Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Three

 

"Never forget how small you are, Felix. When a man starts thinking he can control the beast, that's when She swallows him whole. No one remembers his name; he ain't nothin' but bleached bone washing up amongst the reeds, bits of him deep in the belly of a gator somewhere along the slimy bottom."

Like Chapter One, Chapter Three is putting in the work with this book. In Chapter Three, we finally, properly, meet Mercy.

Nothing about him surprised most anyone, really. 

One of the things I'm doing as we go along with this reread is address some of the cutting, usually hilarious bits of criticism the book, and I, have received over the past decade. Not because I have an axe to grind, but because I'm hoping to offer some insight into my process, and explain the mindfulness behind all the little creative choices in the novel. One such funny critique was - paraphrasing here - "Why should I care about alligators?" I wrote this post about it last year, so I won't rehash it all, but it's a very intentional choice in Chapter Three to introduce Mercy's POV with a glimpse at his childhood. Mercy is an unlikely combo of childishly sweet and extravagantly enthusiastic about violence. I don't think that characterization works without understanding the ways his early years were his most formative. 

Mercy's a strange bird. I researched the current MC romance trends back in 2014 when I started writing, saw the man-of-few-words, grunting, woman-ordering-around stereotypes, and swerved hard in the other direction. With all the guys, but mostly with Mercy. If I was going to write a Southern Epic, I was going to write a Southern Epic Byronic hero to go with it. My Cajun Heathcliff crossed with a modern Rhett Butler. His Cheerfully Murderous personality is 100% inspired by my now-departed dog, Viktor. 

A visit to the swamp of the past is a slow start here...but it all comes back in the end, and it's an essential part of understanding Mercy. 

Our other big introduction here is, of course, Ghost. 

Though a few inches shorter, Ghost was an imposing figure in his own right. The kind of man who made taller men want to bend their knees so they were on the same level. Lean and hard with muscle, his parentage of Aidan had never been in question: the same strong nose, dark hair and eyes, low brows that gave him a perpetual scowl, and a firm jaw that was always grinding. He’d boxed in the army, and he still had a fighter’s wide shoulders and catlike grace. Ghost never fidgeted; he had no nervous tics. He occupied a room with such indomitable presence, a radiant, unaffected confidence that was a part of his every fiber, and never a show.

Writing Ghost has always been fun, because I've always greatly enjoyed his role within the story, and have always spun him in a way that I knew would make readers dislike him. Let's be blunt: he's an asshole. But it was super important to me to showcase a couple of things, especially early on:

Firstly, that he's not going to be the same sort of president James was. He cares about the success and viability of his club beyond the social aspects. Lots of guys love to talk about being an outlaw, and playing by their own rules, but Ghost has the ambition and the ruthless savvy to back it up. In all honesty, I hope no one expected an MC president to be a nice guy. 

I also wanted to show a clear juxtaposition between Mercy's dad's "Daddy" bonhomie, and Ghost's relentless practicality and total disregard for niceties. It's something that will, ten years later, be echoed quite satisfyingly in Lord Have Mercy when Mercy stands up at church and says that there are times he's wanted to strangle Ghost, but that he loves him better than he loved his own father. That's a big deal. 

One last parting note: I love this line, because it's Mercy acknowledging what we'll all soon learn about Ava:

It seemed only fitting that as Ghost became the new president, Maggie would finally take her rightful place as queen of the MC.

               Ava didn’t know it yet, but she had that same steel in her.

Fearless Read-Along: Unconditional

 

Tomorrow we move on to Chapter Three in our read-along, so get your final Chapter Two questions, comments, observations, etc. in at the FB discussion group (there's obviously not a real time limit, you can ask about anything at any time). 

Today's post - later than intended thanks to a storm and a ten-hour power outage, yikes! - isn't so much focused on Chapter Two as on Ava and Mercy in general. Y'all had some great observations this week, specifically with regard to the Valentine's post. 

I loved hearing which romance in the Dartmoor Series was everyone's favorite. Lots of Ava/Mercy votes, as expected, but a fair number of Ghost/Maggie, Michael/Holly, Walsh/Emmie, and Reese/Tenny, too. I love seeing that variation, because I've always sought to showcase different relationship dynamics and character archetypes throughout the series, knowing everyone has different tastes. But even so, Mercy and Ava's love story sticks out; it feels more "epic" and cinematic than some of the others, and I think - and y'all awesomely pointed out! - that that's down to the unlikely and unconditional nature of their romance. 

Mercy and Ava are rare in that they quite literally know everything about one another. In part because Mercy was around while Ava was growing up, but also because, in the back half of Fearless, Mercy entrusts Ava with the dark side of his family history. She of course already knows all about the dark things he's willing to do for the club, and for her. There's no secrets between them, and they're both very, very secure in one another's love and affection. They aren't hiding anything from one another. Neither of them thinks about being unfaithful or is otherwise tempted in any way.

Whatever else is happening around them, there's never any doubt that they'll do absolutely anything it takes for one another and their family. That's a rare thing in real life, I think, and it's what makes their relationship so special. 

It's also a perhaps more extreme echo of Ghost and Maggie's relationship. Ghost is gruff and unpoetic, and as a couple they're longer-established and less demonstrative than Mercy and Ava are in the beginning, but Maggie and Ghost are just as ride-or-die for one another, something Aidan's unpleasantly reminded of in Lord Have Mercy. 

Happy Book Birthday to College Town

 

It's Valentine's Day, and the one-year bookiversary of College Town. Mired deep in the middle of writing Lord Have Mercy, at that stage in a book that size when it feels as though it will never end, I was struck by a sudden burst of unrelated inspiration, and ended up writing a standalone M/M romance that not only helped me work through some sticky places in LHM, but became my favorite project of the year. 

It features a second-chance romance between childhood sweethearts, some mafia action, and a surprise twist ending. You can grab a copy here, or at B&N or Kobo, and there's also a follow-up novella told from Tommy's POV, A Cure for Recovery. Both are perfect short and spicy-sweet V-Day reads. 

Blurb:

Welcome to Eastman, home of the Eastman University Eagles. They’ve got twelve bars, twice as many coffeeshops, and Lawson Granger’s probably going to die behind the counter of Coffee Town, watching all the bright young people in town get their degrees and get on with their lives. He’s not miserable, exactly, but between working retail, writing books that’ll never get published, and helping take care of his infirm father, his life’s running a little short on joy. He has his family, though, and his best friend, Dana, and dreaming about being published is somehow better than accepting that he never will be.

Then the boy who broke his heart twenty years ago walks into the shop one day and throws Lawson’s entire small world into chaos. Tommy Cattaneo grew up handsome. And rich, clearly, judging by his suit, and his watch, and his chauffeured Lincoln. If Lawson’s shocked to see him, Tommy is dumbfounded. Lawson’s happy to pretend they’re strangers, despite the traitorous racing of his heart, but Tommy is adamant that they talk. He wants to explain why he left town suddenly…and returned twenty years later, with a beautiful fiancée, and a mansion, and a wardrobe that costs more than Lawson’s car.

When it becomes clear that Tommy means to stay in town for a while, and that he won’t take no for an answer, Lawson agrees to hear him out. Just once, and then he can lay his old heartache to rest. It’s probably a stupid excuse, anyway. I mean, t’s not like Tommy’s in the mafia…right?

#WorkshopWednesday: Nonlinear

Chapter One lays down a lot of foreshadowing, and Chapter Two ups the ante. By this point, it's very clear that something's gone down in the past between Mercy and Ava. But there are also lots of little hints about Ava's upbringing, the club's history, and even Tango's dark past. In a different sort of novel, this could merely be foreshadowing as a shorthand backstory. But this is me, and my favorite literary device is the nonlinear narrative structure. 

You'd be hard-pressed to find one of my books that doesn't include flashbacks. (I think the Drakes are straight-up linear, so that's something.) The most common criticism of the "Then" and "Now" technique is that frequent or lengthy flashbacks disrupt forward momentum, and force readers to flip back because they've forgotten where the present-day story line left off before the flashback began. Valid criticisms, but criticisms I'm willing to risk because, for me, a linear narrative can just as easily be struck down by a case of "what's the point?" In a novel of this size and scope, a linear storytelling structure can start to feel like an endless slog. 

With Fearless specifically, it was important to me that I show, explicitly and in detail, Mercy and Ava's first doomed romance when she was seventeen. Because it's taboo, and shocking, and ends badly, I felt like readers needed to walk through step-by-step with Mercy and Ava in order to understand just how much they mean to one another. Seeing it firsthand builds more empathy for their unlikely situation than summarizing it in a couple paragraphs. I could have started in the past, and written straight through to the present day, but I feel like that would have made the book feel longer and less accessible. Readers would go through that whole roller coaster with Mercy and Ava, be left sad and disappointed, then see there were four-hundred more pages to go in the book. I think lots of people, having experienced one denouement, would have set the book aside, and might not have returned to it. 

By starting in the present day and introducing a juicy new conflict and a scary enemy, it establishes intrigue from the very first. Readers can then safely enjoy the large flashback portion of the book knowing that Ava and Mercy will reunite five years later. That they'll be back in one another's orbit, still drawn to each other, and with much more story to tell. 

In this way, the beginning of the book hooks you in; the second part gives you the sordid history, so you'll understand why things are so dramatic now; then parts three and four carry us home. I genuinely can't imagine writing it a different way. I think the nonlinear narrative style allows you more leeway with backstory, rather than less. I think it makes the novel richer in the long run. 

#TeaserTuesday: AOTE Cover Reveal

 

“I want to believe you.” That was far too candid, but she was past the point of caring.

He nodded. “I understand why you don’t.”

Amelia frowned, and massaged at the tension that sprouted in the center of her forehead. “Gods…why are you so bloody agreeable all the time? I hate it.” When she gapped her fingers and peered through them, she saw that the slight frown he’d worn the past few minutes had turned the other direction. His lips formed the barest upward curve, more a neutral expression than a true smile, but something bright had come into his eyes.

“I’ve never actually been part of an argument before,” he said, like a confession.

She snorted. “No free will, no romance, no arguing, hm?”

“None.”

Tired of holding it, arm full of pins and needles, Amelia laid the sword carefully on the ground, within reach should she need it. She rested her elbow on her knee, and cupped her chin in her hand. “I should kill you, you know.”

He nodded, and looked neither surprised nor alarmed. “You’d be within your rights, both as an Aquitainian and the commander of this army.”

“See?” She sat up, and gestured at him with both hands, frustrated, tired, bloody sick of making decisions and then wondering if they were the right decisions. “Agreeable. Too agreeable. What sort of man says ‘yes, my lady, you’d be within your rights to kill me?’ This is why I don’t trust you. Why you must be spying on us.”

He waited a beat, seeing if she was done, she supposed. Her too-quick, open-mouthed breathing filled the tent, and she clamped her lips shut tight.

When she was quiet, he said, “It’s as I’ve said before: I don’t wish to be a Sel any longer. Not to be a Selesee slave, at any rate. I want to be free. And I believe helping you is the only way I can be.”

A part of Amelia wanted to scream.

A larger part of her wanted to tip over onto the cot, curl up, and sleep for three days.

She did neither, but said, “When was the last time someone offered you water?”

“A…while.”

#TeaserTuesday: LDL 6

 

So hot off the press it doesn't even have a title yet. I started planning this before I broke ground on Lord Have Mercy, and, unfortunately, it won't leave me alone. This one scales back to a more intimate, personal conflict, a little more romance-focused, less club-takes-on-the-world. We're back in New York with the youngest of Devin's brood, set three years after Nothing More. 

 

Shep expected an interrogation, and wasn’t disappointed. The second they heard a door click shut down the hall, Toly turned to him, eyes nothing but dark slits, jaw set at a tense angle. The whole effect was ruined by the squirming baby on his shoulder and the disaster of his hair, but Shep was going to enjoy that rather than point it out.

“Where was she?”

“Sounding awful fatherly there, Moscow,” Shep drawled.

Toly exhaled forcefully and didn’t deign to repeat himself. He was serious, Shep saw, and he could respect that; in this case, he was serious, too.

He dropped the asshole act. “Big white townhouse on the UWS. She was sitting on the sidewalk when I got there, halfway to hypothermic, and some little punkass was trying to give her something in a Solo cup.” His hand clenched on empty air at the memory of seeing her like that, clearly incapacitated, weaving where she sat in an inelegant heap on the cold concrete, some chinless little shit looming in her face and waving around more drugs in a cup. “When she called, she was slurring and out of it. She said she only had three sips and shouldn’t have been drunk.”

Toly’s expression darkened. “And you believed her?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“She just lied straight to my face.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t lie to me.”

Toly opened his mouth…and then closed it. A groove appeared between his black brows.

Shep found that he didn’t want to backtrack or otherwise diffuse the statement. It was true, and he liked that it was. In fact, it felt satisfying to define it out loud that way. Maybe she was a little shit, but she didn’t feed him fibs the way she did other people. He got the truth; it almost felt, strangely, satisfyingly, like he’d earned that truth.

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Two

 

             “What’s wrong with you? You were fine, and then you just weren’t.” His head dipped, his eyes bright and knowing. “When your brother mentioned whoever that Mercy person is – that is a person, right? And not the dog? I honest to God can’t tell.”

               She felt her lips form a smile, but she was deep inside her own head, somewhere back behind her face and whatever mannequin expression it managed to propel toward him. “I’m just tired,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”

               “Okay, clearly, I don’t know jack shit about all this biker nonsense” – a part of her recoiled against that phrasing – “but I know you well enough to know that something’s up. It was like someone flipped a switch back there at the…the…”

               “Clubhouse.”

               “Yeah.” He reached for a lock of her dark brown hair and gave it a little tug. “You’re not yourself.”

               Maybe, she thought bitterly, you don’t know when I’m being “myself.” You wouldn’t like me if you ever saw the real me. 

Reading this chapter was an exercise in what my mom likes to call giving myself some grace, because I wanted to rewrite the entire thing. I wouldn't change anything that happens, that's all fine and necessary, but I very much wanted to change the way I describe all of it. I think that's going to be something that plagues me through the read-along. It's been ten years, and I'm a stronger, better writer now...but now is not the time to invest time and effort into the herculean task of rewriting this monster. I'm choosing to see it as a net positive that, ten years later, I've grown enough as a writer to see where I would tighten and adjust my old work. 

Anyway. Chapter Two introduces us to some more major players, chiefly Maggie and Carter. The queen is busy getting the clubhouse set up for the big party, and we also meet her fellow old ladies. It was a little surreal to see Ava thinking of herself as not being one of them: she's still unattached to a Dog here, and after ten years of writing her as Mrs. Lecuyer, it's startling to go back to the time before. 

I said in the FB group last week that I think Maggie is one of the characters who changes the least over the course of the series, and I definitely stand by that statement. As much as I love writing characters who struggle, and who overcome, and who learn about themselves and their families in the process, this ragtag group of characters needs a rock, and that's Mags. I don't think she ever lets anyone down over the course of ten books...although, to be fair, Aidan's a little bummed after LHM for obvious reasons. He gets it, but it still stings. 

Speaking of struggling, poor Carter's in a not-great place here in Chapter Two. His dreams of a bright future have been shattered, and he's more than a little lost in life, searching for a purpose. I think that's something that attracts men to outlaw MCs in real life - that need for a purpose, feeling out of options and shut out from society - and it's something I tried to bring to life with Dartmoor. No one successful and well-adjusted prospected with the club, though many of them ended up that way after patching in. 

Anyone reading Fearless for the first time probably feels bad for Ronnie at this point. Ava isn't acting like herself - or she isn't acting like the version of herself Ronnie has always known. Chapter Two is the beginning of the end for them: every second spent in Knoxville she feels more divided, and his insistence that something is wrong only makes her resent him more. In this chapter, we see Ronnie starting to push back against her emotional whiplash.

Of course, knowing what I do about Ronnie, it's hard for me to feel too bad for him. 

In Chapter Two, we "lay eyes" on Mercy, but we don't see Ava interact with him. It was important to me that he stand out physically in his scene to really drive home what a blow the sight of him is for Ava. I'll admit, and I think it's obvious in the glimpse we catch of him through Ava's eyes here, that I did not initially envision Jason Momoa when crafting Mercy. There's only a tiny handful of characters I had actors in mind for from the start, and Mercy wasn't one of them. But my friend Lisa mentioned him in the early days of Dartmoor, and it caught on quick with readers. At this point, I think Jason's the universally accepted head-canon, and his real-life personality is a good fit for Mercy. 

Comments, questions? Drop them below, or head over to the FB group to join the book club discussion! Grab a copy of the book if you haven't and read along with us!