We're Live, and We Have Winners!

A huge thank you to everyone who entered for a chance to win a coupon code for a free download of my latest novel,Blessed Are the Wholly Broken. Names were added from Twitter, Wordpress, and Goodreads, and the winners were (chosen randomly by my 15 year old, who pulled them from my 13 year old son's hat): Jean, Lala, and Gail. I've emailed all three of you ladies with instructions and the code (good until Nov. 1). If you have any trouble at all with the download, just let me know here or on Facebook.

For everyone else, Blessed Are the Wholly Broken is now live on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords (as well as Apple, Kobo, and Sony).

To help get you started:

Prologue
Ripley, Tennessee
May 13, 2013: Sentencing


Around me I hear the sounds of incarceration echoing against cold concrete: shouting, banging, an occasional sob. The air is putrid, a stale mixture of urine, sweat, bleach, and vomit. In the beginning I could scarcely fathom becoming used to such things, but after nearly a year in this cell, in some odd way the noise and the stench have come to represent home. I’m comforted by the consistency of the assault on my senses, much as one finds comfort in the numbing monotony of white noise.

The call came exactly four minutes ago, so I wait for the armed guards and the quick trip to the courthouse where I will meet my attorney. Together, we will face the jury—a jury of my peers, they said, and at one time that would have been accurate. But these people are no peers of mine; I’ve crossed a line that ensures this to be true.

There is no doubt of my guilt; that was already determined. What is in dispute is the depth of my guilt. For weeks I sat at the defense table, my mouth dry, my eyes drier, and listened to the horror of my crime. The carefully prepared defense of my actions crumbled away like so much dust in the wind, blown apart by my own behavior. By the end, even I knew I was a monster, not for the reasons they cited—not because I had killed my wife—but because I didn’t save her sooner.

More recent words play themselves through my mind as I wait for the telltale jingle of keys. Aggravating factors. Particularly cruel, stood to gain sole custody of a minor, planned and premeditated, preyed upon vulnerabilities.

It is not enough to label me guilty; the question is: Am I guilty enough to put to death?

It is a necessary part of the process; this, I understand. The court needs closure; the jury needs to feel they’ve fulfilled their responsibilities, the family needs to feel vindicated. True and just punishment must be meted out within the appropriate parameters of the law.

I will go with my lawyer into the courtroom. I will sit again, as I have sat for weeks, and wait for others to determine my fate. Life imprisonment or death; that is the question. And while the outcome matters immensely to the other players in this drama of my life, it matters not at all to me. I am dead either way.