. I could share deleted scenes, and maybe some of the little vignettes in my head (like what Cole does on Hope’s fifth birthday, or what happens when Jaime and Levi meet Jared, Matt, Zach, and Angelo). Some of my writer friends have told me great things about Patreon, but I haven’t quite decided to make that leap yet. (I haven’t entirely ruled it out yet, either.)

Social Media
Horses don’t like internet drama either.

The other part of my hiatus is my boycott of social media. Contrary to what some people may think, this is *not* because I don’t care about engaging with readers. I love talking to readers. Engaging with fans is absolutely my favorite thing in the world. The problem is, I haven’t learned how to do that on Facebook or Twitter without also exposing myself to a seething cauldron of yuck. (For a more detailed explanation of “yuck,” see this post.)

For what it’s worth, I might start using Instagram again because it’s fairly benign. I may allow myself back on Twitter sometime late in November, after the election is over. I use Tweetdeck, so it’s pretty easy for me to lock down who and what I see. And not being able to tweet during football games is driving me crazy.

Facebook is a different beast entirely. It’s much harder to screen what I have to see over there, and simply unfriending or unfollowing obnoxious people also has the potential of causing drama (something I want no part of). But believe me when I say, I *do* want to interact with readers. It’s just hard to decide if the positive side of FB (the occasional messages I get from fans) outweighs the negative (the never-ending shaming, bickering, and genre drama).

One option is to have my fabulous assistant Kelly take over most of my FB stuff, and simply have her alert me if and when a reader is actually trying to reach me. Another option is to keep my fan page, but delete my regular account. But those are only possibilities. I could also just go back to what I was doing before: mostly ignoring FB, and only logging in when somebody emails me or tags me. No decisions have been made, at this point.

What’s Down the Road?

As it stands, I have no new releases lined up. I don’t even have any ideas fleshed out. I have nothing but the WsIP I mentioned above, none of which would be published under this pen name. Does that mean there will never be another Marie Sexton book? I honestly have no idea. I could wake up tomorrow with an idea and end up with a new book out as early as next spring.

Or not.

Anything I say at this point is pure conjecture.

Things that WILL happen later this year and early next year:

Trailer Trash will be available in audio later this month. Jon Solo is narrating. He did my audio versions of Blind Space and Between Sinners and Saints , and I’m so excited to hear how it turns out. (I can tell you that in the audition, he absolutely nailed Cody’s voice.)
Winter Oranges will be available in audio sometime after Thanksgiving. This one will be narrated by Nick J Russo. The auditions were so long ago, I don’t remember anything about them, but I’m sure Nick will do great as well.
For those whose first language is something other than English, there are lots of translations down the road. I only have an exact date for one of them: Accanto (the Italian translation of Shotgun ) will be released on October 25th by Dreamspinner Press. I also know that Return will be out in Italian in the next month or so (from Triskell Edizioni). Roped In should be out any day now in French, and Trailer Trash will be available in French in about March of next year (both from MxM Bookmark). There may be more. I usually learn about the translations a few weeks before release, so unfortunately, I can’t give you any more details than that.

Conclusion

I want to thank every single one of you dropped by during my blogging challenge. Please know that I am *always* happy to hear from fans, no matter what. I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for readers. At the moment, I’m not checking FB or Twitter, but you can always email me (msexton.author@gmail.com), or leave a message here on my site.

Thanks again!

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The post 30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 30: Recap, and Looking Forward appeared first on Marie Sexton.

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 29: Something Special from Cole

So, I’ve been sitting here, racking my brain for something to talk about today. I started wondering if there was some old story tidbit I could share, like a deleted scene or something. So I went trolling through my old files, looking for something fun.

Which Book to Use?

The first version of Promises had a much different ending. Initially, Matt kept hanging around Jared, but trying to deny his attraction. He kept failing, of course, and ending up with his tongue down Jared’s throat, then sort of punishing Jared for it. In the end, Jared gave him an ultimatum and told him not to come back until Matt had made a decision. That version of the ending had some serious problems (which is why I didn’t use it), but there was one really great scene on Christmas that I regret having to cut. So, my first thought was that I’d share that scene. The problem is, I wrote in Word way back then, and my filing system wasn’t great, so I can’t find any of my old Promises scenes or notes.

Bummer.

What about Between Sinners and Saints? Jaime and Levi had about five different versions of their first sex scene before I decided on the one that ended up in the book. I could maybe dig out one of those. Maybe I’ll still do that some day down the road. But the first thing I stumbled across while digging through old files was from Strawberries for Dessert.

Cole Speaks

The thing is, I have a feeling I’ve shared this once before. I’m about 98% certain I’ve published this at some point in the past, but when I search back through my blog posts, I don’t find it, so maybe I haven’t.

Who knows? Anyway. Here’s the deal:

This photo has always been Cole, in my mind.

Back when I started Strawberries for Dessert, I kept stalling. I didn’t have the emails at the beginning of each chapter in place yet. I was writing from Jon’s POV, but found him so dry, I didn’t think it would work. So then I went back and wrote that first chapter from Cole’s POV.

When it was all said and done, Cole’s POV wouldn’t work either. He’s too wordy, and he isn’t honest enough (especially with himself). In the end, I obviously chose to use Jon’s POV, but I broke up Jon’s uptight voice by tossing in the emails between Cole and Jared. But this bit from Cole didn’t quite end up in the trash. It turned out to be immensely helpful, because Cole spilled a lot of information about himself I hadn’t quite pinned down before. A lot of the things he says in this scene came out later in Strawberries, in the dialog between Jon and Cole.

So, I’ll stop babbling, and give you the first part of Chapter 1, from Cole’s POV. (And it probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: this scene obviously never had the benefit of a professional editor.)

EXCERPT

You’ve heard the phrase “a girl in every port”? Well, I guess you could say that’s me. Except of course, darling…

they’re not girls.

Over the years I’ve had a lot of lovers in each of the cities I call home. But eventually they all settled down, or moved away, or pissed me off, or any number of other things. The variety was fun, but the truth is, I just don’t have the inclination to go out hunting up replacements. And I still have one or two in each place.

In Paris, there’s Arman and Jori. Arman’s tall and dark, and infinitely more fun, but he’s perpetually in and out of relationships. They never last. Still, I won’t be the one who ruins them, so when he’s unavailable, I call Jori. Jori’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met. Too bad he’s mostly in the closet. He divorced his wife years ago, but he’s awfully uptight. I’ve found a bottle of wine will loosen him up nicely, but really darling, we can’t ever go out in public, and it’s just such a bore.

In Phoenix, I have Darryl and Cody. Darryl’s into the leather scene. I can usually convince him to leave the whips at home. Still, he likes it rough. I love to be submissive but I’m really not into the bruises. Sex with Darryl could be an olympic event, and darling, I’m no athlete.

Cody’s ten years younger than me. He’s eager to please, both in bed and out. After sex he always hints that he could move in and take care of me. Darling, I don’t need anybody to take care of me. The truth is, I wouldn’t mind taking care of somebody myself. But Cody is clearly only interested in my money. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I do have an awful lot of it.

In the Hamptons there’s Jason and Raul. Jason’s an artist—eccentric and quite possibly insane, but always good for a night of partying. Of course, partying with him usually involves illegal substances. Once upon a time I thought that was fun. Now it just makes me feel old. I don’t call Jason much anymore.

Raul’s a gardener for a dozen houses in the neighborhood, including mine. I know it’s a cliché playing hide the sausage with the gardener, but darling, if you saw Raul, you’d understand.

Hawaii is harder. Sure, there’s a club in Hilo, but who has the energy? Besides, it’s full of students from the university, and suffice it to say those boys get a little younger every year. They may look like fun, but I find they’re too busy thinking of themselves to bother pleasing their partner. And the conversation? Darling, please. It’s just not worth it.

A few years ago I met a bartender there named Rudy. He’s twelve years older than me. He’s bald and overweight. Still, he has a great sense of humor, and he’s a generous lover. It sure beats taking home some twenty-year old.

Then there’s Vail. Well, I have to admit, Colorado isn’t nearly as entertaining now that Jared is seeing that big pissed-off cop. Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy for him. But Jared’s cute, and smart, and funny, and still in great shape. And there was never any confusion between us about exactly where things stood. Can you blame me for missing him? The older I get, the harder it is to find men like him.

I’d been back in Phoenix for three days. Kapoho, Paris, Vail, the Hamptons… and Phoenix? Well darling, home is where the heat is. Something about roasting in the desert makes me feel both rebellious and mundane. And when you grow up the pampered but forgotten child of multi-millionaires, those two things can be awfully enticing.

I’d been debating between Darryl and Cody for the last twenty-four hours. The former required sexual acrobatics, and the latter emotional ones. I didn’t have the energy for either. I couldn’t help thinking it was time to find someone new in Phoenix. But the effort involved in finding just the right partner—somebody who would be casual, but not too casual, friendly and fun to hang out with when I was in town, but not too interested in tying me down or getting their hands on my money—I just couldn’t be bothered. So you see, the email from Jared was just too good to pass up.

Cole – We were in Vegas a couple of weeks ago and ran into a friend of Zach’s. He lives in Phoenix, and he said you should look him up. Good looking guy and he seemed nice enough, as long as you aren’t the one dating his ex. I think the two of you might hit it off. His name is Jonathan Kechter.

If Jared said he was cute, I could believe it. That big pissed-off cop he lived with now wasn’t my type, but I’ve known Jared a long time, and there’s no denying he has good taste. The comment about the “the one dating his ex” piqued my curiosity too. And it solved my problem of Darryl versus Cody. So I did what any single gay man would have done—I called him.

He answered on the first ring. “This is Jonathan.”

His tone was all business, and it threw me a little, but I said, “This is Cole.” There was a moment of confused silence. My name obviously meant nothing to him and I made a mental note to send Jared a scathing email when this phone call was over. “I’m a friend of Jared’s. He gave me your number, darling.”

“My name is Jonathan.”

“Yes, you said that already.”

“I only meant–”

“I know what you meant. Jared led me to believe you’d be expecting my call.”

“He did. I mean, I am. I was.” He stopped short, and I heard him take a deep breath. I got the impression he wasn’t used to being flustered. When he spoke again, his tone was less agitated. “Jared did mention a friend in Phoenix, but he never actually told me your name.”

“So it’s okay that I’m calling?”

“Of course. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.” There was a lot of noise in the background, and an announcement being made over a loudspeaker. It was a commotion I was all too familiar with. He was in an airport.

“Is this a bad time, darling? Are you getting on a plane?”

“No,” he said. “I just got back into Phoenix.”

“Perfect timing, then. Are you busy tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Would you like to join me for dinner?”

“I…well…I have to unpack, and—” He was stalling. Whether it was because he was trying to think of an excuse, or simply because he wasn’t sure what all might be implied by my invitation, I didn’t know.

“Darling, it’s a yes or no question, and it’s only dinner. We can leave the rest open for now.”

A second of silence, and then he said, “That sounds great.”

Conclusion

That’s all for today. Only one more post remaining in my 30-Day Blogging Challenge. What happens after that? Well, I guess I’ll talk about that a bit tomorrow. Hope to see you then!

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30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 28: My Newer Contemporaries

Only a few days left in my blogging challenge, but I’ve run out of things to talk about. Yesterday, I decided I’d spend a couple of posts highlighting some of my books that aren’t as well known as my Coda books, but that I feel are some of my best work. I already talked a bit about my funky genre mash-ups (the Oestend series, and the Davlova books). But I know not everybody likes reading scifi/fantasy, so today, I thought I’d share examples from some of my more recent contemporaries.

These are all contemporaries, but I’m going to split them into two categories: “Light and Fluffy,” and “Somewhat Angsty,” with two books in each category.  

Light and Fluffy

 

Winter Oranges

Winter Oranges came about because somebody on Twitter said they’d always wanted to read a story about somebody trapped in a snow glob. At fist, I thought it was a crazy idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could make it work. In the end, it turned out to be a really fun, lighthearted book.

This is part of Riptide’s 2015 holiday collection, but I promise, it isn’t too Christmasy to read in October.

BLURB

Jason Walker is a child star turned teen heartthrob turned reluctant B-movie regular who’s sick of his failing career. So he gives up Hollywood for northern Idaho, far away from the press, the drama of L.A., and the best friend he’s secretly been in love with for years.

There’s only one problem with his new life: a strange young man only he can see is haunting his guesthouse. Except Benjamin Ward isn’t a ghost. He’s a man caught out of time, trapped since the Civil War in a magical prison where he can only watch the lives of those around him. He’s also sweet, funny, and cute as hell, with an affinity for cheesy ’80s TV shows. And he’s thrilled to finally have someone to talk to.

But Jason quickly discovers that spending all his time with a man nobody else can see or hear isn’t without its problems—especially when the tabloids find him again and make him front-page news. The local sheriff thinks he’s on drugs, and his best friend thinks he’s crazy. But Jason knows he hasn’t lost his mind. Too bad he can’t say the same thing about his heart.

EXCERPT

Here’s a quick little excerpt from early in the story, when Jason and Ben first start spending time together (but Jason hasn’t figured out yet how to hear Ben).

Ben spun around, trying to take in the entire room in all its pink-flowered glory at once. He stopped on his second turn, his wide eyes staring at Jason’s 52-inch flat-screen television. Ben approached it, his hands held out in front of him as if in awe. He turned to Jason. His lips formed the question, TV?

“You know about television?”

Ben nodded, bouncing on his toes in excitement. He leaned forward and used his hands to shape a square about knee-high, then stood up to indicate the big screen in front of him.

“Yeah, they’ve gotten bigger.”

Ben began talking again, his hands flying, his eyes bright. He talked and talked, occasionally indicating the television, seemingly telling a story, and Jason moved closer. He found himself transfixed by Ben’s energy. By his fluttering hands. By his full lips. By the utter joy that seemed to pour off of him, almost more tangible than Ben himself. He seemed full of happiness and enthusiasm, and Jason could have used healthy doses of both.

“I wish I could hear you,” he said, interrupting Ben’s flow of words.

Ben stopped, all his wild movements coming to a halt, all of him settling into a sudden stillness, his hands clasped in front of him, looking like a lost little boy. He was a couple of inches shorter than Jason, and he met Jason’s gaze with such solemn sincerity, it took Jason’s breath away. His answer was easy to predict.

Me too.

“The sheriff couldn’t see you.”

Ben shook his head. Said a word that might have been, Nobody.

Jason hoped he’d read that word wrong. “How many have been able to see you? Before me, I mean?”

Ben held his hand up in a circle. Zero. But then he seemed to reconsider. He held up one finger.

“Only one person besides me?”

Ben frowned, shaking his head, waving his hands in a futile, dismissive gesture, clearly frustrated by his inability to say more.

“Never mind. We’ll figure this out eventually.” Jason pointed to the TV. “You want me to turn it on?”

Ben’s eyes lit up, and he nodded with the same enthusiasm a kid might show if asked whether he wanted to spend the day at Disneyland.

Jason shook his head, laughing. All this worry about a ghost, and all the ghost wanted to do was watch TV.

“Okay.” He picked up the remote and brought the television to life. “What do you want to watch?”

He pulled up the on-screen guide, and Ben’s eyes went wide. Jason began scrolling through the lists, watching in amusement as Ben traced his translucent finger down the screen, reading the options. But by the sixth page of choices, his smile had turned into a scowl.

“You don’t know any of these shows?”

Ben shook his head.

“What show did you have in mind? I can probably find it On Demand or something.”

Ben tilted his head, thinking. Finally, he smiled. He spread his hands in a wide sweeping gesture, then pointed to himself, then held a hand down at knee height.

“Okay. I haven’t played charades in a while, but I can do this. How many words?”

Three fingers.

“All right. Do it again.”

Ben did, and Jason began to guess. The first word was easy. The second took only two tries. The third . . .

“All My . . . All My Short People? All My Small Things? All My . . . Little . . . Little People? Kids? Children?”

Ben bounced, clapping his hands.

“Oh my God, you’re kidding! All My Children?”

Ben nodded.

“I don’t even know if it’s still on. A lot of the soaps got cancelled a few years ago.” Ben slumped, and Jason sympathized. It’d happened right at the time when he’d started to consider taking a role on one. “Don’t worry. We have about a hundred and fifty channels to choose from. We’ll find something.”

There were more soaps left on air than he’d realized. Ben settled on the opposite end of the couch—although this time, he floated about half an inch above it, instead of sinking into it—and Jason flipped to The Young and the Restless.

His stomach rumbled, and he spent a moment debating the appropriateness of offering Ben some lunch. Common courtesy dictated that he shouldn’t eat in front of his guest. Then again, Ben couldn’t even pick up the television remote. How exactly would he go about eating a ham sandwich?

“Will you be okay here while I go shower and grab something to eat? I’ll leave the TV on.”

Ben hesitated, clearly embarrassed. He asked a question, pointing to the couch to help make himself clear. You’re coming back?

“I promise.”

You can find Winter Oranges here:

On Amazon Kindle
On ARe
At Riptide

(And it’ll be available in audio later this year!)

 

Damned If You Do

Damned If You Do is a romantic comedy about a slacker devil who’s determined to win the soul of a blind young musician named Seth. The story was inspired by the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” One day, after singing along to it in the car, I started wondering what would happen if, after that first encounter, the devil became a bit obsessed with Johnny. I pictured him going back and challenging Johnny again and again, not because he wants his soul, but because he just can’t stay away. Still, I figured it would tread too close to copyright. It wasn’t until a hippy tent revival and a bunch of snakes came into play that I figured out how to make it work.

BLURB

Soul acquisition is a drag, but if Abaddon doesn’t catch up on his quota, he could be demoted to scooping poop for the Hounds of Hell. With a deadline hanging over him, he heads for the Bible Belt, looking for the perfect combination of sweetness and challenge.

Seth is a blind musician, part of a traveling tent revival. He’s cute, mystically talented, and quotes the Bible at every turn. His soul is pure enough to fill Abaddon’s quota for months to come, and Abaddon is determined to claim it.

The problem? There’s the revival foreman who watches Abaddon’s every move. Then there’s the mystery of Seth’s many unusual talents. Lastly, there’s Abaddon himself. He’s beginning to like Seth a bit too much. Maybe Seth deserves something better than damnation.

But Hell’s agenda isn’t negotiable, and time is running out. If Abaddon doesn’t play his cards right, he could condemn both of them to the worst fate of all—an eternity apart.

EXCERPT

This little excerpt is when Abaddon goes back to the revival for a second time to challenge Seth, in hopes of winning the boy’s soul, and ends up playing back-up in the revival band.

The pace was frantic, Seth’s smile and laugh truly glorious, and Abaddon found himself laughing too, loving the wonder of the moment, as caught up in the excitement as the congregants, but his infatuation had nothing to do with God and salvation and everything to do with the angelic muse at his side. It was the most fun he’d had in years.

Zed stood at the foot of the stage like some biblical pillar of rage and Abaddon found himself laughing more, hoping the moment went on forever.

It didn’t though.

“Last time!” Seth called over his shoulder toward the choir and the drummer.

They shifted keys, driving toward the finale, building to a crescendo, and when it finally ended, the crowd cheered. The choir collapsed to their seats, fanning themselves and wiping sweat from their brows. Thaddeus stepped forward again, his arms in the air as he prepared to give the final segment of his sermon.

And Seth…

Seth turned to Abaddon and threw his arms around his neck, laughing in delight. “That was amazing!”

All of Seth’s energy slammed into Abaddon like a fist in the gut, knocking him backward. He fell into the keyboards, almost toppling over, gasping for oxygen, and Seth grabbed at him, trying to steady him. His sudden concern only made things worse. A second surge slammed into Abaddon’s senses. It was like wandering too far into the surf and getting smacked in the face with a wave. Abaddon reeled. He had to force himself to breathe and finally found his balance with one hand gripping the keyboard and the other arm tight around Seth’s waist. His legs felt like rubber.

Other parts of him felt entirely too solid.

“Are you okay?”
Seth spoke into his ear, not wanting to disrupt the service, and Abaddon pulled away a bit, trying to put an inch of distance between them, trying to make his knees work. His hands shook. He forced himself to let go of Seth. He didn’t have to force himself to smile though. He could still feel the jubilant energy their music had stirred between them.

“I’m fine.”

“We make a great team! You almost kept up.”

Abaddon laughed. “I think it’s safe to say your soul still belongs to God.” And as he said it, he felt the tiniest hint of relief.

And with that relief came a bit of shame.

He wanted Seth’s soul. He hungered for the satisfaction that would come when he devoured it and delivered it through the abyss. But looking into Seth’s smiling face, he felt the first hint of doubt. Abaddon had claimed a lot of souls over the years, most with a myriad of secret sins. Greed, jealousy, ambition. Those were the key to many a devil’s success. Yet Seth had none of those things, and Abaddon knew the euphoric exhilaration he felt upon claiming Seth’s soul would be matched only by the guilt he felt afterward.

Seth leaned toward him again. “I can’t believe Zed let you get this close.”

Abaddon laughed, trying to shake off his discomfort, and glanced over at the big, black foreman. He could have sworn he saw the rage of Heaven in the man’s eyes. “I have no doubt he’d tear me limb from limb right now, if he could.”

Seth smiled, the fingers of his left hand slipping easily into Abaddon’s. The calluses on his fingertips from guitar and fiddle strings tickled across Abaddon’s palm.

“Come on. We’ll slip out the back way.”

Abaddon’s heart leapt. He swallowed, not sure he understood. “What?”

“My sense of direction gets all messed up in the tent, but I know it’s there. Can you see it?”

“I know where it is.” He’d watched Zed whisk Seth away through it the last few nights. He glanced toward Zed. He saw the man’s understanding dawn, realizing Seth intended to escape his watch. “We better be quick,” he said to Seth.

“I’m ready if you are.”

Abaddon gripped Seth’s hand tighter and led him off the stage, away from a fuming Zed, through the back door of the tent. They ran for the trees, both of them stiffing their laughter like children as Abaddon led Seth through the shadows, away from the revival, deep into the heart of the woods.

Like all devils, he knew the path to temptation.

You can find Damned If You Do here:

Amazon
All Romance Ebooks
Barnes and Noble
Samhain


Somewhat Angsty

 

Lost Along the Way

Lost Along the Way taught me that my emotional compass is about a mile off from that of my readers. When I wrote it, I thought it was a light, fluffy read. Imagine my surprise when all the reviews I saw called it “tragic” and “heartbreaking.” Despite all that, this book is still one my favorites.

And I promise it has a happy ending.

BLURB

Three months after losing his parents in a car crash, Denver weatherman Daniel Whitaker returns to Laramie, Wyoming. It’s bad enough dealing with the death of his parents and his failing relationship of fifteen years, but when he finds his childhood home full of clutter, Daniel is at a loss. He enlists Landon, his parents’ sexy neighbor, to help him sort through the mess.

Landon Kushner is a study in contradictions. He builds wind sculptures out of scrap metal and loves the outdoors, but he also rides a mint-green Vespa and has an affinity for knitting and fortune-telling. He’s been friends with Daniel’s parents for years, and he’s more than willing to lend a hand.

Their plan is simple: clean the house so Daniel can sell it and get back to his life in Denver. But when a strange cookbook comes into Landon’s possession, Daniel begins to realize that the universe – and Granny B – may have other plans.

EXCERPT

THE REST of the week went much as Sunday had. Chase suddenly developed a need to visit the gym each evening. I didn’t bother to ask why he didn’t go during the day, while I was at work. I knew he was avoiding me. Avoiding discussions of his job search, or lack thereof. Avoiding any chance for me to mention his music again. And most definitely avoiding any time when I might initiate a bit of intimacy between us. I wasn’t surprised when, on Friday afternoon, he begged out of going to Laramie with me, claiming he needed to spend the time searching for a new job.

I drove north with my heart heavy and my throat tight.

Was this how love ended? Not with arguments and ultimatums, but with the horrible, lonely silences that stretched into sleepless nights?

I wasn’t looking forward to facing my parents’ empty house and was therefore relieved to find Landon already at work when I walked in the front door, although I stopped short at the sight of him.

“What in the world are you wearing?”

“It’s an apron.”

“No kidding.”

The apron in question was bright green and reminded me of something June Cleaver might have worn. It was cut wide across the bust, narrow at the hips, and hung down like a skirt past the hem of his shorts. His hairy legs stuck out from underneath it. Frilly bits of eyelet accented the line of the bust and the pockets on the skirt. It looked completely ridiculous on his broad, masculine frame.

“Isn’t it fantastic?” he asked, grinning. “I found a whole box of them. They’re over here.” He rushed over to an open box on the couch, so excited about his find, I half expected him to pull out a puppy. “This one has matching oven mitts!” He put them on, although they barely fit over his wide hands. He waggled his mittened fingers at me. “See?” He turned around, hands on his hips, and batted his eyelashes at me over his shoulder, looking like the world’s ugliest pinup girl. “I’d make a fabulous Stepford wife, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m pretty sure no Stepford wife had quite so much facial hair.”

“Oh well,” he said, pulling off the oven mitts and tossing them back in the box. “Those Stepford husbands don’t know what they’re missing. And, um, speaking of husbands….”

“Oh God.” Was he going to ask me about Chase? For one glorious moment, watching Landon in his outrageous apron, I’d forgotten about the train wreck of my life. I plopped down on the only empty couch cushion. “What?”

“You know Mr. Jones? The cranky old man who lives next door?”

“Vaguely.” I seemed to remember my father having an ongoing argument with him over the crabapples from my mother’s tree dropping into Mr. Jones’s yard.

“Well, I thought you should know, he told his entire poker group you and I are having an affair.”

I laughed before I could stop myself. “God, I wish.” I realized how wrong the words sounded the moment they left my mouth. Landon’s wide- eyed expression told me I’d caught him completely off guard. “I only mean,” I rushed to explain, “the life Mr. Jones imagines for me sounds far more interesting than the one I’m actually living.”

Landon quickly turned his back on me, moving to clear the boxes off the other end of the couch.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean….” And yet, I wasn’t sure what to apologize for. Was I sorry for insinuating I wanted to have an affair? Yes. But protesting too much might insult Landon more than letting it lie, and my words had stirred images in my mind that I didn’t want to examine. I thought instead of Mr. Jones and his damn poker buddies. “Is it going to cause trouble? For either of us?”

“Mr. Jones’s rumor-mongering, you mean?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged. “I doubt it. Laramie’s come a long way since Matthew Shepard. I’d just steer clear of that little hardware store on the south side, if I were you.”

I’d never been a Mr. Fix-It, and I couldn’t even have said the last time I’d been in a hardware store. “Shouldn’t be a problem.” I watched him move another box to the stack by the door. He was still wearing the apron. “Find anything else good?”

“Another box of porcelain cats. Several decks of playing cards. A teapot shaped like Santa’s sleigh. And about thirty tea towels.”

“What exactly is a ‘tea towel’?”

“Well—”

“Is there one to match that apron?”

He bit his lip to stop from grinning and said in mock solemnity, “I didn’t think to look.”

“What a shame.”

We lapsed into silence, him digging through a box, his cheeks a bit redder than usual, me trying not to stare at him too much even though he was the only thing of interest in the entire living room. I focused instead on his birds, spinning wildly as the wind gusted toward the east.

“If Lulu were here,” Landon said at last, “she’d probably say your aura is off.”

“Oh really?”

“It’s dark.”

“What color’s it supposed to be?”

He shrugged as he dug through what appeared to be another pile of dishtowels. “I don’t know. I can’t see the damn things. But it doesn’t take a psychic to see something’s bothering you.” He put the towels aside and came to sit next to me on the couch, positioning himself sideways so he was facing me. “Can I see your hands?”

“My hands?”

“Yeah.” He reached out and took my left one—the one nearest him—and pulled it toward him, turning it over to study my palm. “Lulu had me take her to a palmistry convention last week.”

“Oh really?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice. “You believe in that stuff?”

“Well, it depends on what you mean by that. Do I believe I can look at your palm and predict your future? No. But… it’s interesting to see the patterns.” He traced one finger across my palm, following one of the lines. It tickled. “For example, see this line? This is your head line. Straight across your palm and pretty deep. That means you’re a logical, analytical person.” He smiled up at me. “Fitting, isn’t it? Especially for a Taurus.” He focused on my hand again, tracing the grooves, raising goose bumps on my arms. “Can I see your other hand?”

It seemed absurd, and yet I had no reason to say no. I turned toward him and offered my right hand. He took it and repeated his examination, running his fingertip lightly over each of the heavier lines on my palms. His hands were warm. His grip gentle. His fingers were rough with calluses, but his touch was pleasingly light. I found myself relishing it, wanting him to trace those lines more. It was a simple thing, but it felt wonderful. It’d been ages since anybody had held my hand. It seemed pathetic, and even more pathetic that I was suddenly so desirous of such an innocent gesture of companionship.

“So,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. “Am I going to die tomorrow or what?”

He didn’t laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s comforting.”

He touched a spot on my palm. “A bit more of a sun line than most. Fitting, given that you’re on TV. Your heart line almost intersects your head line. That doesn’t surprise me either. You’re right-handed?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“A lot of differences between your palms. I think that means you’re in a transitionary phase, but I don’t remember for sure. I might have dozed off during that part of the seminar.”

But the word shook me. “Transition?” Did that mean Chase and I really were ending?

Landon glanced up at me. “It’s not surprising. You’re in the process of cleaning out your childhood home. Saying good-bye to your parents. That’s probably the biggest transition any person makes.”

“Oh.”

He looked back down, lightly brushing his thumbs over my palms. He leaned closer to examine a spot just below my pinkie finger. “Would you say Chase is your first great love or your second?”

“First. And only.” And yet as soon as I said it, I realized the way Landon had worded it. “Wait. You’re saying I’ll have two?”

He stood suddenly and turned toward the kitchen. “I’m not saying anything of the sort. It’s all nonsense anyway, right?”

I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I wished he was still tracing the lines of my palms with his hardened fingertips. I stared down at my hands, feeling as if they’d betrayed me. “Right.”

You can buy Lost Along the Way here:

from Dreamspinner Press
from ARe
from Amazon

 

Trailer Trash

With the possible exception of Release, Trailer Trash is probably the angstiest thing I’ve ever written. It’s a story I started way back in 2011, but didn’t manage to finish until last year. I knew I couldn’t call it quits until I’d finished Cody and Nate’s story. I’m so glad I finally gave them their happy ending.

BLURB

It’s 1986, and what should have been the greatest summer of Nate Bradford’s life goes sour when his parents suddenly divorce. Now, instead of spending his senior year in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he’s living with his father in Warren, Wyoming, population 2,833 (and Nate thinks that might be a generous estimate). There’s no swimming pool, no tennis team, no mall—not even any MTV. The entire school’s smaller than his graduating class back home, and in a town where the top teen pastimes are sex and drugs, Nate just doesn’t fit in.

Then Nate meets Cody Lawrence. Cody’s dirt poor, from a broken family, and definitely lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Nate’s dad says Cody’s bad news. The other kids say he’s trash. But Nate knows Cody’s a good kid who’s been dealt a lousy hand. In fact, he’s beginning to think his feelings for Cody go beyond friendship.

Admitting he might be gay is hard enough, but between small-town prejudices and the growing AIDS epidemic dominating the headlines, a town like Warren, Wyoming is no place for two young men to fall in love.

EXCERPT

 Nate took a deck of cards to the field with him the next morning. It was almost impossible to keep them from blowing away, but over the next few days, they managed a few games of Go Fish, Crazy Eights, and War. They were attempting a game of Five Card Draw when Cody suddenly asked, “So, why’d your folks split?”

Nate squirmed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it. Then again, he had a feeling Cody would understand, seeing as how his own parents weren’t together either.

“My dad had an affair.”

“Suppose that’d do it.”

“I guess.” Nate didn’t know the details. His parents hadn’t ever told him, but he’d overheard his aunt and uncle whispering about it.

He didn’t want to think about his parents. He scowled down at his cards. He didn’t even have a lousy pair. “I fold.”

Cody laughed as he gathered Nate’s discarded cards. “Bad move. I didn’t have shit.”

They weren’t playing for anything, so it didn’t matter. Nate’s hair was blowing in his face again, and he pushed it off his forehead. He kept thinking he’d buy a baseball cap, but he had yet to find one in Wyoming that didn’t have either a John Deere logo or some redneck slogan on it.

He glanced at Cody who was shuffling the cards, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “What about yours?”

Cody frowned as if he hadn’t considered that Nate might turn the tables on him. He cleared his throat, and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “My dad was sort of in and out all along, you know? But I guess he’s been mostly ‘out’ since I was ten or eleven. He lives in Worland.”

Nate didn’t know where Worland was, but figured it didn’t matter. “Do you ever see him?”

“Not for a long time.”

“Do you miss him?”

Cody scowled, his eyes turning dark. Nate wasn’t surprised when his answer was more attitude than anything. “Why the fuck would I? He’s a jerk who can’t even bother to send me a goddamn birthday card. Fuck him.” When he was done, he sucked long and hard on his smoke, not meeting Nate’s eyes.

“I miss my mom.” Nate figured he sounded like a whiny kid when he said it, but he didn’t care. “I thought maybe I could go visit for Christmas, but my dad keeps putting me off, saying ‘maybe.’” He watched as Cody started dealing, tossing cards by Nate’s knee onto their makeshift seat. “Like I don’t know that means no.”

“You got a car. Why can’t you just go?”

Nate blinked at him, stunned by the idea. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Fuck, man. If I had my own car, I’d have ditched this shithole ages ago.”

Nate thought about that. “What about high school?”

Cody shrugged, but Nate suspected his nonchalance was just for show. “What about it?”

Nate picked up his cards and fanned them out, his mind a mile away. He knew Cody didn’t consider college of any kind an option, but giving up on high school seemed reckless, even for him. “There must be a community college in Laramie or something.” He glanced up at Cody, trying to gauge how close he was to pissing him off. Cody’s expression was still stony, but not quite angry. “Don’t you have any plans for after high school?”

“Always figured I’d end up in either the oil fields or the coal mines, like everybody else who grew up here.” He dropped a couple of cards and took some off the stack. “I’m taking two. How many do you need?”

“Is that what you want, though? To dig coal or be a roughneck?” Nate only knew the term because of his dad.

“Jesus, nobody wants to be a roughneck, but what the fuck else is there around here? You think I’m gonna take up ranching instead? Buy a couple of cows and spend my days worrying about whether there’s enough rain this year to make hay?”

“I don’t—”

“Just ’cause you got your life all planned out, don’t mean the rest of us do.”

Nate didn’t have his life all planned out. Not by a long shot. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go to Chicago, or to college, but it was what he and his parents had planned back before the divorce. He figured he’d live in the apartment his aunt owned and scope out the schools. Maybe he’d take some accounting courses at the community college, or see about learning computers. His aunt seemed to think there’d be a lot of jobs in that field someday. “I didn’t mean—”

“It don’t matter.” Cody ran his fingers through his hair and forced a smile. It looked more like a grimace. “We playin’ poker or what?”

“Yeah.”

“Then either tell me how many goddamn cards you want, or fold.”

Nate folded, even though he’d been holding a pair of kings.

Find it here:

Amazon Kindle
ebook from All Romance ebooks
ebook from Riptide

 

CONCLUSION

Well, if you’ve made it this far, I’d like to thank you for hanging in there. I have no idea what the last couple of posts in my 30-day challenge will be about, but I promise they won’t be promoting my own books again.

Also, leave a comment and I’ll enter you in a drawing. The winner can choose an ebook of one of the four titles listed here today.

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The post 30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 28: My Newer Contemporaries appeared first on Marie Sexton.

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 27: Oestend and Davlova (with giveaway)

The official topics for my blogging challenge over the next few days are all boring, but I’m having a hell of a time coming up with anything interesting to say.

Well…

For lack of anything better to do, how about if I share some excerpts from a few of my lesser-known novels? I’m mostly known for the Coda books, but if you’ve only read Coda, I truly believe you haven’t read my best work. So maybe I’ll spend the next day or two highlighting some of those stories that people tend to skip over. Today, I’ll concentrate on my genre mash-ups.

Oestend

I’ll start with my personal favorites of my own work, the Oestend series. Song of Oestend came about because I wanted to write about an artist and a cowboy. I also wanted to write about a haunted house, and about these mysterious wraiths that kill anybody caught outside after dark. Once I put them all together, I ended up with something that’s sort of like steampunk, but in the old west. I also ended up with one of the most blatantly erotic books I’ve ever written (with just a bit of bondage).

BLURB:

Aren Montrell has heard tales of the Oestend wraiths – mysterious creatures which come in the night and kill anyone who’s not indoors. Aren’s never had reason to believe the stories, but when he takes a job as a bookkeeper on the BarChi, a dusty cattle ranch on the remote Oestend prairie, he soon learns that the wraiths are real. Aren suddenly finds himself living in a supposedly haunted house and depending on wards and generators to protect him from unseen things in the night. As if that’s not enough, he has to deal with a crotchety old blind woman, face “cows” that look like nothing he’s ever seen before, and try to ignore the fact that he’s apparently the most eligible bachelor around.

Aren also finds himself the one and only confidante of Deacon, the BarChi’s burly foreman. Deacon runs the BarChi with an iron fist and is obviously relieved to finally have somebody he can talk to. As their relationship grows, Aren learns there’s more to Deacon and the BarChi than he’d anticipated. Deacon seems determined to deny both his Oestend heritage and any claim he may have to the BarChi ranch, but if Aren is to survive the perils of Oestend, he’ll will have to convince Deacon to stop running from the past and finally claim everything that’s his.

EXCERPT

Here’s an excerpt from Song of Oestend, where Aren’s trying to convince Deacon to let him stay in the “haunted” house, because he’s tired of living in the barracks with the ranch hands.

Aren took his sketchpad and his penknife and pencils, and he walked. He went past the empty house with its sagging boards and vacant eyes. He walked out into the long grass of the prairie until he found a place where he could sit. He had a view of the cattle grazing in the field, lazy and stupid and yet serene at the same time. A big bull stood near the fence, staring at absolutely nothing.

Aren sharpened his pencil and he started to draw.

His art took him away, as it so often did. He lost all sense of space and time. He barely noticed the soreness in his backside from sitting on the ground, or the pain in his shoulder from his hunched position. He knew only shapes and lines, reflections and light. It was a calm place inside him that occupied him, yet left some remote corner of his mind free and clear to think of other things. Today, he thought only of the sun and the grass and how surprisingly good it felt to be there. He had worried he wouldn’t fit in here, and maybe he didn’t, but he found it suited him all the same.

He didn’t see or hear Deacon approaching. It wasn’t until he sat down next to Aren in the grass that he noticed him at all. Aren looked over at him in surprise.

Deacon didn’t look at him. He didn’t say anything, either. He sat there, his knees up and his forearms draped over them, staring out into the field, and Aren waited, wondering what in the world was on the man’s mind.

Deacon finally looked over at him and he seemed startled to find Aren watching him. “Am I bothering you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Aren said. “I missed you at breakfast.”

Deacon shrugged uncomfortably, obviously disconcerted by such a frank statement. He looked down at Aren’s sketchpad. “What’re you drawing?”

Aren hesitated, afraid Deacon would make fun of him for his art as he had the first day they’d met, back in Milton, but he saw no mockery in his eyes. Only friendly curiosity.

He held his sketchbook out and Deacon took it.

He didn’t say anything for the longest time. He looked at the drawing, then up at the bull in the field, then down again at the drawing. He seemed puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said at last. “I can see it’s the bull, but it’s not the same at all.”

Aren’s heart fell at the words. “I guess it’s not very good,” he said, reaching to take the pad back.

Deacon pulled it out of his reach, still looking at it. “That ain’t what I said. It’s just…” he looked up at the bull again, then down at the sketchpad, his brows furrowed as he tried to find the words. “When I look at your picture, he looks… Well, I guess he looks strong. And proud. He looks special, like he’s something way more than all the other cattle.” He looked back up at the bull standing in the grass, lazily chewing his cud. “But he’s just a bull,” he said, pointing out at him. “Nothing special at all.”

It was such awkward praise, and yet Aren found himself smiling. He felt something inside him swell with pride. “That means I did it right,” he said.

He reached for the pad again, and this time Deacon let him take it. The big cowboy sat staring at the ground, nervously tugging at the grass. “I don’t want you to be mad at me about the house,” he said at last, his voice quieter than before.

That surprised Aren. It hadn’t occurred to him Deacon would care how he felt. “I’m not mad. But I do wish you’d reconsider.”

“It ain’t safe.”

“Olsa said it could be made safe…”

Deacon was already shaking his head, and Aren let his words trail away. “Folk tales,” Deacon said. “Nothing more than that. Olsa’s stories won’t do nothing against the dark.”

Aren looked back out over the field, and the cattle grazing there. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He was glad Deacon wanted to make peace, but he wished there was some chance of changing his mind.

“Is it so bad out there with the men?” Deacon asked.

“Yes and no.” Aren looked over at the big cowboy. “You’ve lived out there,” he said. “You know how it is.”

“That’s different,” Deacon said, still not looking up at him. “I’m their boss. I have to set myself apart.”

Aren thought about that. It was different for Deacon. And in some ways, living with the men wasn’t so bad. They didn’t see him as one of them, which meant he was mostly excluded from most of their petty games. It was the fact that it reminded him too much of his past, all those years in boarding school. It made him forget he was an adult. It made him lose his confidence.

And the distinct lack of privacy was getting old, too.

“I’d like to have my own space,” he said, and although that wasn’t the whole truth, it wasn’t a lie either. “I miss being able to paint.”

Deacon frowned, but he nodded. “Guess I can understand that. Thing is, I’d hate for something to happen to you. You move into that house and something goes wrong, it’ll be my fault.”

“How would it be your fault?”

“It’s my job to take care of the men,” Deacon said. “I’m the one responsible—”

“Deacon,” Aren interrupted him, “I’m not one of the hands.” Deacon turned to him, looking both confused and surprised. “I know you take responsibility for those boys in the barracks, but I’m not one of them. Jeremiah’s my boss, not you. And the only person responsible for me is me.”

Deacon pondered that, and as he did, Aren saw his expression go from thoughtful to amused. A slow grin spread across his face. Finally, he said, “Don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse. Not quite sure I can trust your judgement.”

Aren laughed. “Me neither, to tell you the truth.”

Deacon laughed, too, and Aren couldn’t help but think how much different he looked out here in the grass, when the burden of leadership wasn’t weighing him down. With his men, he always seemed angry and menacing, but sitting in the sunshine next to Aren, he was somebody else completely.

“It could be a place for you, too, you know,” Aren said before he could think better of it. “Wouldn’t you like to be able to relax and have a drink once in a while?” He smiled at Deacon, half-teasing but half-serious, too. “Think about it—a nice soft chair in front of the fire instead of a bale of hay in a draughty barn. A place where none of the ranch hands could find you.”

Deacon smiled and shook his head in wry amusement. “I knew soon as I saw all those damn bags of yours you was going to be trouble.”

“Does that mean ‘no’?” Aren asked.

“Blessed Saints,” Deacon swore, looking up at the sky in exasperation, and Aren knew then that he’d won.

“Does that mean ‘yes’?” he asked, trying not to smile.

“Come on,” Deacon said, unfolding his long legs and standing “Let’s go see your new house.”

You can buy Song of Oestend here:

Pride Publishing
All Romance eBooks
Amazon for Kindle


SEQUEL

Song of Oestend also has a sequel, Saviours of Oestend. Deacon and Aren are secondary characters in this one. The second book focuses on Simon and Frances, and on Dante, who’s sort of a bad guy in the first book. I loved writing Dante. He’s completely impulsive, with a brutal temper, but he’s also fiercely protective of the people he loves. (And I’ll put the PG version of the picture that helped inspire Dante somewhere down below.)

EXCERPT

Here’s an excerpt from the opening of Saviours of Oestend.

The house still smelled of death. It was a horrible, cloying scent that filled the halls, permeating the wood and the curtains, and clogging the air. The house felt heavy with it. When Dante had first entered it, he’d had to turn on his heel and run right back out to vomit violently in the dirt. And even now, weeks later, the smell got to him.

It wasn’t as if he was a stranger to death and its aftermath. He’d seen it before. He’d killed men himself. But this death that filled his new home, clawing at the back of his throat and tainting his every breath, was different, because one of the rotting corpses found in this home had been his younger brother, Brighton. No matter what else Dante had done in his life, no matter how stupid or irrational or selfish he’d been, he’d loved his brother with all his heart.

Another of the dead found in the house had been Brighton’s wife, and two more had been their sons. Dante was ashamed now to admit how little regard he’d had for the woman and the boys. In truth, he’d always thought Shay an arrogant bitch, and although there was nothing inherently wrong with the boys, they’d constantly reminded Dante of his own failings in his marital bed. Yes, it may have been a sin that he grieved so little for them now, but he made up for it by grieving for his brother, each and every day.

Still, life in Oestend did not stop for anything as trivial as grief. The sun continued to rise. The wind continued to blow. Cows and horses gave birth to young. The cattle needed tending and fences needed mending. There was nothing he could do but rise every day and do his best to carry on.

“I hope they get here tonight,” Frances said that morning, looking west at the sky. “Travelling tomorrow will be awful.”

Dante didn’t have to ask who he meant. He’d sent Simon to town several days earlier for supplies and to recruit new men. Their first group of hands hadn’t lasted long, mostly because the stench of decaying bodies wasn’t confined to the house. Several maids had died in the barracks on that fateful night as well. The building smelled as bad as the house. Possibly worse. And until Simon returned with the new men, it was just Dante and Frances, and one other young hand named Ralf who was as skittish as a colt, trying to get everything done.

Dante followed Frances’ gaze. The sky to the west was pale and white, hanging low and heavy like the belly of a pregnant mare. Dante shivered just looking at it. “Too early for snow. Shouldn’t be seeing it for another month or more.”

“It’s coming, early or not.”

“You’re right about that.” Dante eyed the skyline, assessing the cold, clear brittleness of the horizon. He noted the way his breath was already coalescing in the air. Everything was deathly silent and perfectly still, except the tops of the trees, swaying in a breeze he couldn’t feel. He shook his head. “Gonna be a damn cold night. If they don’t make it back, you and that kid ought just as well come to the house.” After all, there was no point in burning fuel to heat both the barracks and the big house when there were only three of them there on the ranch. “Easier for me to keep you warm.”

Frances bent back to his work without a word, but Dante noticed the way the tips of his ears turned bright pink. It confused him, until he replayed his words in his head. Easier for me to keep you warm. He hadn’t meant it that way, and he suspected Frances knew that, but he also suspected Frances would have jumped at the invitation if he had meant it that way. They’d certainly never discussed their sexual habits, but Dante was pretty sure he knew which side of the fence Frances stood on.

Of course, that made Dante think about what it would be like if he did take the boy to his bed. He thought about the two of them skin to skin under the covers while the snow fell outside.

No.

Dante wasn’t about to let anything like that happen. He slammed a mental door on the thought and turned away, praying to whoever might hear that Simon would make it back before the snow came.

As it turned out, his prayer was answered. That evening, just as the snow was beginning to fall, just past when the supper bell might have rung, if they’d had one, Simon appeared, with a string of men and a full wagon behind him. And one other thing Dante wasn’t expecting—a woman. She was tall for a girl, and slender, with deep brown hair that fell in her face, and huge, dark eyes that were guarded and wary.

Dante grabbed Simon’s arm and pulled him aside. “What the hell you thinking bringing a woman here?”

Simon was only a couple of years younger than Dante, and just as big, and he clearly didn’t appreciate being manhandled like a mere boy. He pulled his arm free from Dante’s grip. “She asked to go to the BarChi, but when we got there, Aren said I should bring her here.”

Dante clenched his jaw, biting back on the anger that always welled up in him at the mention of Aren. “Not enough he drives me off the BarChi? He thinks he can call the shots on my ranch now, too?”

Simon’s patience was clearly wearing thin, and no wonder after so many days on the road. “Look,” he said through clenched teeth, “I got no idea what went down between you and Aren and Deacon. All I know is, she’s got nowhere else to go. She asked specifically for the BarChi, but with Olsa there, and Tama and Alissa, they don’t have work for her. Aren thought we could use the help here.”

Fuck, but Dante hated it when Aren was right. Dante knew how to run a ranch, but there were so many things the women at home had taken care of. He hadn’t quite realised at the time just how much work they’d done. He’d already vowed more than once that he’d get down on his knees and thank Tama to the heavens next time he saw her.

Simon seemed to relax once he realised Dante was done being angry. He pulled his hood up onto his head and brushed at the fat, soft flakes of snow that dusted his shoulders. “She says she’ll cook and launder.” He shrugged, motioning towards the big house. “Not like you don’t have room.”

Yes, she’d have to be given a room in the house rather than the barracks. Dante wasn’t sure if he liked that idea or not. He turned towards her and pitched his voice loud enough for her to hear over the hubbub of the new men.

“Go inside. I’ll deal with you later.”

She didn’t thank him. She didn’t say anything at all. She just picked up the blanket roll at her feet and went past him to the house.

Fuck, but women made life difficult.

Of course, Cami has some secrets of her own. (I hate to spoiler my own books, but I’m sure there are plenty of reviews out there giving it away, if you want to go looking.)

Although the books aren’t about exactly the same set of characters (although you’ll still see Aren and Deacon in the second book), they’re best read in order.

Davlova

My other genre mash-up is also a two book series, Release, and Return. And like the Oestend series, this turned out to be one of the most erotic things I’ve ever written. (I don’t know why things get extra steamy when I mix-and-match genres!) I self-published it under a slightly different pen name to help set it apart from my other work because it’s quite dark and violent. Also, the first book by itself definitely doesn’t qualify as a romance (although both books taken together kind of do).

Release came about because I wanted to write about a whore and sex slave. I also wanted to write about a family of orphaned thieves (much like Fagin’s boys in Oliver Twist, only all grown up). What I ended up with is a setting that feels a bit like Dickens’s London, but with some cybernetic implants and genetic manipulation thrown in.

BLURB

Davlova: a poverty-ridden city-state ruled by a tyrannical upper class. Resources are scarce and technology is illegal. But in the slums, revolution is brewing.

Misha is a common pickpocket until his boss gives him a new job. Disguised as a whore, Misha is sent to work for one of the most powerful men in the city. But his real task is far more dangerous: get close to Miguel Donato, and find something – anything – that will help topple Davlova’s corrupt government.

Misha is plunged into the decadent world of the upper class, where slaves are common and even the most perverse pleasure can be found. Although he’s sure Davlova’s elite is involved in something horrific, proof is hard to come by, and Misha begins to fall in love with the man he’s supposed to betray. Then Misha meets Ayo – a sex slave forced by the neural implant in his brain to take pleasure from pain – and everything changes. As the lower class pushes toward a bloody revolution, Misha will find himself caught between his surprising feelings for Donato, his obligations to his clan, and his determination to save Ayo.

Warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of violent sexual acts of questionable consent that may be disturbing to some readers. 

EXCERPT:

And here’s a tiny little excerpt from Release.

“It’s our turn to be seated,” Donato said at last. He guided me with a hand on the small of my back, through the crowd, up a flight of stairs, around a silk screen to a private table overlooking the city.

I stared in awe at the sight of it—lights laid out below me like stars in an upside-down sky. I’d had my eyes closed in the carriage, but I realized now that wherever we were, we were high up on the hill, right in the center of the purebloods’ world. Their electric lights circled us, bright white and unwavering. Farther down, I saw the towering city wall which surrounded the upper city, hiding the trenches of Lower Davlova from sight. The taverns and their keepers. The shop owners and fish vendors. The booksellers and whores, all conveniently concealed. The wall eclipsed the dark buildings lit only by lanterns and candles, and the alleys between, which I knew as intimately as any lover. Everybody I’d ever known lived on the other side of that white stone barricade, scraping a living, some legally and some not. In the shadows beyond that wall, I’d been born, raised, trained.

From this spot on the hill, I could almost believe none of it existed.

“Like the view?” he asked.

“It’s stunning.”

“It can be yours, you know. Not right now. Not yet. But eventually, if you please me, you could live on this side of the wall for the rest of your life.”

“Or until you replace me.”

He laughed. It was a cruel, dark sound. “Yes. There’s always that possibility.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me backward. “Why don’t you ponder those options while I take what’s mine.”

SEQUEL

As I said earlier, there’s also a sequel. Return picks up exactly where Release leaves off, and completes the overall story arc. The book definitely doesn’t work as a stand-alone.

CONCLUSION (And Giveaway!)

If you made it this far, thank you so much! If you go to my Selz store, you can use discount code P3M8AJNB to get the ebook of Release for only $1.49. (Discount expires 10.21.16)

Also, if you live in the US and would like a paperback copy of either Song of Oestend, Saviours of Oestend, Release, or Return, leave a comment below. I’ll pick a winner in a few days. (My apologies to those outside the us! I hate dealing with customs forms.)

Thanks for stopping by!

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30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 26: I Have No Topic

Honesty, but at what cost?

So… this post was written yesterday morning, when I was sort of deep down the well of depression. I came home several hours later and about a million times happier, just from having been out of the house for a bit. I spent a while rereading this post, wondering if I should even publish it, because it’s sort of a rambling mess. But the truth is, it’s also honest. So in the end, I think I’ll go for it, but with the disclaimer that it’s a bit whiny and nonsensical and rather rough around the edges.

Written Yesterday

Four days left of this 30-day blogging challenge, and I have totally run out of things to say.

Colorado woke up to cold, dreary weather today. I’m okay with that. As I said a few days ago, I love October, and I’m absolutely ready for fall. Nonetheless, the overcast day is doing nothing to improve my mood. It’s a good thing I have an appointment for a haircut later today. Otherwise, I know this would end up being a really bad day as far as depression goes.

For the most part, doing the blogging challenge has been good. It gave me a reason to sit down at the keyboard each day. It gave me a bit of purpose. And yet, it also adds emphasis to this empty little hole that seems to have become my life.

I should be writing — if for no other reason, to keep from going insane — and yet I just have nothing to say. And even if I did, nobody’s really listening. While I greatly appreciate the few people who have stopped by over the last few weeks, all I’ve really done is confirm my belief that very few people read blogs these days, especially if there’s nothing material (like a giveaway) to be gained.

I get it. I mean, we all have full lives. And these days, there are just so many authors and so many blogs and so many people spewing their opinions into the blogosphere. It’s overwhelming and exhausting for many readers. In some ways, that’s how the book world feels too. There are just too many of us, and very few people want to read the author who’s been around for years when there are so many brand new writers to discover. As an author, it can be relatively easy to make a little splash with those first few books. Seven years and thirty titles later, though, the splashes are lost in the hubbub.

I’m probably not making sense. Or, I’m making sense to a few other authors out there, but we all know there just isn’t much to be done about it. Either keep writing books, or don’t. Learn to separate your self-worth from your finished product or lose your damned mind trying. I desperately need something to give my days structure, and yet when I think back to writing the books, revising the books, doing edits, waiting for some kind of sign that it hadn’t been in vain…. I can’t go back to that. I’d rather just climb into a deep dark hole somewhere and sleep.

But I know that isn’t healthy.

I still don’t know exactly where this is going. I’m trying to be honest, but also trying not to whine. And frankly, everything about being an author online is (for me) a constant battle between what I’d like to say and what I’m allowed to say. Sure, some authors seem to get some kind of satisfaction out of being mean and venomous. They seem to find joy in stirring up trouble. They have no problem speaking their minds, even if it offends half their followers.

I’m not one of them. I don’t want that. That’s not what I’m saying. But I hate having to bite my tongue every second of every day. At this point, I feel like I can barely even take a breath without risking attack. Every thought, every book, every tweet, every simple reblog on Tumblr is fodder for some pitchfork-wielding asshole, and I just don’t have the energy to deal with it. We have created a culture of forced compliance. Not only can we not speak our minds, we can’t NOT agree with the hive. God forbid you don’t fall into the mob when it comes time to railroad somebody. You may as well tar and feather yourself rather than sit around waiting for the haters to do it.

I have always been an outlier. I’m an outlier with regards to religion, with regards to music and books, with regards to politics, with regards to just about every hot-button issue you might name. I tend to think contrary to the crowd. Back when I was in my twenties, or even my thirties, I might have taken pride in that, but at this point, I just find it exhausting. I feel like I’d give anything to get through one day without feeling like the underdog. (This isn’t a movie. In real life, the underdog gets eviscerated online, and s/he certainly NEVER wins.)

I know I’m babbling, and it probably sounds completely nonsensical. It probably is. In the end, I doubt I’ll even publish this.

But I can’t think about that today. Not at this moment, at any rate. Right now, I have to face walking out the door, hoping nobody wants to talk to me about the presidential election (not because I don’t care, but because I *do*), hoping nobody asks me “how’s the writing going?” because then I have to say “it isn’t.” Hoping I can just get all the way through to this afternoon when my family comes home and asks how my day was and I lie and say it was fine.

I don’t know for sure what any of that means. I just know I’m stuck in this tar pit, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for somebody like me to break free.

Addendum, written later that day:

So, I should probably start by saying: I’m fine. Or, maybe I’m not, but this is sort of how it goes. There’s no need to call an ambulance or anything like that. I left the house, the sun came out, I came home with a bit of a purpose in mind. Even it was only to get online and sell some tickets to a game we can’t attend, it’s something.

This gig has always been a series of ups and downs for me. Some weeks go better than others.

I’d also like to encourage everybody to read the book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson. I know this sounds like a self-help book for somebody who’s already been shamed, but that’s NOT what it’s about. It’s more about the culture of shame we’ve created on many of our social media outlets, and it’s a real eye-opener. If nothing else, watch his TED Talk (which covers one little chapter of the book). I promise you, you’ll never look at Twitter the same way again.

For now, I’ll leave you with the promise that I’ll try to be less depressing (and less depressed) tomorrow.

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30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 25: Theme Songs for my Books

Today, I thought I’d talk about music. More specifically, I thought I’d talk about which songs helped inspire certain stories or characters.

Not all of my stories have musical inspiration. (Blind Space, for example, has no songs associated with it.) Some of them (like Shotgun) have full soundtracks. In a few rare case, a book might be based on a single line. Song of Oestend was written because of this line in “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado Reprise” by the Eagles: “Four men ride out and only three ride back.” (Although by the time I got to that scene in the book, it was two men riding out, and only one riding back. But I digress.)

Most often, I have one specific song that either inspired the entire tone of the book, or worked as the theme song for a specific character. So, without further ado, let’s get to it. (And cross your fingers with me that these embedded Spotify codes work.)

Promises

I know, everybody makes fun of Nickelback. To be honest, this is the one and only song of theirs I know. I have no idea how I stumbled across it or how it ended up on my playlist. But somewhere between the first draft of Promises (which was only about 30k) and the finished product, I heard this song, and it became the anthem for the entire book. This is very much Matt’s song.

 

A to Z

A to Z actually has several songs, but this is the one that still, all these years later, immediately brings Zach and Angelo to mind for me. It’s all about that moment when you realize you’re falling for somebody.

 

Between Sinners and Saints

I love, love, LOVE Tristan Prettyman. I own every one of her albums and anxiously await the next one. I’ve used several of her songs over the years, but this was the one that felt the most critical to the entire outcome of a book. It’s very much the backbone of Between Sinners and Saints.

It’s all about that somber tone, and these lines:

I wanna know

What you’re thinking

When you’re lying in your bed late at night.

Trying to keep so still.

My heart is pounding,

And it’s trying just to keep up with the time.
I am not yours.

You are not mine.


Return

Release didn’t have a song, but Return did. It’s a bit odd that Kate Voegele has two songs on my list here when I don’t actually listen to her all that often, but sometimes that’s how it goes. It’s also a bit odd that such a modern song can tie so perfectly into such an odd book, but it really worked for me.

 

Winter Oranges

If you haven’t heard this song, you’ve obviously been living under a rock. My daughter introduced me to this song, and it ended up being the anthem for Winter Oranges.

 

Damned If You Do

In most cases, a reader might not see exactly how a song inspired the book, but in this case, it’s pretty obvious. Damned If You Do happened one day in the car, when this song came on the radio. I started wondering what might happen if the devil became a bit obsessed with Johnny after that first encounter. I imagined him going back again and again, not so much because he wanted Johnny’s soul, but because he simply couldn’t stay away. Throw in a hippy tent revival and lots of snakes, and Damned If You Do was born.

 

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30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 24: Why I Love October (With Movie Recommendations)

October might be my favorite month of the year. So for today’s post, I’m going to tell you why. (And I’ll end the post with some movie recommendations, so read on!)

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Everything

I love pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins. I love going to pumpkin patches and buying a carload of them. (And like Naomi in Shotgun, I always buy at least a few of the misshapen ones.) I love seeing mountains of them outside the stores, and watching the jack-o-lanterns appear on porches. And sure, I guess the pumpkin spice in my coffee is okay too.

Changing Leaves

Not just on the trees, but the ones falling to the ground as well. Who needs decorations when there are leaves around? I love the way they skitter across the pavement ahead of my feet. (And I love that my hubby takes care of the raking!)

Changing Weather

I don’t do well in heat. I’m always happy to see summer arrive, but I’m even happier to see it leave. Most years, we still see lots of hot days in September. By October, I’m definitely ready to exchange my shorts for yoga pants and my flip-flops for thick, fuzzy socks. (But it won’t be COLD yet either. It’ll be perfect jacket weather.)

Winter Sports

And no, I’m not talking about skiing.

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 23: Depression, and Book Recommendation

One week left of the 30-day blogging challenge, and I’ve finally fallen behind. Ever since the beginning, I’ve had at least one day’s post stocked up, but not this time. Yesterday, I sat down to write this post, but it just never came to be.

Why Not?

The topic was supposed to be a book recommendation. That should have been easy to give, except I’ve already done several book-related posts over the last 22 days. There’s my recommendation of the Timothy Wilde trilogy, and the post on my TBR pile and my book wish list, and the post on which authors take up the most space on my shelves. I didn’t feel like I had anything new to say. And second…

Well, yesterday just wasn’t a good day. As somebody who’s struggled with depression off and on for years, yesterday was definitely one of those days when I was deeper down the hole than I’ve been in a while.

One of the hard things about depression is that you try to pinpoint the cause. Defining the problem seems like the first step toward finding a solution, but it just isn’t that easy. For me, it often begins as a frustrating combination of restlessness and boredom. I should be doing something. And not just any something, but something that’s truly fulfilling and productive! I should be writing. I should be trying to change the world! But on the heels of that comes the reasons I’m not doing those things: I have no stories left to tell, and I can’t change the world because a) I’m terrified of conflict and b) nobody’s listening these days anyway. And then I sort of devolve into this state of wandering around my house, seeing all the messes I could tackle, and feeling like all I want to do is sleep.

Anyway.

So far, today seems better, except that now I’m behind on blog posts.

Well, the good news is, I spent most of yesterday curled up on the couch reading, so guess I can now fall back on book recommendations after all.

Playing Dead, by Julia Heaberlin

I started out yesterday halfway through Playing Dead, by Julia Heaberlin. This book started out with a bang, but I found myself not wanting to pick it back up. Maybe it was just that restless mood I was in. Hard to say. But after skimming my way through the third quarter of the book, I realized I just didn’t care, so I put it aside.

Despite all that, you might check it out. The writing is good and the plot is compelling. I think maybe I just couldn’t quite connect to the protagonist. I realize that doesn’t seem like much of a recommendation, but for what it’s worth, I still want to read Black-Eyed Susans, by the same author. This truly might be a case of “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Mind of Winter, by Laura Kasischke

Next came Mind of Winter, by Laura Kasischke. This book totally sucked me in. I read it start to finish in two or three hours. It’s dark and twisted and surprising. In the beginning, I really felt for the protagonist, mainly because of her frustration over having lost her ability to write. Then, about halfway through, I started questioning how much I could trust her version of events. As things became weirder between her and her daughter, I couldn’t decide which side of their little drama I wanted to come down on. Neither one of them seemed entirely sane. And the ending…

Well, I won’t spoil it.

In the little “meet the author” section after the book, the author talks about writers who inspired her, and she mentions Shirley Jackson. I can definitely see Jackson’s influence in this story. It’s very reminiscent of The Lottery (even though the plots have nothing in common). And if you read my post on my TBR pile and book wish list, you know I already have We Have Always Lived in the Castle on my wish list. After reading Mind of Winter and the author’s notes, I’m even more determined to buy a copy as soon as I can.

The Silent Sister, by Diane Chamberlain

After Mind of Winter, I trolled through my bookcase and settled on The Silent Sister. This book has been on my wish list for ages, and I finally picked up a copy of it late last week. I have two other books by Chamberlain on my book shelf, waiting to be read (Necessary Lies, and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes), but this one intrigued me the most.

At this point, I’m only about 1/3 of the way through the book, so I can’t technically recommend it yet. What I can say is this: I had a hard time putting it down at bedtime last night, and I fully expect to finish it today. And if I enjoy the last 2/3 as much as the first 1/3, then I might be tackling one of her other books next. (I love books about hidden family secrets!)

Addendum: Having now finished this book, I can certainly recommend it. I figured out most of the twists before they were revealed, but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the book.

Conclusion (and Giveaway Reminders!)

So, there it is — sort of a rambling post, but with some book recommendations after all.

I don’t have a giveaway today, but I have two that are still open. The first is a drawing for an ebook from my backlist. You can find that on my Rulers of my Bookshelf post. The second is a drawing for a tarot deck. (Odd, I know, but somebody out there must want it.) You can find that one on yesterday’s post about things I collect. Also, if you haven’t already, check out the Marie Sexton FAQ from a few days ago. Let me know if there are any questions you have that I didn’t answer, and I’ll do another Q&A post in a day or two.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

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30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 22: Things I Collect (With [sort of odd] giveaway)

Today’s topic is “Things I Collect.” Man, this one’s easy! There are three things that come to mind immediately: shoes, books, and tarot cards. I’ll elaborate a bit on each of those.

Shoes
One of my very FAVORITE pairs of shoes.

Most of you know I sort of collect shoes. I love funky shoes. One of the things I love most about conventions is that I get a chance to wear my fun shoes (because I assure you, I’m sure as hell not wearing those babies to my daughter’s soccer games). There are a few downsides to this “hobby” (although I’d classify it more as an “interest”). The first is that it drives my husband crazy. He’s one of those people who owns four pairs of shoes and thinks that’s sufficient. The second is that it’s expensive (another reason my husband hates it). Third: I can only wear so many pairs of shoes to any convention, and now that I’m not writing, I really have no excuse to keep splurging on shoes like these. 

Books

This is a biggie, and it’s something that’s borderline out of control. Books have become almost a compulsion for me. Or, an addiction. I love going to used book stores (and occasionally Barnes & Noble) and spending hours combing through the stacks. I have my wish-list in my purse (I updated it every couple of weeks), and I always tell myself I’ll only buy things off that list, but I never keep that promise.

My TBR shelf — four layers deep on the bottom shelf, but only three layers deep on the upper one.

30-Day Blogging Challenge, Day 21: Rulers of My Bookshelf (with Giveaway!)

My actual TBR bookshelf — four rows deep on that bottom shelf, three rows deep on the upper one.

The other day, I talked about my TBR piles and my book wish list. Today, I thought I’d talk about the authors whose books take up the most space on my bookshelf, for one reason or another.

Listed in no particular order:

J.K. Rowling

I own the first five Harry Potter books in paperback, and the last two in hardcover. I also own the new illustrated version of The Sorcerer’s Stone (which is gorgeous), and the hardcover of the The Cursed Child. That latter one… I confess, when I preordered it almost a year ago, I expected a novelization of the play. Once I realized it was an actual SCRIPT, I sort of lost interest in reading it. Still, given the size of some of these books, the Harry Potter series takes up a significant amount of actual shelf space.

Frank Herbert

This is more my husband’s doing than mine. I read the first four (or maybe five?) Dune books, but didn’t get any further than that. The man was obviously brilliant, but hubby told me that once you reach the end of the last book, you’re left hanging. (Unlike GRRM, who I’ll get to next, Frank had a good excuse for leaving his series unfinished: he died.) I read one or two of the newer books, written by the son, but didn’t find them intriguing enough to keep going. Still, hubby’s read several of them, so the Dune series takes up a sizable chunk of bookshelf real estate.

George R.R. Martin

I read the Game of Thrones books way back before HBO ever turned them into a miniseries, and I loved them. I mean, I really loved them. George does some amazing things with POV. How can I loathe Jamie in book one, but love him more than anything by book four? How can I end up rooting for the Hound? It still amazes me, but man, it really works. I read the first four books multiple times, and tried to convince every single person I knew to read them. I was a bit obsessed. But I confess, I’ve lost interest at this point. Yeah, I know, George isn’t our bitch, blah, blah, blah…

Gimme a break. Twenty years later, I just don’t give a rip.

(Quick tangent: I was originally thrilled when I heard about the miniseries, but watching the first season helped me realize something I’d never quite figured out before — I don’t like to watch the same kinds of things I like to read. When it comes to reading, I can handle some pretty graphic, heavy, disturbing shit. But when it comes to SEEING, either in a movie or on TV, I just don’t have the stomach for it.)

Tom Piccirilli

If you’ve read other posts I’ve written in the last week or so, you’ve seen this name before. I have these five waiting on my TBR shelf, and another half-dozen or so downstairs on the “already read but keeping forever” shelf (and probably at least a dozen titles I haven’t yet bought — the man was prolific). But I have to be in just the right mood for Piccirilli’s books. They’re often dark, twisted, and disturbing. And while they always suck me in, I sometimes find the ending a bit off. Still, I think the man was a mad, mad genius. My favorites so far are The Cold Spot (Chase is one of my book boyfriends), Every Shallow Cut, and Shadow Season.

Alice Hoffman

As crazy as it sounds, Alice Hoffman is sort of a new discovery for me. Now, don’t laugh, but for years, I had her and Alice Munro sort of mixed up in my head and combined into a single author. I read The Color Purple way back in high school, and while it was certainly a good book, it isn’t the kind of thing I pick up for fun. So both Alices were stuck in the “not my style” category until I stumbled across Practical Magic. I flipped to the back of the book and saw Alice Hoffman’s picture. I thought, “Wait a minute. A white woman wrote The Color Purple? That can’t be right!” Which was when I got online and did some googling and realized they are in fact two very different authors.

Anyway. The short version of that story is that ever since Practical Magic, I’ve been hooked. But, Alice is a lot like Tom Piccirilli in that a) I have to be in the right frame of mind to read her books, and b) the endings are sometimes disappointing. My favorite so far (which did NOT have a disappointing resolution) is The Probable Future.

James Rollins

James Rollins is my go-to author when I just want a fun, intriguing read without too much heavy shit. I have to be in exactly the right headspace for Tom Piccirilli or Alice Hoffman, but I can read James Rollins anytime. His books are sort of part adventure, part mystery, part scifi, and they’re always a fun ride.

Some of James’s books are stand-alones, and some are part of the Sigma Force series (which I’ve been reading in random order). He also has The Order of the Sanguines series, and the new Tucker Wayne series, but I haven’t read either of those yet (although I have a couple of them on my shelf). I introduced my husband to Rollins’s books recently, and that’s all he’s been reading for the last few weeks. Between the two of us, and Rollins’s pension for writing 700-page books, we have a whole lot of shelf space dedicated to his works.

For a fun stand-alone, check out Ice Hunt, or Deep Fathom.

Your Turn

So, those are the space-hoggers on my bookshelf. Who takes up the most space on your shelf (virtual or otherwise)? And because I haven’t done a giveaway in a while, I’ll go ahead and do one today. Leave a comment, and one random participate will receive their choice of ebook from my backlist.

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