Jack Chaucer's Blog, page 5

Original song lyrics from my free novella Freeway & the Vin Numbers

https://itun.es/us/4Pys_.l

MY PAUL

“You robbed from Peter
So I could play my Paul
The sound is sweeter
And stands 90 feet tall

Cool-hand Luke’s
No hot-hand Duke
My loyal brother
Is like no other

Saints and sinners
Paints and thinners
Got me a fresh new look
With something you took

You got me some more
So I could do it with Les
The fuzz ain’t got no clue
’Bout the magic between me and you

You robbed from Peter
So I could play my Paul
The sound is sweeter
And stands 90 feet tall”

Excerpt From: Jack Chaucer. “Freeway and the Vin Numbers.” iBooks.

Just released: My new free short story, heroinE

Check out my new free short story, "heroinE," which is inspired by the HBO documentary, "Heroin Cape Cod USA," and the thousands of real-life tragedies playing out across America right now. We recently had a young man from our town die of a heroin overdose in a sober home. His father said he wanted to get clean, but he simply didn't know how to beat heroin.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

A song from my free novella "Freeway and the Vin Numbers"

"Too Quick"

“Raiding red houses
Searching for the key
To unlock Spanish castles
That guard the magic
Of your time and place
Big dreams flying on a little wing
All the songs you never got to sing
The Axman, the Lizard King and Moby Dick
Death came and took y’all too quick
Lives too thin, legacies too thick
Break down the door that stands between us
And let us in
Fill up the shore that stands between us
And let us swim.”

Excerpt From: Jack Chaucer. “Freeway and the Vin Numbers.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/4Pys_.l

My awesome Streaks of Blue readers have now donated $223.98 to the Newtown Memorial Fund

Another donation was made today. Half of all proceeds from this book go to the Newtown Memorial Fund in a tribute to the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting three years ago today. Find out more about the fund and how it helps the families here … http://newtownmemorialfund.org

Introducing Freeway and the Vin Numbers

I orginally wrote this YA rock ‘n’ roll novella back in 2010. Now it has a real cover and it’s available to the world, fittingly, for free.
Also fittingly, it comes out just a few days before Jimi Hendrix’s 73rd birthday. His music was the muse for this story.

Here’s the blurb:
In this novella originally written in 2010, a mobster’s son named Vincent Masoli and a talented guitarist from the projects nicknamed Freeway form a band that channels the late great Jimi Hendrix and wows pop-weary fans. Dozens of original song lyrics.

Smashwords link for free download:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Goodreads link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Something new ... a tiny teaser for Nikki White: Frozen Upside Down

Working titles, POVs, sites and dates for the first eight chapters of “Nikki White: Frozen Upside Down,” the third book in the “Nikki: Red, White and Blue” series, can be found at www.queensarewild.wordpress.com

Nikki on heroes with flaws

"Everyone should be rescued from their mistakes at least once in their lives -- even the supposed heroes."

Nikki in "Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble," now available in Amazon paperback and major e-retailers. I have a bunch of the purchase links listed here ... www.queensarewild.wordpress.com

The third book will be ... Nikki White: Frozen Upside Down

A teaser quote from Nikki:

“The Bridge is an awful company that has forced me to do great things in amazing places … even alongside my former would-be killer. He should still be in prison. Instead he’s seized an opportunity to turn his life around. He might even get the previously unthinkable chance to make another world better than the one he was born into.”

More details here ...

https://queensarewild.wordpress.com/2...

Amazon and Kindle link is up for Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble!

http://www.amazon.com/Nikki-Blue-Sour...

Adam's POV in the chapter Book Brawl

Adam Upton’s POV

Virgil had warned me to be ready for payback. He already knew the story of me and Lee. I guess Nikki had told him all about it or he read it in the newspapers — how I’d backed out of our plan to shoot up our high school; how I’d told the police everything and served less than a year while my ex-friend got 25.

Lee never got back at me during my first term in the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, but by now, he had built up some real prison currency. He had a better chance of exerting influence and bribing people to tell other people to do his bidding for something in return.

“He’ll find out you’re there,” Virgil told me. “Word travels from maximum to minimum and back again.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve been there.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a while. Watch your back every second.”

“I will.”

On Day 29 of my 30-day term, Virgil’s crystal fucking ball flashed red.

And I was ready.

I was in the prison library, putting books back where they were supposed to be — the same job I had back when I was here in 2014-15. Lee was a fool for waiting so long because the closer it got to the end of my term, the more I felt it would happen at any moment … and the more I couldn’t wait to wreck whoever tried it.

I don’t know if the guard had been bribed to look the other way or not, but when he walked off for thirty seconds, my adrenaline surged. There were two guys sitting at a table well behind me who I knew and didn’t expect any shit from. I was standing beyond all the aisles of books, stocking the long shelf along the rear wall of the basically square room.

Two other guys I didn’t know very well — both shorter than me but pretty tough-looking — came in and started peeping around, but definitely not for books. My blood boiled and I imagined myself as who I always did before a fight — Shawn Thornton, ex-Boston Bruin and one of the best hockey fighters who ever lived.

I moved my cart toward the rear right corner of the library and played oblivious. I turned the cart the long way so it would block both the rear horizontal aisle and stick into the second-to-last vertical aisle at the same time. The only way they could get me without hurdling the cart was to come down the far right vertical aisle. I’d trapped myself in the corner on purpose and mostly kept my back to them. An exaggerated cleared throat not far away told me they’d found my aisle, my corner.

They both approached my ass single file as silently as they could while I raged inside — head pounding, heart banging through my chest. My left hand white-knuckled a hardcover of “No Easy Day” by Mark Owen; my right fist transformed into a hammer.

“This is from Lee in max,” the first dickhead declared, but before he got the “x” out of his mouth, my left hand had flung the book at his buzzed head, causing him to duck and my right fist followed with a hard punch to his nose, stunning him. The second guy, with the barbed-wire tat creeping up his neck, backed up a step, stunned that I was ready for them. I bull rushed past the first guy and tackled the second. I started whaling on him right there on the floor when the two guys I knew from the table ran over to check out the battle.

“Holy shit, Upton!” the one name Eddie shouted. The other one, Calhoun, just laughed.

“Get the fucking guard!” I yelled. “Or grab …”

Before I could shout another word, the first dickhead stabbed me in the back with something — a razor blade or the end of an X-acto knife maybe — and ripped downward. It fucking KILLED! I struggled to stand up as he put me in a headlock from behind, but I was so pissed off from getting stabbed that I rammed him into the bookshelf and crushed his arm enough to release me. Then I was free to wreck him up against the books. Every move I made hurt my back like a motherfucker, but I kept swinging anyway and wasted the rest of his face to match his broken nose.

That’s when the guard finally showed up. By now, at least Eddie was holding down the second asshole. Calhoun must’ve run off to tell the guard what had happened.

“What the fuck is going on here?” shouted the guard, a new one I didn’t recognize.

I shoved the dazed and bloodied mofo who stabbed me toward the guard’s feet. “These two motherfuckers just ambushed me and I kicked their asses! Now take me to the fucking hospital!”

They all looked at me like I was insane, so I turned around to show them my gashed back — orange prison suit parted by a red sea of blood. The chorus of groans told me how bad it was.

I spun back around on them.

“That’s fucking why!” I shouted, loud enough so Lee could hear it in max.

From “Nikki Blue: Source of Trouble”
Release date: Oct. 9
ARC date: Available now on NetGalley