Temporary Post!
Okay. Here's the deal. I'm trying to decide which novel I want to work on after I finish writing ADRIFT. (Kill Devil Hills #4, due out in June.) I've written a intro to two possible novels.
Option 1: Contemporary Romance. Standalone. Childhood friends reunited years later.
Option 2: Paranormal (New Adult) Romance. Standalone.
So here are the first 3 pages of each. Please comment your thoughts on my post about this on my Facebook Reader Group. Remember these are completely unedited and subject to change.
Option 1: Contemporary Romance.
CHAPTER 1:
MICK
My ‘aha moment,’ that moment in life when everything clicks into place and you suddenly realize exactly what you need in order to feel some resemblance of completion, that moment when you know you have to risk it all…well, it happened as I was nearly decapitated by a vase. A vase! A Waterford Crystal, twenty pound, 40k euro vase from Ireland that we’d picked up on our last vacation—that kind of vase. It came flying at my head, flung with an incredible amount of force for a one-hundred and ten pound woman. It must have been all those sessions with her personal trainer, sessions that I had paid for, that gave her such inhuman strength.I ducked just in time and the vase hit the wall behind me. Miraculously no crashing sound followed, only a giant thud of contact. Wow. It was a really thick vase, good quality, excellent craftsmanship.“You piece of shit, asshole!” she screamed at me.I’d never heard Sandra swear before. This was a first. She’d always shown me a refined, perfectly put together, proper side. Her true colors—true fucking colors, people—were coming out now. I almost liked this side to her better. Almost. Maybe if I hadn’t already had my previous epiphany then I might have reconsidered the break-up that I knew inevitably was about to follow this fight. Because I didn’t want the wet-blanket, roll-over-and-die type in woman. I wanted someone who would challenge me and didn’t put up with my bullshit. I think. I think that was what I wanted. Who the hell really knows what they want though, right?For the first time in our relationship, Sandra was showing me more than just compliance and agreement. So for a moment, a very meniscal moment, I almost considered giving our relationship another try.But…Nah.No matter what her true personality was, I still wanted her out of my life.She picked up a lamp.“Sandra,” I said calmly, raising my hands up like she was a wild, rabid animal. “Put the lamp down. You love that lamp. You got it in Paris. None of this is the lamp’s fault.”“I don’t give a fuck!” she screeched, and hurled the lamp with all her strength.The lamp wasn’t as lucky as the vase had been. Like it was some kind of grenade, I jumped out of the path of destruction. The lamp collided with the floor and broke into several pieces. As I watched it shatter, I realized that I’d kind of liked that lamp. The lamp didn’t deserve this. So instead of trying to consul her, I grew indifferent to her temper.“You know what?” I said to her, my voice sharp and direct. “Your suspicions are perfectly accurate. I have been cheating on you. On multiple occasions with multiple different women. You know why? Because I just don’t care. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about where this relationship is going. I never have and I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t love you, and I don’t want to love you. And you know I’m never going to ask you to marry me. So why are we both wasting our time here? I think we should end this. Yeah, I think that’s the best thing we can do. So would you please go?”There. I said it.Finally.Two years too late, but I said it.She was right. I was a piece of shit, asshole. But at least now I was an honest piece of shit, asshole. I watched as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. Then as she began collecting her things. Then as she packed her bags. And then as she left my apartment, slamming the door as she went. She told me she’d send a company out to come collect the rest of her stuff. In reality, the rest of her stuff was my stuff. I’d paid for it all, which made it mine. But, whatever, she could have all of it. Except the vase.“I’m keeping the vase,” I yelled at the door a few moments too late. The door was closed and she was already gone. I stood there in my now silent apartment, broken things all around me, still staring at the door.So back to my ‘aha moment.’ I realized why I sabotaged all my relationships—every single damn one of them. Because that was exactly what I always did. When things got to a point where stuff became too serious, too close to turning into forever, I inevitably did something to fuck it up. And I finally realized why I always did this.Rebecca.A girl from my past.The only girl that had any hold over me.The memory of my Becca, of leaving her behind all those years ago, haunted my thoughts daily, almost hourly. There was a guilt there that I never could shake. It was the deep seeded kind too. I hadn’t seen Becca since I was ten years old. Seriously, ten. Circumstance of life had separated us. She’d only been a childhood friend, but somehow this gut feeling inside me told me that she was always meant to be more. It was a crazy notion. But when I slept around with different women, it never felt like I was cheating on Sandra or whoever my current girlfriend at the time was, it felt like I was wronging Becca. Silly, I know, because I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years! But I had this loyalty to her and only her.Now it was time to do something about that loyalty.Or else I was doomed to forever have giant, twenty pound vases thrown at my head.I didn’t know anything about current day Becca. If she still lived in our old town, on Cherry Hill Drive, in the trailer across from my mother’s lot. For all I knew Becca could be an unwed mother of four, addicted to heroin, working some dead end job, if she was even working at all, maybe even selling her body for money, and still living in that same damn trailer. Because that was the type of people that came from our neighborhood, the type of people that life chews up and spits back out.I didn’t know. I didn’t know where she might be now and to what degree of fucked-up she might be after growing up there. Either way. I needed to find her, help her, hell…marry her…I didn’t know. Something. Maybe all I really needed was closure from the wounds of my adolescence, from those formidable years before my father rescued me from that hell-hole. Whatever. I had a plan now. I knew what I needed to do next. Make things right with Rebecca, help her, and hopefully heal something inside me in the process.
* * *
Option 2: Paranormal (NA) Romance.
CHAPTER 1:
VI
“Poison,” Annabeth stated. She stared at my latest Google search, the one I’d accidently left open on my computer screen the night before. In an admittedly semi-drunken moment, I’d been causally researching the subject. Casually…more like obsessively. More like I’d barely slept last night trying to find a website with a recipe that seemed genuine.“It says here,” she went on, repeating one paragraph in particular, one I’d already read several times, “that you should mix one part rat poison, another part apple cider vinegar, and the last part cough syrup.” She grimaced, her face rather pale, probably from the reading material. “And then you have to let the mixture sit for one week before adding the juice of one rancid potato.” She flipped her long sheet of blonde hair over one shoulder, turning to give me a stern glare.“Seriously, Vi, that’s the grossest thing I’ve ever read. No one in their right mind would ever willingly or mistakenly drink that. So, what’s the next step to your plan? A funnel and force feeding? The two of us would never be able to overpower a man like him—despite whatever weak condition he’s in now.”There were so many variables to my plan. Obviously I wasn’t ready to execute it yet if I was still in the research phase, but it was nice knowing that she assumed we were in this together. But no. Murder—if that was what it should be called, more like justice—was a one person job.“Weak condition?” I dug, wanting know to if she knew more than me.She seemed hesitant to answer my question, though, shrugging her small shoulders and avoiding direct eye contact.She’d seen the man we were discussing the night he’d been captured. She’d been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when some of our relatives had brought him in, barging through the main living room, dragging this man forcefully behind them. That had been a month ago, and I still hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing him. But Annabeth had, and she’d described him for me. She hadn’t described him as weak.“You think he’s weak now?” I asked, repeating myself, needing a clear answer.With a sigh, she finally answered. “He’s a prisoner. I’m sure the relatives aren’t feeding him ribeye and baked potato dinners.”“So they’re starving him?”Good. I wanted that man to suffer.Again my friend shrugged. That was the thing about Annabeth, about all of them, because I was younger than most of them, she and everyone else always treated me like I couldn’t handle the full truth. It was always apparent in their eyes. Whenever anyone told me anything, I always got the sense that it was only half of what they really meant. But I could handle the truth, all of it. I knew I could. Probably better than Annabeth. She’d grown up and spent all her years in this cushy estate. I hadn’t. We had so much in common, but not that. And besides, I wasn’t that young or that innocent. I would kill the man being held prisoner in the basement, so help me God.“I don’t know what they’re doing to him,” she answered. “I don’t really want to know.” Then she shivered, the way a person shivers shaking off the cold, but it wasn’t cold in my room. And again, in her blue eyes, I could tell there was more she knew but wasn’t saying. A truth below the surface.Of course I already assumed they were torturing this individual, holding him hostage in whatever holding cell this place had, and doing anything necessary to pull whatever information they could from him. I fully supported that. Only…I wanted him dead sooner rather than later. Maybe they’d break him and he’d talk, or maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, it bothered me that he still got to live while my mother was gone. It bothered me that anyone would keep this man alive, while knowing full well how dangerous he was. It was safer for all of us just to kill him quickly and be done with it.Right in that moment thinking about all of this, something inside me, the part of me that had been festering since the moment I learned about the man in the basement, snapped. Yes, I was young among my kind. And age—wisdom, specifically—meant everything to these people. But I couldn’t stand on the sidelines any longer.“I’m going down to the basement to see him,” I announced, standing from where I sat, standing so quickly I nearly toppled over my own feet. But I managed to keep my balance and I rushed across the room for my jacket and my shoes.Annabeth leapt to her feet as well, following me. “Stay out of this, Violet,” she pleaded. “I’m serious. Let the men handle this. They know what they’re doing. If they want him dead, by poison or whatever means, they’ll do it. Jace Lovelace is in charge of stuff like this. He’s smart. Too smart for his own good. And whether he’s torturing this man for information or simply torturing him for sport, I’m sure the outcome will benefit us all. I know you’re used to fending for yourself, but we live by a code in this house. We help each other. We help each other survive. Acting on impulse is not the way to survive.”Even though I’d only know her a few months, Annabeth was pretty much my only friend in this world. And certainly my best friend in this house. She was, after all, my grandmother. But I’d grown more determined than ever in the last few minutes, fueled by a crack in my heart that I knew would never mend. There really was nothing she could say or do to stop me in my pursuit of vengeance.On the inside that was how I felt. On the outside, I had to act differently.I didn’t put on my shoes or my jacket. I didn’t storm out of the room. I didn’t do anything crazy or hasty. Annabeth had spent a number of years studying martial arts. I’d heard someone in the house mention it at some point. She was petite but strong. I had at least twenty pounds and five inches on her, but I think my grandmother could crack my skull if she really wanted to. So I wasn’t about to push her. And even though we were friends, even though she was my grandmother by blood, even though I really wanted to fully trust her…I didn’t. I didn’t fully trust any of these people I lived with, my ‘relatives.’ Maybe this sense of mistrust came from my mom, because growing up she’d always taught me to never trust anyone. Maybe I was wrong in my mistrust. Maybe I was right.Either way, I knew I had to purse my vengeance alone. And especially not this moment.“Okay, you’re right,” I told Annabeth. “I’ll stay out of it. For now, at least.”The rest of my afternoon was spent beige watching old episodes of Friends. For being almost eighty years old—at least that was what I estimated Annabeth’s ‘true age’ to be, she told me it was impolite to ask and refused to tell me the actual number—my grandmother sure didn’t act her age. She acted more like a teenager, snorting milk out of her nose, laughing at every single one of Chandler’s lame jokes on the television, talking about boys, and reminiscing about what a ‘Grade A hunk’ my grandfather had been back in the day.Annabeth reminded me of a time capsule, like I was glimpsing back into the past somehow. My mother, also a carrier of the gene and also eternally youthful, had never once seemed as young as Annabeth seemed. Annabeth acted more like a little sister than someone two full generations older than me.After a long day of food and television, she left me alone in my suite and she returned to hers, which was located on the opposite end of the estate that we both lived in.This place, Ravensworth as it was called, was like a castle. Or maybe a hotel. There were five stories of apartment style suites, each suite equipped with its own kitchen, bedrooms, and living spaces. And then there were several common areas throughout the entire building—larger living spaces, ballrooms, restaurant like dining halls, game rooms, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, etc. The place was like its own mini village. Like a cruise ship. It was both strange and wonderful, simultaneously. I kind of loved it. It was free to live here—like free food and free rent. It felt very safe. The décor, although a little dated, was homey. The people—my ‘relatives’—were friendly…weird, yes, but friendly.Still, something inside me questioned everything around me. A part of me was always on guard, always waiting for that other shoe to drop. My mother had purposely left all of this behind when she’d run away from my grandmother and this place. Why? She wasn’t alive to ask, so that was the million dollar question and the reason behind my concern.
Yet, with a man as evil as the one in the basement, questions like that were forgotten and only one thing concern me. Killing him.
Option 1: Contemporary Romance. Standalone. Childhood friends reunited years later.
Option 2: Paranormal (New Adult) Romance. Standalone.
So here are the first 3 pages of each. Please comment your thoughts on my post about this on my Facebook Reader Group. Remember these are completely unedited and subject to change.
Option 1: Contemporary Romance.
CHAPTER 1:
MICK
My ‘aha moment,’ that moment in life when everything clicks into place and you suddenly realize exactly what you need in order to feel some resemblance of completion, that moment when you know you have to risk it all…well, it happened as I was nearly decapitated by a vase. A vase! A Waterford Crystal, twenty pound, 40k euro vase from Ireland that we’d picked up on our last vacation—that kind of vase. It came flying at my head, flung with an incredible amount of force for a one-hundred and ten pound woman. It must have been all those sessions with her personal trainer, sessions that I had paid for, that gave her such inhuman strength.I ducked just in time and the vase hit the wall behind me. Miraculously no crashing sound followed, only a giant thud of contact. Wow. It was a really thick vase, good quality, excellent craftsmanship.“You piece of shit, asshole!” she screamed at me.I’d never heard Sandra swear before. This was a first. She’d always shown me a refined, perfectly put together, proper side. Her true colors—true fucking colors, people—were coming out now. I almost liked this side to her better. Almost. Maybe if I hadn’t already had my previous epiphany then I might have reconsidered the break-up that I knew inevitably was about to follow this fight. Because I didn’t want the wet-blanket, roll-over-and-die type in woman. I wanted someone who would challenge me and didn’t put up with my bullshit. I think. I think that was what I wanted. Who the hell really knows what they want though, right?For the first time in our relationship, Sandra was showing me more than just compliance and agreement. So for a moment, a very meniscal moment, I almost considered giving our relationship another try.But…Nah.No matter what her true personality was, I still wanted her out of my life.She picked up a lamp.“Sandra,” I said calmly, raising my hands up like she was a wild, rabid animal. “Put the lamp down. You love that lamp. You got it in Paris. None of this is the lamp’s fault.”“I don’t give a fuck!” she screeched, and hurled the lamp with all her strength.The lamp wasn’t as lucky as the vase had been. Like it was some kind of grenade, I jumped out of the path of destruction. The lamp collided with the floor and broke into several pieces. As I watched it shatter, I realized that I’d kind of liked that lamp. The lamp didn’t deserve this. So instead of trying to consul her, I grew indifferent to her temper.“You know what?” I said to her, my voice sharp and direct. “Your suspicions are perfectly accurate. I have been cheating on you. On multiple occasions with multiple different women. You know why? Because I just don’t care. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about where this relationship is going. I never have and I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t love you, and I don’t want to love you. And you know I’m never going to ask you to marry me. So why are we both wasting our time here? I think we should end this. Yeah, I think that’s the best thing we can do. So would you please go?”There. I said it.Finally.Two years too late, but I said it.She was right. I was a piece of shit, asshole. But at least now I was an honest piece of shit, asshole. I watched as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. Then as she began collecting her things. Then as she packed her bags. And then as she left my apartment, slamming the door as she went. She told me she’d send a company out to come collect the rest of her stuff. In reality, the rest of her stuff was my stuff. I’d paid for it all, which made it mine. But, whatever, she could have all of it. Except the vase.“I’m keeping the vase,” I yelled at the door a few moments too late. The door was closed and she was already gone. I stood there in my now silent apartment, broken things all around me, still staring at the door.So back to my ‘aha moment.’ I realized why I sabotaged all my relationships—every single damn one of them. Because that was exactly what I always did. When things got to a point where stuff became too serious, too close to turning into forever, I inevitably did something to fuck it up. And I finally realized why I always did this.Rebecca.A girl from my past.The only girl that had any hold over me.The memory of my Becca, of leaving her behind all those years ago, haunted my thoughts daily, almost hourly. There was a guilt there that I never could shake. It was the deep seeded kind too. I hadn’t seen Becca since I was ten years old. Seriously, ten. Circumstance of life had separated us. She’d only been a childhood friend, but somehow this gut feeling inside me told me that she was always meant to be more. It was a crazy notion. But when I slept around with different women, it never felt like I was cheating on Sandra or whoever my current girlfriend at the time was, it felt like I was wronging Becca. Silly, I know, because I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years! But I had this loyalty to her and only her.Now it was time to do something about that loyalty.Or else I was doomed to forever have giant, twenty pound vases thrown at my head.I didn’t know anything about current day Becca. If she still lived in our old town, on Cherry Hill Drive, in the trailer across from my mother’s lot. For all I knew Becca could be an unwed mother of four, addicted to heroin, working some dead end job, if she was even working at all, maybe even selling her body for money, and still living in that same damn trailer. Because that was the type of people that came from our neighborhood, the type of people that life chews up and spits back out.I didn’t know. I didn’t know where she might be now and to what degree of fucked-up she might be after growing up there. Either way. I needed to find her, help her, hell…marry her…I didn’t know. Something. Maybe all I really needed was closure from the wounds of my adolescence, from those formidable years before my father rescued me from that hell-hole. Whatever. I had a plan now. I knew what I needed to do next. Make things right with Rebecca, help her, and hopefully heal something inside me in the process.
* * *
Option 2: Paranormal (NA) Romance.
CHAPTER 1:
VI
“Poison,” Annabeth stated. She stared at my latest Google search, the one I’d accidently left open on my computer screen the night before. In an admittedly semi-drunken moment, I’d been causally researching the subject. Casually…more like obsessively. More like I’d barely slept last night trying to find a website with a recipe that seemed genuine.“It says here,” she went on, repeating one paragraph in particular, one I’d already read several times, “that you should mix one part rat poison, another part apple cider vinegar, and the last part cough syrup.” She grimaced, her face rather pale, probably from the reading material. “And then you have to let the mixture sit for one week before adding the juice of one rancid potato.” She flipped her long sheet of blonde hair over one shoulder, turning to give me a stern glare.“Seriously, Vi, that’s the grossest thing I’ve ever read. No one in their right mind would ever willingly or mistakenly drink that. So, what’s the next step to your plan? A funnel and force feeding? The two of us would never be able to overpower a man like him—despite whatever weak condition he’s in now.”There were so many variables to my plan. Obviously I wasn’t ready to execute it yet if I was still in the research phase, but it was nice knowing that she assumed we were in this together. But no. Murder—if that was what it should be called, more like justice—was a one person job.“Weak condition?” I dug, wanting know to if she knew more than me.She seemed hesitant to answer my question, though, shrugging her small shoulders and avoiding direct eye contact.She’d seen the man we were discussing the night he’d been captured. She’d been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time when some of our relatives had brought him in, barging through the main living room, dragging this man forcefully behind them. That had been a month ago, and I still hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing him. But Annabeth had, and she’d described him for me. She hadn’t described him as weak.“You think he’s weak now?” I asked, repeating myself, needing a clear answer.With a sigh, she finally answered. “He’s a prisoner. I’m sure the relatives aren’t feeding him ribeye and baked potato dinners.”“So they’re starving him?”Good. I wanted that man to suffer.Again my friend shrugged. That was the thing about Annabeth, about all of them, because I was younger than most of them, she and everyone else always treated me like I couldn’t handle the full truth. It was always apparent in their eyes. Whenever anyone told me anything, I always got the sense that it was only half of what they really meant. But I could handle the truth, all of it. I knew I could. Probably better than Annabeth. She’d grown up and spent all her years in this cushy estate. I hadn’t. We had so much in common, but not that. And besides, I wasn’t that young or that innocent. I would kill the man being held prisoner in the basement, so help me God.“I don’t know what they’re doing to him,” she answered. “I don’t really want to know.” Then she shivered, the way a person shivers shaking off the cold, but it wasn’t cold in my room. And again, in her blue eyes, I could tell there was more she knew but wasn’t saying. A truth below the surface.Of course I already assumed they were torturing this individual, holding him hostage in whatever holding cell this place had, and doing anything necessary to pull whatever information they could from him. I fully supported that. Only…I wanted him dead sooner rather than later. Maybe they’d break him and he’d talk, or maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, it bothered me that he still got to live while my mother was gone. It bothered me that anyone would keep this man alive, while knowing full well how dangerous he was. It was safer for all of us just to kill him quickly and be done with it.Right in that moment thinking about all of this, something inside me, the part of me that had been festering since the moment I learned about the man in the basement, snapped. Yes, I was young among my kind. And age—wisdom, specifically—meant everything to these people. But I couldn’t stand on the sidelines any longer.“I’m going down to the basement to see him,” I announced, standing from where I sat, standing so quickly I nearly toppled over my own feet. But I managed to keep my balance and I rushed across the room for my jacket and my shoes.Annabeth leapt to her feet as well, following me. “Stay out of this, Violet,” she pleaded. “I’m serious. Let the men handle this. They know what they’re doing. If they want him dead, by poison or whatever means, they’ll do it. Jace Lovelace is in charge of stuff like this. He’s smart. Too smart for his own good. And whether he’s torturing this man for information or simply torturing him for sport, I’m sure the outcome will benefit us all. I know you’re used to fending for yourself, but we live by a code in this house. We help each other. We help each other survive. Acting on impulse is not the way to survive.”Even though I’d only know her a few months, Annabeth was pretty much my only friend in this world. And certainly my best friend in this house. She was, after all, my grandmother. But I’d grown more determined than ever in the last few minutes, fueled by a crack in my heart that I knew would never mend. There really was nothing she could say or do to stop me in my pursuit of vengeance.On the inside that was how I felt. On the outside, I had to act differently.I didn’t put on my shoes or my jacket. I didn’t storm out of the room. I didn’t do anything crazy or hasty. Annabeth had spent a number of years studying martial arts. I’d heard someone in the house mention it at some point. She was petite but strong. I had at least twenty pounds and five inches on her, but I think my grandmother could crack my skull if she really wanted to. So I wasn’t about to push her. And even though we were friends, even though she was my grandmother by blood, even though I really wanted to fully trust her…I didn’t. I didn’t fully trust any of these people I lived with, my ‘relatives.’ Maybe this sense of mistrust came from my mom, because growing up she’d always taught me to never trust anyone. Maybe I was wrong in my mistrust. Maybe I was right.Either way, I knew I had to purse my vengeance alone. And especially not this moment.“Okay, you’re right,” I told Annabeth. “I’ll stay out of it. For now, at least.”The rest of my afternoon was spent beige watching old episodes of Friends. For being almost eighty years old—at least that was what I estimated Annabeth’s ‘true age’ to be, she told me it was impolite to ask and refused to tell me the actual number—my grandmother sure didn’t act her age. She acted more like a teenager, snorting milk out of her nose, laughing at every single one of Chandler’s lame jokes on the television, talking about boys, and reminiscing about what a ‘Grade A hunk’ my grandfather had been back in the day.Annabeth reminded me of a time capsule, like I was glimpsing back into the past somehow. My mother, also a carrier of the gene and also eternally youthful, had never once seemed as young as Annabeth seemed. Annabeth acted more like a little sister than someone two full generations older than me.After a long day of food and television, she left me alone in my suite and she returned to hers, which was located on the opposite end of the estate that we both lived in.This place, Ravensworth as it was called, was like a castle. Or maybe a hotel. There were five stories of apartment style suites, each suite equipped with its own kitchen, bedrooms, and living spaces. And then there were several common areas throughout the entire building—larger living spaces, ballrooms, restaurant like dining halls, game rooms, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, etc. The place was like its own mini village. Like a cruise ship. It was both strange and wonderful, simultaneously. I kind of loved it. It was free to live here—like free food and free rent. It felt very safe. The décor, although a little dated, was homey. The people—my ‘relatives’—were friendly…weird, yes, but friendly.Still, something inside me questioned everything around me. A part of me was always on guard, always waiting for that other shoe to drop. My mother had purposely left all of this behind when she’d run away from my grandmother and this place. Why? She wasn’t alive to ask, so that was the million dollar question and the reason behind my concern.
Yet, with a man as evil as the one in the basement, questions like that were forgotten and only one thing concern me. Killing him.
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