Debrief: Nothing More

 

It’s time: it’s spoilery Nothing More debrief time! If you’ve not read it yet, you can grab it here, and then turn back if you want to read it spoiler-free, and return to this post later. I’m going to put up a break, so the spoilers won’t appear on the main blog home page straight-off the bat. If you have read it, let’s dive right in: 

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I didn’t expect the book to end up as long as it did – that I in fact hadn’t planned, in years previous, to write a book for Raven at all. I never envisioned her with one of our established Lean Dogs, American or British. Raven very clearly didn’t want a romantic relationship with a Dog, and for good reason. It was going to take someone special, someone, as I said in an earlier post, who was content to sit back and let her be a queen on her own merit, the outwardly less-dominant socially in their relationship…though the more dominant in the bedroom, which Raven wanted and needed all along. When Toly came on the scene, I knew it was time for Raven to step fully into the spotlight.

Regarding length, I don’t ever shoot for a particular page/word count when I begin a project. The story takes as long as it takes, no longer, no shorter. The more reluctant the romantic participants, the more tangled their thoughts, the greater their internal struggle to find peace in their circumstances, the longer it takes for the plot – the story action as well as the characters’ emotional journeys – to play out to completion. With Raven and Toly coming from very different worlds and backgrounds, each with their own reasons to hesitate, Nothing More wound up being the third-longest novel in the series after Fearlessand American Hellhound. I feel like, at this point, anyone familiar with my work should be good and ready for a long and involved story.

I always say that I have to know what makes my characters most vulnerable before I can write them a love story. In this instance, Raven’s soft spot all along has been a deep-seated, though often ignored or unacknowledged need for a man who is composed, and competent, and as ruthless as her brothers – and as her, as well. She doesn’t get her hands dirty in the way Fox and Tenny do, but she has an ingrained acceptance and approval of those levels of lethal skill. Opposites attract, but not in Raven’s case: a clown like Pongo, a showboater like Aidan, a boss man who likes to throw his weight around – it would never have worked. Toly’s personality is a good match for hers. But she wouldn’t have been in a place to accept that if she hadn’t already been knocked off-kilter by the events of The Wild Charge. What happened with Abacus – being stalked first in London, and then in New York, threatened, her personal space invaded and vandalized – rattled her in a way she’d never before experienced. She’s a brave woman, but those were bold infractions, and so she’s understandably jittery, and more ready to lean on the support of the people protecting her. The finger that arrives in the mail is a tipping point: she’s downright scared, now, and Toly makes her feel safe. Match struck.

Toly has a bit of an advantage, because he knows Raven, or at least recognizes her from the billboard he admired when he was a skinny teenager in Moscow. (“I Know You” from Sleeping Beauty plays in the background.) All things considered, he does a good job disguising the way she leaves him starstruck…and then he gets to know her as a living, breathing woman, rather than a fantasy on a perfume ad, and he sees that she’s in a vulnerable place, that she’s frightened, but trying to hide it, and he’s pretty much done-in, despite his efforts to fight the fall. Feeling guilty, feeling like he’s not good enough for someone are novel sensations, and so it leaves him muddled and uncertain.

Okay. Let’s talk Big Bads. Rosovsky, aka Greg Ingles, aka the Butcher’s Son is depraved, and awful, and a good actor…but he’s like a snarling dog on a leash. The villain of the piece is Misha, and it’s never a question of him being a secret villain. Greg’s real identity is a bit of a mystery, but Misha is always, quite obviously going to betray and hurt Misha. Scaled-back from the international, larger-than-life villains of Abacus in the past few books – though Abacus hasn’t truly “gone anywhere” – Misha is, for Toly, the most devastating possible villain: he’s a personal villain. A ghost from the past that must be laid to rest at last. When it comes to telling this sort of suspense story, it’s never my objective to “pull one over” on the reader. I in fact don’t care if the reader guesses who the bad guy is straight off – I’m not meticulously plotting the sort of whodunit designed to shock and awe. I’m writing a character-driven narrative, one that’s about the character’s emotional turmoil and his journey through it. In the case of NM, the reader of course knows that Misha shouldn’t be trusted, and that Toly is being a fool…it’s my job to sell the fact that Toly’s reaction, given his past, his youth, his starved-for-love state, is believable for him. If a reader says, “I would never have trusted him,” you’ve already missed the point. This isn’t your story: it’s Toly’s. And Toly, though he deep down knows he shouldn’t, wants so badly to think that the one man he cared for growing up cares for him in return. He wants desperately to be the bratishka Misha calls him. He knows the bratva’s shitty, but his emotions get in the way, trip him up, and it takes his new family to save his skin from Misha’s diabolical, though unsurprising machinations.

Three scenes that I loved writing, and which were the culmination of his story with Misha, were the scene in the bedroom in Albany, where Raven peels back the bandages and he sees the scars he’ll always bear: Traitor. Liar. Forever-reminders that he can never go back to that life, and that he’d never belonged there in the first place. They’ll always hurt him, inside, but they’re sobering. Necessary proof that he’s finally found his place. The second scene is the scene in the shed up on the hill. When he goes in to talk to Misha, thoroughly worked-over by Mercy, and realizes that Misha isn’t sorry, and that things were always going to end this way. It was so necessary for him to pull the trigger, and, along with Devin and Mercy, I was proud of him. The third scene, a small and quiet one, is the one right after, sitting on the bench with Devin.

“After all: a man can change, can’t he?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, and felt the first tug of a smile, the first he’d felt in weeks. “I guess so.”

It’s an exchange applicable to both of them, and I loved the beat of them each recognizing the want/need to change in the other. As a bit of an aside: I had a question on the blog about Devin, if I’d ever write him his own book, and the answer is, I’m not sure. Never say never I suppose, but for the moment, Devin’s main goal is learning how to be a father and making a place for himself in his children’s lives.

Speaking of Devin: he’s responsible for possibly my favorite dialogue exchange in the whole book: 

His breathing slowed, because it had to, because he was too exhausted to sustain the adrenaline rush. Belatedly, he realized the sound that had woken him was gunshots. 

Then he heard voices. 

“…Christ, what a sack of shit.” A dull thud.

“Must you do that?”

“I felt like it. He deserved it while he was alive, but I’ll settle for kicking in a dead man’s teeth. He hurt my girlie, and I can’t have that.”

A sigh. “Technically, he hurt Toly.”

“Which hurts my girl! And your sister. Go on. You have a turn now.”

A beat.

“If it’ll hurry you along…” Another thud. “Happy?”

“As a pig in shit. You think it’s through there?”

“That’s what Ilya said.”

 

I had a chuckle writing that bit. 

My favorite secondary storyline – and it was more of a glimpse of continued character growth than an actual storyline – belongs to Tenny. He was skeptical and downright hostile toward his sisters in TWC, but here, now that he’s married, and faced the ugliest of his demons, we see him actively making an attempt at being a brother – especially with Cass. Any chance I have to play with these siblings’ interpersonal relationships is one I’ll gladly take. I enjoyed getting to write that single scene of Reese’s POV, watching Tenny grandstanding at the fire, and Reese’s reflection on what it really meant.

“No, no, no,” he said, arm flung up, palm out, grinning like a devil, eyes glittering with mockery as he faced off from his expanding audience, Cass at his elbow. “You do that, and you’re gonna have brains all over you.”

Perhaps not the most appropriate conversation to be having in front of the kid, but, well, that wasn’t Reese’s business, really. 

Tenny was holding court. He tended to do that, in large gatherings. Not because he liked it – he hated it, in fact, and was tired and mopey afterward – but because, Reese suspected, he felt that he had to. Either he thought he had something to prove to the Lean Dogs, or, more likely, he was covering his anxiety. 

No one had said anything to either of them about being together. Reese had spotted a few sideways glances, but no one had breathed a word of disgust or judgement. Because they didn’t care? Or because Ghost had laid down some sort of edict? It didn’t matter to Reese; he didn’t care what anyone save his sister and his husband thought about him. (His brother still didn’t quite count, though they were attempting, tentatively, to build something like a rapport.) But though Tenny loudly and frequently called everyone an idiot and claimed not to “give a shit” about anyone’s opinion, Reese knew that was all a front, and that he cared quite a lot, anxious and nervous and skittery as a mouse among cats. He was self-conscious in a way that Reese wasn’t, and always had been. He worried and fretted and brooded. 

They’d exchanged rings and brief vows – Tenny’s had consisted of firm eye contact and a terse “You and me, yeah?” – at the courthouse, with only Fox and Eden as witnesses. They wore their rings, and Tenny called him “love” in public, sometimes, when he forgot to be discreet, but if they touched in front of the others, it was brotherly roughhousing, and nothing serious or tender. Reese liked that he was the only one who got to see Tenny’s softer side, was covetous of his vulnerability…but he didn’t like that the reason he hid it in the first place was because he was afraid of what others would think. Reassuring him in these instances was never an option. So, usually, Reese hovered at his side, silent support, and would do his best to soothe away the socializing jitters later, when they were alone. 

 

There’s nothing I love better than getting to share glimpses of couples who have already found their happy endings, exploring what their futures hold, and how they’ll continue to grow together. Any chance to peel back the onion layers. 

I’ll readily acknowledge that this novel has less of a “motorcycle club” feel and more of a downtown, organized crime vibe. It was necessary, though, and I like to think the series, so long as it does involve the club, has the room and the muscle to flex in different direction. It wasn’t a novel I expected to write, but is one I ended up quite proud of. 

Thanks for reading! I had fun with this one. I’d love to hear your favorite scenes, character moments, or whatever stuck out to you most about the book. I’m already working on the next Dartmoor adventure, and it’s going to be another wild one.

xx Lauren