Regan Summers's Blog

Free Night Runner Read – Malcolm’s POV

1921 – Then

 

The imminent rise of the sun prickled against the back of his neck as Malcolm Kelly strolled along the top of the fifteen-foot wall surrounding Samuel Ellmont’s estate. The stone was imported from Italy, the timbers along the top harvested from shipwrecks off the Western Cape. Ellmont spared no expense, not with his ostentatious estate, and not with his employees. Sometimes it was a pleasure to work for him.

Malcolm leapt lightly to the ground, slipping his hands into his pockets as he crossed the manicured lawn. Lights twinkled around the house in the purpling darkness and a phonograph wailed jazz over the pool. It was mostly empty, except for soggy paper flowers and a couple sprawled over the stairs, sending out little ripples as they lazily caressed each other. A man in a gapping robe snored ponderously from a deck chair. Samuel Ellmont, in all his rotund glory.

Malcolm shook his shoulder. A gasp, following by the smacking of lips, then another snore. He stepped back and nudged the man with the toe of his shoe, not gently.

“I say, Mr. Ellmont. May I go inside?”

“Party’s over, I’m afraid. But go on if you like. Have yourself a drink.” The man’s hand dipped into his robe, where he proceeded to scratch, loudly. Sometimes the arrangement was less of a pleasure.

“Your hospitality is an inspiration.”

            Stepping over a mess of broken green and brown glass, Malcolm entered through the open French doors. The threshold brushed against him like a rough animal pelt stroked the wrong way.

Inside, the mighty house full of marble floors and boastful Egyptian relics smelled like smoke, booze, humans and vampires. Weight descended on Malcolm’s shoulders, the buoyant hope that he’d maintained on the walk through the sleeping city evaporating like vapors off a bog. Dierdre was here. She was here and, at a party like this, how could anyone be expected to keep to themselves?

“You’re back early. Afraid you were going to miss something?” Hendrik Vorster appeared at the top of the stairs. A trail of red lipstick ran from his collarbone to disappear into the waist of his lowslung slacks. None on his neck. None on the mouth that he raised a long, thin glass to, draining the contents before tossing it into the corner. “Not that there’s anything to miss. Boring party filled with boring people.”

Anger sprang up in Malcolm, followed by a surge of power that he gripped tight and wrestled down. Despite the clichés about the Irish, he’d never been prone to a temper, not until recently. And Hendrik was often the one provoking that feeling. They’d been friends a long time. Well, they’d worked together for a long time, and the thievery and blackmail business required long, intimate hours. They would have been friends, if they’d liked each other. Mal got along with almost everyone. That had always been his special talent, easing alongside and blending in. Hendrik, he was pretty sure, didn’t like anybody.

But he had stayed at Ellmont’s nearly ‘til dawn, which meant there’d been something he’d wanted here. And he hadn’t come alone. Without asking, Mal knew what had played out while he’d been away. It wasn’t even a puzzle. Hendrik would have left a note or invitation laying where Dierdre would have seen it. He might have bought her a new dress, or wrapped a pretty necklace around her neck, something she would have wanted to be seen in. She’d always wanted, before. When they walked out through the city, without a coin between them, she’d stop in front of a store window with a little gasp, then turn to him with big, pleading eyes. He’d stolen for her a dozen times, but he couldn’t always secure what she wanted. She grieved, honestly took to bed in pain over the loss of things that had never belonged to her. And that was before.

Since her transition, Dierdre was avarice incarnate. Only now, he could satisfy her heart’s desires.

“Where is she?” Malcolm asked, climbing the stairs.

He moved too quickly, losing hold on the power that had grown agitated within him. Hendrik’s brow furrowed, and his wide mouth drew down into a frown.

“What’s got you so riled up?” He gestured around. “Anyone could see you. What would they think?”

“There’s almost nobody conscious in this house, or sober enough to comprehend.” Malcolm had been drunk when Phelan MacInness had come round and demonstrated his abilities. He’d been intrigued, not scared. Not filled with nerves and dread like he was now. What might Dierdre have done, surrounded by the frenetic sensuality of this party?

“We didn’t come together,” Hen said, dredging up an insulted tone even though Malcolm hadn’t accused him of anything. “Take a look around, if you think you should. These are all bedrooms up here.”

Malcolm swallowed the implication. Was it even an insult if it was true? Dierdre was loyal to him. She was. She just got carried away sometimes. She got spun around. Especially when her thirst got to her. But he could take care of her. Descending the stairs, he followed the scent of blood. But that only led to a pair of broken glasses and a discarded napkin that had been used as a bandage. That hadn’t been her then. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring relief.

“What was she supposed to do?” Hendrik called after him. “Sit in the house and knit? She has needs, you know.”

“I don’t want her home because I think she should be knitting,” Mal said. “I want her home for her safety.”

“She’s got the same strength that you and I do,” Hendrik said, drawing his shirt on as he loped down the stairs. “She can take care of herself.”

And that was the problem. She had the same strength, but not the same control. His hand landed on the brass handle of a heavy, mahogany door, but he didn’t turn it. MacInness had said that the transition could be dangerous, that it could be fatal. They’d all taken the plunge – Hendrik first, then Malcolm, then Dierdre. At first he’d been joyous, intoxicated. Thrilled with the skills he’d cultivated as a human and the endless capabilities of his new body. He didn’t need to worry about money. And he didn’t need to worry about being roughed up or worse if he were caught. It was a simple thing now, not getting caught.

His future, their future, was one of possibility. A horizon that stretched endlessly before them.

The only thing to worry about was the hunger.

One night when he’d ventured too far from the city, he’d been overrun by hunger. And a raw, red need had filled him, washing away reason and control. His fangs had elongated and stayed that way. His senses had all sharpened, and every person he encountered lost their shape until they were no longer human in his eyes. They no longer mattered, only the blood inside of them. It had hurt, wrenching himself away from the draw of the blood as he dragged himself home. Back to safety, to sustenance, to his new, undead family. He’d warned Dierdre not to venture too far, not wanting her to suffer as he had. She’d gone sailing with Hendrik and a few dandies he was trying to butter up. A mast had broken. The wind had come up, blowing in the wrong direction. They’d been adrift for three nights before Malcolm and Phelan could find them. She hadn’t just drunk from Hendrik’s marks; she’d consumed them. All that was left was hair and bones, and those had been gnawed upon.

Malcolm’s hand clenched on the handle and the metal groaned when he turned it. The room wasn’t a bedroom but a ballroom, dusty and smelling of fragrant wax. The massive chandeliers were dark, the few pieces of furniture covered in sheets. A man lay sprawled over a half-covered divan. Dierdre raised her head from his chest, and smiled. They were both dressed still. A breath escaped him, an old habit but Malcolm’s relief was so great he couldn’t contain it.

“Malcolm. Darling.” She rose, gracefully smoothing her green satin gown. “I thought you were in Marrakech.”

“I finished the job early.” And he’d rushed home from the port, leaving the feeders and the valet to deal with the luggage.

“If I’d known you were coming, I would have waited.” When she reached the center of the room, she twirled, slim arms lifting, red curls floating around her. “Isn’t this place gorgeous? They should have opened the room. I would have danced all night. Will you dance with me now?”

“Morning is close.”

“What’s the point of all this time if we’re always out of time?” Her head tilted to the side as she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Dance with me, Malcolm.”

“One dance.”

“My man.” She eased into his arms, one small hand reaching around to tease the back of his neck, the other soft and smooth in his. “My man’s always got time for a dance with me. Haven’t you?”

She was so damned beautiful. Soft, creamy skin. That buoyant tumble of curls that fell nearly to her hips. The color had intensified since her change, now as dark as the inside of a rose. Her lips were the same color, only softer. And her green eyes sparked the color of lapis in her passion.

They turned in a slow waltz. Her gown washed slickly against his legs. Her skin was hot against his. She was happy, and she was his, and all was well.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured.

“Then don’t leave me so often,” she whispered back.

“One day I will return and never leave your side again. But Hen and I have to do these jobs. That was the arrangement.”

She sighed, leaning her cheek against his chest. “I know. I do. But I become so lonely without you. I feel so deeply now, so…fully.” Her fingers slid down from his neck to wrap around his lapel. “I miss you. My body misses you.”

Deeply. Fully. She’d never spoken like this before, never behaved as though physical desires swayed her at all. Her strongest reaction had been a sigh after he kissed her, and there had been a certain staged stiffness to that. As if she thought it expected.

His feelings hadn’t changed. He’d loved her even though she hadn’t returned his regard in quite the same way. It hadn’t mattered. His adoration wouldn’t diminish, and if her fondness grew, all the better. And then they had changed, and she had woken ravenous for him.

“I’ll show you how much I missed you,” she said, a dark vibration filling her voice. When she tugged on his lapel, the fabric tore.

He cradled her face and tilted it toward his own. She clutched at him as he bent and claimed her lips.

And then stopped.

She made a pleading sound as he lifted his head.

“It’s not morning yet,” she said in a rush. “Kiss me. We have time.”

“Dierdre.”

She tore his shirt open and ran feverish hands over his chest. But it barely registered. He touched his lips then stared at his fingers, not sure what he expected to see. She tasted sweet, tangy when she’d been drinking. Now her lips held the rot of death.

“What have you done?”

“Malcolm.”

Her voice followed him as he crossed the floor. The man on the divan stared sightlessly at the ceiling. The tears in his neck were deep and jagged, and blackening blood had pooled beneath his body. She hadn’t bitten to feed. She’d gnawed at him, and drunk until he was dead. Then remained there, wrapped around her victim. Mal reached out, hesitated, then closed the man’s eyes. The body was already cooling. He closed his own eyes.

“Dierdre, what happened?”

“Baby.” Her hands landed on his shoulders and squeezed. “It wasn’t me. It was the hunger, and he wouldn’t stay still. He wouldn’t stay still. It wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that.”

Reaching back, Malcolm covered her hand. His chest squeezed tight and a shudder wracked him. Some vampires never gained control. They were a danger to the rest. It was one of their maker’s only rules. If one of them posed a threat to the family they had to be managed. Or contained.

He stood, pulling her against him. Her hands fluttered, her voice rose and fell on nonsensical words. Her eyes were owlish, but beneath the forced appearance of distraction, she looked irritated. Because he was troubling her over the death of a single human.

“He doesn’t matter,” she said, force in her voice. “Only the two of us matter.”

She’d said that before, and he’d reveled in it. He’d thought it mirrored his own feelings. He adored her, thought of her constantly. Only he hadn’t realized that what she really meant was that nobody else mattered to her. She hadn’t woken ravenous for him. She’d just woken ravenous.

The instinct to run was nearly overwhelming. He loved Dierdre. He still loved her, even with this. His entire body quickened in response to her touch even with the results of her actions right in front of him, even with that hard vibration distorting her voice. His Dierdre.

“It’s okay.” He took her hand and wrapped it around his arm. “It’s almost light out. Let’s go home.”

She walked alongside him, humming as they crossed the threshold of the ballroom, then again when they exited the house. A car rumbled down the driveway, the powerful engine already faltering. Hendrik reclined in the back, a hat pulled low over his eyes. The enthralled driver cracked the side mirror against the gate as he drove through. Not a clean escape, but a determined one. Hendrik had mastered the ability to move on.

Dierdre absently patted at her hair. She had not a drop of blood on her. Her dress was wrinkled, but she looked as though she’d just stepped out of her dressing room. She’d been frozen at the height of her beauty, and he’d known when Phelan lectured them on what to expect after the change that he would never tire of looking at her. Not if they were together a thousand years. Not if they were together forever.

She glanced up, smiling coyly, and hugged his arm.

“I’ve missed you,” she said. “You musn’t go away so much.”

Not his Dierdre. He and Hendrik had changed. Dierdre has disappeared, replaced by a pretty monster.

“I miss you, too.”

Free Read in Malcolm’s Point-of-View

The Night Runner series is written in Sydney Kildare’s point-of-view, but occasionally I wrote scenes in Malcolm Kelly’s POV. They helped to flesh out his backstory, character, and reactions. I consider these scenes essential as an author, and I love getting a peek at them as a reader. Unfortunately,  none of these made it into the books.

I assembled two scenes in Mal’s POV, one set not long after he was changed into a vampire, the second following the events of Falling from the Light. That one does contain some spoilers.

This is my little Christmas gift to readers, and will be going out to newsletter subscribers on December 28th. After that, I’ll post the two snippets separately here on the blog.

This Show May Kill Me

My shows are keeeeeling me right now. The Americans is crazy tense. Justified – with the best dialogue on TV – is delightful but in its final season. Teen Wolf still has me, but I’m mostly holding on due to nostalgia for season one, and the continued brilliance that is Dylan O’Brien (and, yes, maybe Peter Hale and Lydia Martin do things to me – MUCH more on that here). Agent Carter was excellent, if a little rushed. I knew I liked Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter. I didn’t realize how much I was going to love her with James D’Arcy as Jarvis.

 

But the show that might actually ruin me is Agents of SHIELD. I watched the pilot last year with high hopes and wasn’t disappointed. Then…I kind of fell off of it. Somewhere in the middle of season two, with a sorta perilous but disjointed feeling arc, interspersed with “monsters of the week”, I kind of lost interest. Then I started hearing things. People binging on the last half of the season. People talking about the tie-in with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So I jumped back on board.

 

And.

Wow.

What a show.

 

I watched the last half of the season in a mad rush so that I could be caught up when season two began. And it was worth it. But then there was a break in the middle of the season, which is both torture and a harbinger of Bad Things to Come.

All of AOS fandom, waiting to be destroyed.

 

And, oh how it’s come. All the characters I’ve fallen in chum with (that sounds gross, but basically it means that I want to be besties with them all) are in such pain. SHIELD has fallen apart, taking its certainty and security with it. Relationships have been stretched to the breaking point. And, as you’ve probably seen from my many, many reposts on tumblr, characters have changed.

 

Last season’s betrayals were shocking, but now I’m watching in a constant state of cringe, waiting for other coats to turn. I miss the goofy, off-kilter humor of the first season. There isn’t much room for it right now, when we most desperately need it. But I trust that it’s coming back. And I trust that my babies – I mean, the characters on this totally fictional show – will pull together. The good guy has to win, right? (Please humor me and say yes!)

New Release – Falling from the Light

The Night Runner series has been very special to me. When I wrote Don’t Bite the Messenger, it was deep winter in Alaska. For those of you who haven’t experienced it – the gradual darkening and growing cold – it’s pretty rough. Months of expanding darkness and deep cold take a toll on a person. Messenger was my escape – a book full of fast cars, vampires (both nasty and sexy), explosions, and Sydney Kildare, a heroine who would do whatever it took to get the hell out of dodge.

 

Running in the Dark was even more fun. For me. Maybe not for Syd, who I stuck low on a totem pole in a foreign place before surrounding her with uncertainty and homicidal enemies. Definitely not for Malcolm Kelly, who I saddled with responsibility and restrictions (two things the poor vampire loathes) so that he couldn’t carry Syd off into the sunset (you know what I mean) like he wanted to. But they fought, sometimes with each other but more often for each other, and they earned their place together.

 

And now I’m happy to announce the third book in the Night Runner series, Falling from the Light. This was a difficult book. Every time I struggled with a scene, it got worse for Syd and Mal. I struggled, a lot. And I finally got what I wanted. Nastier bad guys. Higher stakes. Rocks, hard places, and a whole lot of tough decisions. In this world, if you want a happy ending, you have to work for it.

 

ISBN-13: 9781502236265

ISBN-10: 1502236265

Buy: B & N | Kobo | iBooks | Amazon

Get in, loser. We’re going on a tour!

 

Hidey-ho, neighbors. Syd and Mal are going on tour! Find them (and me) chatting, sharing secrets, and posting snippets at the following spots. The links in bold will feature interviews of guest blogs. You’ll also have be able to enter to win the book!

11/24 – Fang Freakin Tastic Reviews
www.Fangfreakintasticreviews.com

11/24 – Reading Reality
http://www.readingreality.net

11/25 – 3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, & Sissy, Too!
http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com/

11/25 – Two girls and plenty of books
http://confessionsofafantasyfreak.blogspot.com/

11/26 – Adrienne Woods Books and reviews
http://woodsadrienne.wordpress.com/

11/27 – Deal Sharing Aunt
www.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com

11/28 – Roxanne’s Realm
www.roxannerhoads.com

12/1 – Urban Fantasy Investigations
http://urbanfantasyinvestigations.blogspot.com

12/1 – The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom
www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com

12/2 – ARe Cafe
www.AReCafe.com

12/2- Paranormal Romance and Authors That Rock
www.pratr.wordpress.com

12/3 – Books and Tales
http://booksandtales.blogspot.co.uk/

12/3 – The BookPushers
http://thebookpushers.com/

12/3 – Penny Writes
www.pennybrojacquie.blogspot.com

12/4 – ParaYourNormal 
http://parayournormal.wordpress.com
potential topic: vampires: myth vs. reality

12/4 – Lisa’s World of Books
www.lisasworldofbooks.net

12/5 – Coffee Addicts Books  
http://www.selenityjadebooks.blogspot.com/

12/5 – Share My Destiny
http://sharemydestiny.blogspot.com

12/8 – Pembroke Sinclair
www.pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com

12/8 – Fang-tastic Books
www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com

12/15 – Vampire Book Club
http://vampirebookclub.com/


Huge thanks to Bewitching Blog Tours, and the bloggers, reviewers, and authors who’ve hosted me!

Upcoming Release – Night Runner 2.0

I am all kinds of happy to announce the third Night Runner book – Falling from the Light. I know it’s been awhile. I had to pause and write another novel at one point to up my skills so that I could twist this one just the way I wanted. That’s right. I had to LEVEL UP before I could finish this story.

 

That’s me with my sensei. Mostly we just hung out in silhouette, making elaborate shadow puppets. It was still hard, though, judgmental readers! But I did it. I toughed it out (and can now make an 8-point stag with flexible ears). All for you!

 

I also made a playlist. At the time, I believed I was procrastinating. Mostly because I don’t listen to music while writing. But now that playlist hits me right in the solar plexus of my feels, because this book, you guys. THIS BOOK.

 

It’s a bumpy ride, and it’s coming out November 24th. Blrub and pre-order links HERE. Add it to your Goodreads page HERE.

Subscribe to Romance!

Wow! So Harlequin (including my Night Runner publisher, Carina press) has added 15,000 backlist titles to a subscription service at Scribd. It’s $8.99 a month to subscribe to a giganta-library of romance and adventure.

As a reader, I consider this a massive value. Seriously, once I stop bouncing and almost-dancing, I’m going to start searching for my favorite Harlequin-family authors.

You can find Don’t Bite the Messenger, my Alaska-based urban fantasy novella, and Running in the Dark, my Chile-based romantic urban fantasy novel, at Scribd.

If you’re leery of this strange new technology called sub-skrip-sheon, you can get a free three-month trial here. How many stories can you read for free in three months? A ka-zillion, that’s right.

What will authors earn from this subscription service? How kind of you to ask. If you read up to the 20% mark or beyond of a story, the author will be paid as if you had purchased the story individually. A good deal for all involved.

Aaaaand…new release news is about to drop for the Night Runner series, so I encourage you to refresh your memory and push it toward friends so you can scuttle about it together soon!

Mad Murdock in a Rally Cap

 

This isn’t the oldest comic I have (the oldest only cost 50 cents), but it’s surely the classiest. Anyone remember the time B.A. pitied the fool and the fool was a sumo wrestler? ‘Course you do.

Night Runner: Back on the Street

If this were the ’80s, that headline would be the title of my next book in the series. Unfortunately (for my closet full of scrunchies and acid-washed jeans) it is not the ’80s. But the Night Runner series will be continuing this fall.

 

Wait. *checks which months are fall in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere* Yes, it will be fall. We’ll probably already have snow in Alaska, but that’s the price we pay to live in a place so…Alaskan. (I couldn’t think of anything nicer to say)

 

Syd and Mal and a few other favorites will be back, as well as characters of questionable morality and one total A-hole. Stay tuned.

Interview and Giveaway with Diane Dooley

Diane Dooley is a fellow Carina Press author, dear writer friend, and author of one of my favorite Sci Fi Romance novellas, Mako’s Bounty. She’s changed gears for her upcoming release, Zipless, a contemporary romance throwing a former glam rocker and a Scottish singer-songwriter with severe stage fright, into a high stakes situation on the NYC music scene.

 

Blurb:

Rocking, rolling and romancing in New York City — Scottish style!

Unable to perform due to paralyzing anxiety, singer-songwriter Lou Marzaroli has been managing her brother’s band for years, driving them out of Scotland and into the big time. But days before their American network debut, the band is imploding and Lou is relieving her stress in a no-strings-attached sexual encounter with an aging scenester she’s nicknamed Zippy.

The Zipman is sometimes remembered as Crash Burns, formerly of seminal L.A. glampunk band, Snakebite. It’s been years since he’d trashed the eyeliner and hairspray, and he hasn’t written a song since. Now he’s penning lyrics about the mysterious woman he last saw sprinting barefoot in a miniskirt down West Twenty Third. She’s the muse he’s been longing for, and he’s determined to be more than her one night stand.

When the head honchos learn Lou wrote the band’s material, they agree to give her the TV spot, sending her to be coached by their performance guru, Crash Burns. Now Lou must put herself in Zippy’s hands as he coaxes a life-changing performance from her. And the man who used to perform in nothing but a leather thong must find ways to get her confident on stage- and content in only one bed.

 

Diane, your stories feature strong leads who often have very different ideas of what’s going to happen between them. How do the first couple of meetings between Lou Marzaroli and Crash Burns go?

 

Those first meetings are a mixture of laughter, mistaken identities, inspiration, and anonymous sex. A delightful combination, don’t you think? LOL.

 

All delightful, especially in combination. You’ve said that Polly Jean Harvey was one of the inspirations for Lou (which is reason enough for everyone to go buy this story, IMHO). What else inspired the characters and rock & roll setting?

 

Three things inspired the story.

1) More guitar-playing, singing-songwriting awesome females than I could possibly mention. I spotlight a few of them here. Yeah, I’m a music geek.

2) I wanted to see Scottish characters in a romance story who weren’t wearing kilts while running bare-chested around the Highlands. If my Lou was to wear tartan, it would probably be a micro-mini-skirt held together with safety pins. She does, um, go bare-chested a couple of times, though. *grin*

3) Scotland is a crazily musical nation. When I was much younger it seemed like almost everyone I knew played an instrument and/or sang and/or was in a band. Few of them made the big time, but I channeled all those experiences hanging with talented and hilarious musicians into ZIPLESS.

 

As a fantasy and sci fi author myself, I sometimes struggle writing contemporary stories. No monsters! No looming, world-ending disasters! What do you like, and what challenges you when writing contemporary?

 

I do love disappearing into worlds of my own imagining, but I’m also rather attached to the real world I live in. Contemporary romance is rather harder than speculative fiction, in my opinion. Due to the lack of “monsters” and “world-ending disasters,” where is one to find the necessary conflict?

 

Perhaps that’s what I like about it: the challenge. In my contemporary romances I often turn to a very modern source of conflict for women: how to meld career ambitions with a desire to fall in love and live happily ever after. It’s become rather common for people to assume that women can have it all, but it seems to me that “having it all” takes a certain amount of luck and a metric ton of hard work. If that ain’t conflict, I don’t know what is.

 

It’s excellent conflict. Difficult, relatable, and also so full of optimism. So, since you also write horror, I’m going to ask you a couple horrible questions. (As in horror-ble, not just crappy questions)

 

What’s the most frightening thing you’ve ever encountered in your own home (since you have man-cubs, I figure it’s something truly heinous)?

 

The most frightening things have involved, surprisingly, critters rather than my man-cubs. One day I came home from work to find the tank that houses the feeder crickets (I have a gecko) being overrun by hundreds of large, aggressive black ants. They had conducted a murderous raid on the helpless crickets. I watched in fascination as they ripped the crickets, live, into smaller pieces before carrying them back to their hungry queen and young ’uns.  A nature documentary right in front of my eyes. Watching the massacre was amazing. I suppose I should have stopped it.

 

On another occasion I was writing late at night in my office. From a couple of feet behind me came a scratching noise, emanating from the bookcase. I watched, frozen with fear, as the noise grew gradually louder as it moved higher. Suddenly, a hideous face appeared above the top, snarled at me, then flew away. A bat! And, boy, was it ugly.  It terrorized me for the rest of the evening, while I huddled in my office brandishing a fishing net and a tennis racket. I might have been too afeared to go to the bathroom. Okay, I was too afeared!

 

(Interviewer Interjection: HOLY CARP)

How does the world end?

A)        Sharkado, suckahs

B)        The old classic: zombie apocalypse

C)        Meteor that even Bruce Willis and his big, hard, totally-not-penis-metaphor space drill cannot stop

D)   Write In Answer:

Hmm, I did write a version of C) in My Own Private Apocalypse. Oh, and B) in Zombies of Portland. But D) I really think the world will end slowly, not with some huge catastrophic event. As the polar caps melt, the sea levels rise, increasing incidences of killer weather, more widespread famine, continued over-population, etcetera. Yes, I think the world will end slowly… and that it has already begun.  Cheerful, ain’t I? *grin*

 

Clearly we need more Happily Ever Afters to inoculate us against your “cheer”. J

 

And so, we’ve reached the end of the interview. Before we leave, what can you share about upcoming stories or works in progress?

 

I’m working on a companion story to ZIPLESS. It’s about a female country singer who is neither Caucasian nor Southern. Uphill battle right there! And that’s even before the love story which is as tragic and pain-filled as the very best country songs. Tentatively titled FRETLESS.

I’m about to get stuck into edits on BLUE YONDER, set in Athens, Greece on the eve of that long, slow apocalypse I mentioned earlier.

 

I’m also continuing as Fiction Editor of SciFi Romance Quarterly, in which I’m able to combine my love of short fiction and Sci-fi Romance. (Interviewer interjection: The SciFi Romance Quarterly will make your tbr list go Boom, in a good way. Highly recommended)

 

Thanks for having me over, Regan! I’d love to be able to give an e-copy of ZIPLESS to one of your readers. To enter, just tell me who your favorite female musician is. I will select a random winner.

 

(Per the author, this giveaway is open internationally. The book will be in epub format. Please note that Zipless is a work for adults, and contains sexual situations, swearing, the consumption of alcohol, and references to drugs.)

 

About The Author: Born in the Channel Islands, raised in Scotland, and now resident in the U.S., Diane Dooley is an author, an editor, a voracious reader, and a geek of intergalactic proportions.  You can follow her shenanigans on her Blog, Twitter or Facebook. 

 

AMAZON     B&N     KOBO     BAM