The Long Game Part 2

Reese stared at him. “You almost died.”

“Because – as we’ve already established – I’m stupid. Had I been treating it like a proper op I never would have put myself, or the op itself, into that kind of jeopardy. There. Are you happy that I’ve admitted it?”

“Yes.”

Tenny showed a moment’s surprise, like he hadn’t thought Reese might agree. “Careful,” he said, and Reese realized that he’d smiled, and when had that started happening? “Had I treated it like a proper op,” Ten continued, “we’d have landed the shooter, freed the doctor, all of it over and done with in a flash.

“My point is this: Fox is testing us as human beings.” His lip curled on the word, making a face as if he’d tasted something foul. “As potential brothers in this club.”

“I like the club.”

“Of course you do, you simpleton.”

“The club is a family,” Reese insisted.

“Yes, I’m painfully aware.”

“Don’t you want a family?”

More surprise. A blanking of the face and a rounding of the eyes. A beat of silence. A shift in tone. “Do you?”

“I’ve always had a sister.”

“To whom you are related by blood, and with whom your former employers controlled your allegiance. I was briefed on you,” he said. “But these men will never be your brothers. Do you think they care for you? That they love you?”

He thought about his phone call with Mercy earlier, the now-familiar softness and affection in the big man’s voice. Mercy was many things, but never duplicitous. Never subtle.

“What?” Tenny asked, brows lowering, because he must have had another facial malfunction.

“The club is a place for people who don’t fit in anywhere else,” Reese said, repeating what Mercy had once told him. “It’s a family for people like us.”

Ten studied him a moment longer, and then let his head fall back, let his eyes fall shut. Just talking like this had exhausted him. He yawned, and it didn’t seem fake. “Christ,” he murmured.

“You can sleep,” Reese said. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Oh, wonderful. I feel safer already.” But a few moments later, his breathing had evened, and the cruel line of his mouth softened.

Reese settled back in his chair to wait, and watch, an inexplicable kernel of warmth blooming in his chest. 

From Lone Star, Dartmoor Book 7 

 Continuing where yesterday’s post left off, we’re back talking about Dartmoor’s long game today. The above scene is one of my absolute favorites from Lone Star, which, among other things, introduced Reese and Tenny to one another…and then introduced them to the idea of perhaps not hating one another so much. The way their dynamic begins, grows, and ends in this installment of the series is worth the price of admission, in my opinion, and is something that needed to unfold in an earlier book before we finally got to their joint story. 

But Tenny and Reese are most definitely side characters in this book. As are Fox and Eden, and Albie and Axelle. Theirs are slow-percolating stories that need multiple books across which to play out. At its heart, Lone Star belongs to Michelle and Candy. 

If we go back to the early, conceptualization days of the novel, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure I wanted to write this book – or to even continue the Dartmoor series at all. Rediscovering my love for it, and, most importantly, the fictional people who populate it, is a post for another day – one I’m already drafting in my mind. But Lone Star specifically began with a scene I’d wanted to write for years. One I very nearly used to begin an ultimately-abandoned fanfiction story back in 2009. The buzzards circling. The bodies laid out in the desert, staked hand and foot. Never underestimate the power of an image that refuses to leave you; sometimes, it’s waiting for the right moment, and the right story. Lone Star offered me a chance to explore a new kind of enemy – one more mysterious and less straightforward. And one who would lead our main characters to an even more mysterious, and more dangerous, ultimate enemy. I wanted to build a big boss, and a big boss needed a big, multi-book buildup, which begins here, with Luis. 

While I’ve always included the ongoing trials and tribulations of all my couples here and there as the series progresses, I’d never before centered a book on a couple who’d already gotten their HEA. I was hesitant. A book needs tension, and I really don’t ever want that tension to be an affair, or a divorce, or anything like that. Realistic, sure, but reading my books is about escapism, and I don’t want any of those HEAs to be undone. In this instance, the tension comes about – organically, I think – from Michelle’s changing circumstances as a mom, now pregnant for the second time. She’s having to balance the secret-ops whiz she was with motherhood, and of course Candy’s worried about her; I wanted to explore the inevitable tension that arises when he tries to protect her, and winds up smothering her instead. Wanted to show them finding that balance between being outlaws and being parents – ones who effectively communicate their wants and needs with one another. The honeymoon phase is over, and now it’s time to function as married business partners, as well as club king and queen. 

Something else touched on in the book – and which I hope to some day have time to really dig into, because I think it’s an important point to make amidst the club’s rapid physical and financial expansion – is some members’ dissatisfaction with the club’s new direction. It’s a brotherhood, and a pseudo-democracy, sure, but the president still rules, and the mother chapter president rules over all. It’s natural that not all the guys would be onboard with the shift. In this book, that guy is Jinx. I’m pleased with the pacing of the book, and didn’t want to clutter its narrative with too great a diversion into Jinx’s issues – and the way his represent the issues of all the members unhappy with the expansion – but it’s a topic I’d like to explore further in some capacity. Perhaps in a novella that isn’t as high stakes. The optimistic part of me thinks it’d be a great central plot for a book focused on a love story for Jinx, a way for him to be real with Candy about his distrust, while he grapples with guilt, but the realistic part of me is eyeing my stack of WIPs and biting my nails. 

Lone Star is a mystery/thriller shift for the Lean Dogs, full of car chases (more than one!), twisted villains, and a healthy dose of Girl Boss action. It’s not to be missed, and it also lays all the groundwork for Reese and Tenny’s romantic relationship. I really enjoyed flipping through it today to find the quote I pulled, and it’s another stepping stone toward the newest installment, Nothing More, which is out now! 

The Long Game Part 1

Let's talk a little about reading order, and about the long game. 

As its author - and steward, I'll say, because I feel as though I'm ushering these characters through their adventures at this point, rather than deciding for them - the thing about Dartmoor that I find to be the most challenging, but also the most interesting, is the long game. It's not a loosely-connected sequence of standalones, but rather a continuous, ongoing story, with happy-for-nows, and moments of satisfying wrap-up in each book. As the series has progressed, the story has become more reliant on the previous books, rather than less; the weaving of the tapestry more complex, and trickier to continue, with new patterns branching off in multiple directions. As I said, though: for me, that's what keeps it interesting. It's also what enables me to play out scenarios not possible in standalone novels. Some stories need time to marinate, and the current nature of the series allows me to play the long game to best effect. 

In Nothing More (out now, run get it!), we get to see Raven fall in love with a biker, which she never expected to do. We also get to see her friendship with Ian, and the progress she's making in her relationships with certain family members (Tenny and Devin). In this way, the book is a culmination of threads first laid down in Prodigal Son. 

Some have said that PS is a tonal shift for the series. If we want to play with semantics - I'm an author, I always want to play with semantics - I would argue that the tone is in line with the rest of the series: one that balances life-and-death drama, interpersonal family drama, and a hefty dose of silliness and dark humor for levity. PS is no darker, nor lighter, nor less character-driven than the other books. What it does do, however, is greatly broaden the scope of the drama. I think it feels like a big jump, from small-town villains, to international, powerful villains, with a hefty dose of espionage, spy thriller, and a touch of Manchurian Candidate, supersoldier wildness thrown in. In this way, it was a genre shift, rather than a tonal one. I'm very careful, when writing all my series, to maintain a certain "voice" for each. Dartmoor doesn't read like the Sons of Rome, doesn't read like the Drakes, doesn't read like Hell Theory, and by design. But up until this point, Dartmoor had felt very nitty-gritty, all-American, rough-and-ready biker...and PS throws the reader across the pond and into something with a much higher budget and production value, lol. It feels different because we're in a different city, with a (somewhat) different cast, facing different types of villains.

I'd also argue, though, that it's a shift that not only was inevitable, but was built up along the way. The trajectory of the Dogs is one of expansion: expanding chapters, expanding influence in the underworld, expanding wealth and power. Under Ghost, and with Ian as patron and ally, they've gone from local rowdy boys, to serious players on an international scale. And serious players inevitably attract serious enemies. The question I asked myself while writing PS, which felt like a juncture, was, "Do I want to keep going in the same vein? Or grow the series the same way I'm growing the characters?" For my own sanity, and to keep from churning out photocopies of what I'd already done, I leaned into the expansion, and the result has been some of my favorite moments, characters, and books of the series. Imagine a character like Tenny in Fearless. It would never have worked. But the world of the Dogs has expanded, and now we're here.

PS was our first real introduction to Devin, and watching him flit in and out of the kids' lives has been one of my favorite things to write. It's also the book that introduces Tenny, and the one in which Raven and Ian meet for the first time. The book that starts the Dogs on "ops" rather than more basic runs. It lays the groundwork for all that comes after, and it's the beginning of the story that continues in Nothing More. 

One of the most rewarding aspects of writing is looking back over your shoulder at the beginning, and seeing the tapestry laid out behind you, this unexpected, intricate portrait in threads of every color. And, even better, knowing there's threads still to weave.

The whole series is best read in order, but if you're wondering where to start for Nothing More specifically, start with Prodigal Son. Over the next few days, I'll walk us through the path between it and NM in a series of posts celebrating the long game. 

Nothing More Live in the Wild

In case you missed this morning’s posts, Nothing More is finally live! It’s out on Kindle, and I’ve uploaded the paperback; just waiting on review approval from Amazon for that one. I’ve tried – keyword tried – getting it uploaded to BN and Kobo, but no dice so far. The upload screens just spin and spin without progress. I’ll try again later. 

Anyway, it’s out! I’m happy, I’m relieved – turning a book loose in the wild always feels like turning in a massive research paper in school and then switching your brain off right afterward. Big sigh. Once it’s been out for a week or two, I want to do a spoilery debrief post where I can break down specific scenes and creative decisions. I’d even love to take reader questions in that post, so be thinking of yours as you read and I’ll ask for them in a FB post before I draft the blog post. For now, though, I’m talking about the book in a general sense.

Last year, right after I released Long Way Down, I thought I’d push Fortunes of War back a teensy bit to make room for a “quick” NaNo project featuring Raven and Toly. *laughs through the tears over “quick”* I finished the manuscript in February, and then spent the past month editing and working with my editor and beta to get it to where I wanted it. 4 months is quick in the publishing industry (5 if you count this month), but it’s felt like a much larger undertaking than I originally anticipated. 

I think for some, romantic storytelling is about offering fantasies into which readers can insert themselves: authors asking “what do readers want for themselves?” For me, it’s instead about matchmaking. About pairing characters based on chemistry, experiences, attraction – I’m thinking about them as if they were two friends I was trying to set up at a party. It’s not about what I want, but about what works best for them as a couple. It’s an approach that’s led me to some unexpected pairings, Raven and Toly, for instance, but which always keeps me on my toes; the challenge keeps it interesting. 

As I sit here in Soffee shorts and a hoodie, between horse feedings and dogs walks, it’s safe to say Raven isn’t much like me at all. She’s one of my favorites, though, and I’ve always been very hesitant to pair her with anyone for a book of her own. Wealthy, chic, sharp-tongued – she’s a great secondary character, but had the potential be off-putting at center stage. Like with every character, I couldn’t write her a love story until I knew what made her most vulnerable. She’s a badass in the modeling and fashion business; nothing scares her professionally, and she never walks away from a meeting without holding the upper hand. Her vulnerabilities are more personal: like all of Devin’s kids, she’s got that killer edge, and intolerance for bullshit. She can play Flattered with the men in her social circles…but secretly hates it. Romantically, she wants a partner: someone good in bed, but someone competent and tough enough to be allowed into her closest confidences. She always thought she’d have to keep a man at arm’s length from her family, because whether he was a banker, or a biker, she assumed he’d be a blowhard she tolerated, rather than loved. Not to get too Freudian about it, but though she never acknowledged it, she was always going to need to be with someone who reminded her of her (most capable) brothers. And someone who was also content to sit back and let her be the social alpha of their pairing. Not a queen because she was married to a king, but a queen in her own right, with her mate standing as prince consort. That’s Toly. 

In a complimentary sense, Toly’s vulnerabilities are personal, too. He knows he’s capable professionally…but he’s only ever been a professional asset. He’s never had anything like a dependable personal connection with anyone, friendly or romantic. There’s a scene in which he wonders if he would even recognize happiness if he felt it. When he was bratva, the women around him were either terribly vulnerable (like his mother), or paid to be there. He likes that Raven is so steely, and her own woman, that she doesn’t need the club financially or socially. They also have a connection that she doesn’t even know about, and which you’ll have to read to learn. Developing feelings for her gives him a bit of an internal crisis, but it turns out, all he ever really wanted out of life was a family. He didn’t expect her crazy family, but it’s a good fit. 

This installment takes place entirely in New York, in both Manhattan and Albany, and it’s very tangled up in the NYC organized crime scene. Club vs. bratva, past vs. future. There’s lots more romance than Long Way Down, along with healthy doses of mystery, violence, and all the usual Dartmoor warning labels. I’m so pleased that these two unlikely characters found their perfect match in each other, and I so hope you’ll enjoy reading about them. 

Xx Lauren 

New Release

 The latest chapter of the Lean Dogs Legacy saga is finally here! You can grab Nothing More for Kindle, with paperback and other formats soon to follow. 

Within the improbable, extraordinary brood of Devin Green’s ten children, Raven is the one who’s managed to make a real-world success of herself. Runway model turned modeling agent, designer, and cover girl, she doesn’t need the club…but is loyal to it all the same, for her brothers’ sakes. That loyalty put her in the crosshairs of a powerful enemy, though, and though Abacus has been disassembled, Raven finds herself jumpier than usual: she can’t sleep, she drinks too much coffee, and she’s not ready to send her Lean Dog security escort packing just yet.

And then a grisly token arrives in the mail, and her anxiety is thrown into overdrive.

Post-Abacus, Anatoly Kobliska has been charged with keeping a close eye on Raven, posing as her assistant at her posh new modeling agency in New York, drawn to her, but very aware that he can’t make any sort of move. When someone starts stalking Raven, it brings his own past as a bratva foot soldier rushing in to crowd the present. He thought he left that old life behind, traded one sort of outlawry for another, but the bratva has other ideas.

Thrust into a cat and mouse game of club versus bratva, Raven and Toly must rely on one another for security…and find a little succor along the way. Seemingly different in every way, both of them know what it’s like to be caught between two dangerous worlds. Raven always told herself she’d never fall for a biker, but she never counted on Toly.

Nothing More is the fifth installment in the Dartmoor Series spinoff “Lean Dogs Legacy” series, and is intended for adult audiences. It is not a standalone, and references all previous series storylines.

Light Studies

 

I think sometimes "detail" in writing is seen as unnecessary filler that stands in the way of "story." That it's a way to pad out a book as a means of upping the page count, or is the result of an author not knowing when to dial things back. While I DO think there are times when certain details detract rather than add to a story, I don't see "detail" and "story" as two separate entities. I think there are readers who don't genuinely like the act of reading: readers who want to know what happens, but who don't care about the words that led to that understanding. That's fine, obviously - but I love words. I love the play of them against one another; the ebb and flow. The words themselves, the use of them, their arrangement, the sounds they make in your mouth and brain are what give a story its tone. Its emotion. Striking details are what elevate a story from a simple recitation of events to something vivid and cinematic - and I am ALWAYS aiming for cinematic with my writing. 

Lighting - natural and artificial - is what makes a film or a TV show visually stunning. It's what makes an otherwise flat photo a work of art. In the garden, at the barn, I find myself constantly captivated by the play of light and shadow; by the shifting quality of sunlight as the seasons progress. It's something I love using in my writing. I can't capture it and press it into the pages of the book, obviously, not in a literal sense, but I can use detailed descriptions to make it a visual experience for readers. The light sets the scene, and the characters move through it, and if you can envision the moment playing out as if you were watching it unfold in real life, or on a movie screen, then I've been able to use the physical realm to manipulate your emotions while reading. That's the point of detail: to convince you to feel a certain way. 

That's why lighting is so important, and one of my first concerns when laying out a scene in one of my novels. Whether it's the pure, fragile white-gold of an afternoon in early spring, the magenta veins traceable in the soft pink petals of a tulip. Or the blue glow of a TV late at night, when a commercial comes on, and the drinks have kicked in, and trading quips over the latest episode of Grey's turns into one of those heavy, Real Talk conversations. The corals and sherbets of an idyllic sunset after the perfect day, when your mouth still tastes like popsicles and your face hurts from smiling so much. The bold, heavenly shafts of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. The heady flicker of a half-dozen candles trying to press the shadows deeper into the corners. Silent dust motes swirling in the lazy panels of summer light beaming across the floorboards. All of it makes you feel a different way; paints a different sort of scene.

Light shapes the way we see the world around us, and a detail that important is, at least for me, an essential consideration while writing. 

A Day In The Life

I overslept the first Monday of Daylight Savings 😭 I love the time change - the darker mornings and longer evenings - and usually don't mind the springing forward part, but this morning, I switched off my alarm, rolled back over, and slept through my early writing block. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of life, obviously, but I'm sad that it's thrown off the day's mojo. 

One of the best things about writing for a living is the flexibility it offers. The downside, though, is that because writing a book is a lengthy process, it takes discipline and patience to get to the finish line again and again. 

During the week, and often on weekends, too, if I can swing it, I set my alarm for six. The creative part of my brain works best first thing in the morning, without dog and horse and garden and other real-life distractions. I get up, make coffee, find something calming to stream - British garden and home shows, generally - at a low volume, and settle in with my laptop for a couple hours of writing. No email, no phone, just words. On a good day I can work in 2k or so, but at least 1k on a tired morning. The dogs are up about eight, they go for walks, and then Strider comes with me to the barn for morning feeding and turning out. I usually then write while I eat breakfast. After, there's more farm and house stuff to attend to; this is also when I try to take my photos for Insta, draft blog posts, work out, etc. I get a third block of writing time in somewhere between 2 and 5 p.m., while the dogs nap, and then it's evening barn time, another workout,/walk, and that leads to dinner and, like now, editing in the evening. Strider goes to bed at midnight - otherwise he can't make it through the night without a trip out, and I generally drop my Kindle on my face around 12:30 and manage to switch it off before I pass out. 

You're probably thinking that sounds like a lot of writing time. You might even be thinking I ought to churn out books much more quickly than I do. I really do hate the way the dishonesty in this industry has given some readers unrealistic expectations. 

But let's look at the honest parts, first: obviously, every writer has a unique approach and process. Some have the best Brain Juice in the mornings, some in the evenings, or middle of the night. There are those who write to music, to TV (me), or to complete silence. Coffeeshop writers, and home office writers, and, in my case in college, Student Center writers hammering out new fanfic chapters in the breaks between classes. Some writers draw up extensive outlines, and some, like me, are allergic to outlines. Some write out of order, and some start at the beginning, and write straight through to the end - that's me. 

In some cases - typically with flashback heavy books, like Sons of Rome - I'll write the book in two separate documents and then dovetail them together when I'm finished. Typically, though, I start with chapter one, and write the book all the way through. I have a daily minimum word count of 2k words, which I charge myself to meet even if it's a struggle, though shoot for more than that. Last week I hit between 5-6k every day, which isn't usual, but felt hugely productive. That's the equivalent of writing an entire college term paper every day. 

If you're thinking, so? That's your job. Sit down and type until you're done. Well...sitting down and typing is certainly a means of putting words on a page...but are they good words? Inspired, artful words that paint an earnest portrait of the characters? Have you balanced your metaphors, and captured the right tone with the dialogue? Have you worked through a character's inner turmoil? Or have you churned out the same old reheated, gas station burrito drek you slung the last ten books, the names and places copy-pasted in? 

Writing - story crafting - is not simply an act of typing. At least half of it is pausing to stare out a window and stew over a scene. A few paragraphs of dialogue can take an hour of writing, rewriting, and stewing, changing your mind. Tweaking, always tweaking. My process is not "get it done and fix it later." I might end up needing to fix it later, but I will have blocked out time in the moment to get it as near to perfect as I envisioned. Often, scenes that were a general idea flesh themselves out in unexpected, but necessary ways during the actual nitty-gritty of putting words on the page. Often, I have to pull up a previous book in a series to double-check something; or go walk around a bit on Google Earth to get a street reference correct. You have to Google so much. Sometimes I'll set a project aside to talk to my beta about an idea, work it out verbally before I try to write it. It's a whole process, and it takes a great amount of mental focus and acuity. (Eating eggs for breakfast helps!) Just like your body, your mind gets tired. I can have a hot streak of insane word counts for a week...and then, suddenly, it's brain soup, and even reading takes too much mental energy. Your body gets wrecked, too, without sufficient breaks. Your neck, back, and wrists will fail you if you spend too many uninterrupted hours at the computer. Your eyes start to ache; I swapped from contacts back to glasses a couple years ago and the terrible, daily migraines eased up enormously, so that's helpful. Even so, there are days when I simply hurt too badly to hit word count. I beat myself up over that, which does no good, but, well. It's a personal failing. 

Now. About that dishonesty I mentioned earlier. When I started out as a baby writer, fresh from fanfic land and eager to tackle original projects, I naively thought that everyone approached writing in a similar way. That it was the result of intense imagination of the sort that overflowed and needed to come pouring out of you. That each author was an individual, like me, sitting down to put their ideas on paper, one line, one scene, one page at a time. That it was a purely personal feat they'd poured their hearts and souls into. 

Cue the emails of offers from ghostwriters. I assumed ghostwriting was a way for non-writers to release books, say when a chef, or pro athlete, or celebrity wants to pen a biography. It's in fact startling and disappointing how many romance authors are in fact collections of several ghostwriters working together, with a singular name and face posing as "the author." I guess if you want to pay people to write books that you then slap your name and face on, go ahead...but why??? And why lie about it? Why pretend little old you wrote the books alone? Also, it's being talked about more broadly now, but using AI to write books is not a new thing. There's been "authors" using programs like that for a while: they plug in some of their work, some of another author's work, change some names, rework some of the wording, and voila, new "book." Some have been caught doing it, when the program glitches, or when they outright copy/pasted another author's work verbatim without changing anything. Then there's book stuffing, and authors pretending to be dead to make money off a funeral Go Fund Me - that story was wild, y'all. The sock puppet stuff is even wilder. Since I released Fearless, I've had several authors use various sock puppet accounts - badly and not cleverly, I might add - in an attempt to undermine my confidence, urge me to give up, or, even better, support them. These are women who've spent years giving me hassle. I can't comprehend wasting one second of time doing such a thing - and such a shitty thing at that. 

Disappointingly, publishing is crookeder than a dog's hind leg, and anyone who claims it isn't is, I promise you, doing something crooked. Not illegal, probably...but dishonest. In poor taste. And I hate the way some of the assertions from the ghostwriter-backed, copy/pasters has led audiences to believe that it's totally normal and feasible for an author to write something like a book a week. You'd have to be a cyborg to achieve that - not to mention, have no kids, no pets, no carpets to vacuum, no meals to prepare. It's a lie, but one that has shifted the narrative, so that working at a reasonable pace is deemed "slow." 

"Why can't you write as fast as so-and-so?" you might ask.

But ask yourself this: "Was anything written that fast worth reading?"

You have no idea how much I wish I could produce books at a faster rate. But I also refuse to release books that I'm not proud of. The next time someone starts spinning the "tra-la-la, I'm just so fast, and good, and positive, and I just get stuff done, writing's so effortless for me, ha ha!" tale? Question it. I promise it's, as Raven would say, a "load of bollocks."

Anyway, Happy Monday! I'm cranky because I overslept. I'm not sure how much writing I'll get done today, so I'm concentrating on editing instead. I'm thinking next week for Nothing More. Wish me luck, and good Brain Juice. 

Not Quite Teaser Tuesday: Fortunes of War

 I've been on a bit of a creative tear all week working on Fortunes of War. I anticipated getting back into the Drakes slowly while I worked on Nothing More edits...but instead it's been full speed ahead. No sense wasting inspiration when it strikes that hot. At this rate, it's going to drop quickly on the heels of Nothing More, and it's going to be a fun one!

Here's what I should have posted for Teaser Tuesday, had I not been locked in The Zone.

Oliver encounters familiar (wolf) faces in the Between while dreaming:

**

Oliver said, “Do I know you?”

Two heads snapped his direction. One raised high, the other tucked low, uncertain…submissive. Both of them had blue eyes. Not that awful, burning lilac shade of the emperor, but a true, freshwater blue, reminiscent of cold, Northern skies.

The same shade, in fact, as Erik’s eyes.

Recognition dawned with a spark of excitement. “Leif?” Oliver asked. “Is that you? And that would mean…” His gaze slid to the second wolf, looking up at him, hackles half-raised, shoulders tucked like he meant to bolt. “Ragnar, then,” Oliver said on a sigh. “Yes?”

The first wolf blurred, rippled; there was a sound like rent cloth, a surge of light, and Leif stood in the wolf’s place, thinly dressed in a sleeveless leather tunic with furred collar, his hair tangled, his mouth red and wet with blood.

Oliver grinned…and then froze. His breath caught. It was Leif, yes, recognizably so, with his mother’s blue eyes, and his strong, clean-lined face, his golden spill of hair.

But he looked bigger. The gold bands around his biceps looked stuck there, so dense and thick had the muscle in his upper arms become. His shoulders seemed broader, his trousers more closely fitted over his thighs.

And there was blood on his mouth. Human blood.

Oliver swallowed with difficulty and glanced toward Ragnar, who’d gone to sit – whining faintly – at Leif’s feet, still in his wolf shape.

“He can’t shift here,” Leif said, and his voice was deeper and rougher than Oliver remembered. “He’s stuck as a man in our world, and here, apparently, he can only be a wolf.”

Interesting, but not now. Oliver looked back to Leif and said, “‘Here’? You know where we are?”

Leif frowned and shook his head. “I only know it’s not a dream.” He turned and glanced off across the waving sea of grass, toward a distant shadow along the horizon. “There’s a forest there.” He jerked his chin toward it. “That’s where we are, usually. There’s other drakes there. Black ones. And a woman with dark hair.” His voice took on a strange resonance when he said woman.

“Amelia,” Oliver breathed, and earned a sharp look. “It must be my cousin, Tessa’s sister: Amelia.”

Leif’s frown deepened. “Or a sorceress. A Sel mage, like the one who was about to snog you.” He bared his teeth in a show of disgust, and at his feet, Ragnar started panting, tongue lolling from his bloodied jaws in a manner that looked distinctly like a wolfish laugh.

“I wasn’t – I didn’t–” Oliver spluttered, before he recalled that he was the elder and gathered him composure. He shot Ragnar a dirty look – blue eyes slitted in delight, fangs glinting in the sun – and said, “That was no mere Selesee mage. That was the emperor himself. Romanus Tyrsbane.”

Leif’s brows jumped. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. He put some sort of enchantment on Percy, and it worked on me, too, I suppose.” He shook his head, skin clammy with memory of that treacle-slow, unreal moment when he’d been caught in the man’s gaze. “How did you know to find me?”

“We could smell you.”

“Ah. That was lucky.” 

#TeaserTuesday - Nothing More

I'm in the midst of edits on Nothing More, which means it'll be headed your way soon! I need to finish making and applying my personal edits, then get together with my editor for her feedback, apply additional changes, and we'll go through one final proofread. Just a little longer, and then Toly and Raven will be free in the wild.

For today's Teaser Tuesday, I'm sharing the prologue and first three chapters. Typical Dartmoor content warnings apply: violence, language, criminal activity, sexual situations. All the good stuff ;) 

Nothing More

Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Gilley

All Rights Reserved 

Prologue

Moscow
14 years ago

 

“I don’t believe in second chances.” The knife was long, slender, double-edged. A knife made for stabbing. In and out between two ribs before the pain registered. It winked in the firelight when Andrei turned it over and ran the polishing cloth down its other side. “You will betray me only once, and then I’ll gut you.” 

His gaze flicked upward, briefly, to gauge his reaction, and Toly nodded. “Yes, sir.” His voice came out a croak because he used it so seldom.

That's a Wrap on Raven and Toly

Some initial, next-day scattered reflections upon wrapping up Nothing More yesterday:  

• I'm sure it's obvious by now, but I'm extremely partial to all of Devin Green's brood. Each one of them was initially crafted as an intriguing, larger-than-life secondary character, a hefty dash of cayenne to the sauce of the story, if you will. Because of this, because each one has such flavor, I wanted their individual stories to fully reflect that spiciness. I didn't want, once the spotlight hit them, for them to get hit with a fatal case of Main Character syndrome, and turn bland and overcooked. All those quirky, bold notes had to stay forefront of the recipe...which is the exact reason I dig in my heels and resist the thought of focusing on any of them as part of a central romantic pairing. If I'm going to write them in love, then I have to get it right. It's why I was nervous about Raven; why, in years previous, I rejected a half-dozen romantic possibilities for her. I was always so sure, just as she was, that she wouldn't, couldn't fall in love with a Lean Dog. Each time I thought of pairing her up, it was always with an in-charge, presidential sort. A boss Dog, someone older, and stern, and unimpressed with her wealth and influence. And it was always wrong. So wrong. I flirted, very briefly, with the idea of pairing her with Maverick, but quickly dashed the notion. It still wasn't right. Toly was the missing, secret ingredient I never expected, but which made the whole dish sing. Okay, enough with the food metaphors, now. 

• I had no idea this book would turn out as long as it did. Genuinely. But both of these characters had emotional turmoil to sort out, and I'm a big believer in the gardening approach to writing, rather than ruthlessly forcing a story into a fixed schedule. It wound up at 188k words pre-edits, and there's a chance the count will go up rather than down. 

• I love Tenny and Devin in this one. I said on FB that one of my favorite things about writing a series is the chance to watch characters continue to grow and adapt to their circumstances, and that's never been more evident than here, watching Tenny learn how to be a brother, and Devin finally have a go at fatherhood, better late than never. 

• Mercy is like Where's Waldo? Be on the lookout for the cameo, minus the striped shirt. 

• I'll readily admit that, from conception, I built Toly with all my favorite tropes and traits; put them in the blender and poured out a guilty pleasure concoction. But by the end of the book, I really loved him. As a character. The him that was waiting to hatch out of the portrait I painted in The Wild Charge. I hope you'll all love him, too. I think he might not be what anyone ever expected for Raven, but they're so very good together.