Legendary Ladies

 

He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.

~ Emily Brontë

Since I asked yesterday about your favorite Lean Dog, it's only fair that today I ask which legendary lady is your favorite. I feel like lots of people love Maggie. But probably Ava, too. Any Raven fans? (I do love Raven. She's nothing like me, and in some ways that's what makes her one of the most fun to write.)

In all honesty, I don't know which my favorite is. Like their men, I think they each bring something different but equally special to the table. All of them have a little bit (ha!) of a skewed moral code, what with being married to unrepentant outlaws, but they all fall on different places on the outlaw scale themselves. 

With Fearless, I wanted to write from the female POV of a character born into the club. One who never questions the club's business, its methods, or its code. She was the first character I conceived for this series - and her unquestioning loyalty to the club, no matter how often or how badly it breaks the law, enabled me to create a character as extreme as Mercy for her to love. I truly can't envision him ever loving and being loved by a woman for whom the club began as anathema. Or, if they did love him, I don't think they'd understand him the way she does. Everyone calls him "monster," but Ava's monstrous in her own way. 

Then there's Maggie, the matriarch who's not afraid to be blunt, or underhanded, or to make the hard call when it comes to protecting her family...but who is, ultimately, a mother, and once the other old ladies have proved their loyalty, Maggie will be the first to take up arms in their defense. 

I love writing Emmie because she allows me to share my first great passion of equestrian sports on the page. The farm has become one of the hubs for the club, and I love her unexpected friendship with Tenny. That was one of the things that surprised me in the last few books: the way their comradery sprang up organically and felt very natural between them. 

I love that Whitney was Tango's soft place to land, that her kindness and compassion know no bounds. I love that even though Sam knew better, she never shook her teenage love for the bad boy, who turned out to be very much in need of a good girl. I love that Eden is cool by nature, and will never be effusive in her love; and that Axelle started out hating the club, thanks to her personal history. 

In Lord Have Mercy, we don't meet any new old ladies (heh), but we get to catch up with our current ones in a way we haven't for a while, and that's been so much fun. I really enjoy getting to write the domestic side of the club. 

So...favorites, anyone? 

Living Legends

 

“Men like Felix. Men like…” She rested her glass against her lower lip, nails tapping at its outer curve. Ting, ting, ting. Her throat moved, as she swallowed. “Men like Remy. They invite challenge."

The scene I'm writing at the moment is one in which Ava is having a talk with Remy - her Remy, aged eight, confused and unhappy about what's happening, but as serious and stoic as ever - and it struck me today that not only is Mercy a character within the series who's gained Paul Bunyan living legend status - which is very much by design - but that I have a habit of doing that with all the MC boys. A habit of writing characters who become legendary within the microcosms of their families, their clubs, their daily lives. It's a tendency I attribute in part to being Southern: we love our yarns down south. Our myths. There's a certain cockiness that comes with being able to say, "Oh, you mean Felix? Yeah, I know him. Big guy. Laugh like anything." And that narrow, sly look that follows, head cocked, eyes half-lidded. "Go on down and introduce yourself. Maybe he'll like you." A grin. "You better hope he does." That's one of those difficult-to-describe patterns of the Southern tapestry. Making heroes out of hillbillies, and fables out of farmers. And I don't say that with a shred of derision: I find it hopelessly charming and comforting, that Americana flavor that elevates the mechanics of a story into something rich and universal. 

The Lean Dogs of the Dartmoor series are not celebrities in the traditional sense. No one outside their small circles has a clue they exist. But to the people in their lives, they're larger than life. My favorite storytelling technique with this series is taking what ought to be a small-town story and turning it into something grand through character point of view. There I go talking about "perspective" again. 

Something we've seen a little of, and which we'll see much more of as Lord Have Mercy continues, is Mercy more than earning his living legend status. I feel like he's probably the most popular character in the series, but I'm curious: who's your favorite legend among them? Whose well-earned reputation is the most fun? 

If you haven't started already, Part One of Lord Have Mercy is now available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo! I'm working hard to get Part Two out next month. The photo for this post is very much life right now: flowers and books. Next time I'll try to work one of the horses into the shot. 

July in the Garden

Dahlia Cafe au Lait 

July in Georgia is best described as hot. Grass-killing, breath-stealing, flower-wilting, wring-out-your-socks hot. It's oppressively humid, you could fry an egg on the hood of your truck, and the chitter and drone of the cicadas is so loud you have to shout through every outdoor conversation to be heard over them. That's nothing new, though. Welcome to summer in the South. I'm grateful we got all the way to July before the air started to boil and am dreaming now of fall and all its splendor. 

The heat - and the dry spell; please rain! - make for early mornings and late nights, juggling plant and animal schedules in an effort to keep everyone and everything cool and watered. I tend to squeeze in a little blogging time right after breakfast, write during Strider's late afternoon nap, and spend the rest of the day doing farm stuff. 

Spoof (red and white) and Lily (chocolate and white)

I mentioned on Instagram that one of my minis, Spoof, gave me a bit of a health scare a couple weeks ago. Thanks to some electrolytes and Cushings disease meds, he's feeling much better. All three of my geriatric equines have metabolic issues, which makes rich summer grass a challenge. Spoof is missing quite a few teeth, so for him it was a med issue rather than a dietary one. He's so skinny! Which makes me sad. But it's best for now. Hopefully as the weather cools, and once his system is more balanced, I can up his feed a little and beef him up for winter. 

The flowers, though, thanks to manure, Miracle Grow, and judicious watering, are in general pretty happy. It's been exciting to watch the cutting garden go from an idea, to a dig site, to now a daily, fresh-cut bouquet. 

Dahlia Sweet Nathalie 

The dahlias have been the undoubted stars for me. I'm using my Instagram (@hppress) to document the different varieties so I know what to expect for next year. The zinnias have been gorgeous, and a huge hit with butterflies and bees. This was the first year growing sunflowers, and while they didn't come is as thickly as wanted, the bees are all over them, and they add a very charming, cottagey touch to that side of the house. 

I'm also growing pumpkins, and we've started putting up a T-post and cattle panel trellis to help them grow upward rather than across the ground. I've got ornamentals, including gourds from down at the barn, along with a cantaloupe and watermelon.

While there's still some finishing work to be done, as well as an exterior skirt to keep the hens and predators from digging, the chicken run is done! The chickens now have a nice roomy outdoor space where they can run, fly, and scratch around. They seem pretty happy about it. 

Sunflowers

Accidental manure pile gourds 

Zinnia Benary's Giant Enchantress 

Dahlia Mystery Day 

Velvet Queen sunflower 

Tomatoes like crazy 

Happy hen 

Swallowtail butterflies in the zinnias 

Dew-drenched dahlias (Linda's Baby)

Start of the pumpkin trellis (feat. Strider)

Baby watermelon 

Thanks for walking through the garden with me! I hope you're keeping cool, wherever you are. 

July also marks the release of part one of Lord Have Mercy! The all-new Dartmoor book ten starring Mercy, Ava, and their extended Lean Dog family. You can find out more about it here. 

Happy weekend, everyone. 

 

#ThrowbackThursday - Tastes Like Candy

 Funny thing about legends. Generally, they're more powerful than facts. Facts are specific, reliable, unquestionable. All the best decisions are fact-based. Facts save lives. They topple empires. They run the world, one precise tidbit at a time.

But there's no romance in a fact. No quiet hum of nostalgia. Legends live in hearts, and not in heads. And when the sky goes dark, and the mind stops working, it's the legend that comes roaring up, white-fanged and open-jawed, to meet the imagination. 

Men win wars.

Legends inspire them to do so. 

And some legends...some are still living...

First Look: Fortunate Son

 

“Dad.”

He lifted his head, and it wasn’t the hospital bed, or the soft cotton gown, or the terrible lighting that made him look smaller, older, and weaker than he was. It was a wet gleam in his eyes, a rare expression etched across his features: helplessness. He looked helpless. Overwhelmed. He looked like a man staring into an abyss, and Ava felt a stab of guilt because she never really gave him enough credit, did she? Credit for bearing up beneath the immense weight of his role. She had resented him for his mistakes, and chastised him for his shortcomings; but she’d never really acknowledged that, no matter his logic, and no matter his cruelty, he was always trying to do what he thought was best for his family.

So was she.

“What?” he asked, and she realized she’d been silent too long, stuck in her own thoughts, shoring up her resolve. There wasn’t much to shore, truthfully: she felt now as she always had. Saying it out loud, though, was the tricky part. It revealed too much about her.

Nothing Ghost and Maggie hadn’t already learned, though.

Both of them watched her now, intently in a way they hadn’t before. Like they felt the vibration of her heartbeat.

She said, “I know you’ve got good lawyers. And I know that you and the club will exhaust your resources to keep Mercy out of jail. I’m not doubting you…but this is tough.”

Ghost nodded, slowly, his gaze narrow. “Yeah. It is.”

“I’m not going to lose him.”

“You won’t,” Ghost said, firm. Putting on a good show. Reassuring Dad. The Man in Charge. The Fixer.

“You can’t promise that, Dad. But I can promise you that no matter what it takes, I won’t let them throw Mercy in a cell for the rest of his life.”

“Ava–” he started.

“No.” Quietly, but just as firmly as him. More so. “You’re my dad, and you’re the president of this club. But I’m not a teenager anymore. You can’t pat me on the head and tell me it’ll get easier someday. I don’t care what it takes: a jailbreak. A murder. Changing our names and moving halfway around the world. I will not lose him this time.”

She’d never seen her father dumbfounded before.

First time for everything.

Lord Have Mercy: The Debriefing

Lord Have Mercy Part I: The Good Son has been live in the wild for a little over a week, and you know what that means: debrief time. 

Here are the purchase links if you haven't had a chance to grab it yet:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo 

I'm going to drop a page break here, so you can turn back if you haven't finished it or are waiting for the whole novel to be complete before starting. Execute an about-face unless you want to be spoiled!

**

Lord Have Mercy: The Details

I decided to split my debrief post into two - or, rather, to have one post, still to come, that talks about the heavy stuff: the themes, the conflict, the challenges that lie ahead; my creative decisions and where those have the potential to take us. 

This post, however, is about the small, fluffy, worldbuilding tidbits that I enjoyed the most. 

I think one of the charms of this series is its tendency (er, my tendency, I suppose) to continually incorporate the entire cast and keep everyone updated on their comings and goings, even, or perhaps especially, their more mundane ones. Given that it's an outlaw epic, it would be very easy for the action of the series to start feeling detached from reality. We've got trained assassins, and millionaires with private jets, and professional torturers, and all of that rather spectacular action could start to peel away and leave the whole thing garish and gluey, like a bright cardboard box dropped in a puddle. Detail is what grounds it, and what makes me excited to continue. The action is important, and thrilling, and a host of other adjectives, but for me, the action is what makes the small, tender moments all the sweeter. 

In no particular order my favorite details in Lord Have Mercy Part One are:

Ava and Mercy's domestic life. The next three parts of the story are going to be action-heavy, full of mystery, intrigue, violence, some tears and some smiles, but when the story opens, Ava and Mercy are living the daily grind dream. There's laundry, and instant grits, and early-morning alarms. Mercy still works at the Dartmoor bike shop, and Ava's still doggedly trying to pursue her writing; like most writers, myself included, she's struggling to scrape a few pennies out of a largely unlucrative profession and feeling like a failure. They're comfortable, but not wealthy; they're happy. They fought so hard to be together, and they don't ever take that for granted. It was important that I be able to show that before the shit hits the fan; for everyone to see them dealing with the wonderful, everyday drudgery of living on their own terms. 

Ash wants a cinnamon bagel. He's a manipulative little terror, and I take dark pleasure in Maggie and Ghost having their hands full with him at this stage in their lives. 

Walsh and Tenny teaching Emmie's lessons. That was a mental image too tempting to pass up. Walsh perched on the rail with a cigarette - that's a big etiquette no-no in the world of lesson-teaching - and Tenny calling poor students idiots until they're crying. I had myself a little chuckle writing that line. 

This exchange: 

Tenny pushed the door wide, and whistled. “Jesus. Fucking Attack of the Clones in here.” To Reese: “That’s a movie.”

“I know. You made me watch it.”

“I didn’t make you. You loved it.”

“If you say so.”

Devin taking Violet to win a fish. This was possibly my favorite little fluff scene in the whole book. I love that Devin is trying, and that the idea still gives Walsh heart palpitations, but that, deep down, he sees and appreciates the effort on his dad's part. This line - 

A thought struck him, suddenly: even if he did love Devin, against his will, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to like the man, on principle alone. Too much bad blood, the habit too deeply ingrained. But like didn’t much matter, because without him, there’d be no Violet, and even if Walsh had never thanked Devin for his own existence, he could thank him for his daughter’s.

 - is not only one of my favorites, but the sort of line that encompasses every family in the series. 

Colin being the one to grab Ava. I'm stoked to build up more of a relationship between Ava and Colin, and Ava and Alex. Mercy's brothers play a tremendous role in this story, and I liked the idea of Colin throwing himself in the mix to protect her. Ava understands Mercy in a way that no one else in his life ever has, and so she understands the parts of Colin and Alex that they don't want to acknowledge. There's lots of delicious family drama fodder there. 

I'd be curious to know which details stuck out to you guys. Favorite exchanges? Little character moments? 

First Half Books

July is usually the month when I start going "What? The year's half over? What???" It's when I start thinking about what else I need to accomplish before the year's done, and when I look back at what I've managed to finish so far. This is typically a rather panicky exercise for me - then again, when am I not panicky? 

The first half of 2023 yielded three new releases from three different series! All of them are now available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo, and all of them provided very different writing challenges and indulgences in equal measure. 

Nothing More

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.

Fortunes of War

War looms on the horizon for the kingdoms of Aeretoll and Aquitainia, a war they’ll fight together, as the allies begin to plan their cooperative marches through missives sent via falcon. But in Aeres, Náli arrives with news of the enemy: he’s met the emperor of Seles, Romanus Tyrsbane, beyond the veil in the Between, and the emperor, it seems, is searching for Oliver. With Náli’s help, the three Drakes must now learn how to go walking between worlds, guarding their minds and their magic from an enemy who can reach out and touch them from afar.

Restless in a way he’s never been before, confused by his anger and his new instincts, Leif takes his wolfpack and departs early, traveling quickly and in secret toward the Southern camp in Inglewood. At his side, urging him to let his wolf take charge, is Ragnar. Cousin, war prize, thrall, wearing Leif’s torq, and testing all of Leif’s patience. He knows it’s foolish to trust him, but Leif cleaves to him regardless, distrustful and resentful of everyone who cannot understand the man – the wolf – he’s become.

Leading a ragged army of Southerners and woodland outlaws, Amelia spends her days planning their next move, and her nights walking in a world of dreams, visited by a pair of wolves with blue eyes and an irresistible allure. A letter from Oliver forewarned of Leif’s arrival, but nothing could have prepared her for the way her first glimpse of the prince rattles her to the bone.

For Oliver, the long march South is full of sword lessons, saddle sores – and clandestine meetings in the Between with the emperor himself. He’s only spying, he reasons, and he can stop anytime he wishes…can’t he?

Fortunes of War is the fifth installment of the ongoing high fantasy Drake Chronicles series, which is intended for adult audiences. It is not a standalone, and the series must be read in order. Dragons, shapeshifters, family drama, and romance abound as our heroes march toward a terrifying enemy, at the mercy of the fortunes of war.

Lord Have Mercy Part One: The Good Son

Deep in the swamps of New Orleans, the hunt for a predator leads local police to a cache of old, dumped bodies. Assigned to the case is FBI profiler Alex Bonfils, a New Orleans native with a knack for analyzing serial killers. The moment he sees the bodies, and learns their identities, Alex knows who dumped them in the bayou. The problem? These particular killings are the work of the older brother he never met: Felix Lécuyer.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, life within the club is busy, dangerous, and ever-expanding. Mercy and Ava are balancing parenthood and their marriage alongside the growing influence of the club. They know better than to think they’re safe, but they never expected the next threat to come in the form of another of Remy Lécuyer’s secret sons.

“The Good Son” is the first of a four-part serial that will altogether compose Dartmoor Book X, Lord Have Mercy, a truly “monstrous” endeavor that calls upon the sweeping, Southern epic style of book one, Fearless. Filled with suspense, intrigue, deception, and populated by all the beloved characters of the Dartmoor series, Lord Have Mercy brings the gator-hunting, storytelling Cajun killer, and his devoted fillette, back to the forefront of the action.

Be on the lookout for parts two through four, coming soon.

**

There's lots more to do before Christmas, lots of fictional spills and chills and steamy moments - some figuratively steamy, some swamp-induced steamy - still to come. 

Which is your favorite story so far? (Though I think I know the answer...) 

Weekend Reads: Lord Have Mercy

Heading into the weekend in search of your next read? Lord Have Mercy Part One: The Good Son is now live!  

There was a man sitting at the table. A large man.

Alex stood dripping rainwater on the linoleum, and catalogued all the details he’d never thought to imagine. Dark hair, yes, a black that was true, and rich, nearly blue in the glow of the chandelier, shiny as poured oil. A little shaggy in front, and a little long in the back, almost a mullet, but not quite. He had broad shoulders, and thick, muscled arms that strained the rolled-up sleeves of his black and red flannel shirt. Huge hands, resting on the table, fingers of one half-curled around a beer bottle that looked child-sized in his grip. His skin was several shades darker than Mama’s, a rich tan with deeper, umber undertones, like clay baked in the sun. Eyes the brown of freshly-buffed boots, and black, angled brows above that lent an inquisitive cast to the open, pleasant, eager expression he wore.

He met Alex’s gaze, this big stranger, and a smile broke, slow, and crooked, and white, and handsome, and Alex knew without being told. This was his father.

“Alex!” Mama exclaimed, a little harried, her gaze a little wild above a fixed smile as she turned away from the stove. She wore her cooking apron – but over one of her nice dresses, one of the ones she saved for church or work. She had high heels on, too, and her hair was shiny and curled. Above the fatty scents of searing pork and potatoes, he smelled a generous application of her usual hair spray and perfume.

He spotted all of this in one quick look, and then his attention was drawn back to the stranger. To his father.

Mama clipped her way over to stand beside him, and gripped his shoulder bracingly. “Alex, sweetie, I didn’t hear you come in.”

The man chuckled, and it was a rich, rolling sort of laugh, deep and resonant as distant thunder. “I don’t think he can hear you, now,” he said, and his accent was thick with the swamp, Cajun as could be, rather than Mama’s more traditional Southern drawl. “Hey, kid. Take a breath.”

Alex did, and it was a gasp, room swirling around him, because he hadn’t taken a breath in a whole minute, standing there like a drowned rat, gaping.

“Oh, honey, here, let’s get you a towel,” Mama said, and bustled to get a dish towel to mop his head and shoulders with. “We have company.”

He could see that, but he couldn’t respond.

She fussed over him some more with the towel, while his father looked on smiling. It was a nice smile, full of warmth, eyes sparkling. The sort of benevolent, inviting smile that made him want to follow, and which reminded him, absurdly, of Santa Claus. A safe smile, a good smile.

Mama set the towel aside, and raked her nails through his hair. He leaned into it automatically, the gentle, goosebump-inducing scrape-scrape of her acrylics, like when he’d had a nightmare and she was soothing him back to sleep.

This moment now was a little like a nightmare. And like a dream, too. And maybe Christmas, given the Santa smile.

“Alex, baby,” Mama said, and her voice had gone formal, like it did when she was on the phone with one of her real estate clients. “I’d like you to meet somebody.”

“Is he my daddy?”

The man’s smile widened.

Mama made a quiet noise like she’d stubbed her toe. She said, “Well, honey…yeah. Yeah, he is.” She steered him around the table, hand on his shoulder, so he stood within reach of the man – of his daddy.

A massive hand extended toward him, shiny-smooth with calluses in the palm, dirt caked under the nails, old, pale scars criss-crossing the backs of the fingers. “Hi, Alex,” he said, in that rich, Cajun voice. “It’s good to meet you.”

Slowly, Alex slipped his hand into the much larger one.

“You don’t have to call me Daddy if it doesn’t feel right. My name’s Remy. Remy Lécuyer.”

 

Alex

In Lord Have Mercy, Alex's last name, Bonfils, is French, and literally translates to "good son."  Hence the title of Part One. I had his emotional journey mapped before I picked the name, so it wasn't as if I could pick anything else. And he is very much trying to live up to it. 

In Colin, we have a secret brother who was a secret from both parties: neither Mercy nor Colin knew they were related, though they knew each other...and didn't like one another all that much. Learning they were brothers was an ugly shock for both of them, and the fact that they never really asked themselves why they looked so alike was a bit of willful ignorance on both their parts. Once the truth came out, it reflected poorly on Remy, and on Colin's mother, Evie. They'd had an affair while she was married, the man he'd always thought to be his father had no blood relation to him. Y'all remember: it was a mess. 

I wanted to do something different with Alex. 

Though meeting him is another, even uglier shock for Mercy - since what are the odds of this happening twice? - Alex has known who, and what Mercy is since he was a child. In The Good Son, we learn that Alex first studied criminal justice, and then criminal psychology in an attempt to avoid what he has always seen as a family penchant for violence. A family curse of sorts. If Felix turned into Mercy, then it must somehow have been Remy's fault. Remy's upbringing? Or his DNA itself? Perhaps a blend of both. Either way, Alex ran far, far away from it, forever fearful that, despite his best efforts, he might still some day turn out like his brother. 

What he hasn't acknowledged - even to himself - but what we'll come to learn as the story unfolds, is that there was a part - a rather large part - of young Alex who was dying for a brother. He was an only child, and mostly fatherless, and there, across parking lots, glimpsed through car windows and in the milling crowds at Mardi Gras, was this towering figure who was his brother in blood, and could have been his brother in spirit, too, if the adults in both their lives had seen fit to introduce them. 

This series has always leaned heavily on themes of identity, and so Alex's dilemma is a fun, and fascinating fit in the larger Dartmoor universe. One of my favorite scenes to write was one of Alex's memories: the day he rented a boat and went out into the swamp, trying to see if it spoke to him. HIs fear and rejection inspired a relief that was undercut by longing. He knows he shouldn't want to belong to Mercy's world...but there's a part of him that's always craved it. 

Perspective is the driving force in each Dartmoor story, and it's no different here, with Alex. If I sound excited about what's to come, it's because I am! The poor guy has so much to learn about his family, and himself, and the way nothing is as simple as he hoped. 

The Birth of a Book

I talked with my editor about doing another Ava/Mercy-centric book for a few years, but loosely. It was very much a "what if" to start with, and I refused to make any concrete plans until the characters showed me the way. Character first, after all. But I did say if a lot, and I knew that if it happened, I was going to call it Lord Have Mercy. How could I have called it anything else? But the book didn't come together until 2020; that was when I knew what I was going to do with it. 

The problem? The last Dartmoor-related release had been Prodigal Son, and there was a whole hell of a lot that needed to happen in Lean Dog Land before we could step foot in Alex's classroom; before we traversed the swamps with him, and found Mercy's legacy waiting in the muck and silt at the bottom. 

So I picked back up where I'd left off, and wrote Lone Star. And then Homecoming, then The Wild Charge. Then Long Way Down, and Nothing More, and then, finally, it was time for Lord Have Mercy. 

I'm not the most patient person, and it was oh so tempting to mention book ten over the past three years. I'm honestly a little proud of myself that I didn't, and that I actually stuck with the plan and got books 7, 8, and 9 finished and published. I couldn't have written Lord Have Mercy without them - not only because this series is linear and co-dependent, but because Lord Have Mercy is going to be far, far richer in scope and characterization thanks to the events of those books. The romances and relationships that played out in them. Reese and Tenny have a big part to play in LHM, and I'm even more excited for it after having written their book. 

There are days that I wish I'd styled this series as a chain of loosely-connected standalones. I think it would have been more commercially successful that way. But writing this book now, watching the way every little thing that's happened along the way has built to this moment, this story, this family working together, it's hard to imagine having done it any other way. 

It's so exciting that we're finally here! I hope you're enjoying Part I, and all I can say for the next three parts is "buckle up," because it's going to get insane. Thank you so much to those of you who've left a review! Reviews help boost a book's sales rank, and therefore its visibility, which helps it be seen by more readers. The more visible a book, the more successful it can be, and that helps me make sales so I can afford to spend more time writing than marketing. So, thank you! I want to produce as much content as possible, and every Like, Share, and review helps me do that. 

I'm writing Part II: Fortunate Son now, and plan to put together my big debriefing post this weekend or early next week. If you have any burning questions, drop them below and I'll answer them in that post. 

#TeaserTuesday: The Good Son

In chapter two, I have Alex repeat the Nietzsche quote that opens Fearless, and am having great fun playing with the themes of perspective and personal bias as the novel unfolds. For Ava, and Maggie, and the family - and for the readers - Mercy is now a well-known and beloved figure. Clearly one of the heroes of the story. But for our antagonists, he's a monster. Alex is caught squarely in the middle, and learning more about Mercy is going to alter that perspective of his in a variety of ways. 

Lord Have Mercy part one is now live! Links below: 

 Kindle/Paperback

Nook/Paperback

Kobo

It had been a very long time since Alex had seen the man in the photo in person, and even then it had been across the Walmart parking lot. Mama had gasped, and he’d glanced around, said, “What?” been ignored, and followed the direction of her gaze. The man had been younger, then, still growing into his tall frame, lanky and long-limbed, his hair shorter, shaggy over the tops of his ears – but still raven’s-wing black, still heavy as fine silk, just as his father’s had been. He’d looked like Remy, then, and the resemblance in the current photo was so striking it put a cramp in Alex’s belly. He’d turned out pretty, for all of his size, though that wasn’t the first thing a casual observer would have noticed. In the photo, he wore a shirt with the sleeves cut out of it, so his thick, densely-muscled, tattooed biceps gleamed in the sunlight, glazed with sweat. His hair was long, tied back in a high tail, a bandana knotted around his head to collect the sweat that gathered on his brow. He was grinning at someone off-screen, cigarette clamped between his white teeth, toweling the mechanical grease off his hands with a shop towel.

Alex glanced at Dandridge, and saw that his face had gone the color of curdled milk.

“That’s our man,” Boyle said, thumping the photo with a blunt fingertip. “That’s our Grendel. Felix Remy Lécuyer.”