Alexa Land's Blog, page 15

Throwback Thursday: Locations Real and Imagined, and Sometimes Both

Although I write fiction, I like grounding my stories in real locations. My Firsts and Forever Series is set in San Francisco because it’s a city I know well. I lived right in the heart of it for five years in the 1990s, and even though a lot of time has passed, I love the fact that it’s still so familiar whenever I go back for a visit. 
  Every now and then, I do make up a location, such as Villadembursa in Sicily. That’s the town where Nana Dombruso was born, and where she, Jessie and Nico went on vacation in All I Believe. I did actually research the coast of Sicily extensively before writing that book, but since I was making up its history, I didn’t want to use a real town. 
And occasionally, I send my characters to a real place I have yet to visit. That was the case with the Old Faithful Inn and Yellowstone National Park. I wrote about it in Coming Home, book nine in my Firsts and Forever Series, and I did a lot of research before I sent Chance, Finn, Colt and Elijah there. I studied the lodge in detail from photographs and watched videos of Old Faithful geyser and the surrounding environment. I even looked up menus for the dining room. It was important to me to be as accurate as possible in describing this iconic location. 

Old Faithful Geyser (all photos by Alexa Land)
A lot of those details didn’t make it into the book. I didn’t want to bog down the story line by over-describing the setting. But it was important to me to have a strong understanding of where my characters were. That made them feel more real to me. And I think when they feel real to the author, they also feel real to the reader.
Exterior Shots of the Old Faithful Inn by Alexa Land
I’ve always loved our national parks and their rustic lodges, and I’ve been lucky enough to visit many of them. Crater Lake, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite are particular favorites. But it wasn’t until earlier this week that I finally made it to Yellowstone and saw the park and the Old Faithful Inn for myself. My son and I spent four days there and stayed at the historic inn. As we were eating in the dining room one night, I had this feeling almost of déjà vu. But it was more than that. 
It was a feeling of two worlds coming together, the one in my books and the one I live in. I could pick out the exact table where my characters had been dining in Coming Home, even though that detail hadn’t made it into the book. I was seated just two tables over. It was so easy to imagine Chance and Finn and Colt and Elijah sitting there, enjoying their first dinner as a family.
 The Historic Dining Room at the Old Faithful Inn, photo by Alexa Land

In the following scene from Coming Home, my characters have decided to stop off at Yellowstone and the Old Faithful Inn on their way home from Chance’s ill-fated road trip. Chance and Finn are just starting out as a couple, and they’re bringing Chance’s kid brother Colt and Colt’s boyfriend Elijah back to California with them, after finding out the boys have been living on their own and barely surviving for the past several months:
We all grabbed our backpacks before the boys and I  followed Finn into the breathtaking lobby. It was a rustic composition of dark wood and high ceilings, with four tiers of balconies opening around a huge common area dominated by an absolutely enormous rock fireplace. 
“Holy shit,” Elijah whispered. His eyes were huge as he looked around, and he held on to Colt’s arm with both hands. 
“This is amazing,” my brother said. He turned to Finn and asked, “Are you rich?”
Finn shook his head, a look of amazement on his face as he took in our surroundings. “Not by a long shot,” he said, his eyes traveling up the absolutely gigantic fireplace. 
After Finn checked in, we dropped our backpacks in our room and headed out to explore. I took out my phone and snapped a few candid shots of the boys. Elijah was really shy and never let go of Colt, practically hiding behind him as we negotiated the clusters of people outside. They seemed even more childlike in this setting as they reacted to everything with wonder. “Let me get a picture of the three of you,” I told my companions, framing up a shot with the lodge in the background.
A voice beside me said, “Why don’t you get in the picture, too?” 
I turned to look at the older woman with short silver hair and an engaging smile, and said, “Yeah, okay,” before handing over my phone. 
I stood between Colt and Finn with Elijah on Colt’s opposite side, and we all smiled for the camera. The woman took several shots, and when she gave the phone back, she told me, “You have a beautiful family.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. When she’d gone, I scrolled through the pictures she’d taken. We really did look like a family. A non-traditional one, sure, but no less a family. I stared at the screen for a long moment and smiled before turning to Finn. He took my hand, which surprised me a little since we were in public, but he just grinned at me.
 “What’s going on over there?” Colt asked, indicating a crowd that was gathering a short distance away. 
“Let’s go see,” I said, and we joined the spectators. I knew what we were looking at, but the boys didn’t so I decided to let them be surprised.
“It’s about to happen,” someone nearby exclaimed as we found a spot at the edge of the wide walkway. 
“Wait for it,” I murmured, and winked at Colt when he glanced at me. He turned back around just in time to watch Old Faithful erupt, shooting steam and water a hundred and forty feet into the air.
My brother exclaimed, “Oh my God,” as the crowd cheered. Elijah clapped and let out a burst of surprised laughter before grabbing Colt’s hand. 
Finn looked no less enchanted. He had a huge, delighted smile on his face, his eyes bright and sparkling. I took a few pictures so I could always remember him in that moment of perfect happiness. I snapped a few of the geyser, too, but Finn was more captivating.
The eruption lasted about two minutes, and when it was over, the crowd applauded before beginning to disperse. “I can’t believe I just saw Old Faithful!” Colt exclaimed. “I heard about it and saw pictures, like, a billion times, but seeing it for real was epic!” He turned to Finn and said, “Thanks for bringing us here.”
“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s explore a bit before it gets dark,” Finn said. 
A few people stared at us as we strolled on the walkways through the steaming, bubbling geyser field, since Finn and I were once again holding hands. Fuck ‘em. Whenever someone tried to give us a disapproving look, I stared them down, and Finn ignored them. The boys followed our example and held hands too, and Colt did the same thing I was doing, glaring at anyone that dared look at him judgmentally. He caught me grinning at him at one point, and said, “Finn’s really big. If anyone hassles us, he can punch ’em in the face.”
Finn chuckled at that. “I could, but I’m not going to.”
When it started to get dark, we went to dinner in the lodge’s big dining room, which was decorated in the same woodsy style as the rest of the place. I probably looked a little shell-shocked when I saw the prices on the menu, and Finn must have noticed because he said, “Dinner’s on me. Order anything you want. That goes for all of you.” Colt and Elijah thanked him excitedly, while I mentally added the boys’ and my meals to the ever-increasing running total of all I owed Finn. 
I just ordered a bowl of soup, but the boys went nuts and ordered a ton of food. After their diet of fast food and ramen I could see why they’d be excited, and I didn’t try to discourage them. They were both so skinny, and it was their first real meal in ages. 
Somehow, they both polished off dessert after their huge dinners, and then my brother moaned and said, “Oh man, I’m so full that I could pop like a tick! Is it okay if we go lay down in the room?” 
“Sure,” I said, and handed Colt my key.
Elijah pushed back from the table. He’d said next to nothing throughout the meal, but now he glanced at Finn from under his lashes and said quietly, “Thank you, sir. That was the best meal I ever ate.”
 Interior shots of the Old Faithful Inn: the lobby and the stone fireplace; 
the log construction in the original part of the building. Photos by Alexa Land
*****
Aw, I love those boys! I’m looking forward to writing Elijah’s book sometime in this next year, and Colt’s book after that. 
As always, thank you for reading.

Throwback Thursday: A Lifelong Love Affair with Art

The fact that art is important to me probably isn't news to anyone who's read my Firsts and Forever Series, since my books are laced with artists. In order to explain why, I need to share a fair amount of my personal history, so I hope you’ll bear with me. :) 

Throughout my childhood and teen years, I was always drawing. My favorite thing was cartooning, and in high school, I spent countless hours drawing comic books for my best friend, mostly because I loved to make her laugh. But because I was sure I’d never make a living as an artist, I put away my drawing pencils and opted to study other subjects in college and graduate school.
A few years later, around the time I was turning thirty, I started to miss the part of me I’d given up, and I began to take art and animation classes several nights a week, after work. I also became involved in San Francisco’s animation community. I was lucky enough to land two jobs in the animation field while I was still a student.
When I moved from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, I changed my focus a bit and started studying graphic design, since animation jobs were few and far between. Again, I got lucky and landed a job working as the graphic designer for a start-up, family-owned adventure sports magazine. Because I had strong writing skills, I was soon asked to edit the stories submitted to the magazine, and I even began writing a monthly column, in addition to serving as the magazine’s entire art department.
I stuck with that job for quite a while, until I decided to become a parent. Then, for the next few years, I focused on my child as a stay-at-home mom. But because I’m the kind of person who always has to have a creative outlet, I also started writing, usually late at night, after my son and then-husband went to bed. At first, it was just for me. But when my son was about nine, I took a chance and published my first book.
Jump ahead four years, and here I am, with a writing career I absolutely adore. I was thinking about that recently and asking myself how writing had so thoroughly supplanted drawing as my life’s passion. And then I had an epiphany: I’ve been a storyteller all my life. As a little kid, my drawings were always accompanied by verbal narratives, even before I knew how to write. When I was a teen, I channeled my energy into writing and illustrating comic books. Later on, when I decided to study animation, it was because I wanted to make movies. The medium may have changed, and changed again, but at the heart of it, there’s always been the same undeniable need: to tell stories.
So now I write, and often, I write artists. To me they’re fascinating people, and I think I understand what drives them. The first artist I wrote was Christopher Robin. I introduced him in All In, the second book in the series, and made him the main character in book 3, In Pieces. That opened the door to write a couple more artists, his friends and classmates Skye (my main character in Skye Blue) and Christian (the main character in Against the Wall). Christopher is a painter, and his photorealistic oil paintings are similar in tone and style to those of Andrew Wyeth. Meanwhile, Skye is a found-object metal sculptor, and Christian is a graffiti artist.

(this is the background image I used on the cover of Against the wall)
The three characters met at Sutherlin, a private art college. Random fact: while a lot of my San Francisco locations are real, Sutherlin is not. The name is borrowed from a small town in southern Oregon, a couple hours north of me. Its only significance in my life is that I always stop there for coffee whenever I drive to Portland. :)
Sutherlin is loosely based on Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida (though without Florida's decidedly tropical feel). Flagler is a four-year liberal arts college with a well-respected art program. When I was in St. Augustine about five or six years ago, I walked past the absolutely breathtaking campus and noticed a young guy sitting high up on a brick wall, lost in thought as he drew on a big sketch pad. And I remember thinking what a dream come true it would be to get to study art someplace so beautiful.
I think the essence of that guy with the sketch pad has informed several of my characters. Maybe it’s wish fulfillment in a way. My characters are doing what I didn’t when I made the decision to study something more ‘practical’ in college: they’re plunging into the art world headlong without worrying about failure. They’re following their passion. And maybe I’m living vicariously through them, even though I really believe my winding career path has led me exactly where I need to be.
Below is the opening scene from Against the Wall, the 7th book in my Firsts and Forever Series. The main character, Christian, is a street artist along the lines of Banksy, though he works on a much larger scale. Christian is trying to bring beauty to a bleak urban landscape, and his spray-painted murals are meant to convey messages of hope. I love this character, because he has so much courage.

It was time to go.
It was past time, actually. I knew this. But even as part of my brain was chanting come on, come on, come on, another part was thinking almost there, just one more minute, that’s all I need. The part of my brain that promised one more minute was a liar. One minute always turned into two, then five, then ten. 
I shook the can of pink paint in my hand. According to the label, it wasn’t actually pink. It was Ferocious Fuchsia. Who named these things? I stretched up as high as I could, the pile of pallets beneath me swaying just a bit, and brought my arm around in a wide arc as I pushed the nozzle with my index finger. The oh-so-familiar smell of spray paint flooded my senses and with my free hand, I tugged the black bandana that was wrapped around my face up an inch, so that it covered my nose completely. 
With a few quick movements, I used the pink paint to highlight the enormous face of a young girl, just beginning to take shape on the back wall of a condemned apartment building. Then I leaned back a bit to assess the mural, which was tough to do in the dim light. It didn’t help that I was wearing sunglasses, both to protect my eyes from the paint and to hide my face from the security cams that dotted the city. My unsteady perch wobbled, and I crouched down a bit to lower my center of gravity.
Leave it, Christian, you can come back later. You know you’ve been here too long.The rational part of my brain always lost out to the adrenaline junkie though, the ‘one more minute’ part of me that needed to be here, painting, creating, all while on high alert, just waiting for the police or some random street thug to roll up on me.
That adrenaline rush was as much a part of it as the need to make art. I knew that about myself. I probably could go through legal channels and get permission for my murals, but where was the thrill in that? I absolutely lived for this. I really didn’t want to get caught, though. Jail was so not part of the plan.
Given that, it was incredibly stupid that I was out here so early on a Friday night. It wasn’t even one a.m. The city wasn’t asleep yet, not fully, but I’d been obsessed with this painting all week. I saw it so clearly in my mind’s eye, this little girl in a field of daisies, and I needed to make her real. Well, little wasn’t quite the right word. By the time I was finished, she’d be almost twenty feet high.
*****
I'll leave you with a link to little trailer I made for Christian's book, because I really felt it needed a visual component. You can find it here. As always, thanks for reading!

Firsts and Forever on Facebook

Did you know I have a Facebook group dedicated to my Firsts and Forever Series? It's a lot of fun, and it's also the place where I post updates first. Come join us! You can find the group here.

Throwback Thursday: The Critters

Today, I’m taking a look back at some of the animals that have provided comic relief throughout the Firsts and Forever series. This began all the way back in All In (book 2 in the series) with Peaches, the zombie lap dog from hell. To me, he looked something like this:

And in All I Ever Wanted, my work in progress, I’m bringing back Puffy the Attack Cat for an encore. Is it just me, or do Persian cats always look slightly pissed off?


But one of my favorites has to be the Royal Rodent.


In Skye Blue, the sixth book in the series, Skye ends up adopting a mouse that hitches a ride to his apartment in a junkyard find. He makes a home for it in a big, metal bird cage shaped like the Taj Mahal. Here’s the scene where he sees the rodent for the first time and inadvertently dyes it pink:
Just then, a little white mouse stuffed itself out of a gap in the corner of my new sign and blinked his beady black eyes at me. I gasped and leapt up, pressing myself against the wall. Holy hell! How was I going to get that thing out of my bed without actually touching it?A moment later, I was startled all over again. The weird, blond-haired cat from the other night leapt up onto the bed and pinned the mouse with one paw, then shot me a slightly evil look that seemed to say, “Want me to kill this for you?” The window was still open a few inches, but I hadn’t seen him come in.I looked around frantically, then grabbed a mostly empty glass from my nightstand. The cat stepped back as I inverted the tumbler and slammed it down over the mouse. It had contained maybe half an inch of fruit punch diluted with melted ice, which doused the little rodent. The mouse shook itself like a dog, its fur puffing out and sticking up in wet, now-pink spikes, then went back to staring at me, this time through the glass. I kept an eye on it as I sat back down, pressing the glass firmly against the mattress. I’d been using my computer as a shield throughout all of that, and I returned it to my lap and looked at the screen. BoxerBoy had sent a few messages, along the lines of still there? Did I lose you? I quickly explained the mouse situation, typing with one hand since I wasn’t about to let go of the glass. Now that got a ‘LOL.’ River knocked on my door and swung it open far enough to stick his head in. “Conrad’s waiting downstairs, I got all my stuff loaded in his Honda. I’m leaving that secondhand bed and desk, maybe your new roommate can use it once you find someone.”“Great. Whatever.”“Look Skye, I know we’re both kind of pissed right now, but this is for the best. You’ll see.” He noticed the mouse-under-glass then and didn’t say anything about it, as if he fully expected to come into my room and find me playing with pink, puffy rodents. “I’ll call you soon.” He pulled the door shut behind him.
 *****
Not many people would try to keep a wild mouse as a pet. Skye's just the type of person who would, though. And, maybe, just maybe, I tried this once, too. Mice are really good at chewing through things when they want to escape, just FYI. :) 

Throwback Thursday: Gianni & Zan & the Buddha’s Hand

 Belonging, Firsts & Forever #8  Today, I’m looking back at Belonging, the 8th book in the Firsts and Forever Series. I had so much fun writing Gianni and Zan! I didn’t set out with the intention of writing a May-December romance, but putting these two characters together made so much sense to me. 
Gianni Dombruso was this beautiful guy in his late twenties who should have had all the confidence in the world, but instead, he was so insecure and thought no one would ever value him as more than a pretty face. And then there was Zan Tillane, my British former rock star, who’d totally cut himself off from the rest of the world. They both needed rescuing, though neither would admit it.

(Actor and Rock Star Jared Leto was my muse for Zan Tillane)
In the following scene from Belonging, Gianni and Zan aren’t a couple yet. Gianni has taken on the job of grocery shopping for the reclusive rock star and has made it his mission to broaden Zan’s closed off world. He thinks a step in the right direction is to introduce some exotic foods into Zan’s very limited diet. But the Buddha’s hand citrus fruit might be one step too far:

Fortunately, Zan snapped me out of my completely misplaced reverie by snatching the canvas sack from me. He stuck his hand inside and pulled out what I’d brought him, then yelled, “Bloody hell, what is that?” as he tossed it onto the counter. 
“It’s called a Buddha’s hand. It’s a citrus fruit.”
“It isn’t! It’s a fat, yellow octopus!”
“Not even close.”
“The thing has tentacles! Where did you find this monstrosity?”
“The market,” I said flatly.
“There’s absolutely no way that’s fruit, or even edible!”
“It is! I want you to try it, I hear they’re good.”
“Aha! You hear they’re good. That means you’ve never been daft enough to try one yourself. I won’t be the first one down that gangplank!” He plucked it off the counter by one of its long, yellow fingers and rushed for the back door as I ran after him.
“Don’t you dare throw that thing! It was expensive!”
“And now it’s doubly crazy! Also, just look. You yourself called it a thing!”
“Only because it sounds pretty freaking insane to yell don’t throw Buddha’s hand outside!” He flung open the back door and went to throw it, but I grabbed his arm as I exclaimed, “I mean it! Don’t do it!”
A ridiculous game of keep-away ensued, worthy of a third grade playground. I burst out laughing and told him, “You’re being really immature!”
Zan was laughing, too. “It belongs outside,” he said as he twisted his body to hold the fruit away from me. “That way, it can crawl back to the mothership!”
“Granted, it’s a little weird looking, but it’s a fruit! Its cousin is an orange!”
“Maybe you should have brought me its cousin, then,” he said, grabbing my left wrist while I grabbed his.
“You’ve had oranges! I wanted you to try something new.”
“So you brought me an octopus alien!”
“Okay, I’ll concede that I might have been aiming a bit too high. But try it anyway! I’ll reel it in next time and bring you some grapes or something.”
“I don’t like grapes,” he said.
“You can’t make a blanket statement like that,” I told him. “There are dozens of grape varieties and they’re all different. If you tried a few, I bet you’d find one you liked.”
“But they’re all squishy little balls, and I want no part of that.”
“God you’re weird.”
“You think?”
He executed a surprisingly graceful move all of a sudden and pinned me to the wall, holding me in place by leaning against me. “You’re going to injure your sore shoulder,” I told him.
“It’ll be worth it for the immense satisfaction of seeing the space octopus become airborne,” he said with a smile.
My heart was already beating quickly because of our game of keep-away, and it stuttered when I looked in his eyes. He let go of my wrist and I let go of his, both of us becoming serious at the same time. My gaze dropped to his full lips. I wanted him to kiss me so fucking bad. God I wanted that.
But he didn’t do it. He didn’t do anything. Zan just stood there, his body pressed against mine as lust shot through me. He was breathing hard just like I was, his chest rising and falling, but aside from that, he remained perfectly immobile. 
Was he waiting for me to make a move? I looked in his eyes again and seriously considered leaning in and planting one on him. But I just couldn’t do it! What if I was the only one feeling this? What if I went to kiss him and he pulled away? How incredibly embarrassing would that be?
Besides, if he wanted to kiss me, he would. It wasn’t like he was shy, given what he used to do for a living. There was just no way.
Zan stepped back from me abruptly and muttered, “Sorry.” Then he (and the fruit) went back to his cave. He closed the door to the den behind him. I stared after him for a moment before I retreated too, heading straight for my car.

*****
Gianni and Zan ended up falling in love and taking off in a sailboat for parts unknown, to dodge the relentless paparazzi. This photo reminds me so much of Gianni in the tropics, gathering up local delicacies to bring back to his boyfriend!

Throwback Thursday: Twin Peaks (but not the David Lynch variety)

One of my favorite spots in San Francisco is a scenic overlook called Twin Peaks. When I first moved to the city, I was lucky enough to become friends with a gay couple who’d lived there for years. They showed me a lot of the city’s hidden treasures, including this gem. I was instantly smitten.

You get to Twin Peaks by winding through a residential neighborhood, and all of a sudden, the tightly packed buildings give way to open space. I’ve always thought that’s an interesting thing about San Francisco. It’s all completely built up, some of it along incredibly steep hills, but then there are a few high-up spots that have basically been left untouched. Twin Peaks is one of them.

Like anyplace in San Francisco, it gets crowded in the summer. But pick a random weeknight in the off-season and you just might have it to yourself. It’s pure magic then, when the only sound is the breeze rustling through the trees, and before you is this breathtaking, panoramic view of one of the most beautiful cities on earth.
I send my characters to Twin Peaks fairly often, because I know if I still lived in the city, I’d be up there all the time. It has particular meaning for Chance and Finn in Coming Home. Here’s a brief excerpt from their book, which is number nine in the series. Chance and Finn aren’t a couple yet at this point. They arranged a rendezvous up at Twin Peaks, but then Chance got spooked and took off, because he was afraid that Finn was getting too close to him:
After a few minutes, I realized the SUV hadn’t driven past me, and I started to wonder if Finn was alright. I shut off the engine and pocketed my keys, then walked back up to the parking lot. I’d barely driven two blocks before I’d pulled over.
My heart leapt when I saw him. He was standing on the retaining wall with his arms outstretched. My God, was he about to jump?
I yelled his name and took off at a sprint across the parking lot. At one point, I tripped over a pothole and came down hard on my hands and knees, but I was right back up in an instant, running for him. Finn turned to look at me, then stepped off the wall into the parking lot. 
He’d taken a couple steps toward me and when I reached him, I knocked him over in what basically turned into a flying tackle. He landed on his back with a surprised yelp, and I fell on top of him. I then sat up, straddling him, and grabbed the front of his jacket in my fists. “What the fuck were you thinking, Finn?” 
“About what?” He looked genuinely bewildered.
“About fucking jumping off Twin Peaks! What a horrible way to kill yourself! You probably wouldn’t even die you know, you’d just mangle yourself real good on the trees and bushes and shit down below. Not that I’m advocating finding a better way to kill yourself! Just, God, what the fuck?”
When my rant was over, Finn chuckled and said as he pulled me into a hug, “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was just enjoying the view and the breeze. I didn’t think I’d fucked up badly enough to warrant throwing myself off a cliff.”
“Oh. Well, good,” I said, putting my head on his chest.
He rubbed my back and said, “You were really worried.”
“Well, yeah.”
He kissed the top of my head and said, “Thank you for caring.”
“You’re welcome. I feel like a total idiot now, though.”
“Don’t. I love the fact that you tried to save me.”
“Of course I did. What do you think I’d do in that situation, sit back with some popcorn and watch you end it?”

Throwback Thursday: Surfers and my Series

In Way Off Plan, the very first book in my Firsts and Forever Series, my main character was a surfer. That choice wasn’t just random. I’ve always had an affinity for surf culture, and I made Jamie a surfer because that rooted him in a world I knew well.  I grew up in Huntington Beach, which is in southern California. My hometown has such a rich surfing history that a surfer is actually included in the city logo. I personally have never surfed (the lack of coordination is strong with this one), but I spent all my summers on the beach and bodyboarding in the Pacific (that’s somewhat like surfing, but without that whole pesky standing up part). Later on, I went to college in Santa Cruz, California, another town where surfing is everything, and I moved back to Santa Cruz after grad school and five years in San Francisco.
I’ve always thought surfers are fascinating people. They’re both athletes and daredevils. When a storm rolls in, the rest of us run for cover. But surfers run toward the huge waves. They can be pretty darn sexy too, in those skin-tight wetsuits (and also when they change out of them on the side of the road – you better believe my friends and I used to cruise that spot when we were in high school). :)
Interestingly, San Francisco also has an active surfing community, even though that’s obviously not the first thing most people think of when someone mentions the City by the Bay. When I lived there, my favorite place to watch people surf was Fort Point, at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. Both Jamie and River surf there at times.
There really is a fort at Fort Point, in case you’re wondering. It was built in the mid-1800s and is managed by the National Park Service these days. The mouth of the Golden Gate generates some big waves, and you need to be good to surf Fort Point, because the waves crash onto jagged rocks, not a sandy beach. That’s Fort Point in both photos.

Jamie was my first surfer, and now I’m writing my second. As many of you know, River surfs too, and he had a tiny cameo in Way Off Plan. I’ve included that scene below. I’ve always wanted to write another surfer, and four years later, I get to do just that in All I Ever Wanted, the next book in my series. 
This is from Way Off Plan:
Several locals greeted me as I jogged across the sand, and I gave them a little salute. I’d been surfing these waters since I was nine, and it was a tight-knit community. A friend of mine called out, “Hey, Jamie. You going out there? The waves are shit, dude.” The wind was blowing his long brown hair into his eyes, and he pushed it back with one hand so he could look at me.
“Hi River. Yeah, I’m gonna give it a shot.”
He shrugged and picked up his board. “Suit yourself, bro.” River headed in the opposite direction.
The waves slapped my knees as I waded into the water. I laid on my board and paddled out. The first few minutes were always bitterly cold before the layer of water beneath my wetsuit warmed up. The cold cleared my head and made me focus. I welcomed it.

Throwback Thursday: The BFC

I've started a Throwback Thursday feature in my Firsts & Forever Series Facebook Group, and I thought I should share it here as well! Here's last week's post:

Today, I’m looking back at Skye Blue, which I published in August of 2014, and revisiting the BFC.  Following is an excerpt from a promo post I did at Boy Meets Boy Reviews, and it includes the BFC recipe:
Thanks for letting me visit you on Boy Meets Boy Reviews and be a shameless promotion whore! Have I mentioned in the last second and a half that my new book, Skye Blue, is coming out August 1st? Don’t worry, I’ll mention that about fifty more times before we’re done here!
While I’m shamelessly self-promoting, I’ll go ahead and point out that it’s the sixth book in my Firsts and Forever series. In it, twenty-one year-old art student Skye has decided it’s high time to punch his V-card, but he’s in for so much more than he bargained for! Several characters are back in this book, including Trevor from Salvation and of course Nana. When free-spirited Skye and 80-year-old Mafia granny Nana get together, look out!
I recently did a sneak peek of the upcoming book, where I introduced a cocktail that immediately became not only Skye’s favorite, but that got my readers all abuzz. It’s called the Big Fucking Cock, or BFC for short. And if there’s one thing my readers love, it’s a BFC. I mean, who doesn’t, really?
After my readers got their first taste of BFC, they wanted more! To try to quench their desire for BFC, I hosted a contest on my Facebook page. People from all around the globe were showing me their BFCs. A few BFCs were even slipped in at the last minute. All of this got no complaints from me, lemme tell ya!
Here’s the winning recipe, concocted by Morgan G. in Alabama. The girl totally worked that BFC! She told me she had to sample many, many BFCs until she finally found the perfect one. I was envious. If you feel you’d enjoy a good stiff one, you can’t go wrong with this huge, pink bad boy:
The BFC
12 oz. frozen lemonade
12 oz. Kinky liqueur (turns out that’s a real thing!)
2 oz. vodka
Splash of lemon-lime soda
Add Ice
Serve in a big-ass margarita glass with as many garnishes as you can possibly cram in there! You might think it can’t possibly all fit, but cram it in anyway. You’ll be glad you did!
Oh wait, it’s been a couple minutes now and I’ve failed to pimp my book! Skye Blue! August 1st! Amazon! All that talk about BFC almost made me forget my mission of being a bigtime promotion whore! BFCs are like that. Really distracting.

Cover Reveal

Today on Love Bytes Reviews, I reveal both the cover and the love interest for the next book in my Firsts and Forever Series! All I Ever Wanted is River's story, and it will be out in late May, exact date TBA. There's also a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card, so be sure to leave a comment over at Love Bytes to enter! You can find the cover reveal here.

It's LIVE!!

I'm thrilled to announce that Armor went live a day early!! You can find it here. This Firsts and Forever Series novella is narrated by Dante Dombruso. It not only wraps up the arson investigation that began in The Distance (#11 in the series), it also gives us a chance to revisit Dante and Charlie's love story. We first met them in All In (#2 in the series), and now we get to see Charlie through Dante's eyes. I absolutely loved revisiting this couple, and I hope you do, too!