I Post the First Part of Eric Northman's Story in: DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

So there I was, enjoying a breakfast of Grape Nuts and Half n' Half followed by a V-8 chaser, when Charlaine Harris (she of The Southern Vampire Mysteries series, which led to the True Blood shenanigans) asked if I'd like to contribute a story to her upcoming anthology, Dead But Not Forgotten. Naturally I took this for a cruel trick question and said terrible things to her, and about her, but then her editor convinced me that a) it was a genuine offer and b) Charlaine had not, in fact, lost a bet. 

The rules were simple:  the main character of the story could be anyone in The Southern Vampire Mysteries series except Sookie, we had to play nicely within the rules of the SoVa space-time continuum (e.g. a story could be set while Sookie's grandma was alive, but you couldn't write a story where she interacts with a character introduced after she died), and we had to promise not to harm any animals while writing our stories. But I am an arteest and they can't control me, so I told them that third rule was totally out of line. I had no intention of harming an animal, but now that I was told I couldn't, I really really wanted to. God, that clause alone took forever to work out. (In the end, I ignored an animal, so their feelings were hurt but they weren't physically harmed. Arteest!) It was like when I found out I was pregnant and the doc explained I couldn't smoke or drink. Suddenly all I wanted to do was eat a pack of Marlboros. But I digress.

I'm not alone in having a sizeable ladycrush on Eric Northman, but for those of you who haven't read any of the SoVa books, he's a hunky vampire over a thousand years old with the build of an Olympic swimmer and the stamina of a sex addict mainlining Viagra. Formerly a Viking, currently a badass, he's arrogant in all the best ways, and always owns his shit. He was my first and last choice. Except for Pam. Okay, and maybe Sophie-Ann. Or Bubba. It doesn't matter, I didn't have to choose; Eric was available (oooh, best phrase ever) and he was all mine (second-best phrase ever). 

I set Widower's Walk two hundred and one years after the events of the final novel in the SoVa series, Dead Ever After and, in addition to writing a story from a man's POV (rare for me; I tend to stick with the ladies, or they stick with me) I wrote it in the present tense (even more rare…but fun!). I also got to do some research on Louisiana, one of the few states I haven't had a chance to visit. No idea what the readers will think, but I sure had a good time with him. The story! I meant the story. I definitely wasn't thinking about Eric's, um, longship. At all. Not even once. 

(I am a liar.)

(A liar who now wants to visit Louisiana!)

Anyway, here are the first couple of pages from Widower's Walk. Enjoy! And stop thinking about his longship, pervs.


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When is a betrayal not a betrayal?When it’s not a betrayal.
He’s been here before, except he hasn’t.  Two hundred and one years ago, Louisiana was a different place, which stands to follow as it was also a different time.  The bar was here, but now it’s called Were About.  There are still waitresses here, but instead of leaving tips on tables customers use the datpads to send credits wherever the waitress (petcash, savings, WorldTax, 401K, direct-to-IRS) wants them.  There are blonde waitresses here with big eyes and sweet smiles, but they aren’t Sookie.  There are bad people here.  Of course.Eric Northman waits for a waitress (not for the first time), and ponders the nature of change.  It would be difficult not to, since everywhere he looks he is reminded.  Whoever wrote the more things change the more they stay the same, he thinks, had a brain tumor.  Because the more things change, the more things change.  Even the youngsters can see it. Louisiana, as a starting point.  Because first it was known for its mound complexes and status as a de rigueur Native American paradise and then it was known for the bow-and-arrow welcome hostile tribes gave the Spanish (perhaps they saw their future once Europeans hit the shore?), and then the French got their claws in and hung on until it became Slavery Central and then England spanked the French and took some of Louisiana as a penalty/prize and Spain snatched the rest which only increased the slave population (Louisiana by now being, essentially, the Walmart of slavery) and then Napoleon more or less declared, “You know what France would like back?  Louisiana.  Cough it up, bitches,” but then changed his mind and sold it to the United States, which knew the deal of the century when they got it and never once had buyer’s remorse.And then things settled down but not really and Louisiana was known for exporting sugar and cotton and a bunch of rich guys decided to secede (“Um, if there’s no slavery, who’s gonna build levees?  Besides us?  Which, obviously, is not acceptable.  Who’s ready to throw a secession soiree?”) which did not work out at all, and then the whole Reconstruction thing happened and the slaves were free and the supplanted planters took it pretty well (except for the KKK, the White League, and, um, the Colfax Massacre), okay, pretty well might be an exaggeration, and then the state was known for the rabid discouragement of African Americans registering to vote and then it was known for a sizable section of the population moving to California and then it was known for Civil Rights and then it was known for the Hurricane Katrina clusterfuck and then it was known for its seafood export (until they lost New Orleans to the hurricane that made Katrina look like a spring breeze) and then it was known for its petrochemical industries and now it isn’t.  Now Louisiana is primarily known for 1) tech, and 2) paranormal inhabitants.  And Eric isn’t there for an computer upgrade.Shaking his head he thinks, I have been spending too much time in the Wikipedia archives. He considers the cars and trucks in the parking lot, and the fact that at least four-fifths of them are solar-powered or electric.  It’s still legal to own and operate gasoline fueled engines, but only for so many hours a week, only for specific jobs (e.g. farm equipment), and it’s generally understood that even those will be phased out within twenty years.  Which is fine with him.  He knew electric cars would kill petrol-fueled anything back in 1995, for God’s sake, and planned (and invested) accordingly.  It was all well and good to be proved right, and it was even better to get rich doing so.  Besides, it’s much easier to make mischief when you have the checkbook (not that anyone used those anymore) to back it up.“Hi, welcome to Were About.”“How too cute,” he replies, almost-but-not-quite bored.  She’s cute, too.  Blonde, but then, he has a thing for them.  “TrueBlood, please, straight.”  No ice, God forbid, no cinnamon sprinkle, no salted rim.  After fixing the ozone dilemma and developing the prostate cancer vaccine, as far as Eric was concerned the greatest accomplishment over the past few centuries has been engineering TrueBlood as a palatable drink.  The downside to that?  People who weren’t vampires now drank it, which caused all sorts of trouble.  “Passing” was becoming a problem.  Not since the dark days of the Twilight franchise had it been so trendy to be dead.

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Dead But Not Forgotten is available on audio here May 13 and Kindle and hardcover November 25, 2014; you can pre-order now. Longship sold separately.