Publishing news
Last summer, when I was still slugging through the first draft of Flesh Trap, I took a few weeks off to write about a guy named Jason. Jason had a business degree that landed him $30,000 in debt and a minimum wage job stocking shelves at his local Craigen Books, living in a cereal box apartment by the docks and borrowing money from his mom to make rent. Things were looking pretty dire for Jason, who has surrounded by trust fund babies and coworkers whose parents picked up the tab while they partied through paychecks, and he still scrimped and starved and struggled to get by on less and less.
(Jason may or may not be based on my own life experiences in the customer service industry, and a few names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent. But read on.)
Then one day Jason met Mina, who came in the book store before they closed up shop some nights, to pick out books about corporate powerhouses looking for love. Mina was a pretty girl who never wore the same thing twice, and smiled at Jason and made chit-chat at the register. And yeah, okay, maybe Jason kind of liked Mina, but he knew better than to try to pick up a girl like that. She had money and confidence and choices. She didn't need a guy like Jason, who had a dingy apartment he couldn't pay for and a degree he couldn't use and growing debt that would surely swallow him before all was said and done.
Then one night after closing shop, Mina approaches Jason with an offer: $10,000 for one night of his company. No strings attached, no phone calls in the morning, no questions asked. He just can't tell anybody about her or what they did together. And, yeah, maybe Jason likes Mina. Maybe he likes her a whole lot, and maybe that makes things complicated, even when it shouldn't. And maybe Mina's not telling Jason the whole story, when he wakes up the next morning with scratches in his chest that burn with the memories of what they did or didn't do, turning Jason inside out for this girl with cold hands and an old house full of secrets.
The story is At the Heart of Mina Jones. This morning it was picked up by Post Mortem Press for the upcoming paranormal romance anthology Mon Cœur Mort, due out this summer. More information on this one as it develops, but don't worry: There's no twinkling vampires or crying werewolves involved.
