#TeaserTuesday: Almost Ready

 

In the wake of the devastating conclusion of Lord Have Mercy Part II: Fortunate Son, the whole club rushes to track down young Remy, and the man who abducted him. Dark threats stalk the Lean Dogs, and it’s going to take lies, deceptions, and bold risks to bring Remy home. Ava’s reached her breaking point – but she’s her own breed of monster, and in this case, the break makes her absolutely ruthless.

Rising Sun is the third installment of the four-part Dartmoor Series Book Ten. It’s not a standalone, and must be read after parts one and two, available now. Be on the lookout for the fourth and final installment, Big Son, coming soon.

I'm ordering my proofs today so that editing can commence. I don't have a set release date; officially, it's ASAP.

Yesterday was "The End" day. The day when I got to type the words and mean them. This part is finished, in all the major ways, and now it needs primping. I've blogged before about The End Days being bittersweet: glad I'm finished, but a little melancholy that another story has come to a close. But this time, it was all bitter, no sweet, because the story has definitely not come to a close. I've been writing this behemoth for a year, and twelve months later, I'm still not at the top of the mountain, only pausing to catch my breath a moment. This entire project has been immensely draining, mostly because I've put such emphasis on getting it just right; on balancing where the characters are now, versus where they've come from; trying to make it an epic bookend to Fearless. It's the sort of situation where I don't think I have a chance in hell of making it good, but if I make it bad, I'll definitely hear about it. Working on College Town between parts two and three helped me reset a little, but now I'm feeling wrung out all over again. 

Some things to know about this installment:

It's heavy. It's tense. If not for Tenny and Devin, there'd be no levity to break up its bleak and desperate tone. 

Ava handles things in a very characteristic way - never forget that she's not the beauty to Mercy's beast; they're both messed up - but not a healthy one. 

This installment is shorter than the first two by necessity. Part Four needs to cover all the major New Orleans action and the conclusion, and so this is the natural end point for Part Three. 

Things are going to get worse until they get better, but they will get better. There's a happy ending waiting, I promise. 

I had a comment after Part Two wishing that Fallon hadn't gotten off so easily. Oh, don't worry. He's not gotten anywhere yet. 

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I didn't do a preorder for this one because I didn't want to box myself in. Now that the writing's done, the editing should go fairly smoothly. I'd say give me about a week, maybe more given it's Easter this weekend. Thanks for your patience. 

Ava pulled back from the window, and that was when she heard it: a quiet, but insistent knocking at the back door.

Her pulse, spiraling up and up, smoothed out. Yes, she thought, and a wave of certainty washed over her, not crushing, not drowning, but bolstering. It buoyed her.

She opened the drawer of the table in the foyer, and withdrew the gun she’d stowed back in its proper place after Boyle’s people tossed the house. It was an old gun, one that her dad had handed down to her, and which Duane had once upon a time handed down to him. A Smith & Wesson .357, wood grip, blue barrel. It weighed heavy in her hand, but well-balanced. She knew from experience that it shot reliably, and accurately, with only the faintest pull to the right – though Ghost had said that was just her, some minute flexion in her arm when she pulled the trigger. She’d learned long ago how best to compensate for it.

In the kitchen, Maggie and Sam were both on their feet, standing on either side of the mudroom entrance. Past the coat hooks, and the shoe rack, a silhouette blotted out the light coming in through the windows in the door. A big silhouette, broad-shouldered, tall, towering, really, wearing either a veil, or long hair, loose on his shoulders.

It was Mercy’s silhouette…but it wasn’t. It was meant to look like his.

Ava studied it for what felt like a long time, but was really only seconds, measuring the width of the shoulders, the height of the top of the head against the door. Searching for a flaw in her perception…but, no. No, that wasn’t her man. Even in shadow, she could tell that, though it was a fine facsimile that would have fooled a random witness on the street, the person standing at her back doorstep was not the man she’d married.