A Flawed Character

I'm days away from releasing a new book. Prolific, aren't I? It's called a backlist, which is stuff that has accumulated over the months and years and I'm just now getting out. The only thing slowing me down is cover art. You see that's that most expensive part for me since I've proven time and again I don't have the talent to create a decent cover on my own. So I get with some talented artists and, working with them, try to come up with an incredible image to covert a would-be reader into a customer. Thing is, it costs money. So, if you'd like to see more of my stuff available sooner then the solution is simple: buy more of my books! Think of it as an investment – the more you put into it, the more it returns in terms of giving you new material to read more frequently.

So back to the new back and character flaws. It's called, "The Lost Girls," and it takes place in my Dark Earth setting. If you've read Dark Earth let me forewarn you – it's extremely different. Dark Earth takes place here and now (ish), with a healthy amount of time spent transported to another earth that is geographically similar but primitive and savage in most other aspects. "The Lost Girls" takes place in the year 2056, after many portals have opened between the Earth and Dark Earth. One of those portals is in Phoenix, which happens to be where Katalina Wimple lives.

Katalina, or Kat as she allows her precious few friends to call her, is a police officer. She works for VDI, Valley Defense Incorporated. The policing services for the greater Phoenix valley have been outsourced to a security firm – a common occurrence among larger and even some smaller cities throughout the United States. Kat is a detective, and one who takes on special cases. She's hard to get along with and extremely independent, which prevents her from working with a partner or even having too much to do with her fellow officers. Kat also has a driving need to save every woman she can, starting with the youngest ones and working up from there. She takes on the harshest of cases: serial rapists, kidnappings, domestic abuse, and anything else that oppresses or hurts a woman or child. In The Lost Girls Kat's trying to stop young women from being abducted and forced into slavery. Secretly she's looking for the reason behind the latest crime to be caused by a man. A man she can manufacture an excuse to punish.

Do they deserve it? Without a doubt. But Kat makes for a poor choice in an avenging angel. Even if she's always underestimated her idea of justice always seems to end up with her getting nearly as much abuse as she dishes out. There's a reason for the abuse, both from her and to her. She's a scarred person, physically and emotionally, and if she wasn't so damn dedicated and good at her job she'd be lucky to have a job doing night security at a strip mall.

I'll probably have a post or two more about Katalina. She's one of my favorite characters because she's so strong and forceful, but so flawed and weak at the same time. She took control of me and demanded I write about her in spite of the plans I had to the contrary.

The Lost Girls will launch this month. Two follow up novels are in process as well, "Traitor" and "Wolfgirl". "Traitor" heads back through the portal to spend time on Dark Earth, exploring how Native American beliefs and mysticisms could have developed without the oppression of Europeans. Hefty does of paranormal there, but nothing like what "Wolfgirl" introduces via a trip to the darker and seedier side of Las Vegas, including the secret portal created for the rich and famous who want to experience a Dark Earth style of Las Vegas – one without rules and regulations.