Hello to all my new readers! Welcome to the party. :)
I've been working on building a book universe for eight years. It didn't start out with that grand scheme in mind. It just sort of... happened.
It began with what I call Easter Eggs, those little nuggets referring to other stories that fans will recognize as my little shout-out to them, recognizing and rewarding their loyalty to my books. I got the idea from Stephen King and just kind of rolled with it. Truthfully, I love it when characters from other books pop up in new stories. They surprise me often. I hope it works the same for you, just like it worked for me as a SK fan.
But, if you're new here because later books brought you into my universe, you might need a cheat sheet showing you the reading order. It's true that when it comes to the Groupieverse, you don't know the WHOLE story until you've read all the books, because I've sprinkled that fairy dust EVERYWHERE.
The safest bet is to read by order of publication because I'm a linear thinker. Some books that are out of genre, however, won't tie into the main through-line. That is not to say that your favorite characters won't still pop up from time to time (Chasing Thunder,) but here are the books that support and define my Groupieverse:
1. Love Plus One:
This standalone romance introduces us to Shannon, Dixie and Jorge, who pop up again in the Groupieverse in Mogul, which is Book Three of the original Groupie Saga. They also show up in the Fullerton Family Saga, starting in Book 2, Entangled. Jorge comes back often because I just love him.
2. Groupie -> Rock Star -> Mogul -> Vanni.
Here's where my most beloved character, Vanni Carnevale, makes his grand introduction. He has a prequel, Vanni, which you can read first if you'd like to get his perspective prior to going in. He's a bit of a douchebag at first, so if you need a reason to root for him, you can start with his story first. It was written to work either way, however.
3. Fierce -> Unstoppable -> Epic
For those who are disappointed by my "big girl" stories starring smaller sizes like 12-16, Fierce introduces Jordi Hemphill, a size 20+ young woman who moves to L.A. to take Tinsel Town by storm. She ends up on Vanni's radar, and is swept into the Groupieverse as a result. All your favorites pop up in this series.
4. The Undisciplined Bride
This is another standalone which introduces the Bravos into the Groupieverse. Both Graham and Jace (from the Fierce trilogy) pop up to help tell this Texas tale about a bridezilla from hell and the hot Latin cook who is about to turn her world upside down.
5. Enticed -> Entangled -> Enraptured
My Groupieverse shares the stage with my Fullerton Family Saga, which is most beloved by my readers. The Fullerton family blends well with the Groupieverse, starting with Book 2, Entangled. Vanni pops up, as does Graham, Shannon, Jorge, etc. Most importantly, it introduces Alex and Jonathan Fullerton, who will come into play in later books/series. Young Jonathan will get his own romance book one day. If you've read Beauty and the Bitch (formerly Big Fat Bitch), you've already met someone who will be very important to him in the near future.
6. The Leftover Club
This is another standalone that introduces a character who will enter our Groupieverse: Meghan Lawless. Expect her to shake some stuff up when I publish Rewound, the next book in the Groupieverse, coming in 2019.
7. Southern Rocker Boy -> Southern Rocker Chick -> Southern Rocker Showdown
My southern rockers start in Texas, but by the ends of both SRB and SRC, they end up heading for the Golden Coast of California, where everyone in the Groupieverse is waiting to help make their dreams come true. Technically speaking, Boy and Chick are the same story from two different perspectives. They are not, however, a retelling of the same book. Southern Rocker Chick is most like the Danielle Steel books I grew up reading. It's about Lacy Abernathy's life, getting her to her HEA/dream come true. Jonah Riley just happens to come along and mess up all her plans.
8. Masters for Hire -> Masters for Life -> Masters Forever
This series stars L.A.'s rich and powerful, so naturally they orbit in the same galaxy as my Groupie/Fullerton Family Saga characters. Graham Baxter and Alex Fullerton actually come into play in a BIG way in Book Three, but Graham was sprinkling his fairy dust long before that. (I love that man.) It also introduces Caz Bixby, whom I love even MORE. This man is now my copilot. You'll see him a LOT in upcoming books, including one just for him. (You've already met the woman who is going to rock his world, too.)
9. Glitter on the Web -> Masked in the Music -> FFF
This series wasn't really written as a series on purpose, but the characters insisted that they all be grouped together. It starts with Carly Reynolds meeting Caz Bixby, which opens the Groupieverse even more. Each of these TECHNICALLY work as standalones, because whether or not the couple in question get together is answered by the end of their specific book, but the world they're living in is the same - so they're linked as family. (And I like that.) If, however, M/M romance is not your cup of tea, or... if the reverse is true and M/F is not your cup of tea, you can skip the story. But FFF embraces both couples, so... it'll help keep you up to speed to read them all.
10. Beauty and the Bitch (formerly Big Fat Bitch)
Likewise, Beauty and the Bitch is a standalone, but we're setting the stage here for other books coming next year, listed below:
11. Rewound -> Rebound -> Renowned (coming in 2019/2020)
Here we pick up with Andy, Vanni and Graham, as well as Carly and Eli, Rudy and Tony, and, of course, Caz Bixby. If you prefer your HEA from the original book rock solid, you may want to take a pass with these. I've had to pick up some pieces of what happened in FFF, and it will throw our favorites into chaos for a while. But that's the fun of it, am I right? When they're blown apart, we can see if their love is strong enough to bring them back together again. And believe me, there's nothing I like more than falling in love with Vanni all over again.
My next group of books will be a departure from my Groupieverse, but who knows? Maybe the characters there will find a way to interject themselves into new stories. They're minxes like that.
Watch for book 1 of the Scar Trilogy, Shattered, to publish *hopefully* by the end of this year.
That's it! I hope this list is helpful. It kinda helps me, too. The vines are growing longer with each passing year. But, just like my Barbieverse from the 1980s, these are stories and characters I love to revisit, so... I predict it will only continue to grow.
Thank you so much for reading my books and loving these characters as much as I do. Please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. We writers kinda live for that sort of thing. I churn out book after book, hoping I can make a connection. When you all let me know I have done what I set out to do, that rewards me in ways mere words are too small to describe.
How can you thank someone for letting you live your dream? The only thing I can do is write even more books.
So, that's what I'm going to do.
Until next time, dream big... live large... BE FIERCE.
Showing posts with label masters saga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label masters saga. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Swoon-a-Palooza Book Boyfriend #13 - Caz Bixby (Another $0.99 sale! LTO)
Devlin Masters was our romantic hero in the male escort romance, MASTERS FOR HIRE. Caz Bixby, however, is just a down and dirty manwhore. He genuinely is the yang to Devlin's yin. I didn't see him coming in Book 1, but the second he introduced him in book 2 of the MASTERS SAGA, MASTERS FOR LIFE, he made himself QUITE at home.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” I said, sweet as sugar.
He smiled wider. “Caz. Caz Bixby. I’m a friend of your Aunt Margot’s.”
“He’s my personal trainer,” she purred as she stretched out on the chaise lounge.
Of course he was. Next to Devlin, I had never seen a man more anatomically accurate. His jaw was squared, just like it had been sculpted from marble. From the way his clothes fit, I was pretty sure that everything below the neck was just as defined. He looked like he could have stepped out of a magazine.
He caught how my gaze swept over him, and I could tell by that glint in those bright amber green eyes that he both welcomed and expected the attention.
Like I was saying in my last blog, Devlin is a huge question mark. He gave our CC the fairytale of her dreams in Vegas, which they take back with them to Los Angeles in a very permanent way. Despite "leveling up" in their relationship, much remains a mystery about Devlin. He holds many, many secrets, which he refuses to share with CC, expecting her to trust him.
Essentially he's asking her to take him at face value like he accepted her. But it's not going so well. Once Caz hits the scene... it gets even worse.
“You know I’d never take lessons from Margot’s slimy boy toy, right?”
“You’re goddamned right you’re not. You’re never to talk to that man again.” His voice was laced with hostility, and his eyes flashed with anger as he turned to face me. “Do you understand me, Coralie?”
My eyes narrowed as I stared at him. “So let me get this straight. You can train some enchantress for her Ironman triathlon, and possibly my beautiful niece on the piano, but I’m never to do anything with another man ever again?”
“Not that man,” he growled.
“Why not?”
“Coralie,” he started in a foreboding voice, but I was over it. He was the one being unfair and unreasonable. He expected me to take it on the chin every time he interacted with some woman, but I couldn’t even take fucking tennis lessons?
“I’ll take them if I want to take them,” I informed him coolly.
“Coralie,” he repeated, his jaw clenched tight.
“You want me to trust you? Then trust me. I would never betray you, Devlin. And you know that.”
He was silent for a moment before he finally sighed. “It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Caz Bixby isn’t just some fitness instructor or sports trainer,” he informed me in a resigned monotone.
My gut tightened. “How do you know that?”
“I know everything about Caz Bixby,” Devlin finally admitted. “He’s a gigolo, Coralie. Just like me.”
Here's the thing. The only thing that can break up Dev and CC are the secrets Dev harbors. And just one guess who knows every single one of them?
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and this was never truer than in the case of Dev and Caz, who are intrinsically linked by their shared history. They hate each other, but they can't get rid of each other... though God knows they try. In Book 2, Caz is essentially our antagonist. He doesn't want these two together, and he'll do anything he can to wedge them apart. This includes hitting on CC whenever he really doesn't care for "fat chicks." He gets paid to fuck, though, so he knows how to fake it. When the fates align to put her in his world on a weekly basis, as this "personal trainer" whips her into shape, he makes sure to turn up the heat.
By the time Caz showed up, I was finally ready to face him for Round Two, where he would no doubt try to weasel into my psyche and plant more suspicion and doubt. He wore a pretty self-confident smile when I opened the door. He also wore a suit and carried roses, along with a bottle of champagne. He entered the room with the swagger of a man who thought he had the upper hand.
“I thought we were going to work out,” I stated as I closed the door behind him.
“Oh, we will,” he said as he handed off the roses to me. “But there are several ways to do that, aren’t there?”
I took the roses into the kitchen to find a vase. He followed behind.
“This is really some place you have here.”
“Thank you,” I said in a clipped voice. I knew he was circling something and, of course, he was.
“You ever wonder how many women Devlin had to fuck to afford this place?”
I sent him a severe side-eye glare. “It doesn’t matter how many women he fucked in the past. He’s only fucking me now.”
Caz chuckled softly. “Oh, the many ways those words can be interpreted. So tell me. How did [Dev] take the news when you told him about our deal?”
“What makes you think I did?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re a good girl. You’re going to give him a play-by-play of all our interactions because you still feel like you need to earn his trust.”
I gave his outfit the once over. “I take it that you showed up tonight like we were on some kind of date just to undermine my efforts.”
“Of course,” he admitted gleefully, with a self-satisfied smirk. “You’re paying $10,000 a week for my services. You might as well get what you paid for.” He walked towards me until he was practically shadowing me from behind. His voice lowered as he toyed with a tendril of my long hair. “Fucking, by the way, is definitely on the table. Just in case you were wondering.”
I pulled away with a scowl. “I wasn’t.”
That made Caz laugh too. “Let me guess. Good ol’ Dev has fucked you so much and so well this past week, you’re too sore to even consider it. And you probably think that was an accident, too.”
I turned to face him. “He fucked me often and well because that’s what we do.”
“Right,” he agreed. “Like I said, you get what you pay for.”
“You’re disgusting,” I snapped before I walked away from him.
“But I’m right,” he said as he followed me. “And deep down, you know it.”
The tension between these three is OFF. THE. CHARTS. Is it dangerous? Lethal? Erotic? You tell me.
I reached for a lamp, which cast a mellow light across the large living room. Devlin sat in one of the chairs, still in his suit from work, his shirt open at the collar, his tie long abandoned. He held a crystal decanter in one hand. It was once full of expensive Scotch, but he had all but drained it. I could smell it all the way across the room.
He waited until we got a little closer before he said anything. I realized that Caz’s discarded suit was draped across the arm of his chair, with the shoes right on the floor next to him. It sent an involuntary shudder through me when I met Dev’s murderous gaze. His voice was every bit as malevolent.
“Nice workout?”
“Fabulous,” Caz grinned. “[CC] is quite… flexible. And that stamina. Wow.” He ran a hand down his glistening chest, along his skin tight shorts, near his pronounced package. Devlin’s cheek twitched as he tried to keep his composure. It only made Caz try that much harder to get under his skin. “But I’m sure I’m not telling you something you don’t already know.”
I was afraid that Dev’s head might actually explode. I crossed over to him, where I reached for Caz’s clothes. Devlin circled my wrist in his fingers, tightening his grip without even looking at me. Instead he stared straight at Caz. “They’re his clothes. Let Caz get them.”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Caz approached, but slowly. I felt Dev coil, almost like a snake, the closer he got. He raised his other arm, which made Caz stop immediately, but all Dev did was take another swig of liquor from the decanter he held. His mouth curved slightly, as if he knew how unsettled the other man had become. Caz was no longer smiling as he reached forward, deliberately and cautiously, for his clothes. Devlin had him locked in that lethal glare, while he held onto my wrist with a white-knuckled grip. I could practically feel him twitch, in anticipation of any movement.
Caz withdrew his clothes, but his tie trailed behind. He clearly debated whether or not it was worth a second brush with Devlin to retrieve it.
Devlin wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “Don’t forget your tie, Casper,” he murmured.
Another unspoken moment passed between them, like an electrical current. “Keep it,” Caz said. “I know how you like ties.”
Dev’s hand gripped my wrist even harder. I knew he was doing everything he could not to fly up from that chair throttle him. Caz must have known it too, because his smile returned. “See you next week,” he said before he finally left.
You got your fairy tale in Book 1. In Book 2, we're going for pure angst. In Book 3, MASTERS FOREVER, I gun the motor even harder. You get erotica, drama, romance and a complete family saga. And these two professional lovers will give our heroine WAYYYYY more than she ever even dreamed.
“Jesus,” Caz exhaled as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed the remote and turned to a music channel that had pulsating dance music. He dragged me up by the hand. “This is a party, for fuck’s sake.”
“Caz, I don’t want to,” I tried to protest as he pulled me to the center of my living room. Still holding the remote, he turned down all the lights courtesy of the dimmer.
“Come on, pussycat. If you wanted to stay here and feel sorry for yourself, you’d have never left.”
A dance tune by Madonna began to play, the aptly titled “Hung Up.” Caz pulled me close, his hands on my hips, to guide me through the sensual movements as we began to undulate to the music. I stole glances at Dev, who watched us from his spot in the corner of my couch.
It was the very same corner where he had been that first night, when he commanded that I strip for him. He had seduced me that night, confidently and well. My flesh responded instantly to the memory. I shuddered and looked way, focusing on Caz, who danced closely to me, grinding his hips against me, his eyes locked with mine. “Only a couple of hours left, baby,” he said. “Do you really want to spend it sad?”
The music pulsated around me, a rolling beat that made the entire room felt like it was spinning and tumbling through space. Of course, that might have been the pot. My brain had taken off somewhere around Pluto. That, combined with the alcohol I had consumed, helped me submit to the dance. I closed my eyes and just allowed myself to ride the music.
“That’s it,” Caz murmured. “Let yourself go. You know you want to.”
Again my eyes sought Dev. Maybe I was waiting for permission. Maybe I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to lose his shit again. My eyes snapped open when I realized he was no longer sitting on the sofa.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt him fall into step behind me, pinning me between both of them.
“Dev,” I started, but his mouth landed right next to my ear.
“Shh,” he shushed, and it sent an involuntary shudder all the way through my body. His hands landed on my hips just above Caz’s. They both guided my movements as we danced closely together. I shivered as Dev’s hands slid up my sides, hooking my arms on his as they curved around each shoulder to pull my arms back. Using his body he arched my back towards Caz, who danced even closer, his hands sliding up my sides until his thumbs could brush under each full breast.
Their eyes locked, and the intensity of their stare took my breath away. It was as if they communicated with no words at all, with Caz immediately followed Dev’s lead.
Yep, my lovelies. For the first time - EVER - I go *there.* No really. I go THERE. There's a reason my Steven's mother, grandmother, sister and all my kids aren't allowed to read it.
EVER.
Because of all the secrets and spoilers in the second and third books of the MASTERS SAGA, I can't say too much more. All I CAN say is that these two men flipped my world topsy-turvy.
And I enjoyed every fucking minute of it.
I can't say I had an actor in mind to play Caz, but I happened upon this particular video around the time I was writing the books and I found it VERY inspiring.
This personal trainer inspired Caz SO much, down to every freaking tattoo. AND BEARDS, which I don't normally like. In fact, I was never supposed to like Caz at all. His entire presence in this book was to tear my couple apart from the inside, working in tandem with one of the biggest bitches I have EVER written to date: Suzanne Everhart. Not only are they out to torpedo my couple, but both thought it would be easy because of CC's size. Neither hide this.
He reached for a tendril of my hair, caressing the silky strands between his finger and his thumb. “I like that you proved me wrong. It excites me when I think of you. And I know if I keep coming by your house week after week, I’m going to find a way to get you into bed. I won’t stop. I don’t stop. That’s what Suzanne’s counting on. She needs to break you. She needs to show Devlin that you are just like everyone else. Just like her.”
I pulled my hair from his grasp. “Why can’t she just leave me alone? Why can’t you?”
“As long as blood is pumping, her teeth are going to be in that jugular, CC. Me too. We’re not nice people. We’re not good people. We play the game and that’s it.”
“Thanks for being honest, I guess,” I said as I started to push past him. He grabbed my arm and held me close.
“I’m the only one with the balls to be honest with you, Coralie. And you know it.”
He's an arrogant prick with his own self-serving agenda. But something happened along the way that I wasn't expecting. He won me over, despite the horrible things he did. He was compelling and interesting. I wanted/needed to know more. This made him the kind of character that we WILL be seeing again. I have him scheduled to appear as a supporting character in three upcoming books. By the time he gets a story of his own, we'll ALL be aching for it. (And I kind of think he's going to make damned sure of it... starting first with twisting me around his finger.)
I have a lot of work to do with Caz yet, but he has a whole lot of potential.
And I can't resist him. Bottom line.
For a limited time only MASTERS FOR LIFE is on sale for $0.99, which, with the sale on MASTERS FOR HIRE, brings the grand total for all three full-length novels to less than $5. I HIGHLY recommend that you purchase the entire MASTERS SAGA, because you WILL curse me by the end of Book 2. Seriously, if you can't jump - immediately - to the next book, you'd hunt me down with a freaking pitch fork. It's on par with EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, without the three-year wait to see how it resolves.
One-click THE MASTERS SAGA if you dare...
Friday, November 20, 2015
ONE WEEK! All your questions will be answered. Check out this excerpt from #MastersForever!
Excerpt from MASTERS FOREVER, book three in the Masters Saga, my most sizzling series yet. Spoilers to follow for those who haven't yet joined Coralie's and Devlin's story. Start with MASTERS FOR HIRE, currently rated 4.2 stars out of 5 on Amazon!
It's all about to come to an explosive conclusion. Get caught up now!
**If you're not a fan of cliffhangers, you might want to time finishing book two, MASTERS FOR LIFE, at exactly midnight, November 27, 2015!**
******
“Suzanne Everhart is a dangerous woman, Coralie.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m so sick of hearing all all-powerful she is. Did you see her in that meeting, Devlin? She was running scared. She knew I could blow over her house of cards like that,” I said as I snapped my fingers. “She’s all bluster and hot air now. Kind of like her husband.”
“You’d be a fool to underestimate her.”
“No, Dev. She’s a fool to underestimate me. You may be okay with her keeping you on her chain, but she has no power over me. I’m not some hot guy she can corral in her stable of studs. There’s nothing she can get from me.”
“Don’t you see? Your being a woman makes it that much worse. She’s always more sadistic to the women. Remember what Caz already told you about Lydia?”
“Excuse me but I’m a little bit more than some barmaid. My name has power. So does my reputation, especially now.”
“That’s why you have so much more to lose,” he said as he leaned forward. “This isn’t a game, Coralie.”
“Of course it is,” I snapped. “I just didn’t know I was playing it until one night in early October. Now I get to make some rules of my own. Suzanne Everhart is not going to threaten me, coerce me or intimidate me into doing what she thinks I need to do. She’s already taken everything away from me she can steal. There’s nothing left.”
He pondered that a bit before he placed his glass on the coffee table. He rose to his feet.
“Please. Join me for dinner.”
I stood too. “No.”
“Come on,” he cajoled. His voice dropped a notch and those eyes inhaled me as he gave me the once over. “You’re too skinny.”
I glared at him. “I thought you said I was perfect just the way I was.”
“You were,” he admitted before he turned towards the formal dining room. I fumed as I followed him.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded as we reached the table.
“It means you used to be lovely. Sweet. Voluptuous,” he added as his gaze swept across my breasts. “You were soft, like sinking into a dream. Now you’re hard and rigid, just like every other rich bitch who thinks she runs the show.”
“Fuck you,” I gritted.
“Love to,” he said. “I’m free now. Are you?”
I knew that was his way of asking me if there was anything going on with Caz.
“You know what? I don’t need this,” I decided as I stalked back to the library where he had placed my purse. I had my own set of keys. He couldn’t keep me there against my will.
I quickly learned I was wrong. My purse was no longer in the spot where he left it. I turned to Dev, who leaned against the other wall. “So this is what we’ve reduced to? Kidnapping?”
He chuckled as he straightened. “How can it be kidnapping when you want to be here?” He turned back to the dining room, forcing me to follow.
Two plates were now set upon the table. A uniformed maid finished lighting the candles on the table before she gave me a polite smile and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Sexy maid in her uniform?” I asked. “A little cliché, don’t you think?”
He sat at the head of the table, where he pulled one of the linen napkins into his lap. “What can I say? I’m living my fantasies these days.”
“You are such a bastard.”
“Right as always, Mrs. Masters,” he said before digging into a bite of his meal.
“I’m not your wife, Devlin. How many times do I have to make that clear?”
“Marry someone else and I might believe you,” he said as he drank some wine. “But face it, Coralie. You’ll never get me out from under your skin.” He looked back up at me. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been ready to fuck two men just so you could be with me again.”
I hated how he could still read me like a book. “I hate you.”
“And yet if I touched you, we’d be in that bedroom within ten minutes and you know it. That’s what you hate most.” He pointed to the plate. “Now, please. Griselda has prepared a lovely meal. Let’s not let it go to waste.”
I held out for a moment more before I finally sat at the table. Maybe if I just indulged him, he’d get bored with me and let me go.
Long quiet minutes passed before he finally said, “So tell me what you think you know about overture.”
“How about you tell me what it is, and we’ll compare notes?”
“No,” he said.
“Then no,” I responded.
He leaned back in his chair and watched me. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. We each get one question and one answer. You can ask any question you want, and the answer can be as simple as declining to answer. But for this one date, I will do my best to answer one of your questions.”
“This is a date?”
His eyebrow lifted. “Is that your question?”
“No,” I snapped. “I want to know what overture means to Suzanne.”
He chuckled softly. “You really want to waste a question on something I’ve already answered?”
“So what’s the point? No is going to be your answer for everything.”
“No is still an answer, Coralie,” he pointed out. “If I ask you to drive with me to Vegas, tonight, and get married, you’d say no.”
“You’re damned right I’d say no.”
“And that’s still an answer,” he said. “You’d expect me to respect it. And to accept it. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
I took a deep breath. “So I’m supposed to just magically come up with the question you might answer?”
“Consider it a challenge.”
I glared at him for a long moment. “Do you love Suzanne?”
“No,” he said.
“Is that the answer? Or is that the refusal to answer?”
He smirked, and damned if it didn’t shoot fire to every single nerve ending. “One question. One answer. Any question. Any answer. But there’s only the one. This date anyway,” he added before letting that suggestion sit a bit. His eyes darkened. “My turn. Do you love Caz?”
I arched my eyebrow. “No,” I responded. Two could play his game.
He laughed. “You were always a quick study, Coralie. One of the things I always loved about you, from the first time you stripped for me.”
I shivered. “Why do you have to torment me, Dev?”
He wagged his finger. “One question. One answer.”
“Fine,” I relented at last. I was exhausted from playing these stupid games. I had too much to do to waste another minute. “Tell me what you want to tell me so I can get the hell out of here.”
“Now you’re getting it,” he murmured. “Tell. Don’t ask.” He drained his glass of wine. “You made an enemy of Suzanne today. She doesn’t like to lose, and your little power play in the conference room was a sure way to draw a bull’s eye on your back.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” he said softly. “You’re in the big leagues now, Coralie. She has a network of very powerful friends, who have made sure that there is zero accountability or responsibility should the shit go down. And eventually it goes down. I just don’t want you to be buried with it.”
“Why do you care?” I said, before cursing myself for asking yet another question.
To my great surprise, he answered it. “Because I love you. I always did. And I've never stopped.”
“Then why–”
“One question…,” he started.
“One answer,” I answered with him. I heaved a frustrated sigh.
“I know you’re confused. But I really need you to trust me.” I scoffed, but he continued. “I’ll keep Suzanne distracted. It’s what I do best. In return there’s something I want from you.”
Knowing I couldn’t ask another question, I just arched my eyebrow.
“One date every week. You and me. Here at the house, very civilized and proper. And every week, I will answer any one question you might have. This way we rebuild what we lost when we came back to Los Angeles last year.”
“No, thanks,” I declined at once.
“You may want to reconsider, Coralie. Just think. You show the world, and Suzanne, you’re dating Caz, but really you’re here with me. I would be cheating on her with you. Sweet karma.”
My eyes narrowed into slits as I stared at him. “That maybe a fine deal where you come from Devlin, but nothing about that sounds appealing to me.”
His eyes swallowed me whole. “Bullshit.”
I sucked back my gasp. Why ask me anything? He knew it all.
Like magic.
“I’m not interested in your proposal, Devlin. You’ve wasted your time.”
He smiled softly as he rose from his chair. He walked over to where I sat, his crotch practically in my face as he reached into his pocket to withdraw his set of keys to my car. He laid them on the table in front of me before he caressed the curve of my face briefly with his hand, his thumb brushing ever so slightly against my bottom lip. “Time is never wasted with you, Coralie.”
He said nothing more as he walked away from the table and down the hall. When I walked back out to the foyer, I saw my purse returned to the spot I left it. I practically snarled in frustration as I snatched it from the table and marched out the door.
******
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It's all about to come to an explosive conclusion. Get caught up now!
**If you're not a fan of cliffhangers, you might want to time finishing book two, MASTERS FOR LIFE, at exactly midnight, November 27, 2015!
I rolled my eyes. “I’m so sick of hearing all all-powerful she is. Did you see her in that meeting, Devlin? She was running scared. She knew I could blow over her house of cards like that,” I said as I snapped my fingers. “She’s all bluster and hot air now. Kind of like her husband.”
“You’d be a fool to underestimate her.”
“No, Dev. She’s a fool to underestimate me. You may be okay with her keeping you on her chain, but she has no power over me. I’m not some hot guy she can corral in her stable of studs. There’s nothing she can get from me.”
“Don’t you see? Your being a woman makes it that much worse. She’s always more sadistic to the women. Remember what Caz already told you about Lydia?”
“Excuse me but I’m a little bit more than some barmaid. My name has power. So does my reputation, especially now.”
“That’s why you have so much more to lose,” he said as he leaned forward. “This isn’t a game, Coralie.”
“Of course it is,” I snapped. “I just didn’t know I was playing it until one night in early October. Now I get to make some rules of my own. Suzanne Everhart is not going to threaten me, coerce me or intimidate me into doing what she thinks I need to do. She’s already taken everything away from me she can steal. There’s nothing left.”
He pondered that a bit before he placed his glass on the coffee table. He rose to his feet.
“Please. Join me for dinner.”
I stood too. “No.”
“Come on,” he cajoled. His voice dropped a notch and those eyes inhaled me as he gave me the once over. “You’re too skinny.”
I glared at him. “I thought you said I was perfect just the way I was.”
“You were,” he admitted before he turned towards the formal dining room. I fumed as I followed him.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded as we reached the table.
“It means you used to be lovely. Sweet. Voluptuous,” he added as his gaze swept across my breasts. “You were soft, like sinking into a dream. Now you’re hard and rigid, just like every other rich bitch who thinks she runs the show.”
“Fuck you,” I gritted.
“Love to,” he said. “I’m free now. Are you?”
I knew that was his way of asking me if there was anything going on with Caz.
“You know what? I don’t need this,” I decided as I stalked back to the library where he had placed my purse. I had my own set of keys. He couldn’t keep me there against my will.
I quickly learned I was wrong. My purse was no longer in the spot where he left it. I turned to Dev, who leaned against the other wall. “So this is what we’ve reduced to? Kidnapping?”
He chuckled as he straightened. “How can it be kidnapping when you want to be here?” He turned back to the dining room, forcing me to follow.
Two plates were now set upon the table. A uniformed maid finished lighting the candles on the table before she gave me a polite smile and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Sexy maid in her uniform?” I asked. “A little cliché, don’t you think?”
He sat at the head of the table, where he pulled one of the linen napkins into his lap. “What can I say? I’m living my fantasies these days.”
“You are such a bastard.”
“Right as always, Mrs. Masters,” he said before digging into a bite of his meal.
“I’m not your wife, Devlin. How many times do I have to make that clear?”
“Marry someone else and I might believe you,” he said as he drank some wine. “But face it, Coralie. You’ll never get me out from under your skin.” He looked back up at me. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been ready to fuck two men just so you could be with me again.”
I hated how he could still read me like a book. “I hate you.”
“And yet if I touched you, we’d be in that bedroom within ten minutes and you know it. That’s what you hate most.” He pointed to the plate. “Now, please. Griselda has prepared a lovely meal. Let’s not let it go to waste.”
I held out for a moment more before I finally sat at the table. Maybe if I just indulged him, he’d get bored with me and let me go.
Long quiet minutes passed before he finally said, “So tell me what you think you know about overture.”
“How about you tell me what it is, and we’ll compare notes?”
“No,” he said.
“Then no,” I responded.
He leaned back in his chair and watched me. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. We each get one question and one answer. You can ask any question you want, and the answer can be as simple as declining to answer. But for this one date, I will do my best to answer one of your questions.”
“This is a date?”
His eyebrow lifted. “Is that your question?”
“No,” I snapped. “I want to know what overture means to Suzanne.”
He chuckled softly. “You really want to waste a question on something I’ve already answered?”
“So what’s the point? No is going to be your answer for everything.”
“No is still an answer, Coralie,” he pointed out. “If I ask you to drive with me to Vegas, tonight, and get married, you’d say no.”
“You’re damned right I’d say no.”
“And that’s still an answer,” he said. “You’d expect me to respect it. And to accept it. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
I took a deep breath. “So I’m supposed to just magically come up with the question you might answer?”
“Consider it a challenge.”
I glared at him for a long moment. “Do you love Suzanne?”
“No,” he said.
“Is that the answer? Or is that the refusal to answer?”
He smirked, and damned if it didn’t shoot fire to every single nerve ending. “One question. One answer. Any question. Any answer. But there’s only the one. This date anyway,” he added before letting that suggestion sit a bit. His eyes darkened. “My turn. Do you love Caz?”
I arched my eyebrow. “No,” I responded. Two could play his game.
He laughed. “You were always a quick study, Coralie. One of the things I always loved about you, from the first time you stripped for me.”
I shivered. “Why do you have to torment me, Dev?”
He wagged his finger. “One question. One answer.”
“Fine,” I relented at last. I was exhausted from playing these stupid games. I had too much to do to waste another minute. “Tell me what you want to tell me so I can get the hell out of here.”
“Now you’re getting it,” he murmured. “Tell. Don’t ask.” He drained his glass of wine. “You made an enemy of Suzanne today. She doesn’t like to lose, and your little power play in the conference room was a sure way to draw a bull’s eye on your back.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You should be,” he said softly. “You’re in the big leagues now, Coralie. She has a network of very powerful friends, who have made sure that there is zero accountability or responsibility should the shit go down. And eventually it goes down. I just don’t want you to be buried with it.”
“Why do you care?” I said, before cursing myself for asking yet another question.
To my great surprise, he answered it. “Because I love you. I always did. And I've never stopped.”
“Then why–”
“One question…,” he started.
“One answer,” I answered with him. I heaved a frustrated sigh.
“I know you’re confused. But I really need you to trust me.” I scoffed, but he continued. “I’ll keep Suzanne distracted. It’s what I do best. In return there’s something I want from you.”
Knowing I couldn’t ask another question, I just arched my eyebrow.
“One date every week. You and me. Here at the house, very civilized and proper. And every week, I will answer any one question you might have. This way we rebuild what we lost when we came back to Los Angeles last year.”
“No, thanks,” I declined at once.
“You may want to reconsider, Coralie. Just think. You show the world, and Suzanne, you’re dating Caz, but really you’re here with me. I would be cheating on her with you. Sweet karma.”
My eyes narrowed into slits as I stared at him. “That maybe a fine deal where you come from Devlin, but nothing about that sounds appealing to me.”
His eyes swallowed me whole. “Bullshit.”
I sucked back my gasp. Why ask me anything? He knew it all.
Like magic.
“I’m not interested in your proposal, Devlin. You’ve wasted your time.”
He smiled softly as he rose from his chair. He walked over to where I sat, his crotch practically in my face as he reached into his pocket to withdraw his set of keys to my car. He laid them on the table in front of me before he caressed the curve of my face briefly with his hand, his thumb brushing ever so slightly against my bottom lip. “Time is never wasted with you, Coralie.”
He said nothing more as he walked away from the table and down the hall. When I walked back out to the foyer, I saw my purse returned to the spot I left it. I practically snarled in frustration as I snatched it from the table and marched out the door.
Pre-order MASTERS FOREVER now! Available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes!
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
#Nanowrimo Day Ten: Write What You (Don't) Know
Pat advice given to new writers everywhere is “Write what you know.” As we learned yesterday, our personal experiences are often fertile ground to toil when looking for inspiration to craft, and properly tell, our stories.
Also like we learned yesterday, the problem with this well-meaning advice is that it is incomplete. Its usefulness boils down mostly to where you happen to put your emphasis. Writing what YOU know, as opposed to, write what you KNOW. You can and should bring your unique perspective and experiences into everything you write. If you’re a writer, I believe that is what you were put on this earth to do.
But if you only write from your own personal experience, it will limit you on what kinds of tales you tell. Frankly, that kind of thing pisses your Muse off. She’ll storm off in a hissy and she’ll disappear (or worse, taunt you with a fleeting presence once and a while,) until you get a clue.
If you write fiction, you need to be open to writing those things you don’t know.
If you write nonfiction, you need to be open to writing those things you don’t know.
When I started freelancing, there were jobs I took based on interest alone, just so that I could delve even deeper to learn about a topic. Some jobs I took even when I didn’t have much interest at all. I just had the pressing need for another paid article. When you have bills to pay, you can’t wait around for inspiration to strike. You have to actively pursue it. That often begins with research, whether conscious or subconscious.
I’ve always felt that intelligence isn’t having all the answers but knowing how to find them. As a result of my freelance years, I became what my family affectionately calls “The Research Queen.” If anyone in my house has a question, they will come to me to find the answers. Not because I’m exceptionally wise, but because I know how to seek out and pinpoint correct answers to their questions.
Part of this I learned with my brief stint in college in the 2000s, when I took a pretty standard critical thinking class right from the beginning. Critical thinking is key to your research, especially when you have to dig for it on the Internet. Research doesn’t look like it did when I was a teenager, when I had to mosey down to my local library and scour through books and magazines and yes, microfilm, to get the information I sought. You don’t know research until you’ve had to physically navigate the Dewey Decimal System to find your little needles in a haystack to complete an assignment on a deadline.
(Those of us who know what the DDS is will pause briefly to allow those who have never heard the term before to take the 10 seconds or so it takes for them to search for that information on their browser. Note: We may or may not be bitter as we do so.)
The Internet is another beast entirely. You can literally find any information you want, even when you don’t want it. Show of hands of anyone who started to Google* a question or a topic, only to have the pull-down selection of options shock you with strange combinations that you never would have put together in a million years. And God forbid you actually open those links.
I can’t have been the only writer lost in a Research Hole.
Through practice, you become rather adept at knowing which information to keep and which to discard. If you’ve only got five days to deliver an authoritative article, presenting your information in a very concise, accurate way, you become rather adept at finding this information quickly. Hence why people in my house come to me when they can't find this information quickly on their own.
In 2005, when I was challenged to write a film set in Romania, I had never stepped foot in Romania. But I knew that in order to get the job, I had to “fake it” well enough to make it look as though I had. Since the director I was working with was actually from Romania, and the studio seeking to purchase the project was in Romania, there was no half-assing the research. I had to nail it. I researched it online. I watched documentaries, particularly those that dealt with the history of vampire lore in Romania, and how it related back to Vlad the Impaler, whom modern Romanians revere for how he led the country and protected them, and their religion, against oppressive invaders. I researched before I wrote the first draft. I researched while I wrote the first draft. By the end of it, I produced such a convincing tale that it ultimately was ultimately optioned.
That initial success with TASTE OF BLOOD never would have happened if I had been restricted to writing something I knew. Only by getting down and dirty in the research could I craft the rest of the story, which was peppered thoroughly with enough history and substance that I could convince people that I knew about a place I had never been.
Research is such a breeding ground for growth that much of it you’ll start to do it unconsciously, in the background, all the time. You read stories about those things that you’ve never done or experienced. You scour news reports. You eavesdrop on casual conversations that you hear from other people you pass on the street, to see how they use dialog, inflection or detail to communicate.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, there’s this little gremlin in your brain furiously taking notes of all of it. Neither of you know when inspiration is going to spark and catch with your Muse, so you have to wade through it all to find what you didn’t even know she was looking for. This will broaden your scope as a storyteller in ways you never saw coming.
Be prepared, though. Because we writers are beat over the head with the “Write what you know” mantra, whenever you convincingly write anything that is outside your general scope of knowledge, people start to wonder about you.
Steven’s grandmother is probably one of my biggest fans. She is a storyteller herself, so she loves, loves, loves to read, and it tickles her silly that she has a writer, and another storyteller, in her family to support.
Support me she does. She has read practically every single book I’ve ever written, even the sexy-sexy stuff.
Granted, she skips those parts, and when we talk about it later I get that reproachful side-eye as she shakes her head. No matter how much she loves me or my books, she’s still grandma.
When she read CHASING THUNDER, where my heroine is a badass biker chick who must pinpoint a sadistic serial killer before he strikes again, she worried about what kinds of personal experiences I might have had that allowed me to write such a story so convincingly.
Though it was born from my own experiences as a homeless teenager on the streets of Los Angeles, fortunately I didn’t have the kinds of experiences that Baby, my runaway in CHASING THUNDER, did. I didn’t step off a bus in downtown L.A., alone, afraid and abused. I wasn’t approached by a “spotter” to enlist me into the sex trade because I was an easy target. I didn’t run afoul of a powerful crime lord in the Hollywood Hills, who would pursue me so that I couldn’t spill any of his nefarious secrets and ultimately threaten to take down his empire. I didn’t meet a biker that skid to a stop in an alley in the middle of Hollywood, who vaulted off said bike and effortlessly took out three thugs who wanted to do me harm. None of that actually happened in my experience. All of that had to be researched.
I started with what I knew and I turned it up into something a little more exciting than sitting in the back seat of my car on some forgotten side street next to a train track, writing about such things because I didn't have a TV to watch.
That’s not to say that I didn’t have negative experiences throughout my life that shaded these important scenes. I’m a girl. I grew up beating off the beasties just out of self-defense. When I was four, I was taken from my front yard and sexually assaulted by a grown man. When I was eight, a leering preacher used our time alone to lean in close, his arm along the back of the pew, practically pinning me to the corner, to tell me about Jesus and talk about the state of my sinful, sinful soul. When I was twelve, there were two instances where two different men tried to get me into their cars as I was walking alone, once to school, and once to church. When I was 15, I went to a mechanic shop, where an old man grabbed my boobs just because I happened to stand too close. When I was 18, I was stopped by a sketchy police officer, who isolated me alone in his squad car, where he nervously waited to act upon an impulse I instinctively knew was going to be bad, but fortunately the dispatcher distracted him with something he had to attend to, so he released me before I could see what happened next.
Some things you don't want to know. Ever.
I understand predatory behavior. I took what I knew and put it into a story that was far enough removed from me that I felt safe enough to tell it. When I first wrote CHASING THUNDER a gazillion years ago, I leaned more on what I knew than what I didn’t know. I didn’t do any extensive research per se. I had seen the movies and TV shows, including, I would assume, an afternoon special or two, which described how dangerous it was to be a teen runaway in Hollywood. All of that had been absorbed by my gremlin, who threw it in a blender with my own experience so my Muse and I could figure out how to fit it into a book. A few years later I sent that half-baked book to an agent. When she sent it back, with her generously provided edits included, one tip kept repeating itself.
Research. Research. Research.
Research takes the flat line of what you know and blends it with that plot line you’ve completely made up. If you’ve done your job properly, it will be so seamless that your grandmother will call you to find out exactly which part you created and which part you recounted.
Research gives your story texture. These are the details you can only find if you dig a little deeper.
Consider the following passage:
Now consider where you can beef up that passage, digging just a little deeper below the surface:
Researching little details allows you to “show” rather than tell your story. With a little research, you can plant a picture in the readers mind as he or she identifies what kind of house it is, or where this neighborhood might be located simply by the presence of a particular tree you might find lining the street. The reader can also see how Julie stands out by the shoes she wears or the car she drives, giving the scene dimension. And by adding those few details to “picture” the scene in my own head, it inspired me to detail a few other things in the scene as well, such as showing her attaché was scuffed, indicating that Julie had been at her job a while.
You’ll also notice that it beefed up the word count by more than 100 words, which gets you 112 words closer to your goal.
If you’re stuck trying to figure out what to write next, a little research can often provide a shortcut around all those perceived writer’s blocks. You may not keep everything that you add. No one needs to be verbose for the sake of verbosity itself, which we’ll cover in another chapter a little later. But as we’ve already learned, nothing is chiseled in stone. The first draft is the best place to throw every single detail you need to tell your story. And I guarantee you that you’ll need to extensively research in order to do that. Someone somewhere is going to have to believe the story you're telling. Might as well start with you.
In my latest series, my MASTERS SAGA, I write about male escorts. I write about hiring them, I write about having sex with them. In this non-Grandma approved series, I get down and dirty with the idea of gigolos and the sizzling hot fantasies only a true professional could provide, no strings attached. (And, of course, because it’s me and I write hyper-reality, I add a lot of other contemporary complications as well. #pleasedontjudgemybrowserhistory)
When I decided I wanted to write this story, I didn’t know dick about male escorts, pun intended. I had never met one (that I knew of, anyway.) I had certainly never hired or dated one. So my first order of business was researching how easy it would be to do this, and how exactly this process would work.
I told Steven that if I had the hundreds of dollars to spare that most of these guys get per hour, I’d probably want to hire one just to talk to him, to get his stories, to get a feel for how the process works for him. Because you can’t “sell” sex, legitimate escort services don’t offer it as part of the package. You are paying for companionship alone, and then it’s up to the escort and his client how exactly that time was spent. I figured that meant I could have a no-sex appointment where we could just chat for an hour or two.
Steven was quick to put the kibosh on that little idea. My husband is not a dominant person. He’s usually very open-minded and easy-going. I’ve chased a male comedian all over creation since 2005, and that was never a problem. He knows he can trust me. He knows I’m not out to score with anyone else. He’s secure in the relationship and generally not jealous or possessive at all. We are, as we have always been, rock solid.
But when it came to this particular research, he had very strong opinions on the matter. Though I’m not a typical “obey your spouse” kind of wife, I respected his wishes and conducted my necessary research through other, less personal ways.
Fortunately Showtime had already done a lot of the research for me. Their show “Gigolos,” which has been renewed for its sixth season, gave me a lot of material to review. It is billed as “reality TV,” so I figured it was a safe way to get to know these guys and their process, and, thanks to it being a cable TV show, I got to see a lot more than I probably wanted about their sexual encounters.
You see them in action, as it were.
Frankly, I didn’t find it all that hot. Here I had this lascivious concept I wanted to explore, about finding a man whose sole focus is bringing your fantasy to life, and the reality proved that getting paid for sex is rather impersonal and cold, even if you have very sexy men at your beck and call. They’re just doing a job, you’re just a client, and it comes off that way.
It's a good thing, I guess, that I didn't pay $400 an hour to figure that out. (Thank you, Showtime.)
This particular series revolves around a handful of guys who worked for the same agency. Some appear nice. Others, not so much. Some approach it as a means to pay the bills. Some approach it as a mission or honor to provide the fantasy for the women they claim to love. They all approach the sex in very guy-like ways, reminding me of what I learned about male sexuality when I was watching “Queer as Folk,” back in the day. How men approach sex and how women approach sex is often very different, and you never realize how different it is until you take the woman out of the equation.
Pretty soon, I felt my enthusiasm for my own project abate, especially when I saw how they had to ‘power through’ having sex with women whom they found undesirable. Since my heroine ended up being a size-14/16, I wasn’t so sure I wanted one of these guys to suck it up and just power through having sex with her, like they sometimes demonstrated on the show. Unfortunately, I do have personal experience with what that’s like, and there’s nothing sexy about it.
Did I really want to center one of my series around a guy like this?
I wasn’t completely sold on my own concept until Chapter Three of Book 1, MASTERS FOR HIRE, when my heroine made me fall in love with her. After that I decided to use minor details only, and craft my hero however the hell I wanted to. She was paying big money for him to bring her fantasy (and, to an extent, mine) to life, and by God I was going to make that happen for her.
If someone “in the business” reads my book and tells me, “Hey, that’s not all that realistic,” I know they’re probably telling the truth. But I don’t care. I didn’t set out to write some expose on what it’s like to be a gigolo. This is fiction, and romance fiction at that. This means I have to keep my toe in reality, not my whole damned foot. (And thank GOD.)
I honestly did way more research on what made Dev a complex human than what made him a gigolo. When Devlin let me know he was a classically trained pianist, I ran to Google* every chance I got to research classical pieces, the pianos themselves, or where he might have gone for an education, because this new tidbit about him demanded I up my game to figure all that out.
The conversation went something like this:
He then launched into the Beatles, and I knew in an instant the gigolo I had crafted as a one-dimensional blank slate wasn’t really a blank slate at all.
Devlin Masters was/is completely 3-D.
Not only did that one little detail instantly make him more interesting to me beyond a penis for hire, it opened up an entirely new subplot that would change the trajectory for my final book, like sliding a puzzle piece into place.
And it never would have happened at all had I not gone online the second my characters flew to Vegas for a week, because I needed to research a place to put them.
If I had written just what I knew, this story would have remained sadly unrealized, like my original concept. In Book One, Draft One, I had the freedom to play around a bit, to see how this fledgling concept could live up to its full potential. It’s exploratory, and research guides you down new paths you may not have found on your own.
Without the most trivial research, this story wouldn’t have stretched me out of my comfort zone or taught me anything new. It doesn’t enlighten you as much just to revisit the same source material over and over again, simply rearranged in different situations.
You’re still going to write what YOU know, because how YOU react to these new details is completely from your perspective.
You’re just going to expand what you know by writing about things you don’t. As a result, you’ll teach yourself some things along the way. And that’s a beautiful thing.
If you’ve reached Day 10 and you’re a little stuck where to go from here, I highly recommend that you research things a little deeper to unearth those hidden gems just waiting to be discovered. You never know what your characters and your story have yet to teach you, or where you might go from here.
Queue up your gremlin, open up your browser and just follow where it goes.
*Again, using this place mark because though referencing Google may work in a blog, I may have to do more research in whether or not I can now use this in a published work. For those of you who have been paying attention, most of the time I use (*) is to indicate more research is needed.
Started First Draft: November 10, 2015 2:22pm PST
Completed First draft: November 10, 2015 4:02pm PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,280
Completed revisions: November 10, 2015 5:49pm PST
Updated WC: 3,972/39,699
Also like we learned yesterday, the problem with this well-meaning advice is that it is incomplete. Its usefulness boils down mostly to where you happen to put your emphasis. Writing what YOU know, as opposed to, write what you KNOW. You can and should bring your unique perspective and experiences into everything you write. If you’re a writer, I believe that is what you were put on this earth to do.
But if you only write from your own personal experience, it will limit you on what kinds of tales you tell. Frankly, that kind of thing pisses your Muse off. She’ll storm off in a hissy and she’ll disappear (or worse, taunt you with a fleeting presence once and a while,) until you get a clue.
If you write fiction, you need to be open to writing those things you don’t know.
If you write nonfiction, you need to be open to writing those things you don’t know.
When I started freelancing, there were jobs I took based on interest alone, just so that I could delve even deeper to learn about a topic. Some jobs I took even when I didn’t have much interest at all. I just had the pressing need for another paid article. When you have bills to pay, you can’t wait around for inspiration to strike. You have to actively pursue it. That often begins with research, whether conscious or subconscious.
I’ve always felt that intelligence isn’t having all the answers but knowing how to find them. As a result of my freelance years, I became what my family affectionately calls “The Research Queen.” If anyone in my house has a question, they will come to me to find the answers. Not because I’m exceptionally wise, but because I know how to seek out and pinpoint correct answers to their questions.
Part of this I learned with my brief stint in college in the 2000s, when I took a pretty standard critical thinking class right from the beginning. Critical thinking is key to your research, especially when you have to dig for it on the Internet. Research doesn’t look like it did when I was a teenager, when I had to mosey down to my local library and scour through books and magazines and yes, microfilm, to get the information I sought. You don’t know research until you’ve had to physically navigate the Dewey Decimal System to find your little needles in a haystack to complete an assignment on a deadline.
(Those of us who know what the DDS is will pause briefly to allow those who have never heard the term before to take the 10 seconds or so it takes for them to search for that information on their browser. Note: We may or may not be bitter as we do so.)
The Internet is another beast entirely. You can literally find any information you want, even when you don’t want it. Show of hands of anyone who started to Google* a question or a topic, only to have the pull-down selection of options shock you with strange combinations that you never would have put together in a million years. And God forbid you actually open those links.
I can’t have been the only writer lost in a Research Hole.
Through practice, you become rather adept at knowing which information to keep and which to discard. If you’ve only got five days to deliver an authoritative article, presenting your information in a very concise, accurate way, you become rather adept at finding this information quickly. Hence why people in my house come to me when they can't find this information quickly on their own.
In 2005, when I was challenged to write a film set in Romania, I had never stepped foot in Romania. But I knew that in order to get the job, I had to “fake it” well enough to make it look as though I had. Since the director I was working with was actually from Romania, and the studio seeking to purchase the project was in Romania, there was no half-assing the research. I had to nail it. I researched it online. I watched documentaries, particularly those that dealt with the history of vampire lore in Romania, and how it related back to Vlad the Impaler, whom modern Romanians revere for how he led the country and protected them, and their religion, against oppressive invaders. I researched before I wrote the first draft. I researched while I wrote the first draft. By the end of it, I produced such a convincing tale that it ultimately was ultimately optioned.
That initial success with TASTE OF BLOOD never would have happened if I had been restricted to writing something I knew. Only by getting down and dirty in the research could I craft the rest of the story, which was peppered thoroughly with enough history and substance that I could convince people that I knew about a place I had never been.
Research is such a breeding ground for growth that much of it you’ll start to do it unconsciously, in the background, all the time. You read stories about those things that you’ve never done or experienced. You scour news reports. You eavesdrop on casual conversations that you hear from other people you pass on the street, to see how they use dialog, inflection or detail to communicate.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, there’s this little gremlin in your brain furiously taking notes of all of it. Neither of you know when inspiration is going to spark and catch with your Muse, so you have to wade through it all to find what you didn’t even know she was looking for. This will broaden your scope as a storyteller in ways you never saw coming.
Be prepared, though. Because we writers are beat over the head with the “Write what you know” mantra, whenever you convincingly write anything that is outside your general scope of knowledge, people start to wonder about you.
Steven’s grandmother is probably one of my biggest fans. She is a storyteller herself, so she loves, loves, loves to read, and it tickles her silly that she has a writer, and another storyteller, in her family to support.
Support me she does. She has read practically every single book I’ve ever written, even the sexy-sexy stuff.
Granted, she skips those parts, and when we talk about it later I get that reproachful side-eye as she shakes her head. No matter how much she loves me or my books, she’s still grandma.
When she read CHASING THUNDER, where my heroine is a badass biker chick who must pinpoint a sadistic serial killer before he strikes again, she worried about what kinds of personal experiences I might have had that allowed me to write such a story so convincingly.
Though it was born from my own experiences as a homeless teenager on the streets of Los Angeles, fortunately I didn’t have the kinds of experiences that Baby, my runaway in CHASING THUNDER, did. I didn’t step off a bus in downtown L.A., alone, afraid and abused. I wasn’t approached by a “spotter” to enlist me into the sex trade because I was an easy target. I didn’t run afoul of a powerful crime lord in the Hollywood Hills, who would pursue me so that I couldn’t spill any of his nefarious secrets and ultimately threaten to take down his empire. I didn’t meet a biker that skid to a stop in an alley in the middle of Hollywood, who vaulted off said bike and effortlessly took out three thugs who wanted to do me harm. None of that actually happened in my experience. All of that had to be researched.
I started with what I knew and I turned it up into something a little more exciting than sitting in the back seat of my car on some forgotten side street next to a train track, writing about such things because I didn't have a TV to watch.
That’s not to say that I didn’t have negative experiences throughout my life that shaded these important scenes. I’m a girl. I grew up beating off the beasties just out of self-defense. When I was four, I was taken from my front yard and sexually assaulted by a grown man. When I was eight, a leering preacher used our time alone to lean in close, his arm along the back of the pew, practically pinning me to the corner, to tell me about Jesus and talk about the state of my sinful, sinful soul. When I was twelve, there were two instances where two different men tried to get me into their cars as I was walking alone, once to school, and once to church. When I was 15, I went to a mechanic shop, where an old man grabbed my boobs just because I happened to stand too close. When I was 18, I was stopped by a sketchy police officer, who isolated me alone in his squad car, where he nervously waited to act upon an impulse I instinctively knew was going to be bad, but fortunately the dispatcher distracted him with something he had to attend to, so he released me before I could see what happened next.
Some things you don't want to know. Ever.
I understand predatory behavior. I took what I knew and put it into a story that was far enough removed from me that I felt safe enough to tell it. When I first wrote CHASING THUNDER a gazillion years ago, I leaned more on what I knew than what I didn’t know. I didn’t do any extensive research per se. I had seen the movies and TV shows, including, I would assume, an afternoon special or two, which described how dangerous it was to be a teen runaway in Hollywood. All of that had been absorbed by my gremlin, who threw it in a blender with my own experience so my Muse and I could figure out how to fit it into a book. A few years later I sent that half-baked book to an agent. When she sent it back, with her generously provided edits included, one tip kept repeating itself.
Research. Research. Research.
Research takes the flat line of what you know and blends it with that plot line you’ve completely made up. If you’ve done your job properly, it will be so seamless that your grandmother will call you to find out exactly which part you created and which part you recounted.
Research gives your story texture. These are the details you can only find if you dig a little deeper.
Consider the following passage:
Julie stepped onto the porch and rang the bell. It rang once. Twice. Finally a third time. There was no answer. She checked her watch. It was just after one-thirty. She glanced both ways down the street, but there wasn’t a car in sight. Was she early? With a sigh, she withdrew the file from her attaché to see if maybe she got the dates wrong. Just as she was about to give up, a tiny hand pulled back the lace curtain, and she could see the blackened eye of four-year-old Bailey Johnson. Julie heaved a relieved sigh. She wasn’t too late. She was right on time.
(Word count: 107)
Now consider where you can beef up that passage, digging just a little deeper below the surface:
Julie’s late model sedan eased down the quiet street in the lower-class neighborhood of rundown houses, which was deceptively hidden under a canopy of [research] beautiful jacaranda trees. The purple blooms floated easily to the ground below, creating a shower of color as Julie parked her car and stepped out in front of [research] the 1928 Craftsman home in mild disrepair.
The concrete steps were cracked and crumbling under her [research] two-toned black and white Oxfords as she stepped onto the porch and rang the bell. Its haunting melody was as lovely as the jacaranda trees lining the street. The tune stretched on, ringing once, twice, and finally a third time. There was no answer.
Julie checked her watch. It was just after one-thirty. She glanced both ways down the street, but there wasn’t a car in sight. Was she early? With a sigh, she withdrew the file from her scuffed attaché to see if maybe she got the dates wrong. Just as she was about to give up, a tiny hand pulled back the curtain made of [research] vintage baroque lace, stained yellow by years of neglect. Through the sliver, she spotted the blackened eye of four-year-old Bailey Johnson staring back up at her. Julie heaved a relieved sigh. She wasn’t too late. She was right on time.
(Word count: 219)
Researching little details allows you to “show” rather than tell your story. With a little research, you can plant a picture in the readers mind as he or she identifies what kind of house it is, or where this neighborhood might be located simply by the presence of a particular tree you might find lining the street. The reader can also see how Julie stands out by the shoes she wears or the car she drives, giving the scene dimension. And by adding those few details to “picture” the scene in my own head, it inspired me to detail a few other things in the scene as well, such as showing her attaché was scuffed, indicating that Julie had been at her job a while.
You’ll also notice that it beefed up the word count by more than 100 words, which gets you 112 words closer to your goal.
If you’re stuck trying to figure out what to write next, a little research can often provide a shortcut around all those perceived writer’s blocks. You may not keep everything that you add. No one needs to be verbose for the sake of verbosity itself, which we’ll cover in another chapter a little later. But as we’ve already learned, nothing is chiseled in stone. The first draft is the best place to throw every single detail you need to tell your story. And I guarantee you that you’ll need to extensively research in order to do that. Someone somewhere is going to have to believe the story you're telling. Might as well start with you.
In my latest series, my MASTERS SAGA, I write about male escorts. I write about hiring them, I write about having sex with them. In this non-Grandma approved series, I get down and dirty with the idea of gigolos and the sizzling hot fantasies only a true professional could provide, no strings attached. (And, of course, because it’s me and I write hyper-reality, I add a lot of other contemporary complications as well. #pleasedontjudgemybrowserhistory)
When I decided I wanted to write this story, I didn’t know dick about male escorts, pun intended. I had never met one (that I knew of, anyway.) I had certainly never hired or dated one. So my first order of business was researching how easy it would be to do this, and how exactly this process would work.
I told Steven that if I had the hundreds of dollars to spare that most of these guys get per hour, I’d probably want to hire one just to talk to him, to get his stories, to get a feel for how the process works for him. Because you can’t “sell” sex, legitimate escort services don’t offer it as part of the package. You are paying for companionship alone, and then it’s up to the escort and his client how exactly that time was spent. I figured that meant I could have a no-sex appointment where we could just chat for an hour or two.
Steven was quick to put the kibosh on that little idea. My husband is not a dominant person. He’s usually very open-minded and easy-going. I’ve chased a male comedian all over creation since 2005, and that was never a problem. He knows he can trust me. He knows I’m not out to score with anyone else. He’s secure in the relationship and generally not jealous or possessive at all. We are, as we have always been, rock solid.
But when it came to this particular research, he had very strong opinions on the matter. Though I’m not a typical “obey your spouse” kind of wife, I respected his wishes and conducted my necessary research through other, less personal ways.
Fortunately Showtime had already done a lot of the research for me. Their show “Gigolos,” which has been renewed for its sixth season, gave me a lot of material to review. It is billed as “reality TV,” so I figured it was a safe way to get to know these guys and their process, and, thanks to it being a cable TV show, I got to see a lot more than I probably wanted about their sexual encounters.
You see them in action, as it were.
Frankly, I didn’t find it all that hot. Here I had this lascivious concept I wanted to explore, about finding a man whose sole focus is bringing your fantasy to life, and the reality proved that getting paid for sex is rather impersonal and cold, even if you have very sexy men at your beck and call. They’re just doing a job, you’re just a client, and it comes off that way.
It's a good thing, I guess, that I didn't pay $400 an hour to figure that out. (Thank you, Showtime.)
This particular series revolves around a handful of guys who worked for the same agency. Some appear nice. Others, not so much. Some approach it as a means to pay the bills. Some approach it as a mission or honor to provide the fantasy for the women they claim to love. They all approach the sex in very guy-like ways, reminding me of what I learned about male sexuality when I was watching “Queer as Folk,” back in the day. How men approach sex and how women approach sex is often very different, and you never realize how different it is until you take the woman out of the equation.
Pretty soon, I felt my enthusiasm for my own project abate, especially when I saw how they had to ‘power through’ having sex with women whom they found undesirable. Since my heroine ended up being a size-14/16, I wasn’t so sure I wanted one of these guys to suck it up and just power through having sex with her, like they sometimes demonstrated on the show. Unfortunately, I do have personal experience with what that’s like, and there’s nothing sexy about it.
Did I really want to center one of my series around a guy like this?
I wasn’t completely sold on my own concept until Chapter Three of Book 1, MASTERS FOR HIRE, when my heroine made me fall in love with her. After that I decided to use minor details only, and craft my hero however the hell I wanted to. She was paying big money for him to bring her fantasy (and, to an extent, mine) to life, and by God I was going to make that happen for her.
If someone “in the business” reads my book and tells me, “Hey, that’s not all that realistic,” I know they’re probably telling the truth. But I don’t care. I didn’t set out to write some expose on what it’s like to be a gigolo. This is fiction, and romance fiction at that. This means I have to keep my toe in reality, not my whole damned foot. (And thank GOD.)
I honestly did way more research on what made Dev a complex human than what made him a gigolo. When Devlin let me know he was a classically trained pianist, I ran to Google* every chance I got to research classical pieces, the pianos themselves, or where he might have gone for an education, because this new tidbit about him demanded I up my game to figure all that out.
The conversation went something like this:
ME: Okay guys. Here is the suite we're going to use, one that I found while I researched Las Vegas hotels to use for our setting this week. It has a view, a bar, antique French furniture and, for some reason, a piano. Don't ask me, it just came with the room.He then sat down and played Pachelbel’s Canon in D, one of the few classical tunes I actually knew, forcing me to run immediately to YouTube* and listen along. I knew in an instant that no novice could play like that, which means he didn’t just play piano. He really was a master.
DEVLIN: I can play the piano, you know.
ME: No, I didn’t know.
DEVLIN: Well, now you do. Make it work.
ME: Wow. You’re really going to force me out of my comfort zone, aren’t you, Devlin?
DEVLIN: You have no idea, darlin.’
He then launched into the Beatles, and I knew in an instant the gigolo I had crafted as a one-dimensional blank slate wasn’t really a blank slate at all.
Devlin Masters was/is completely 3-D.
Not only did that one little detail instantly make him more interesting to me beyond a penis for hire, it opened up an entirely new subplot that would change the trajectory for my final book, like sliding a puzzle piece into place.
And it never would have happened at all had I not gone online the second my characters flew to Vegas for a week, because I needed to research a place to put them.
If I had written just what I knew, this story would have remained sadly unrealized, like my original concept. In Book One, Draft One, I had the freedom to play around a bit, to see how this fledgling concept could live up to its full potential. It’s exploratory, and research guides you down new paths you may not have found on your own.
Without the most trivial research, this story wouldn’t have stretched me out of my comfort zone or taught me anything new. It doesn’t enlighten you as much just to revisit the same source material over and over again, simply rearranged in different situations.
You’re still going to write what YOU know, because how YOU react to these new details is completely from your perspective.
You’re just going to expand what you know by writing about things you don’t. As a result, you’ll teach yourself some things along the way. And that’s a beautiful thing.
If you’ve reached Day 10 and you’re a little stuck where to go from here, I highly recommend that you research things a little deeper to unearth those hidden gems just waiting to be discovered. You never know what your characters and your story have yet to teach you, or where you might go from here.
Queue up your gremlin, open up your browser and just follow where it goes.
*Again, using this place mark because though referencing Google may work in a blog, I may have to do more research in whether or not I can now use this in a published work. For those of you who have been paying attention, most of the time I use (*) is to indicate more research is needed.
Started First Draft: November 10, 2015 2:22pm PST
Completed First draft: November 10, 2015 4:02pm PST
Word Count of first draft: 3,280
Completed revisions: November 10, 2015 5:49pm PST
Updated WC: 3,972/39,699
Thursday, November 5, 2015
When the Bad Guy is a Bad Boy. Have y'all met Caz?
Yeah... I don't know where he came from, but I managed to unearth yet another douche bag that I should have hated, but I kind of loved.
If you've already read MASTERS FOR HIRE, prepare to meet Devlin's nemesis, Caz Bixby, in MASTERS FOR LIFE, who gets thrust into Coralie's fairy tale existence as her cocky, obnoxious personal trainer.
TEASER FROM MASTERS FOR LIFE
He appraised me thoughtfully. “Guess we better hit the gym then... New Year’s Eve will be here before you know it.”
“I’ve been ready for a half-hour.”
He glanced down at his suit. “Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. He put his champagne flute onto the table before he stood. He crossed the distance between us in two steps, before hovering over me with a different kind of smoldering glance all his own. I watched as he tugged free his tie, which snapped from around his neck before he trailed it across one of my wrists. My fists balled tightly, so he tossed the tie away. With that despicable smirk, he ran his hands up his sculpted chest until his fingers circled that top button. Slowly he released them, one at a time, revealing his sculpted bare chest underneath, which caught me off guard. His bold tattoos on both arms appeared to breathe thanks to his rippling muscles.
He took off the shirt and tossed it onto the sofa next to me, before angling his pelvis towards my face. “Help me with my pants?” he said as he held his hands out to the sides of his hips, like he was presenting me with pure gold. I practically breathed fire, but I didn’t move one muscle. “No? I guess I can do it then.”
His strong fingers unfastened his dress slacks, slowly unzipping them. His slacks fell to the floor, revealing snug compression workout shorts that hugged his defined bulge proudly. As he stepped out of his pants, I realized that he still wore his dress shoes. “Looks like you forgot something,” I sneered.
He chuckled as he kicked off his shoes. He reached for one sock. “I guess I’ll have to go bare. Do you mind?”
I scowled at his innuendo. “You’re such a pig.”
He leaned over me, backing me up against the cushion of the sofa, one arm on either side of me. “We’re all animals deep down, baby.” His gaze liberally drifted towards my mouth. “So what do you say? Wanna burn some calories?”
With a growl I scooted out from under his arm and rounded the other side of the sofa. He straightened with an even wider smile before he followed, trailing his laughter behind.
******
You will not BELIEVE where these two men take us all in book three, MASTERS FOREVER, a tempting little treat provided below... which will probably scare the shit out of everyone still cursing my name for how Book Two ended.
#sorrynotsorry #itsgonnabegood
TEASER FROM MASTERS FOREVER, (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS BUT DAYUM, IT MIGHT BE WORTH IT...)
Devlin leaned back against the sofa as he studied my face. “Not how I pictured this night going,” he murmured. “How about you?”
My eyes hardened. “Not how I pictured the year going.”
He brushed a stray strand of my hair from my eyes. “Me either.”
“Jesus,” Caz exhaled as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed the remote and turned to a music channel that played pulsating dance music. He dragged me up by the hand. “This is a party, for fuck’s sake.”
“Caz, I don’t want to,” I tried to protest as he pulled me to the center of my living room. Still holding the remote, he turned down all the lights courtesy of the dimmer.
“Come on, pussycat. If you wanted to stay here and feel sorry for yourself, you’d have never left.”
A dance tune by Madonna began to play, the aptly titled “Hung Up.” Caz pulled me close, his hands on my hips, to guide me through the sensual movements as we began to undulate to the music. I stole glances at Dev, who watched us from his spot in the corner of my couch.
It was the very same corner where he had been that first night, when he commanded that I strip for him. He had seduced me that night, confidently and well. My flesh responded instantly to the memory. I shuddered and looked way, focusing on Caz, who danced closely to me, grinding his hips against me, his eyes locked with mine. “Only a couple of hours left, baby,” he said. “Do you really want to spend it sad?”
The music pulsated around me, a rolling beat that made the entire room felt like it was spinning and tumbling through space. Of course, that might have been the pot. My brain had taken off somewhere around Pluto. That, combined with the alcohol I had consumed, helped me submit to the dance. I closed my eyes and just allowed myself to ride the music.
“That’s it,” Caz murmured. “Let yourself go. You know you want to.”
Again my eyes sought Dev. Maybe I was waiting for permission. Maybe I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to lose his shit again. My eyes snapped open when I realized he was no longer sitting on the sofa.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt him fall into step behind me, pinning me between both of them.
“Dev,” I started, but his mouth landed right next to my ear.
“Shh,” he shushed, and it sent an involuntary shudder all the way through my body.
I found myself responding to the beat, braced between them. Devlin, whose mouth rested right near my ear, dragged his lips along the sensitive line of my neck. “Ever had two men at once, Coralie?” he murmured.
I practically evaporated on the spot. After everything I’d been through, after everything they had both done, I knew I was at their mercy. I was too high. I was too drunk. I was too bitter after such a crappy, crappy few months. There had been so many moments that I just wanted to turn the clock back... so I just enjoy my fantasy for one minute more.
And here Dev was, like a mirage, offering me another one. A new one. A naughty one. It was one where I could be with him again, no matter how high the cost, which had always been really high, like $25,000. Like a broken heart. Like shattered dreams. Like loving a man who might just be incapable of loving me back.
And yet… dear God, help me… it was still everything I wanted.
******
Are you scared yet?
Just wait till November 27....O_O
My boys will be back, and they're going to be badder than ever.
I. Cannot. Wait.
If you've already read MASTERS FOR HIRE, prepare to meet Devlin's nemesis, Caz Bixby, in MASTERS FOR LIFE, who gets thrust into Coralie's fairy tale existence as her cocky, obnoxious personal trainer.
TEASER FROM MASTERS FOR LIFE
He appraised me thoughtfully. “Guess we better hit the gym then... New Year’s Eve will be here before you know it.”
“I’ve been ready for a half-hour.”
He glanced down at his suit. “Oh yeah,” he said with a grin. He put his champagne flute onto the table before he stood. He crossed the distance between us in two steps, before hovering over me with a different kind of smoldering glance all his own. I watched as he tugged free his tie, which snapped from around his neck before he trailed it across one of my wrists. My fists balled tightly, so he tossed the tie away. With that despicable smirk, he ran his hands up his sculpted chest until his fingers circled that top button. Slowly he released them, one at a time, revealing his sculpted bare chest underneath, which caught me off guard. His bold tattoos on both arms appeared to breathe thanks to his rippling muscles.
He took off the shirt and tossed it onto the sofa next to me, before angling his pelvis towards my face. “Help me with my pants?” he said as he held his hands out to the sides of his hips, like he was presenting me with pure gold. I practically breathed fire, but I didn’t move one muscle. “No? I guess I can do it then.”
His strong fingers unfastened his dress slacks, slowly unzipping them. His slacks fell to the floor, revealing snug compression workout shorts that hugged his defined bulge proudly. As he stepped out of his pants, I realized that he still wore his dress shoes. “Looks like you forgot something,” I sneered.
He chuckled as he kicked off his shoes. He reached for one sock. “I guess I’ll have to go bare. Do you mind?”
I scowled at his innuendo. “You’re such a pig.”
He leaned over me, backing me up against the cushion of the sofa, one arm on either side of me. “We’re all animals deep down, baby.” His gaze liberally drifted towards my mouth. “So what do you say? Wanna burn some calories?”
With a growl I scooted out from under his arm and rounded the other side of the sofa. He straightened with an even wider smile before he followed, trailing his laughter behind.
You will not BELIEVE where these two men take us all in book three, MASTERS FOREVER, a tempting little treat provided below... which will probably scare the shit out of everyone still cursing my name for how Book Two ended.
#sorrynotsorry #itsgonnabegood
TEASER FROM MASTERS FOREVER, (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS BUT DAYUM, IT MIGHT BE WORTH IT...)
Devlin leaned back against the sofa as he studied my face. “Not how I pictured this night going,” he murmured. “How about you?”
My eyes hardened. “Not how I pictured the year going.”
He brushed a stray strand of my hair from my eyes. “Me either.”
“Jesus,” Caz exhaled as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed the remote and turned to a music channel that played pulsating dance music. He dragged me up by the hand. “This is a party, for fuck’s sake.”
“Caz, I don’t want to,” I tried to protest as he pulled me to the center of my living room. Still holding the remote, he turned down all the lights courtesy of the dimmer.
“Come on, pussycat. If you wanted to stay here and feel sorry for yourself, you’d have never left.”
A dance tune by Madonna began to play, the aptly titled “Hung Up.” Caz pulled me close, his hands on my hips, to guide me through the sensual movements as we began to undulate to the music. I stole glances at Dev, who watched us from his spot in the corner of my couch.
It was the very same corner where he had been that first night, when he commanded that I strip for him. He had seduced me that night, confidently and well. My flesh responded instantly to the memory. I shuddered and looked way, focusing on Caz, who danced closely to me, grinding his hips against me, his eyes locked with mine. “Only a couple of hours left, baby,” he said. “Do you really want to spend it sad?”
The music pulsated around me, a rolling beat that made the entire room felt like it was spinning and tumbling through space. Of course, that might have been the pot. My brain had taken off somewhere around Pluto. That, combined with the alcohol I had consumed, helped me submit to the dance. I closed my eyes and just allowed myself to ride the music.
“That’s it,” Caz murmured. “Let yourself go. You know you want to.”
Again my eyes sought Dev. Maybe I was waiting for permission. Maybe I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to lose his shit again. My eyes snapped open when I realized he was no longer sitting on the sofa.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt him fall into step behind me, pinning me between both of them.
“Dev,” I started, but his mouth landed right next to my ear.
“Shh,” he shushed, and it sent an involuntary shudder all the way through my body.
I found myself responding to the beat, braced between them. Devlin, whose mouth rested right near my ear, dragged his lips along the sensitive line of my neck. “Ever had two men at once, Coralie?” he murmured.
I practically evaporated on the spot. After everything I’d been through, after everything they had both done, I knew I was at their mercy. I was too high. I was too drunk. I was too bitter after such a crappy, crappy few months. There had been so many moments that I just wanted to turn the clock back... so I just enjoy my fantasy for one minute more.
And here Dev was, like a mirage, offering me another one. A new one. A naughty one. It was one where I could be with him again, no matter how high the cost, which had always been really high, like $25,000. Like a broken heart. Like shattered dreams. Like loving a man who might just be incapable of loving me back.
And yet… dear God, help me… it was still everything I wanted.
Are you scared yet?
Just wait till November 27....O_O
My boys will be back, and they're going to be badder than ever.
I. Cannot. Wait.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Two guys have turned my world upside down for months. Lemme tell you about them.
Many of you are already familiar with the origin of my new Masters Saga, the story about a young woman and the escort she hires to fulfill every last naughty desire. This unconventional romance, a sort of "Pretty Woman" in reverse, started simply with a thought-provoking question from my bestie, which is also a little how my story MY IMMORTAL came to life, but we'll talk about that in a sec.
First, I need to tell you about Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.
Many of you have already met Devlin. He's that sexy lil morsel who gets paid $400 an hour to fulfill the lascivious fantasies of those women who have the means to pay him. He was a LOT of fun to write... a blank slate if you will. Like Coralie, I could mold him into anything I wanted him to be.
Well, in the first book anyway. As it so happens, that rascal had a personality all his own, and he was determined to tell ME who he was, starting with the moment he sat down to play the piano. That's when I realized there was a lot more depth, and potential, to this gun for hire.
See, the thing is... I wrote Masters as sort of a... protest if you will. My bestie asked me if I would ever hire an escort, sort of a hypothetical question to test my boundaries about sex. The more I thought about it, the more value I saw in hiring a guy for sex.
Crazy, right? Absolutely scandalous. But I'm being completely sincere.
I found it both titillating and empowering to write a story where a man is committed to the idea of feminine pleasure, since, unfortunately, in our culture such things are usually prohibited. If a woman exhibits any kind of sexual liberation, like a man, she is regarded as a slut, one whose value diminishes the more liberties she takes.
I have a problem with this, so much so that I live my life in such a way that it is almost absolutely impossible to slut-shame me. I'm quite open about how I feel about sex. I mean, obviously, right? That's how I make my living. I seek to empower women to embrace their own sexuality without shame.
To say that I have a problem with how our society treats women and sex is putting it mildly. I could (and kind of have) written a book on most of the topics that I want to challenge, such as the whole "virgin/purity = value," myth, the "physical perfection = beauty = happiness" myth. In MASTERS, I go after female fulfillment in almost all its forms, using sex as the driving force mostly because that is where we are most discouraged from being empowered and fulfilled.
I'm not writing sex just to write sex. I never do. Ever. There's a point. There's a reason. And the reason in MASTERS is one of empowerment, even when it would seem that my character is powerless. Sometimes you have to learn how much you will bend to know where all those boundaries are. These are important to learn, which is why sexual exploration is such a vital part of the human experience - for both sexes.
Yet sadly, particularly in heterosexual sex, that exploration is often discouraged if you're female.
The statistics say only 40% of women in reach orgasm as the result of casual, heterosexual hookups, as compared to the 75% or higher that men and lesbian women average. I talked a bit about it on Facebook yesterday, where I posted a link about the sexual myths that we need to stop teaching our young girls, chief among them is that when it comes to sex, women are here solely for the pleasure of men. Our pleasure is an afterthought, because we don't care about it as much.
Needless to say, the Masters saga turned into a tale of sexual awakening that dares to defy convention AND permission. And there are just no men on this planet more suited to teach this lesson than Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.
You haven't met Caz yet, he's in Book Two, MASTERS FOR LIFE, available NOW.
This is not your traditional GV triangle. In fact, I really didn't know what Caz had up his sleeve when he sauntered onto the scene in Book Two. He's arrogant. He's an unapologetic douche bag. He's openly opportunistic. He doesn't promise wine and roses, just dirty sex and lots of it. In the beginning, it isn't even sexual desire that puts Coralie on his radar. Theirs is a painfully honest relationship from the jump.
Well, as painfully honest as one can be when one is an unapologetic, cocky, opportunistic douche bag.
As Coralie peels back the layers on Devlin, Caz is right there to cast doubt on every romantic dream that Dev tries to make come true for her. He's the one who puts a time limit on her happiness, predicting that everything she wants will fall apart before the book's end.
Whether he's right or whether he's wrong... you'll either have to read the book or have someone who did spoil it for you. I shan't.
What I can tell you is that the book was a painful turn for me in many ways, kind of forcing me out of my own comfort zone regarding sex, relationships, fidelity and true intimacy.
Suffice it to say, MASTERS FOR HIRE was the fairy tale. MASTERS FOR LIFE is much more brutally honest and realistic. As realistic as I get anyway. It is one of my angstiest books by a MILE.
This angst is necessary to get you to Book Three, MASTERS FOREVER, which has now been released for pre-order. There's a reason for this, which you will discover when you hit the last page of MASTERS FOR LIFE, ready to throttle me with how it ends. Honestly I have never been more nervous for a book series to publish - and I'm not just talking about Book Two. The entire thing could either propel me forward or drop me on my ass. My stakes are every bit as high as Coralie's herself.
Again, that's your only warning.
Indeed, it is all brand new territory. I take the liberties given to me by the Erotic Romance genre all the way to the end, mostly because I really didn't have any choice. Devlin in particular kept me twisted into knots the entire duration of writing this story. Many people who don't write don't understand how these characters often take on a life of their own. They do and say stuff to surprise you on a regular basis, even when you know - ultimately - where they're going. All the little details, and a few big ones, often don't make themselves known until you've breathed a little life into them, allowing them to whisper their words into your ear and tickle your brain with all the possibilities of what could be.
Well, Devlin was indeed Devlish the whole way through. And then Caz showed up, and I was knocked about like a pinball, as dizzy and confused as Coralie herself. They tested what I believe about sex and gratification and feminine empowerment all the while trying to take it away at every turn. Yes... it's that kind of story. Coralie has to fight for that very thing she wanted from page one of Book One: to live life on her terms.
Dev and Caz test how far she's willing to go to get it, which is further than I personally have ever gone with my heroines ... EVER.
Why am I telling you this? Well, because I feel I can. We've gone through a lot together, from the angsty, Kindle-breaking GROUPIE saga, to the bittersweet and emotional FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA. I feel like you'll understand where I'm coming from. Or, you'll need to, the minute you finish Book Two. Through it all, we peel back the colorful, blinding layers of Oz that Dev painted in Book One, to realize that things aren't quite as they appeared to be. You're going to need a friend for this, someone who understands the pain and disappointment you're going to feel.
Basically you're going to need a hug. Every bit as much as I do.
Where these guys came from, I don't even know. But what they had to teach me was eye-opening.
A bold passage from Book Two:
*****
I had made love with several men before him, but none had ever been able to make me come. They inserted Tab A into Slot B and if that was enough to get me there, great. If not, well that’s just how it worked for women. They accepted it. I accepted it.
Not Devlin. I came every single time we had sex. Every. Single. Time. Not just once or twice or randomly like a fluke. It wasn’t some mystery. It was biology. No one would ever think to touch every place on a man’s body but his penis and expect him to “get there.” Devlin knew just where to touch, just how to touch, and what the true objective for partnered sexual contact truly meant. The job simply wasn’t done until I reached the finish line, too.
He taught me to reach it. Expect it. Demand it. Just like a man. And now that I knew that was possible, I knew I’d never go back to settling again.
*****
Not to be outdone, here's some plain talk from Caz.
*****
“You know, you’re not half bad when you behave like a human being. Why do you have to be such a jerk, Caz?”
He huffed and puffed with exertion. “I have a reputation to maintain,” he replied with that shit-eating grin I loathed.
“Being an asshole work that well for you?”
He replaced the weights and sat up to look at me. “Look around you, CC. You tell me.” He grabbed my water bottle from my hand and unscrewed the cap, then guzzled it while his eyes studied my face. He handed it back to me with a grin, as if he knew what kind of intimate liberties he had just taken.
I shook my head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Nope,” he announced cheerfully. “Why should I? The way I figure it, we’re all hedonists deep down. We all constantly think about the stuff we’re not supposed to, those things you’d never admit in polite company. But we all have those moments when we pass a stranger on the street and instantly wonder what it would be like to fuck them. We all have those moments where we talk to someone, and suddenly we fixate on their lips, imaging what it would look like on our bodies, or taste like against our mouth. We’ve all had that moment when we wanted to just have fun without consequences, like fucking a stranger you don’t even know, in every raunchy way you could imagine. So why not just do it? Take no prisoners. Make no apologies.”
I didn’t say anything, so he went on. “Sure there are people who, when they think these thoughts, feel like they’re some kind of weirdo. An oddball. A deviant. And a few are. But most of us are just normal human beings, hardwired to enjoy sex for pleasure. We’re supposed to want it. We’re supposed to love it. The problems only arise when we’re told we shouldn’t want it, or that we shouldn’t have it. That there’s something wrong with us if we love it the way that we do. It’s everywhere all the time, yet our society wants to pretend like it doesn’t exist. That it’s improper, or obscene. It’s all bullshit, CC. All this perceived purity? I’ve seen the truth every time someone paid me to fuck them. And the things they want to do,” he crowed with a chuckle. “We’re not pure at all. We just lump lust behind other, more obscene sins like wrath, gluttony, envy or greed, simply because that helps us sleep at night. Like we can forget we’re all animals deep down, happiest when we’re allowed to roar. Look at what happened to you. You can’t honestly tell me that you were happier when you were following all those bogus rules of propriety.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. “No.”
“There you go. If there’s anything I teach you in these next few months, I hope it’s that. Because that means so much more than how much you weigh or how you look. Some of the best lays of my life have been ugly women who just knew how to take what they wanted.”
I scowled at him. “Way to ruin a moment, Caz. Why do you have to be such a pig?”
He shrugged. “Just being honest, pussycat. But I can see how you might not be used to that.”
*****
So... yeah. That's Caz. Like I said, he's a cocky, unapologetic jerk. It was truly weird having him in my head for months on end. It only helped somewhat that I could use this sexy guy as the inspiration...
But I added equal parts Brian Kinney from Queer as Folks... so - you get what you get.
Are you scared yet?
You should be.
We're going down the rabbit hole with Coralie. There's a lot of symbolism in play to subtly (and not so subtly) wedge Coralie out of that restrictive "Good Girl" archetype where she doesn't belong. NONE of us do, not really, not in the way society has defined it at least. If you're reading naughty books about sex, you've likely been, at the very least, teased about it.
And if I accomplish nothing more than this idea we can be both good and feminine without being confined to being a Good Girl (as in Good Girls Don't) with this series, then that will be a huge win for me, and well worth the time I spent with two of the most frustrating male characters my muse has ever introduced me to.
Frustrating, because I couldn't stay away from them... following wherever they led, even dark places unknown.
I hope at the end of it all, you can regard them as the teachers that they were to me, even when they had a lot to learn themselves.
That's what Book Three is for...
Until then, it's time to embrace a little darkness.
If you're in the mood for something even darker, nay, scary this Halloween weekend, MY IMMORTAL is available for FREE through the 31st. How do you find love when you're a reincarnated vampire?
You don't. It finds you...
Happy Halloween everybody!
First, I need to tell you about Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.
Many of you have already met Devlin. He's that sexy lil morsel who gets paid $400 an hour to fulfill the lascivious fantasies of those women who have the means to pay him. He was a LOT of fun to write... a blank slate if you will. Like Coralie, I could mold him into anything I wanted him to be.
Well, in the first book anyway. As it so happens, that rascal had a personality all his own, and he was determined to tell ME who he was, starting with the moment he sat down to play the piano. That's when I realized there was a lot more depth, and potential, to this gun for hire.
See, the thing is... I wrote Masters as sort of a... protest if you will. My bestie asked me if I would ever hire an escort, sort of a hypothetical question to test my boundaries about sex. The more I thought about it, the more value I saw in hiring a guy for sex.
Crazy, right? Absolutely scandalous. But I'm being completely sincere.
I found it both titillating and empowering to write a story where a man is committed to the idea of feminine pleasure, since, unfortunately, in our culture such things are usually prohibited. If a woman exhibits any kind of sexual liberation, like a man, she is regarded as a slut, one whose value diminishes the more liberties she takes.
I have a problem with this, so much so that I live my life in such a way that it is almost absolutely impossible to slut-shame me. I'm quite open about how I feel about sex. I mean, obviously, right? That's how I make my living. I seek to empower women to embrace their own sexuality without shame.
To say that I have a problem with how our society treats women and sex is putting it mildly. I could (and kind of have) written a book on most of the topics that I want to challenge, such as the whole "virgin/purity = value," myth, the "physical perfection = beauty = happiness" myth. In MASTERS, I go after female fulfillment in almost all its forms, using sex as the driving force mostly because that is where we are most discouraged from being empowered and fulfilled.
I'm not writing sex just to write sex. I never do. Ever. There's a point. There's a reason. And the reason in MASTERS is one of empowerment, even when it would seem that my character is powerless. Sometimes you have to learn how much you will bend to know where all those boundaries are. These are important to learn, which is why sexual exploration is such a vital part of the human experience - for both sexes.
Yet sadly, particularly in heterosexual sex, that exploration is often discouraged if you're female.
The statistics say only 40% of women in reach orgasm as the result of casual, heterosexual hookups, as compared to the 75% or higher that men and lesbian women average. I talked a bit about it on Facebook yesterday, where I posted a link about the sexual myths that we need to stop teaching our young girls, chief among them is that when it comes to sex, women are here solely for the pleasure of men. Our pleasure is an afterthought, because we don't care about it as much.
Needless to say, the Masters saga turned into a tale of sexual awakening that dares to defy convention AND permission. And there are just no men on this planet more suited to teach this lesson than Devlin Masters and Caz Bixby.
You haven't met Caz yet, he's in Book Two, MASTERS FOR LIFE, available NOW.
This is not your traditional GV triangle. In fact, I really didn't know what Caz had up his sleeve when he sauntered onto the scene in Book Two. He's arrogant. He's an unapologetic douche bag. He's openly opportunistic. He doesn't promise wine and roses, just dirty sex and lots of it. In the beginning, it isn't even sexual desire that puts Coralie on his radar. Theirs is a painfully honest relationship from the jump.
Well, as painfully honest as one can be when one is an unapologetic, cocky, opportunistic douche bag.
As Coralie peels back the layers on Devlin, Caz is right there to cast doubt on every romantic dream that Dev tries to make come true for her. He's the one who puts a time limit on her happiness, predicting that everything she wants will fall apart before the book's end.
Whether he's right or whether he's wrong... you'll either have to read the book or have someone who did spoil it for you. I shan't.
What I can tell you is that the book was a painful turn for me in many ways, kind of forcing me out of my own comfort zone regarding sex, relationships, fidelity and true intimacy.
Suffice it to say, MASTERS FOR HIRE was the fairy tale. MASTERS FOR LIFE is much more brutally honest and realistic. As realistic as I get anyway. It is one of my angstiest books by a MILE.
This angst is necessary to get you to Book Three, MASTERS FOREVER, which has now been released for pre-order. There's a reason for this, which you will discover when you hit the last page of MASTERS FOR LIFE, ready to throttle me with how it ends. Honestly I have never been more nervous for a book series to publish - and I'm not just talking about Book Two. The entire thing could either propel me forward or drop me on my ass. My stakes are every bit as high as Coralie's herself.
Again, that's your only warning.
"The author has written a very powerful and angst-filled book that I honestly have never seen from her. This feels like new territory for her and I couldn't be happier. There are so many layers and so much at stake for our heroine, I'm beyond cautious as to how it will all conclude." - Amazon review from MJLovestoRead
Indeed, it is all brand new territory. I take the liberties given to me by the Erotic Romance genre all the way to the end, mostly because I really didn't have any choice. Devlin in particular kept me twisted into knots the entire duration of writing this story. Many people who don't write don't understand how these characters often take on a life of their own. They do and say stuff to surprise you on a regular basis, even when you know - ultimately - where they're going. All the little details, and a few big ones, often don't make themselves known until you've breathed a little life into them, allowing them to whisper their words into your ear and tickle your brain with all the possibilities of what could be.
Well, Devlin was indeed Devlish the whole way through. And then Caz showed up, and I was knocked about like a pinball, as dizzy and confused as Coralie herself. They tested what I believe about sex and gratification and feminine empowerment all the while trying to take it away at every turn. Yes... it's that kind of story. Coralie has to fight for that very thing she wanted from page one of Book One: to live life on her terms.
Dev and Caz test how far she's willing to go to get it, which is further than I personally have ever gone with my heroines ... EVER.
Why am I telling you this? Well, because I feel I can. We've gone through a lot together, from the angsty, Kindle-breaking GROUPIE saga, to the bittersweet and emotional FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA. I feel like you'll understand where I'm coming from. Or, you'll need to, the minute you finish Book Two. Through it all, we peel back the colorful, blinding layers of Oz that Dev painted in Book One, to realize that things aren't quite as they appeared to be. You're going to need a friend for this, someone who understands the pain and disappointment you're going to feel.
Basically you're going to need a hug. Every bit as much as I do.
Where these guys came from, I don't even know. But what they had to teach me was eye-opening.
A bold passage from Book Two:
I had made love with several men before him, but none had ever been able to make me come. They inserted Tab A into Slot B and if that was enough to get me there, great. If not, well that’s just how it worked for women. They accepted it. I accepted it.
Not Devlin. I came every single time we had sex. Every. Single. Time. Not just once or twice or randomly like a fluke. It wasn’t some mystery. It was biology. No one would ever think to touch every place on a man’s body but his penis and expect him to “get there.” Devlin knew just where to touch, just how to touch, and what the true objective for partnered sexual contact truly meant. The job simply wasn’t done until I reached the finish line, too.
He taught me to reach it. Expect it. Demand it. Just like a man. And now that I knew that was possible, I knew I’d never go back to settling again.
Not to be outdone, here's some plain talk from Caz.
“You know, you’re not half bad when you behave like a human being. Why do you have to be such a jerk, Caz?”
He huffed and puffed with exertion. “I have a reputation to maintain,” he replied with that shit-eating grin I loathed.
“Being an asshole work that well for you?”
He replaced the weights and sat up to look at me. “Look around you, CC. You tell me.” He grabbed my water bottle from my hand and unscrewed the cap, then guzzled it while his eyes studied my face. He handed it back to me with a grin, as if he knew what kind of intimate liberties he had just taken.
I shook my head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Nope,” he announced cheerfully. “Why should I? The way I figure it, we’re all hedonists deep down. We all constantly think about the stuff we’re not supposed to, those things you’d never admit in polite company. But we all have those moments when we pass a stranger on the street and instantly wonder what it would be like to fuck them. We all have those moments where we talk to someone, and suddenly we fixate on their lips, imaging what it would look like on our bodies, or taste like against our mouth. We’ve all had that moment when we wanted to just have fun without consequences, like fucking a stranger you don’t even know, in every raunchy way you could imagine. So why not just do it? Take no prisoners. Make no apologies.”
I didn’t say anything, so he went on. “Sure there are people who, when they think these thoughts, feel like they’re some kind of weirdo. An oddball. A deviant. And a few are. But most of us are just normal human beings, hardwired to enjoy sex for pleasure. We’re supposed to want it. We’re supposed to love it. The problems only arise when we’re told we shouldn’t want it, or that we shouldn’t have it. That there’s something wrong with us if we love it the way that we do. It’s everywhere all the time, yet our society wants to pretend like it doesn’t exist. That it’s improper, or obscene. It’s all bullshit, CC. All this perceived purity? I’ve seen the truth every time someone paid me to fuck them. And the things they want to do,” he crowed with a chuckle. “We’re not pure at all. We just lump lust behind other, more obscene sins like wrath, gluttony, envy or greed, simply because that helps us sleep at night. Like we can forget we’re all animals deep down, happiest when we’re allowed to roar. Look at what happened to you. You can’t honestly tell me that you were happier when you were following all those bogus rules of propriety.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. “No.”
“There you go. If there’s anything I teach you in these next few months, I hope it’s that. Because that means so much more than how much you weigh or how you look. Some of the best lays of my life have been ugly women who just knew how to take what they wanted.”
I scowled at him. “Way to ruin a moment, Caz. Why do you have to be such a pig?”
He shrugged. “Just being honest, pussycat. But I can see how you might not be used to that.”
So... yeah. That's Caz. Like I said, he's a cocky, unapologetic jerk. It was truly weird having him in my head for months on end. It only helped somewhat that I could use this sexy guy as the inspiration...
But I added equal parts Brian Kinney from Queer as Folks... so - you get what you get.
Are you scared yet?
You should be.
We're going down the rabbit hole with Coralie. There's a lot of symbolism in play to subtly (and not so subtly) wedge Coralie out of that restrictive "Good Girl" archetype where she doesn't belong. NONE of us do, not really, not in the way society has defined it at least. If you're reading naughty books about sex, you've likely been, at the very least, teased about it.
And if I accomplish nothing more than this idea we can be both good and feminine without being confined to being a Good Girl (as in Good Girls Don't) with this series, then that will be a huge win for me, and well worth the time I spent with two of the most frustrating male characters my muse has ever introduced me to.
Frustrating, because I couldn't stay away from them... following wherever they led, even dark places unknown.
I hope at the end of it all, you can regard them as the teachers that they were to me, even when they had a lot to learn themselves.
That's what Book Three is for...
Until then, it's time to embrace a little darkness.
If you're in the mood for something even darker, nay, scary this Halloween weekend, MY IMMORTAL is available for FREE through the 31st. How do you find love when you're a reincarnated vampire?
You don't. It finds you...
Happy Halloween everybody!
Saturday, October 17, 2015
MASTERS FOR LIFE. The water is about to boil... **This is your only warning.**
Anyone who has read my series books knows that I don't play around with Book Two. I'm kinda always just getting started with Book Two. Book Two is the ugliest of the trilogy because my three-book storytelling works a lot like a three-act play.
For those not familiar with the traditional three-act structure, it works kinda like this:
ACT I (Setup):
Introduce the characters and the world they inhabit. Give them clearly defined goals that will start them on their journey out of their comfort zone. Introduce the obstacles (including people, including themselves) that stand in the way of reaching those goals, underscoring how they will need to grow/change in order to get what they want.
In the case of WIZARD OF OZ, this was the B&W part of the story, pre-tornado, when all Dorothy wanted was to go somewhere else.
ACT II (Confrontation):
Release the monsters one at a time that prohibit your hero/heroine from getting what they want most. Complications = conflict, which motivates our character into action and keeps the story moving. Keep raising the stakes to the point where the protagonist can't go back to the way he or she was before. They are solidly on this new path, navigating this new world with all the new skills that they learn along the way, usually ending on a "point of no return," that demands the character has to take drastic action to achieve his or her goal.
For Dorothy, her fish-out-of-water story began the minute she got what she wanted - to be "over the rainbow." She stepped out into Oz and was given a brand new goal: To get back home. Along the way she met a slew of new friends in adventures that bring her to her "point of no return;" in order to return home, she has to kill the Wicked Witch.
ACT III (Resolution):
Protagonist faces off against antagonistic forces (whether people or events) in the ultimate showdown (i.e., climax) of the story. Whether the hero/heroine gets what he or she wants, this protagonist will ultimately get what he or she needs, fulfilled by the journey itself.
Flying monkeys. Wicked Witch. "I'm melting," "What a world," yadda yadda yadda. Dorothy does what she is supposed to do, and very nearly gets stuck in Oz with her new friends because as it turns out... that Wiz wasn't that much of a Wiz at all. But because of all she has learned, she is bestowed one final magic spell... that answers one last lingering question: will Dorothy ever make it home?
This is the natural flow of a story, whether a single plot told in one story, or an arc told over multiple installments. In fact, if you do write more than one book in a series, you have to pull off this three-act structure with every single book itself, with clearly defined goals (and conflict) for each and every one. This is what readers expect of you, even if they aren't aware of the specifics. And even if they can't say why, they'll definitely know when you've failed.
Every single story ever told answers certain questions in order of where they might prove most compelling. WHO are these people and WHY should I care? WHAT stands in their way? HOW do they overcome? WHEN those questions, and any new ones introduced along the way, are answered ultimately drives the story, demanding to know WHERE the payoff might be.
In stories executed well, it's the very next page after the one you're reading. This keeps you reading, even when you're forced every bit as much out of your comfort zone as the protagonist themselves.
The reader/audience, much like the protagonist, is basically a frog in a pot of water. We coax you into the pot gently, beguiling - seducing - you into the story, making you feel comfortable and safe until we start to turn up the heat in Act II. By Act III, the water is boiling and - if we're successful in how we have constructed our stories - you won't be able to hop out until you see how it all ends, despite how uncomfortable you are.
Act II is where you're going to get uncomfortable, like most confrontation proves to be. In fact, just by your emotional reaction alone, you can easily pinpoint where Act II begins (and climaxes) simply by your level of discomfort. Where did the characters piss you off? Where did they break your heart? This is where your subconscious realized that the water had started to boil and you had to adjust your *own* expectations accordingly.
You didn't really think it was just the protagonist that had to change, did you?
Act II forces every single one of us to confront our comfort zones. That is its whole purpose for being, and its importance cannot be overstated. There's a reason that a lot of writers are intimidated by Act II, because as the creator, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, our characters and even you, the reader. We're afraid to go too far, even when our stories demand it. We don't want to piss anyone off. We don't want to hurt anyone. Most of us are really nice people deep down. So many writers back off from this challenge, myself included. We envision that line of what we can tolerate and dance right up to it, generally only sticking a toe (or toenail) across it and considering it a "win" when we do. Because fiction = conflict, our stories often suffer because of our timidity. The creation of art is a spiritually violent act, much like giving birth. If it doesn't hurt us, challenge us, change us, motivate US to keep moving forward, then it's never going to work for any of you.
The masters of the craft know this and wield this important storytelling weapon accordingly.
Since I take my craft very seriously I take this responsibility very seriously, especially the more seasoned I get as a writer. I trust you more. I trust me more. I trust my stories more. As a result, Book Two is usually my challenge to take us *all* past our comfort zones for the sake of a story well told. And if you are upset, if you're mad, if you're heartbroken over these fictional characters and crazy stories that started out as mere thoughts and ideas in my fevered brain... that's a story well told. You may give me a one-star rating because you hated my characters and what they did to each other, or what I did to them, but what is hate if not another emotion? I made you feel something - strongly - so I consider this a win. In fact the stronger you feel, the more successful I was at my job. I made you care about what used to be a blank page, as if these things, people and places were real. If my characters zigged when you thought they should have zagged, and you form very strong opinions on it as a result, based on *nothing* more than the way I arrange letters on a screen - thinking, feeling, debating, worrying, anxious about, curious over, heartsick because of kernels of thought born in pure imagination alone -
That.
Is.
Astounding.
Seriously. It's magic. As a reader myself, I love when I can feel something that powerful, especially when all I really wanted was to be entertained. Make me cry, make me angry, make me feel; I'll love you a hundred times more because of it. These are words on a page, and they're making me feel something? How fucking incredible is that?? This is why I have no problem turning up the heat just so that *I* can get the most out of my story. I need to feel it. I need to be consumed by it. Like Garth says, "Life is not tried it's just merely survived if you're standing outside the fire." I jump in both feet.
Make it burn, leave a scar, and people will remember you forever.
This is why my FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA, easily the series with the most #feelz of any of my books, is my most beloved. It sold the most. It's been reviewed the most. And of all the reader feedback, it's the one where I've heard the most amazing stories of connection between the reader, the writer and the characters.
Because of this, I refuse to pull any punches. If you're going to hate me (or break your Kindle,) it's going to start in Book Two. Never has that been truer than with MASTERS FOR LIFE. It should come with it's own warning label, and that comes from someone who generally shuns all warning labels. A long time ago I took the stance that if anyone needed a warning label to read a book, they should steer far clear of mine. I have no problem tackling ugly topics, as fearlessly as I can muster at the time. You're either going to love me or hate me, or love to hate me, but the minute you finish Book Two, I don't consider it a success unless you absolutely, positively, undeniably need to start Book Three to see how it all resolves, even if - especially if - you're scared absolutely shitless to do it.
I take this to new extremes in MASTERS FOR LIFE. From one of my betas, upon finishing Book Two: "Oh my God it is so awesome. I can't believe how you ended it. I need number 3 like yesterday."
This, in my mind, is a slam dunk. My goal was to write a book so gripping that you HAVE to get all your friends to read it, just so you'll have someone to talk to about it. This is why I have - if you'll pardon the pun - "infected" everyone I know with The Walking Dead. I *need* someone to talk to about this story because it's so freaking good. This is why I tune into The Talking Dead every single week to work through all the feelz with C-Hard, the cast, the creators and the fans. The minute the story hurts a little bit, I'm ready to talk it out with people who understand. It's kinda the best part about it.
But let's be honest. In order to inspire that kind of passion, it's gotta hurt. Happy-go-lucky, sexysexysexy only gets you so far. What people remember is when they got smacked in the face or kicked in the gut.
Whereas MASTERS FOR HIRE was a little more fun, a little sexier, a little more romantic, MASTERS FOR LIFE turns up the heat on our little froggies, Devlin and CC, and all who might love them. (Myself included.) Two virtual strangers are trying to forge a relationship together after two idyllic weeks together, with all the baggage in their past standing in their way. For Devlin Masters, our blank slate, our chameleon, this could (and does) mean anything. A couple of new characters find their way into the story, who definitely make things more... interesting. My main goal throughout Book Two was to keep CC guessing all the way through the book. Who can she trust? Who should she believe? Can she trust herself, even, as she watches herself morph and change into someone she doesn't really know?
In other words, welcome to Oz, my friends.
If you want a story to meander through various versions of a HEA for this couple for the next two books, I ain't yer girl. That shit doesn't interest me. I don't write escapism porn as a rule. You can escape into my books, but you're generally always relieved to make it back out again. My roller coasters shake you around a little bit, and you will need a little time to recover, which I figure is what all those happier books are for, including a few of my own.
For my series books, however, you're locked in for the ride. And I don't mind flipping the switch, taking you backwards, racing you forwards, and keeping you arse over teakettle until we're through... particularly in Book Two.
I'm out to test my couples how much they want to be together, and in doing so pose the ongoing question whether or not they deserve to be together. By the time you get to the resolution of this unusual story I've spent all this time building, I want you to buy Book Three complete with a Costco pallet of tissue and wine just to get to the end. And then we can meet and you can hug me, yell at me, curse me, then hug me again and cry on my shoulder. I will have the utmost empathy for your pain, because I've already done all those things to myself.
Throughout my second edit of MASTERS FOR LIFE, I forced myself to jump way past the line of my own personal comfort. As a result, there are a couple of scenes in this book that crawl all over me like a dozen scorpions. My first impulse is to apologize... to you and to my characters... even though I know this is the way the story has to go down in order to be told well.
If you've read my books in the past, you have an idea of what's coming, and are likely scared shitless as a result (as you should be.) For many of you, it's what you love most about me. For the rest... well, consider this your one and only warning.
I'm turning up the heat. The pot is going to boil. You will curse me, and I will deserve it. In fact, I've set up a brand new discussion forum, GV CORNER, where we can share all the feels.
Welcome to the conflict and chaos of Act II, where the fairy tale I crafted in Book One begins to fray as early as the first chapter in Book Two. Settle in as I finally start to pull back the curtain a little bit on our mysterious hero, Devlin Masters.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Excerpt, Chapter One MASTERS FOR LIFE
Devlin already knew how much settling for anything pissed me the hell off. He also had appointed himself as my white knight, ensuring that I would never have to settle for anything again. He studied me for a long minute before he said, “Come on.”
I followed him from the bathroom back into the bedroom. He opened up the door to the huge walk-in closet, heading straight for the chest of drawers that sat right in the middle. On the top was a big cardboard box, where he began pulling out several pieces of clothing.
I could tell immediately that every single piece had been designed by his sister, Darcy. The way they flowed, the material she used; I could tell without even trying them on that they would fit to flatter in a way no other clothes I could find at Cabot’s could.
I didn’t have to ask him where he got them. Instead, I posed another, more curious question. “Why do you have a box full of your sister’s clothes?”
He sighed as he leaned against the drawers. “I fulfill my client’s fantasies, remember?”
I lifted up the sunny yellow top to my torso. “And it’s just a coincidence it’s in my size?”
His eyes never left mine. “No, Coralie. It’s not a coincidence.” I leaned back against the drawers as I waited for him to explain, which he did without on speck of apology. “I had Darcy send me a package of size-14 clothing within an hour of getting your first email.”
My mouth dried up instantly. “What? Why?”
He sighed as he turned back to the box to pull out more clothes. “I told you before. It’s my job to give women what they want most.”
“But how did you know that included clothes?” I persisted.
He flashed me that smirk. “All women love to feel pretty in their clothes, Coralie. You know that.”
“So… wait,” I said as my brain scrambled to compute this startling new data. “You knew who I was when I sent the email?”
He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower. “I researched you the minute I had a first and last name,” he admitted at last. “I research everyone. It helps to start a few paces ahead. I scope out a potential client’s social media, dig up any relevant articles or information on my more notable clients. I gather all available information before I initiate contact, so I can develop a plan of attack from there.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Interesting choice of words.”
He shrugged. “Like I told you before, a lot is riding on that first date.”
I thought back to how insecure I felt when he had originally drilled me about my dress size, something he now admitted to knowing all along. “Why did you bother asking me my dress size if you already knew it?”
He shrugged. “There was more benefit in my knowing the information than letting you know that I knew it. Women tend to get creeped out if they think they’re being stalked or played. They find it far more romantic if a man instinctively anticipates what they need, but in order to do that, one has to take the time to figure it out. Since I don’t have the luxury of ‘dating,’ I had to find a more efficient way to do that. It’s the same game, just a different delivery. I can be prepared and you can be pleasantly surprised.”
I gulped hard as I realized how masterfully he had played the game. But it was what he said next that really took me by surprise.
“More importantly I wanted to see how you felt about your size, so I’d know which piece of clothing would make you feel the most beautiful.”
The way he said ‘your size,’ hit me like a brick to the face. “Two for two,” I gritted between clenched teeth before I turned away. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.
“This is why I don’t talk about my job, Coralie. It doesn’t matter how we got there.”
“It does to me,” I snapped. “I don’t want a relationship built with smoke and mirrors.”
He released my arm. “Then don’t marry your gigolo.”
I threw the top on the box and spun on my heel to leave the closet, but he closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. He wrapped one strong arm around my waist, lifted me up off the ground and into the unrelenting vice of his embrace. “Let me go!”
“Never,” he said softly. My eyes sought his. Resistance beyond that was futile and I knew it. “I don’t apologize for anything that brought us together, Coralie. Not one damned thing. I love you. And that is worth everything.”
*********
Like Devlin himself, I can't apologize for how we get there. That we get there, together, is worth everything.
Having said that:
**Author Not Responsible for Broken Kindles**
Are you sure you're ready for Book Two?
Gonna entertain ya till ya scream...
For those not familiar with the traditional three-act structure, it works kinda like this:
ACT I (Setup):
Introduce the characters and the world they inhabit. Give them clearly defined goals that will start them on their journey out of their comfort zone. Introduce the obstacles (including people, including themselves) that stand in the way of reaching those goals, underscoring how they will need to grow/change in order to get what they want.
In the case of WIZARD OF OZ, this was the B&W part of the story, pre-tornado, when all Dorothy wanted was to go somewhere else.
ACT II (Confrontation):
Release the monsters one at a time that prohibit your hero/heroine from getting what they want most. Complications = conflict, which motivates our character into action and keeps the story moving. Keep raising the stakes to the point where the protagonist can't go back to the way he or she was before. They are solidly on this new path, navigating this new world with all the new skills that they learn along the way, usually ending on a "point of no return," that demands the character has to take drastic action to achieve his or her goal.
For Dorothy, her fish-out-of-water story began the minute she got what she wanted - to be "over the rainbow." She stepped out into Oz and was given a brand new goal: To get back home. Along the way she met a slew of new friends in adventures that bring her to her "point of no return;" in order to return home, she has to kill the Wicked Witch.
ACT III (Resolution):
Protagonist faces off against antagonistic forces (whether people or events) in the ultimate showdown (i.e., climax) of the story. Whether the hero/heroine gets what he or she wants, this protagonist will ultimately get what he or she needs, fulfilled by the journey itself.
Flying monkeys. Wicked Witch. "I'm melting," "What a world," yadda yadda yadda. Dorothy does what she is supposed to do, and very nearly gets stuck in Oz with her new friends because as it turns out... that Wiz wasn't that much of a Wiz at all. But because of all she has learned, she is bestowed one final magic spell... that answers one last lingering question: will Dorothy ever make it home?
This is the natural flow of a story, whether a single plot told in one story, or an arc told over multiple installments. In fact, if you do write more than one book in a series, you have to pull off this three-act structure with every single book itself, with clearly defined goals (and conflict) for each and every one. This is what readers expect of you, even if they aren't aware of the specifics. And even if they can't say why, they'll definitely know when you've failed.
Every single story ever told answers certain questions in order of where they might prove most compelling. WHO are these people and WHY should I care? WHAT stands in their way? HOW do they overcome? WHEN those questions, and any new ones introduced along the way, are answered ultimately drives the story, demanding to know WHERE the payoff might be.
In stories executed well, it's the very next page after the one you're reading. This keeps you reading, even when you're forced every bit as much out of your comfort zone as the protagonist themselves.
The reader/audience, much like the protagonist, is basically a frog in a pot of water. We coax you into the pot gently, beguiling - seducing - you into the story, making you feel comfortable and safe until we start to turn up the heat in Act II. By Act III, the water is boiling and - if we're successful in how we have constructed our stories - you won't be able to hop out until you see how it all ends, despite how uncomfortable you are.
Act II is where you're going to get uncomfortable, like most confrontation proves to be. In fact, just by your emotional reaction alone, you can easily pinpoint where Act II begins (and climaxes) simply by your level of discomfort. Where did the characters piss you off? Where did they break your heart? This is where your subconscious realized that the water had started to boil and you had to adjust your *own* expectations accordingly.
You didn't really think it was just the protagonist that had to change, did you?
Act II forces every single one of us to confront our comfort zones. That is its whole purpose for being, and its importance cannot be overstated. There's a reason that a lot of writers are intimidated by Act II, because as the creator, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, our characters and even you, the reader. We're afraid to go too far, even when our stories demand it. We don't want to piss anyone off. We don't want to hurt anyone. Most of us are really nice people deep down. So many writers back off from this challenge, myself included. We envision that line of what we can tolerate and dance right up to it, generally only sticking a toe (or toenail) across it and considering it a "win" when we do. Because fiction = conflict, our stories often suffer because of our timidity. The creation of art is a spiritually violent act, much like giving birth. If it doesn't hurt us, challenge us, change us, motivate US to keep moving forward, then it's never going to work for any of you.
The masters of the craft know this and wield this important storytelling weapon accordingly.
Since I take my craft very seriously I take this responsibility very seriously, especially the more seasoned I get as a writer. I trust you more. I trust me more. I trust my stories more. As a result, Book Two is usually my challenge to take us *all* past our comfort zones for the sake of a story well told. And if you are upset, if you're mad, if you're heartbroken over these fictional characters and crazy stories that started out as mere thoughts and ideas in my fevered brain... that's a story well told. You may give me a one-star rating because you hated my characters and what they did to each other, or what I did to them, but what is hate if not another emotion? I made you feel something - strongly - so I consider this a win. In fact the stronger you feel, the more successful I was at my job. I made you care about what used to be a blank page, as if these things, people and places were real. If my characters zigged when you thought they should have zagged, and you form very strong opinions on it as a result, based on *nothing* more than the way I arrange letters on a screen - thinking, feeling, debating, worrying, anxious about, curious over, heartsick because of kernels of thought born in pure imagination alone -
That.
Is.
Astounding.
Seriously. It's magic. As a reader myself, I love when I can feel something that powerful, especially when all I really wanted was to be entertained. Make me cry, make me angry, make me feel; I'll love you a hundred times more because of it. These are words on a page, and they're making me feel something? How fucking incredible is that?? This is why I have no problem turning up the heat just so that *I* can get the most out of my story. I need to feel it. I need to be consumed by it. Like Garth says, "Life is not tried it's just merely survived if you're standing outside the fire." I jump in both feet.
Make it burn, leave a scar, and people will remember you forever.
This is why my FULLERTON FAMILY SAGA, easily the series with the most #feelz of any of my books, is my most beloved. It sold the most. It's been reviewed the most. And of all the reader feedback, it's the one where I've heard the most amazing stories of connection between the reader, the writer and the characters.
*****5- Heartsick, Broken and Pissed off -Stars***** "Why?! That same question has been on repeat in my head over and over and over since I finished this book. Why?! Ginger, WHY?! I waited a full day after finishing the book before even attempting to write up this review and I'm still not sure how I'm gonna get through it without completely losing my shit. I should have know, I did know, that there was a real good chance this book was going to destroy me-between the blurbs leading up to this final installment and that terrifying little sneak peak at the end of Entangled....I wasn't wrong to be worried, typing this up days later and I'm still in an emotional tailspin. If I could hunt down Ms. Ginger Voight I would hug her, beat her with my pitchfork, then cry on her shoulder. I can't remember the last time a book has affected me like this, so I guess no matter how I feel about how it all went down at the end, there is no denying Ginger Voight is an amazing author for bring such strong emotions out of me through her pen alone." - Bookworm Betties
Because of this, I refuse to pull any punches. If you're going to hate me (or break your Kindle,) it's going to start in Book Two. Never has that been truer than with MASTERS FOR LIFE. It should come with it's own warning label, and that comes from someone who generally shuns all warning labels. A long time ago I took the stance that if anyone needed a warning label to read a book, they should steer far clear of mine. I have no problem tackling ugly topics, as fearlessly as I can muster at the time. You're either going to love me or hate me, or love to hate me, but the minute you finish Book Two, I don't consider it a success unless you absolutely, positively, undeniably need to start Book Three to see how it all resolves, even if - especially if - you're scared absolutely shitless to do it.
I take this to new extremes in MASTERS FOR LIFE. From one of my betas, upon finishing Book Two: "Oh my God it is so awesome. I can't believe how you ended it. I need number 3 like yesterday."
This, in my mind, is a slam dunk. My goal was to write a book so gripping that you HAVE to get all your friends to read it, just so you'll have someone to talk to about it. This is why I have - if you'll pardon the pun - "infected" everyone I know with The Walking Dead. I *need* someone to talk to about this story because it's so freaking good. This is why I tune into The Talking Dead every single week to work through all the feelz with C-Hard, the cast, the creators and the fans. The minute the story hurts a little bit, I'm ready to talk it out with people who understand. It's kinda the best part about it.
But let's be honest. In order to inspire that kind of passion, it's gotta hurt. Happy-go-lucky, sexysexysexy only gets you so far. What people remember is when they got smacked in the face or kicked in the gut.
Whereas MASTERS FOR HIRE was a little more fun, a little sexier, a little more romantic, MASTERS FOR LIFE turns up the heat on our little froggies, Devlin and CC, and all who might love them. (Myself included.) Two virtual strangers are trying to forge a relationship together after two idyllic weeks together, with all the baggage in their past standing in their way. For Devlin Masters, our blank slate, our chameleon, this could (and does) mean anything. A couple of new characters find their way into the story, who definitely make things more... interesting. My main goal throughout Book Two was to keep CC guessing all the way through the book. Who can she trust? Who should she believe? Can she trust herself, even, as she watches herself morph and change into someone she doesn't really know?
In other words, welcome to Oz, my friends.
If you want a story to meander through various versions of a HEA for this couple for the next two books, I ain't yer girl. That shit doesn't interest me. I don't write escapism porn as a rule. You can escape into my books, but you're generally always relieved to make it back out again. My roller coasters shake you around a little bit, and you will need a little time to recover, which I figure is what all those happier books are for, including a few of my own.
For my series books, however, you're locked in for the ride. And I don't mind flipping the switch, taking you backwards, racing you forwards, and keeping you arse over teakettle until we're through... particularly in Book Two.
I'm out to test my couples how much they want to be together, and in doing so pose the ongoing question whether or not they deserve to be together. By the time you get to the resolution of this unusual story I've spent all this time building, I want you to buy Book Three complete with a Costco pallet of tissue and wine just to get to the end. And then we can meet and you can hug me, yell at me, curse me, then hug me again and cry on my shoulder. I will have the utmost empathy for your pain, because I've already done all those things to myself.
Throughout my second edit of MASTERS FOR LIFE, I forced myself to jump way past the line of my own personal comfort. As a result, there are a couple of scenes in this book that crawl all over me like a dozen scorpions. My first impulse is to apologize... to you and to my characters... even though I know this is the way the story has to go down in order to be told well.
If you've read my books in the past, you have an idea of what's coming, and are likely scared shitless as a result (as you should be.) For many of you, it's what you love most about me. For the rest... well, consider this your one and only warning.
I'm turning up the heat. The pot is going to boil. You will curse me, and I will deserve it. In fact, I've set up a brand new discussion forum, GV CORNER, where we can share all the feels.
Welcome to the conflict and chaos of Act II, where the fairy tale I crafted in Book One begins to fray as early as the first chapter in Book Two. Settle in as I finally start to pull back the curtain a little bit on our mysterious hero, Devlin Masters.
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Excerpt, Chapter One MASTERS FOR LIFE
Devlin already knew how much settling for anything pissed me the hell off. He also had appointed himself as my white knight, ensuring that I would never have to settle for anything again. He studied me for a long minute before he said, “Come on.”
I followed him from the bathroom back into the bedroom. He opened up the door to the huge walk-in closet, heading straight for the chest of drawers that sat right in the middle. On the top was a big cardboard box, where he began pulling out several pieces of clothing.
I could tell immediately that every single piece had been designed by his sister, Darcy. The way they flowed, the material she used; I could tell without even trying them on that they would fit to flatter in a way no other clothes I could find at Cabot’s could.
I didn’t have to ask him where he got them. Instead, I posed another, more curious question. “Why do you have a box full of your sister’s clothes?”
He sighed as he leaned against the drawers. “I fulfill my client’s fantasies, remember?”
I lifted up the sunny yellow top to my torso. “And it’s just a coincidence it’s in my size?”
His eyes never left mine. “No, Coralie. It’s not a coincidence.” I leaned back against the drawers as I waited for him to explain, which he did without on speck of apology. “I had Darcy send me a package of size-14 clothing within an hour of getting your first email.”
My mouth dried up instantly. “What? Why?”
He sighed as he turned back to the box to pull out more clothes. “I told you before. It’s my job to give women what they want most.”
“But how did you know that included clothes?” I persisted.
He flashed me that smirk. “All women love to feel pretty in their clothes, Coralie. You know that.”
“So… wait,” I said as my brain scrambled to compute this startling new data. “You knew who I was when I sent the email?”
He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower. “I researched you the minute I had a first and last name,” he admitted at last. “I research everyone. It helps to start a few paces ahead. I scope out a potential client’s social media, dig up any relevant articles or information on my more notable clients. I gather all available information before I initiate contact, so I can develop a plan of attack from there.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Interesting choice of words.”
He shrugged. “Like I told you before, a lot is riding on that first date.”
I thought back to how insecure I felt when he had originally drilled me about my dress size, something he now admitted to knowing all along. “Why did you bother asking me my dress size if you already knew it?”
He shrugged. “There was more benefit in my knowing the information than letting you know that I knew it. Women tend to get creeped out if they think they’re being stalked or played. They find it far more romantic if a man instinctively anticipates what they need, but in order to do that, one has to take the time to figure it out. Since I don’t have the luxury of ‘dating,’ I had to find a more efficient way to do that. It’s the same game, just a different delivery. I can be prepared and you can be pleasantly surprised.”
I gulped hard as I realized how masterfully he had played the game. But it was what he said next that really took me by surprise.
“More importantly I wanted to see how you felt about your size, so I’d know which piece of clothing would make you feel the most beautiful.”
The way he said ‘your size,’ hit me like a brick to the face. “Two for two,” I gritted between clenched teeth before I turned away. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.
“This is why I don’t talk about my job, Coralie. It doesn’t matter how we got there.”
“It does to me,” I snapped. “I don’t want a relationship built with smoke and mirrors.”
He released my arm. “Then don’t marry your gigolo.”
I threw the top on the box and spun on my heel to leave the closet, but he closed the distance between us in a heartbeat. He wrapped one strong arm around my waist, lifted me up off the ground and into the unrelenting vice of his embrace. “Let me go!”
“Never,” he said softly. My eyes sought his. Resistance beyond that was futile and I knew it. “I don’t apologize for anything that brought us together, Coralie. Not one damned thing. I love you. And that is worth everything.”
Like Devlin himself, I can't apologize for how we get there. That we get there, together, is worth everything.
Having said that:
**Author Not Responsible for Broken Kindles**
Are you sure you're ready for Book Two?
Gonna entertain ya till ya scream...
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