Lethal Obsession chosen for group read, and a new blog tour is set to take off!

Short and sweet, very sweet, today.

My novel, Lethal Obsession, has been picked up as a Read of the Month at Erotic Enchants, a group on Goodreads.

If you'd like to participate, please slip on over to Goodreads and join Erotic Enchants. If you haven't yet purchased a copy of Lethal Obsession, there's a discount coupon code there just for Erotic Enchants members taking part in the group read.

You still have plenty of time -- Lethal Obsessions will be the featured read Aug. 19-Aug. 25.

*****

I also want to announce the Helpless! Blog Tour starting Aug. 1 to coincide with the upcoming release of Helpless! Book 2 of the Lethal Obsession Trilogy.

There will be reviews and excerpts of both Lethal Obsession and Helpless!, interviews with me, with some of my novel characters, excerpts, and chances to win a few prizes.

For details, slip on over to Facebook and join the event at https://www.facebook.com/events/203452033152760/

If you can't get in, drop me a line at FB and I'll send an invite. If you're not already my FB friend, send me a request. I'm pretty free and easy with my acceptances!

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo

Strong reviews still rolling in for Lethal Obsession

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A new home, a new job, and close to a new novel

When I look at the date I can’t believe it’s been more than a month since I last wrote, but there’s been a lot going on – and a lot yet to come.

Here’s the quick run-down on life in general. I have a job. Sort of.

Actually, I have a new home. I moved from eastern North Carolina to the mountains of Southwest Virginia. I have a couple of friends there, from my days working with a carnival, and they suggested I check out the area when they learned I had lost my job.

I did, and here I am. I’m staying in an extra room they have for the time being, but I’m working part-time at a local restaurant and looking for both a regular fulltime job and a small place of my own. I’ll keep you posted.

My long-awaited LETHAL OBSESSION sequel is soon to be released! The new novel is called HELPLESS (a few of you know I had been using another working title, but HELPLESS turned out best). It’s going to be released around Aug. 15, maybe a day or two sooner at Amazon.

I have a blog tour coming up to celebrate the release, and I’ll have more details for you on that this weekend.

As always, thanks for sto. I’ll keep you a lot more updated on my writing in the days to come.


xoxo

Lethal Obsession, a life change and a new beginning

A couple of days ago I mentioned how my life had taken a few recent unexpected turns, and how I wasn't sure what I'd be doing, or even where I'd be living soon. I left off by mentioning my novel, LETHAL OBSESSION, and how I had been unprepared for the reaction its publication brought to me.

Let me take a step back and say even before LETHAL OBSESSION, my life started to change just a little -- though I didn't realize it -- when I first published a couple of short stories last year, PRIVATE DINING and ROOM SERVICE.

When I was a child my grandmother -- whom I miss very much, even all these years after she passed away -- introduced me to stories. She would read to me, and later would listen as I read to her. My home life could be best described as less than ideal, so I found some solace in reading. Then I began writing, creating my own worlds where I could do anything I wanted.

Soon enough I found myself not wanting to write just for escapism, but I wanted to write to elicit reactions from others, like those authors had gotten from me. I'd let friends read my work, and I often judged the work based on the reaction I'd get from them.

Sadly, I don't have any of that early work. My mother tore most of it up one day, not long before I left home. I was on the road a lot after that, and I'd occasionally write stories or snippets of stories in longhand, but most of that was lost along the way as well.

In December 2011, with a new job and a place to live, I bought a computer as a Christmas present to myself and began playing around, doing some writing. A friend convinced me I should try selling some of the work as e-stories on Amazon, so in November of last year I published two short stories, PRIVATE DINING and ROOM SERVICE.

By the end of the year I'd sold a couple of hundred copies of those. They were simple little short stories, only selling for 99 cents each, so I really didn't make any money off of them (I get 35 cents per sale), but I was absolutely blown away that someone would pay, even 99 cents, to read my work. I was doubly blown-away that someone would read one, then pay another 99 cents for a second story!

I wrote a couple more stories, longer ones that didn't sell so well (JENNIFER LOST and then JENNIFER BOUND), before I tackled LETHAL OBSESSION.

I published that short novel at the very end of February, and the response was more than I had ever hoped. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, it's not as if I sold thousands of copies, but it did sell relatively well.

I owe a big part of that success to someone who took me under her wing a bit -- author J.M. Schroder. She found something in that story she liked, so she did some promotions for me, helped show me how to promote it, and has been a true friend and big-time supporter who I cannot thank enough. Actually, I've found many wonderful people who have helped me, given me good advice, and I don't mean to leave anyone out, but Jennie has been an absolute angel.

People bought the novel. People gave me good reviews. A few bloggers interviewed me. Even now I get mails from people on Facebook asking when the sequel will be ready. I was absolutely not prepared for this. This might sound funny, but it became intimidating. Suddenly I felt as if I wasn't writing my stories, but trying to build something to live up to expectations of others.

I will be very open here -- writing that sequel has been difficult. I went through a small period of depression (nothing too serious, I've learned to deal with that when it comes up). Then the issue with my boss and his girlfriend (see my last blog, here) and my job loss and I just felt like everything was a little out of control in my life.

Being jobless I've been able to spend a lot of time alone these past two weeks, walking, thinking (and yes, playing in the rain!). I've re-evaluated a few things in my life, where I've been going, what I want from my writing.

If you read that last blog, you know my life is in a state of flux right now. I'm not sure if I'm going to remain here or move on to some other community. I don't know where I'm going to find a job (and while I'm okay for a short time, I'm like everyone else, I NEED a job).

But I do know this -- writing will be, whether figuratively or literally, my refuge from the world, just as it was those many years ago when I was a child. And I won't be caught off-guard again, or get so caught up in the reaction of readers that I lose focus on the writing that I do.

I am charging full-speed ahead on the sequel to LETHAL OBSESSION (and on a sequel to the shorts PRIVATE DINING and ROOM SERVICE), and I already have my next tale lined up to write when the LETHAL OBSESSION sequel is published. And after that next story is done, I have a few special shorts just for the Halloween season I'll be writing (not to mention a magical little story I need to get done for Kelly -- you didn't think I had forgotten, did you?)

After that? I don't know just yet, but there will be more. Perhaps a third part in the Angela Martin/LETHAL OBSESSION saga, or maybe something entirely different with a new set of characters and challenges for them to work through.

For those of you who have read my work, who have contacted me, or helped me along the way, I offer a sincere thanks (especially you Jennie!). And I'll be putting new work out soon.

As always, thanks for reading.

xoxo

No home for me...

...Home isn't pretty
Ain't no home for me
Home in the darkness
home on the highway
Home isn't my way
Home I'll never be..."

Those are a few of the lyrics from the opening of the Blue Oyster Cult song "Burning for You" (a great old song -- here it is if you don't know it -- Burning for You)

I love older music. Some of the bands from the 70s and 80s seemed to be able to speak to deeper questions and emotions, things not quite as shallow as Taylor Swift talking about her latest boyfriend. This particular song, Burning for You, was released in 1981, five years before I was born, yet I've always liked it. At this particular point in my life it seems an appropriate soundtrack for all that's going on.

A quick look at my profile will tell you I've not exactly been a homebody. When I was a child, home life was non-existent. It was a place I got fed, sometimes, and slept when there wasn't screaming or yelling or a party going on. My fond memories are from being with my grandmother and my aunt, but I left home at 16 and have spent most of my life on the road since.

Eventually I ended up in Florida for six years, but never in the same place. I worked three years in a carnival and three more with a small traveling circus, then left and made my way to North Carolina. For the past two years I've lived in a neat little town that's just like those small towns you see on television -- everyone seems to know everyone (they're all related or went to school together) -- and we have little town festivals and events that draws all the same people out every year.

And the people here have been wonderful to me. I've made a couple of dear friends, and there are others I genuinely like and admire. I landed a job as a receptionist and clerk in a small insurance office and found the absolute perfect place to live -- it's a small house, just the right size for me, out in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a dirt road. I'm surrounded by forest and the only sounds I hear when I'm outside are those of the birds and frogs and the occasional animal noise that I have no clue about. I could work in the flower garden naked and no one would know the difference. The owner of the home even let me sign a lease-purchase agreement and he offered to finance the home for me.

When the initial lease expired last October, I couldn't do it. I couldn't sign the papers and buy the house. I don't know why -- the landlord was willing to use part of the rent as a down payment, I had everything I needed lined up, but I just couldn't go through with it. So, we agreed to another year, but he told me if I back out again, he would put the house on the open market. He's an older guy with a lot of property and he said he's tired of dealing with it, so he's been selling it off over the past few years.

Which brings me to the here-and-now. A little more than two weeks ago I lost my job. Not because of anything I did wrong, or even because of a struggling economy. No, my old boss is a snake, plain and simple.

See, he and a woman insurance agent who works in the office were having an affair. I discovered it a couple of months ago and I've been sick about it. I know his wife -- I see her and their little boy occasionally -- and I cannot begin to explain how that ate at me. I actually became physically ill a couple of times, even felt depressed (which is something I deal with enough as it is).

Turns out half the town already knew and I got all worked up over not letting it slip for nothing. Now, he and the woman have decided to move out on their respective spouses and leave town, which meant closing the office and ending my job.

I'm not complaining or asking anyone to feel sorry for me. I don't have it nearly as bad as their families do. Plus, I tend to live on a lot less than I make, so I've saved some money. I do have to get a job, I can't do this indefinitely, but I'm okay for now.

Which brings me back to home.

Or my lack of a home.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I know people are the same everyone, I'm not so naive as to believe I'm going to find somewhere that this kind of thing doesn't happen, but I just can't view this place the same any longer. So many of my friends, it turns out, knew about this and just let it go. "That's just life" some said, or "None of my business."

Besides, after being here for a couple of years, the luster of a new place has begun to wane. Maybe I'm just destined to wander, to settle for a short time, then pull up stakes and move on.

I have a lot in flux right now, but two things I'm beginning to realize. First, I just don't know that I'll ever find a place that will become home. And second, I think I've allowed myself to be too caught up in the world around me and not focused enough on my writing.

This past year has been a revelation to me regarding my writing, with the publication of LETHAL OBSESSION, in ways that I wasn't really prepared for. But I've grown long-winded here, so I'll delve into that, explain where I'm going with my writing and how all of this has given me a new focus later this week. Check back on Wednesday, maybe Thursday.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

xoxo

An interview with little old me....

Hey folks, I'm featured today on Tricia Drammeh's Authors' To Watch. Nice, fun interview -- you can learn just a little about me and my writing there!

Slip on over there and check it out.

Alone in a hotel room....an excerpt from LETHAL OBSESSION

His instructions had been clear. Check in by 12:30, pick up a package at the front desk, then go to the cabin. Eat at 1 o’clock – he had already chosen her lunch, had room service deliver – and then wait. Do as she pleased, watch television, read, relax.

It will be a long night.

That’s what he had told her on the phone. Right after he told her to drive, giving her only partial instructions. Twice more on the trip he called, and her phone showed a different number. Angela supposed he was being cautious – after all, for all Tanner knew, he was walking into a police trap. Angela thought he had sounded amazingly calm if that was the case.

Certainly calmer than she felt. Angela reached for the soda she had on the nightstand and noticed her hand shaking. God. She hadn’t been this nervous any of the times she had been forced to draw her gun. Even the time she shot a man, Angela had maintained a steeliness in her manner, her emotions.

Now she was scared. This is crazy. That thought played over and over in her mind. She tried lying on the four-poster bed reading a visitor magazine, couldn’t concentrate. She flipped through the channels. Paced the room. Glanced at the clock over and over, each time sighing to see only a couple of minutes had passed.

Finally she went out to the deck, breathed in the mountain air. Though the calendar had turned to September the weather was still hot in Moose Creek, and it was nearly as warm here, but this high up the air felt cleaner, humidity lower, and she stayed on the balcony, leaning over the rail, watching birds fly, trees shiver in the occasional breeze.

Angela lost track of time. Eventually she walked back in – five o’clock. A half-hour.

Slowly she undressed, hands shaking even more now, a tremble of fear rolling up and down her body. Somewhere deep inside, Angela couldn’t help but believe this was the worst idea she had ever had, that something bad was going to happen. To her.

Yet she continued on, removing her jeans, her shirt, unsnapping her bra, slipping panties down to the floor. She opened the package. Inside was a black and red corset, matching lace panties, a black blindfold, red natural fiber rope, a pair of handcuffs, and a ball gag attached to leather straps.

Angela knew she should have felt her face growing warm at this point, or maybe a bolt of excitement shooting through her body. Instead she sat, scared, unable to move. Minutes passed. The ringing of her phone sent a startle through her. She grabbed the phone from the lampstand.

“Are you ready?” Tanner’s voice.

“I…” can’t do this. Those were the words in her head. I’ve changed my mind. Those weren’t the words that slipped from her mouth. “…not yet.” Heather’s right, I do have a self-destructive wish. Maybe I deserve it.

“I’m on my way, you have seven minutes.”

The line went dead.

She dropped the phone on the bed and quickly slipped into the corset. Lace crisscrossed up the front, and she struggled to cinch it tight and tie it off in a nice bow at the top. Finally she finished, slipped on the panties, blindfolded herself, then clicked one cuff around her wrist. She paused, last chance, then put her hands behind her back and shut the second cuff around her other wrist.

Only moments passed before she heard the door open. Angela began shivering, hard enough she knew Tanner could see, and anger flared inside her, anger at herself for losing control, for not even being able to face this without showing such fear.

She heard the door shut, the locks slip in place, then faster than she would have thought he could cover the distance between them his hands cupped her face, lips pressed against hers.

“Please, do not fear me,” he whispered, his breath forcing its way into her mouth. His tongue followed and, as irrational as it might have been, her fear left, replaced by a mad, burning desire. She returned his kiss, so hard his teeth hurt her lips. Angela pulled against the cuffs – she wanted her hands on him, undressing him. She felt heat rising through her body as his hands played down her neck, over her shoulders, across her chest.

Then he was gone.

She gasped.

“My, my, you seem like a wild thing today,” he said, a mocking tone in his voice. “Good thing you’re restrained.”

She moaned, and stepped toward his voice. A second step and then he was behind her, pushing his knees into the back of hers, sending her to the ground, kneeling. She felt his hand play through her hair before his fingers closed and yanked her head back, his other hand playing down her chest, across the exposed portions of her breasts.

Then he was gone.

She remained, on her knees, for what seemed like minutes, then she felt him standing in front, his cock touching her lips. She opened her mouth wide and he entered, hard, cutting off her breathing for a moment. Back and forth he moved – and Angela realized she was tasting skin this time, not latex – and suddenly her fear returned. No protection. He’s not worried about the consequences. Killers usually aren’t bothered by such concerns.

But the fear had little room inside her, held at bay by desire, by a strange and powerful drive to please him, to be abused by him, to know what it would feel like as he used her up, drove her where she had never been.

She kept sucking on his cock each time he drove in.

“Oh Barbie,” he whispered.

His hands on her head, fingers twisting her hair around them, he yanked her head forward as he thrust far into her mouth. Her air cut off momentarily, yet Angela still tried rising, taking him in, tongue playing, teeth grazing his shaft.

He pulled back just a bit and repeated his motions, Over and over.

“Oh good god, my Barbie,” he called out.

She pulled with all her might against the handcuffs – Angela wanted her hands on his legs, hips, buttocks – and she called out his name, as best she could, just as a salty, gooey explosion filled her mouth, slid down her throat. Angela sucked harder, feeling a tightness between her own legs. She tried clinching her muscles there, wanted badly to climax as she drank and licked from his cock, but she could not, and soon he was gone again.

For a time there was no sound, and then his hands were on her arms, behind her, roughly lifting Angela to her feet. She was pushed across the floor, then onto the bed, face-first, much rougher than he had treated her in the past.

“You are a bad woman,” he said, a hint of what she thought might be anger in his voice. “I had intended to tease you for quite some time before doing that, but you…your reaction caught me off guard.”

He tied rope around one wrist, then the other, binding her wrists together, tighter than before. She heard the click of the key turning inside one cuff, then the other and they were gone – he had shown an affinity for rope, rather than the cuffs, and Angela was glad. The feel of the rope was more sensual, more arousing, she thought. Then she felt the ball gag against her lips, shoved into her mouth, the leather straps pulled tight around her head, buckled in back, followed by a hard open-hand smack on her ass.

Angela gasped at the blow.

“You like that?” he asked, following with another smack to her ass. And a third.

Angela pushed her face into the bed and moaned, partly from pain, but partly from – she wasn’t sure what it was. But with each strike – and they continued coming – her body jerked, reflexively, and she felt some strange response from inside, some sort of feeling that this is what she was meant for, deserved, and that aroused her.

Then the spanking stopped.

“My, oh my, your cheeks are red.” That mocking tone again. 

*****

You've been reading an excerpt of my dark erotica-suspense novel, LETHAL OBSESSION. Download your own copy now, here at Amazon for your Kindle or here at Barnes and Noble for your Nook.