Layla Wolfe's Blog, page 5
December 9, 2015
Read Chapter One of THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY--Free!
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
–Corinthians 13:12
CHAPTER ONE
GIDEON We arrived here by the vermilion cliffs in the dead of night. It wasn’t until I finally rolled out of bed the next morning after the long ride from Bullhead City that I saw how desolate it was there. I stumbled out of the Motel 6 while buttoning my leathers around my thighs. No shower for me. I was going to get straight down to business and get the fuck out of there. Holy shit on a crucifix. There was a neat row of pine trees, obviously planted on the opposite side of the highway to blot out some unsavory view. If I looked toward the cinnamon mesas I was greeted by a giant, frisky bull on a tall pole. Dotted lines on his form showed me which cuts of steak I could look forward to. Oh, and best of all. A weather-battered sign to my right—I suppose it had been neon before being bleached like dinosaur bones in the searing desert sun—told me I was right smack next door to the “Sha-de-land Motor Home Park.” I could also tell by the four dozen or so motor homes parked in the dust that it was not a shady land. At seven in the morning, it was already sixty-three degrees, according to the handy thermometer stuck to the wall sponsored by a lava rock quarry.
I wanted to kill Breakiron. He would have to get us sent to Cornucopia, Utah during August. This was all his fucking fault. I’d done nothing serious to deserve this exile. Papa Ewey would only send club members in bad standing to a hellhole like this, and it was ninety-nine percent Breakiron’s fucking fault.
“What am I doing here?” I muttered, wandering to my scoot to get my cigs from my saddlebags. I’d been trying to quit for six months. Smoking had been banned from our clubhouse since Papa Ewey had had one of those lung cancer holes drilled in the pit of his throat three years ago, but there were still plenty of members smoking outside, so it wasn’t easy. I’d quit every night, flush them down the toilet, then thrash it first thing the next morning to the store to buy a fresh pack. I hadn’t flushed them last night. Too exhausted and pissed off at fucking Breakiron for getting us into this mess.
Want to read more? Purchase THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY at Amazon
Add THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY to your Goodreads TBR list.
–Corinthians 13:12
CHAPTER ONE
GIDEON We arrived here by the vermilion cliffs in the dead of night. It wasn’t until I finally rolled out of bed the next morning after the long ride from Bullhead City that I saw how desolate it was there. I stumbled out of the Motel 6 while buttoning my leathers around my thighs. No shower for me. I was going to get straight down to business and get the fuck out of there. Holy shit on a crucifix. There was a neat row of pine trees, obviously planted on the opposite side of the highway to blot out some unsavory view. If I looked toward the cinnamon mesas I was greeted by a giant, frisky bull on a tall pole. Dotted lines on his form showed me which cuts of steak I could look forward to. Oh, and best of all. A weather-battered sign to my right—I suppose it had been neon before being bleached like dinosaur bones in the searing desert sun—told me I was right smack next door to the “Sha-de-land Motor Home Park.” I could also tell by the four dozen or so motor homes parked in the dust that it was not a shady land. At seven in the morning, it was already sixty-three degrees, according to the handy thermometer stuck to the wall sponsored by a lava rock quarry.
I wanted to kill Breakiron. He would have to get us sent to Cornucopia, Utah during August. This was all his fucking fault. I’d done nothing serious to deserve this exile. Papa Ewey would only send club members in bad standing to a hellhole like this, and it was ninety-nine percent Breakiron’s fucking fault.
“What am I doing here?” I muttered, wandering to my scoot to get my cigs from my saddlebags. I’d been trying to quit for six months. Smoking had been banned from our clubhouse since Papa Ewey had had one of those lung cancer holes drilled in the pit of his throat three years ago, but there were still plenty of members smoking outside, so it wasn’t easy. I’d quit every night, flush them down the toilet, then thrash it first thing the next morning to the store to buy a fresh pack. I hadn’t flushed them last night. Too exhausted and pissed off at fucking Breakiron for getting us into this mess.
Want to read more? Purchase THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY at Amazon
Add THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY to your Goodreads TBR list.
November 21, 2015
THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY is up on Goodreads!
Through A Glass, Darkly is up on Goodreads now! Visit the page to add it to your TBR.
Here's the rough draft blurb, as it stands right now:
MAHALIA
I didn’t want to be born. Something went wrong along the way, and I’ve been unsure about my purpose on this earth ever since. If I was hit by a car, if I fell off a cliff, would anyone care? Living in Cornucopia with my sister wives under the watchful eye of our husband, Allred Lee Chiles, has turned me into a robot, unable to feel or think for myself. I’ve been looking through a cloudy glass, not trusting myself or others.
But a man came down from the mountains. I’m captivated by Gideon Fortunati, his name expressing all that he is—keeper of my fate, master of reality, teacher of my future. Gideon’s purifying power has enlightened me about my capabilities. I don’t have to let The Prophet take my daughter and marry her off to that old man. I was guilty of dirt and sin, but I can take my life back now.
GIDEON
I was exiled to this godforsaken wasteland in Utah by our MC Prez. My entire existence has been a struggle, a futile tirade against my maker. I ranted against my fate, and in answer I was sent Mahalia. A naive victim of that twisted false Mormon sect leader. He’s tried to mangle her like a spineless puppet, like he has all the other women—the other girls.
Before I met her, I was a child. Now I’ve given up childish ways, and I can see everything in a mirror, face to face. Faith, hope, and love were all handed to me, and the greatest of these is love. I’ve come too far. There’s no surrender now.
It didn't look that far on the map.
Here's the rough draft blurb, as it stands right now:
MAHALIA
I didn’t want to be born. Something went wrong along the way, and I’ve been unsure about my purpose on this earth ever since. If I was hit by a car, if I fell off a cliff, would anyone care? Living in Cornucopia with my sister wives under the watchful eye of our husband, Allred Lee Chiles, has turned me into a robot, unable to feel or think for myself. I’ve been looking through a cloudy glass, not trusting myself or others.
But a man came down from the mountains. I’m captivated by Gideon Fortunati, his name expressing all that he is—keeper of my fate, master of reality, teacher of my future. Gideon’s purifying power has enlightened me about my capabilities. I don’t have to let The Prophet take my daughter and marry her off to that old man. I was guilty of dirt and sin, but I can take my life back now.
GIDEON
I was exiled to this godforsaken wasteland in Utah by our MC Prez. My entire existence has been a struggle, a futile tirade against my maker. I ranted against my fate, and in answer I was sent Mahalia. A naive victim of that twisted false Mormon sect leader. He’s tried to mangle her like a spineless puppet, like he has all the other women—the other girls.
Before I met her, I was a child. Now I’ve given up childish ways, and I can see everything in a mirror, face to face. Faith, hope, and love were all handed to me, and the greatest of these is love. I’ve come too far. There’s no surrender now.
It didn't look that far on the map.
November 15, 2015
Full Circle
I just found this prose poem I wrote in 1991 stuck in the pages of my favorite Langston Hughes poetry collection. Funny trying to remember what I was talking about. "My associates" were my high school friends. We've been dropping like flies since we were kids. "The old man with birth control glasses" was our teacher, John Staples. I can pinpoint a few of the men I had relationships with--the paratrooper, the opera singer. And I did love going to gospel shows.
What a funny memoir of how angsty and dramatic my head was at the time.
Full Circle
Full circle has come since the glacial steppes of my adolescence, where my associates wore funny furry hats and wrapped themselves in red cloaks emblazoned with the arcane symbol of our sect. The old man with birth control glasses is gone now, having met his end in Colorado, and many of us have driven headfirst into brick walls or otherwise stuck shotguns into our mouths or overdosed on steroids in log cabins in the mountains, and pretty wawimbo complete with lyrical hollow-bodied guitar accompaniment are all we have to soothe our tired brains.
Somehow it’s not quite enough. Even if you intercalate a couple of days into the year, and even if the climbing uta comes out at night to do his pushups on the still-warm surface of a geodesic rock, full circle comes around to the season of dead parents and rotting palm trees. I still attend the raucous gospel meetings in the church where they hand out free celery soup, and when I slide a backward glissando on my skate (light as a feather!) over the meaningless ice, I find a modicum of comfort. It’s the season of discontent.
I come to the edge of a dune, like Lawrence shimmying his way to clutch and gape at the sight of an ocean liner’s stack in the grandiloquent canal. I’ve reached the bell’s toll of all possible vistas. Somewhere in the palimpsest of my life, glorious, and to be written upon sheets of gold, there’s a passage that tells of the inviolate house I built as a memory of him. As in the dreams I have of the endless mansions with secret passageways, cupolas where tall dark and handsome men lurk, perhaps with Uzis and perhaps with roses, the house isn’t fit for living. There are no rats or millipedes with vestigial tails, and the lowering faces of the gargoyles are strictly art. A nuclear-orange fluffy lemur might cling to the bannister of a staircase, in fact.
I was a gift once. Personality razed, only to be resurrected, and tested in the most incomprehensible ways. Easily I can be a gift again, and offer myself up to the most horrific and suave pandering of a paratrooper who once landed on an anthill in the Copper Belt…His eyes were my entire night sky, and we would have lived in polarized villas where rubber crabs climb the painted palm trunks to slice off hunks of coconuts in their claws. I would cinch myself in webs of leather, silk, and cotton, all for his amusement. Reclining against an enlarged map of southern Namibia, and wearing hats of all varieties, furry or not, to offer myself up as a toy you need not fear or challenge.
My mind resists. It really does! I have all the talents. All I ever wanted was a white dress to hang like crepe de chine and waft in the tropical air that’s blown from the mouth of some comical god, there, on the edge of the water where ships fall off the side and into never-never land. I can walk safely away from the breast of this curly-haired Igor, my white skirt will lick my ass, and I’ll wear pretty patent leather pumps. My sozaco hat is to die for.
The ones of us who still stand gather together underneath the corpse of a palm tree. The bones of our parents are the detritus of our barbecues. We laugh at blood and guts, the way it’s portrayed in the movies. To have come this far from the freezing steppes and red cloaks of our childhood, to drop blood onto the paper, to lay my face languidly in the warm air against the forearm of an opera singer while the white Lafitte curtains move imperceptibly in the open vircolle window.
I know now that Ptolemy was wrong when he pitted the dramatic characters in the bowl of the Prussian blue night sky against each other. There is no gladiator up there. All can be seen in the mechanics of the collared lizard of the Rio Grande who takes its own kind into its mouth and shakes it apart till its heart is stabbed from both ends. The army-green scales that fall on the floury sand mean nothing to anyone. Uncles from South Africa don’t send letters of congratulations.
--San Rafael
December, 1991
What a funny memoir of how angsty and dramatic my head was at the time.
Full Circle
Full circle has come since the glacial steppes of my adolescence, where my associates wore funny furry hats and wrapped themselves in red cloaks emblazoned with the arcane symbol of our sect. The old man with birth control glasses is gone now, having met his end in Colorado, and many of us have driven headfirst into brick walls or otherwise stuck shotguns into our mouths or overdosed on steroids in log cabins in the mountains, and pretty wawimbo complete with lyrical hollow-bodied guitar accompaniment are all we have to soothe our tired brains.
Somehow it’s not quite enough. Even if you intercalate a couple of days into the year, and even if the climbing uta comes out at night to do his pushups on the still-warm surface of a geodesic rock, full circle comes around to the season of dead parents and rotting palm trees. I still attend the raucous gospel meetings in the church where they hand out free celery soup, and when I slide a backward glissando on my skate (light as a feather!) over the meaningless ice, I find a modicum of comfort. It’s the season of discontent.
I come to the edge of a dune, like Lawrence shimmying his way to clutch and gape at the sight of an ocean liner’s stack in the grandiloquent canal. I’ve reached the bell’s toll of all possible vistas. Somewhere in the palimpsest of my life, glorious, and to be written upon sheets of gold, there’s a passage that tells of the inviolate house I built as a memory of him. As in the dreams I have of the endless mansions with secret passageways, cupolas where tall dark and handsome men lurk, perhaps with Uzis and perhaps with roses, the house isn’t fit for living. There are no rats or millipedes with vestigial tails, and the lowering faces of the gargoyles are strictly art. A nuclear-orange fluffy lemur might cling to the bannister of a staircase, in fact.
I was a gift once. Personality razed, only to be resurrected, and tested in the most incomprehensible ways. Easily I can be a gift again, and offer myself up to the most horrific and suave pandering of a paratrooper who once landed on an anthill in the Copper Belt…His eyes were my entire night sky, and we would have lived in polarized villas where rubber crabs climb the painted palm trunks to slice off hunks of coconuts in their claws. I would cinch myself in webs of leather, silk, and cotton, all for his amusement. Reclining against an enlarged map of southern Namibia, and wearing hats of all varieties, furry or not, to offer myself up as a toy you need not fear or challenge.
My mind resists. It really does! I have all the talents. All I ever wanted was a white dress to hang like crepe de chine and waft in the tropical air that’s blown from the mouth of some comical god, there, on the edge of the water where ships fall off the side and into never-never land. I can walk safely away from the breast of this curly-haired Igor, my white skirt will lick my ass, and I’ll wear pretty patent leather pumps. My sozaco hat is to die for.
The ones of us who still stand gather together underneath the corpse of a palm tree. The bones of our parents are the detritus of our barbecues. We laugh at blood and guts, the way it’s portrayed in the movies. To have come this far from the freezing steppes and red cloaks of our childhood, to drop blood onto the paper, to lay my face languidly in the warm air against the forearm of an opera singer while the white Lafitte curtains move imperceptibly in the open vircolle window.
I know now that Ptolemy was wrong when he pitted the dramatic characters in the bowl of the Prussian blue night sky against each other. There is no gladiator up there. All can be seen in the mechanics of the collared lizard of the Rio Grande who takes its own kind into its mouth and shakes it apart till its heart is stabbed from both ends. The army-green scales that fall on the floury sand mean nothing to anyone. Uncles from South Africa don’t send letters of congratulations.
--San Rafael
December, 1991
October 13, 2015
R-Rated Excerpt from A LONE STRANGER, released 10-12-15
“Stupid kids,” was all Bond would say. “Fucking spring break.”“You never got a chance to go to college,” I said, tentatively. I thought we’d started a good conversation the day before at Ormond’s. We could certainly continue along that tack. Bond didn’t seem to be aware that Turk had had an equally lousy childhood as he had. He seemed to think Turk was rolling with some kind of sudsy reality family where Jim Bob Duggar would dispense with fatherly advice about dental cavities and wet dreams. He somehow seemed to have gathered this vision of Turk’s adoptive home as a heavenly, squeaky clean TV set, not the lousy, dirty Party Central that it was. “But Turk didn’t, either, and he was the smartest of the bunch of us, growing up. He didn’t have the best home life, Bond. I don’t know where you get your impression of Cropper Illuminati, but Turk wasn’t playing board games and roller skating. He had it rough.”“Sure,” snorted Bond. “Cropper docked his allowance if he didn’t eat his broccoli.”“I doubt they ever had broccoli.” I was starting to lose patience with this man. “I doubt they even knew what a fucking board game was, Bond. That house was just as bad, if not more so, than any of your group homes. You probably played Life or Trivial Pursuit a couple of times.”“A couple of times, maybe,” Bond grudgingly admitted. “I knew what they were.”
“Well Cropper had Turk and Ford stealing Walkmans from Radio Shack when they were ten. He was handing them hits of four-way Windowpane as rewards. Before he started Illuminati Trucking, they slept with buckets around their beds because no one could afford a new roof. They rarely even made it to school, and luckily both got their GEDs because they kept up with book learning on their own. He had them selling weed to seventh graders—their own friends! Did you know that?”
“Well Cropper had Turk and Ford stealing Walkmans from Radio Shack when they were ten. He was handing them hits of four-way Windowpane as rewards. Before he started Illuminati Trucking, they slept with buckets around their beds because no one could afford a new roof. They rarely even made it to school, and luckily both got their GEDs because they kept up with book learning on their own. He had them selling weed to seventh graders—their own friends! Did you know that?”
A LONE STRANGER is LIVE!
A LONE STRANGER is up and running at Amazon! My Bent Zealots currently have the #4 and #6 positions on the Erotica>Gay list. I'm so proud of my boys!
September 25, 2015
COVER REVEAL TIME for A Lone Stranger!
A LONE STRANGER is up on Goodreads so add it to your TBR pile! This is Book #3 in the beloved BENT ZEALOTS MC series. Here's the blurb so far:
Ride on. Ride on.
HARTE: After a world-changing run-in with the guy I thought was my father, I went on the road to find myself. I patched over to The Bent Zealots MC, an out-and-proud club on the Colorado River. A cock virgin, I raced to experience all I could, eagerly sniffing every nook and cranny, a whole new existence offered up by Grindr. But when Ormond Tangier was assaulted by a rival club, I quickly got down to brass tacks, to show my new brothers I was all business.Too bad that business involves Bond Blackburn, jailbird brother of our Prez, Turk. That guy is so far in denial he’s practically Egyptian. But he even he can’t deny what I saw with my own eyes at the gay club. Sure, I was on my knees paying homage to a Daddy Dom, but Bond can’t pretend he wasn’t getting some oral praise as well. And now they’re telling me I have to workwith this hypocrite?BOND: This club is a fucking joke. How’s a man supposed to make a new start after the joint? First, my own brother forced me to prospect. I couldn’t automatically rise to the top of the heap through my family connections. No, I’m supposed to labor in a noxious sweatshop making product for their pot dispensary. And I have to sneak downtown if I want to get some halfway decent head, because I don’t even want my gay so-called brothers knowing about my shameful hobby.Now we’re reaching out to the cops to even the score with those Hellfire Nuts who abused Ormond. And that delicious Harte Saxonberg is getting my goat, so by-the-book, such a bleeding heart. I just want to strangle him—or fuck him.HARTE: I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, one that slab of a man, Bond Blackburn. He kisses me, then punches me. Fucks me, then ignores me. He’s got me so upside-down I’ve lost the clarity I had a week ago when I rode west. Ride west, young man. I could be a steam train if I could just lay down my tracks. But the only name I’m calling out is that sexy convict’s.
Ride on. Ride on.
Publisher’s warning: This book is not for the faint of heart. It contains scenes of gay sex, public play, exhibitionism, illegal doings, vaguely legal marijuana operations, and violence against men. There are no cheating or cliffhangers, and HEAs for all.
Allen Clippinger was the cover model, and I just realized he's the second in a row to come from the lens of Wander Aguiar! Book #2, A GORGEOUS MESS, featured Zack Hardt snapped by Wander:
Ride on. Ride on.
HARTE: After a world-changing run-in with the guy I thought was my father, I went on the road to find myself. I patched over to The Bent Zealots MC, an out-and-proud club on the Colorado River. A cock virgin, I raced to experience all I could, eagerly sniffing every nook and cranny, a whole new existence offered up by Grindr. But when Ormond Tangier was assaulted by a rival club, I quickly got down to brass tacks, to show my new brothers I was all business.Too bad that business involves Bond Blackburn, jailbird brother of our Prez, Turk. That guy is so far in denial he’s practically Egyptian. But he even he can’t deny what I saw with my own eyes at the gay club. Sure, I was on my knees paying homage to a Daddy Dom, but Bond can’t pretend he wasn’t getting some oral praise as well. And now they’re telling me I have to workwith this hypocrite?BOND: This club is a fucking joke. How’s a man supposed to make a new start after the joint? First, my own brother forced me to prospect. I couldn’t automatically rise to the top of the heap through my family connections. No, I’m supposed to labor in a noxious sweatshop making product for their pot dispensary. And I have to sneak downtown if I want to get some halfway decent head, because I don’t even want my gay so-called brothers knowing about my shameful hobby.Now we’re reaching out to the cops to even the score with those Hellfire Nuts who abused Ormond. And that delicious Harte Saxonberg is getting my goat, so by-the-book, such a bleeding heart. I just want to strangle him—or fuck him.HARTE: I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, one that slab of a man, Bond Blackburn. He kisses me, then punches me. Fucks me, then ignores me. He’s got me so upside-down I’ve lost the clarity I had a week ago when I rode west. Ride west, young man. I could be a steam train if I could just lay down my tracks. But the only name I’m calling out is that sexy convict’s.
Ride on. Ride on.
Publisher’s warning: This book is not for the faint of heart. It contains scenes of gay sex, public play, exhibitionism, illegal doings, vaguely legal marijuana operations, and violence against men. There are no cheating or cliffhangers, and HEAs for all.
Allen Clippinger was the cover model, and I just realized he's the second in a row to come from the lens of Wander Aguiar! Book #2, A GORGEOUS MESS, featured Zack Hardt snapped by Wander:
August 16, 2015
August 11, 2015
The Final Cover Reveal!
The great Jan Bowles has just handed me the final cover hot off the presses! I love the statuesque look of the model. It's the epitome of what they call "eye-catching."
August 7, 2015
Announcing DYNOMITE: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance
I've gone in an entirely new direction this time to bring you DYNOMITE: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance, After saying goodbye to The Bare Bones MC I found I missed the rough and tumble world of the bad boys. So I decided to do a little twist on most of the stepbrother books I saw, and make my guy Dyno a rodeo cowboy.
Here is the blurb:
I met him on the worst day of my life.And being arrested for prostitution wasn’t the worst part.
Legend had it my new stepbrother was called Dynomite because, well, he spewed like a raging volcano.
That only made me hate him more, thinking about his damned volcano. I loathed him and his arrogant vanity, his smug self-assurance. Dyno Drummond had no reason for vanity as far as I could tell. He was just an outlaw, a horse that couldn’t be tamed, a down and dirty vaquero who dreamed of being a rodeo star.
He busted his way into my life, my house, fucking everything that walked. Not me. I was Miss Squarepants, Head Bitch, holier-than-thou cheerleader who couldn’t be touched. Dyno called me a Force-Me Queen. If only I knew what that meant.
My football playing boyfriend was a brainless goon. My BFF coveted and loathed Dyno just as I did. Dyno’s only friend was the alcoholic Native American, Sequoia, the kid on the fast track to nowhere.
Seven years ago, the shit hit the fan. Dyno left, did a few tours as a SEAL, and came back different—decorated, mature. He thinks he’s tough enough to rejoin the circuit and become a bareback bronc champ again. He thinks he can break me, too. Well, he’s got another thing coming.
I don’t break easily.Bad cowboy. Go to my room.
Here is the blurb:
I met him on the worst day of my life.And being arrested for prostitution wasn’t the worst part.
Legend had it my new stepbrother was called Dynomite because, well, he spewed like a raging volcano.
That only made me hate him more, thinking about his damned volcano. I loathed him and his arrogant vanity, his smug self-assurance. Dyno Drummond had no reason for vanity as far as I could tell. He was just an outlaw, a horse that couldn’t be tamed, a down and dirty vaquero who dreamed of being a rodeo star.
He busted his way into my life, my house, fucking everything that walked. Not me. I was Miss Squarepants, Head Bitch, holier-than-thou cheerleader who couldn’t be touched. Dyno called me a Force-Me Queen. If only I knew what that meant.
My football playing boyfriend was a brainless goon. My BFF coveted and loathed Dyno just as I did. Dyno’s only friend was the alcoholic Native American, Sequoia, the kid on the fast track to nowhere.
Seven years ago, the shit hit the fan. Dyno left, did a few tours as a SEAL, and came back different—decorated, mature. He thinks he’s tough enough to rejoin the circuit and become a bareback bronc champ again. He thinks he can break me, too. Well, he’s got another thing coming.
I don’t break easily.Bad cowboy. Go to my room.
July 15, 2015
Excellent Review over at I AM, INDEED Blog!
I AM, INDEED is the place to find your next read. She just finished HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL and says "Several twists, turns, secondary characters and plenty of closure to several story lines bring answers to lingering questions and allow readers to check in on familiar favorites. These are not your sanitized, sweet and gentle stories: insets of action, dialogue and dubious legalities are freely mixed in with dirt, grime, danger and plenty of colorful language. A story that will have you cringing, squirming, laughing and worrying in equal measure: all wrapped up with a cloud of dust and plenty of memories."
Thanks a billion Gaele!
Thanks a billion Gaele!
