#TeaserTuesday: Idiot

 

Shep pointed through the windshield. “Take the next right. We’re gonna—”

“Pffft,” Tenny interrupted from the back seat. “Just put the address in the GPS. He’s not stupid.”

A glance in the rearview proved that Tenny sat slumped across the center of the seat, bent over his phone, but his gaze flashed up to meet Shep’s in the mirror, and it bristled with a clear threat.

Leave Reese alone. Got it.

“Alright.” Shep had to look the address up on his phone before he punched it in. Then he settled in for an awkward ride.

It was silent the first few blocks, save the expensive purring of the engine. Then Reese said, “This is Cass’s friend’s house we’re going to?”

“Yeah,” Shep said, and then, not knowing how much they knew, gave them the quick and dirty on the whole situation.

Tenny hummed thoughtfully as they crossed the bridge. He’d put his phone away and sat up to peer between the front bucket seats. “Tell me again why you haven’t offed this little wanker?”

“Believe me, I want to so bad I can taste it,” Shep said, letting his bitterness and frustration bleed through. “But the friend’s a civilian, and so’s the little rich shit who raped her, so the girls went to the cops, and now…”

“Now if something happens to him, everyone’s going to point to the Dogs,” Tenny said. He tsked. “What were you thinking? Flying colors while you slapped him around.”

Shep stiffened in his seat. He hadn’t included his little pistol-whipping transgression in his version of events.

Tenny chuckled. “What, you thought Raven would leave that part out?”

“I hoped she would.”

“No such luck. Idiot.”

Shep sighed. “Yeah, okay, I deserve that one.”

It was quiet a beat, tires hissing over pavement. Then, with an edge of grudging respect, Tenny said, “No. I’d have sent a message, too. But,” he stressed, after. “I would have done it with a ski mask and without my cut. Idiot.”

“He doesn’t usually mean it when he says idiot,” Reese offered.

“Pipe down, you,” Tenny said. “I mean it.”

Only Tenny gets to call Reese an idiot, you understand. 

Actually, in my mind, Shep and Tenny end up being pretty fast friends. Or partners in social crimes, more like. The whole Brood is fairly strapped-down and self-contained; if they don't have a barbed quip at the ready, they keep quiet (the boys, anyway). But Shep just opens his mouth and Says Stuff, damn the consequences. 

I have this persistent scenario in mind: someone gets married (Tommy; I think it has to be Tommy, poor dude) and when the officiant gets to the "if anyone objects" part, some stranger in the back stands up and declares his love for the bride. Chaos ensues. Shep is delighted, and there's not enough dirty looks, pokes in the ribs, or high heels grinding down on toes to keep him and Tenny quiet. They keep feeding off one another, while Raven threatens murder, and both their long-suffering spouses look at one another and shrug, both of them secretly delighted in turn by Tenny and Shep's bond in their joint effort to give Tommy absolute hell. 

Tenny: "It's just as well, Tom. None of us had given you 'the talk' yet, and this way you won't embarrass yourself on the wedding night."

Shep: "If it helps, she didn't have a great ass."

Raven's no longer forming words she's so angry.

Michelle's mainlining Tommy the good whiskey. 

(Please note, this is NOT a book I'm going to write, just a snippet! I'm happy with where all things Dogs leave off, and will only pick the series back up if a publisher throws an advance at my head) 

If you haven't read Beware of Dog yet, find it here:

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Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Twenty

 

“The dinner,” she said. “You and Ava in the kitchen.” Her eyebrows went up in silent question.

               He said nothing.

               “Merc, I’ve always known that she carries a huge, flaming torch for you. But I never thought you’d take her up on the offer. You’re more careful than that.”

               He glanced away from her; he’d expected a very different kind of accusation. He had no idea what to do with this.

               “I like you,” Maggie went on. “Hell, I love you. You know that. You’re family. You’re the only reason Ava and I are alive right now, and believe me, I know that. I don’t take that lightly.”

               He waited for it.

               “But…”

               He snapped back to her, levering hostility into his voice. “But this is the part where you give me the stay away from your daughter speech?”

               “No.” Her face softened further. Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I understand. I might be the only person in the world who does, but trust me, I get it. Even if that makes me a bad mother.

               “What I’m saying, is that I hope you’ve calculated the risks. All of them, real life, and club-related.”

               Are you using protection?

               Are you prepared for Ghost’s reaction?

               “My hubby,” Maggie said, “God, I love him, but he’s oblivious when it comes to Ava. She’s not an adult in his eyes. She’s still just a baby. And you’re…you.”

               He wanted to hit something. “So?” He made a show of shrugging. “So what am I supposed to do?”

               Maggie shrugged back. “I don’t know.” Her glasses came down over her eyes with a little flick from one finger. “I honestly don’t.”

               And she slipped back into the office before he could respond.

I regret to inform anyone angered by accidental pregnancy storylines in books that accidental pregnancies do occur quite often in real life. 😂 Given the tumultuous, uncareful nature of Ava and Mercy's early relationship, it's little wonder Ava finds herself in that school bathroom, learning that her life's just changed irrevocably. 

My favorite scene in Chapter Twenty is Maggie and Mercy's exchange in front of the Dartmoor office. It was never my intention to portray Maggie as a Cool Mom™, but as a realistic one. She's been a part of this MC life for more than twenty years, and so, while she shared Ghost's goal of putting Ava through college, she didn't share his expectation that she would be "normal" by societal standards. She's torn, because she knows exactly where Ava's coming from, based on her own personal experience, but can also foresee the impending disaster. But, like I said in a previous post, she's not going to intervene directly, because she's (perhaps selfishly) grooming Ava to be her right-hand woman in Lean Dog Land. 

This chapter shows Mercy being a jerk yet again. The problem with Mercy is that, despite his ability to dole out warm and helpful advice to his brothers (like with Shep in Beware of Dog, and with Aidan and Tango in every Dartmoor book ever), he is a purely emotional creature himself. He can't be rational, and kindly distant with Ava. He's either going to be all over her, or hateful in his attempts to keep her at arm's length. Is he trying to protect her from the fallout? Yes. But he can't do it in a grown-up way. 

The rest of the chapter is set up for what goes down at Hamilton House. We've got Mason's chilling little teaser:

“She’s just the kind of whore cops find dead on the floors of abandoned houses. Setting yourself up for disappointment.”

And Ava's phone. Yikes.

On a personal note: oftentimes, reading my older work makes me cringe. But sometimes a line or two jump out and I give myself a little mental pat on the back for a turn of phrase. I loved this bit:

Five a.m. was a blank-faced, indigo wall, trying to press her back into the house, into bed. Five a.m. didn’t want to be messed with or questioned. It wasn’t the insidious shifting shadow miasma of midnight. It was an angry schoolmarm that didn’t expect to be challenged. 

Fave BoD Scenes in No Particular Order: Shep and Toly

 

There was no use lying, was there? He really didn’t want to. She wasn’t some dirty secret, wasn’t anything he was ashamed of. “Yeah. We’re living together.”

That earned a single, sharp jerk of Toly’s head. “She’s not in her dorm?”

“No. She didn’t wanna stay. Some shit went down with the roommate, but that’s her business to tell, not mine.”

Toly nodded, as if to say fair enough. “Does she know you’re in love with her?”

He hadn’t expected that. It shocked the breath out of him. “Yeah.”

“You told her you are?”

“Yes, goddamnit. Are we done?”

Toly held up a finger. One more thing. “What will you do if and when she decides she wants to move on to better things? To a better man?”

Punch you in the fucking face, he thought. But that wasn’t the real answer to that question. The real answer was, throat getting stuck halfway through, “Let her go with my blessing. And then eat a gun.”

Toly nodded again, and turned for the door.

“Wait. Are you gonna tell Raven?”

“No. You are. Not tonight, if you can’t stomach it. But I won’t do your dirty work.” He slipped inside and left Shep standing in the cold.

 

The quoted scene in this post occurs chronologically before yesterday's pick, and I won't include all of the text here because Shep curses too much. But I really loved the scene where Toly puts two and two together and walks Shep out onto the balcony for a "chat." 

It's telling that Shep's more worried about telling Raven than Toly. Toly cares about Cass, he loves her as the sister he never had, but Shep knows that Toly is for sure living outside his means, and is happy to go with Raven's flow; if Toly's furious about Shep and Cass together, it's because he's worried that Raven will be furious. But Toly's not a hypocrite, and he's not going to be the first to throw stones given his past, and the relatively new non-glass state of his house. Though for all Shep's posturing in the rooftop scene, he acknowledges to himself that if Toly truly had a problem with their relationship, Shep would already be karate-kicked off the rooftop by now. 

I really enjoyed all of their interactions in this book. They did not get along in Nothing More, but here we see that time, proximity, and a common cause have softened their relationship, even in the very beginning of the book. Though their personalities are very different, Shep actually has a lot in common with Michael when it comes to club relationships. He doesn't have friends within the club; doesn't hang out with any of his brothers for fun. He's an outsider within a community of outlaws, and that gets complicated and lonely.

By the end of the book, they're working their way toward something like friendship; echoes of Mercy and Michael in Price of Angels. 

Keeping Up To Date

I'm highlighting the following comment from this week because it gives me the perfect chance to make sure everyone has access to all the best ways to stay updated with what's releasing, and when, and to answer a FAQ. 

First, let's talk advertising, so you can figure out which medium works best for you as a follower. 😊

I'm not on TikTok, because, let's face it, my books aren't suited for it. I'm not a trendy sort of gal, and video is definitely not my medium of choice. 

But I am active on social media, and use it to keep readers updated on WIPs, upcoming releases, and then debriefings and behind the scenes content once a book is out. (I blogged/Facebooked/Instagrammed about Lord Have Mercy for more than a year, so if you're not plugged in, then yes, you missed out!)

I post most frequently on Instagram. 

I hype my books there, provide links to blog posts and new releases, and also share my farm life, chiefly horses and flower growing. 

I share all my blog posts, new releases, and weekly hashtags like the Fearless read-along and Teaser Tuesday on my author Facebook page. 

You can follow me there to see my updates in your FB feed, and to join the Fearless Read-Along discussion group. 

I don't have an email newsletter because it would be redundant. You can follow the blog and receive an email each time I add a new post: the blog comes straight to you!

Go over to the righthand side of the blog's home page and scroll down until you reach the Followers section. Doing this myself reminded me that I need to do some major sidebar updates, but the followers are still there. Click the Follow button circled in red to sign up for email notifications, and then never miss a post. 

If you don't have a Google account, or don't want to follow the blog, but still want to know when a new book drops, then you can follow me on Amazon.

You'll get an email when I release a new book. The site has also gotten much more functional in recent years, and books are grouped together on series pages. 

If you're a Goodreads user, you can follow me there as well. My blog is linked to it, so you can see all my posts that way, and new releases will show up in followers' feeds.

Again, a newsletter wouldn't contain any new information already available in the blog, so I feel it's unnecessary. With regard to "newsletter swaps with other authors," I find those shady. When authors trade email lists, and send newsletters to non-followers unsolicited, that doesn't engender any goodwill with potential readers; in fact, it makes you spam. So I'm not down for that. If an author has a newsletter, it should only get sent to those who sign up for it, in my opinion. 

I've had tons of questions lately about Kindle Unlimited. I don't use it, and there's a good reason for that:

The premise of KU, for anyone who doesn't know, is that readers who sign up for it can read program-included books for free, and then the authors receive payment from Amazon based on the number of times the book is read to completion. It's an imperfect system to start. For an author, choosing to list a book for KU means you can't offer that book for sale on any other platform: no Nook, no Kobo, no iBooks, nada. That's fine if an author chooses to pull or withhold their books from those other sites.

The problem? Amazon counts books posted on pirate sites as being in violation of the KU agreement. Pirates create an epub file, illegally upload it, and the author is none the wiser. A crackdown in the last few years has seen multiple authors get deplatformed by Amazon because of this, and they've either not been able to restore their author accounts, or spent lots of time and money trying to get back on the platform. There were even instances of authors reporting "rival" authors to Amazon in a deliberate attempt to get their books booted off the site. 

It's ridiculous, and it needs to be addressed by Amazon, but suffice to say, I have zero interest in getting involved in all of that drama right now. Given the insane pricing of NYT bestselling ebooks (which are never on KU, BTW), I feel very confident in my competitive pricing. LHM is the exception, because 1) I didn't want to punish the readers who bought each installment by undercutting the price on the final, compiled product, and 2) the compiled edition is the length of four full-sized novels. The price breaks down to exactly the same, and, honestly, it's worth it. Think of it as buying a boxed set instead of a lone book.

Okay, I think that's all the bases covered for now. 

This week, Beware of Dog turned two weeks old, and I announced that the next release will be Drake Chronicles book six, Avarice of the Empire. Tomorrow we'll dive into Chapter Twenty in our Fearless Read-Along. Make sure you're following me on one of the accounts listed above to stay apprised of everything that's going on in my neck of the woods! Huge thanks to everyone who follows, likes, shares, and comments. You guys are the absolute best! 

Fave BoD Scenes in No Particular Order: Shep and Raven

 

Picking my favorite Beware of Dog scenes in no particular order, because this book has perhaps my favorite dialogue of any book in the series. Up first, Shep going to see Raven.

“You’re shouting at me!”

“You’re shouting at me!” he shot back. “And if you shout at Cass about this, you and me are gonna have a big goddamn problem!”

Raven gulped audibly. She looked like she’d been slapped. She settled her hand at her throat, where her pulse throbbed a visible tattoo, and said, voice hoarse, “I could cut off the money. I could tell her I won’t pay for school.”

“No you won’t. Get outta here with that shit.”

“I could…” She trailed off, eyes big and bright with tears.

“What?” he sneered. “Threaten me? Then you better have a gun in your purse and a body bag on standby, ‘cause you don’t have anything else to threaten me with, sister.”

She bowed her head, sniffled quietly, and wiped at her eyes. When she lifted her head, she was smiling.

She choked out a laugh. “Christ, you are such an asshole.”

“Yeah.”

She rolled her eyes and dabbed at the corners. To the air, she said, “I always knew she wanted a Dog. That she’d end up with one. She would eat a little rich boy alive.”

Then she stepped around the table.

Shep sat up straight, and relaxed his jaw; it would hurt less, and do less damage if he was loose when she struck him.

Instead, she reached for him, with both hands, slow and careful like he was a dog about to bite, and caught his jaw in her palms. She leaned down and pressed a damp kiss to his forehead.

Shep’s hands were shaking where they rested between his thighs. “I do love her,” he said.

“I know that, darling,” she sighed. “I’ve known that for a long while now.” 

BoD is two weeks old today! You can grab it here:

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Up Next

 

I first shared this cover months ago, but this time, it's finally happening! After a two year (!!) hiatus to work on other projects, I'm finally back with the Drakes for good this week. I made progress on book six, Avarice of the Empire, which is my next planned release. 

Unlike series like Dartmoor, in which there are overarching storylines which carry through, but where the books are mostly self-contained, the Drake Chronicles are one long, ongoing narrative spanning multiple books, in the tradition of old school epic fantasy. That's meant that there have been unanswered questions piling up on top of existing questions, and things seem to be getting worse instead of better for our heroes - but once it all comes together, it's going to be so satisfying. 

Although I originally toyed with the idea of a ten-book series, I've since figured out how to do it in seven. So up next, it's AOTE, and then the seventh and final book to bring all this crazy home. I can't wait to reveal two major Oliver-centric plot twists, and to wrap everything up in one big, epic, dragon-scale bow for the finale. 

If you need to catch up, the first five books are available for Kindle, paperback, Kobo, and Nook. 

#ThrowbackThursday: Shep's Greatest Hits

 

A look back at some of Shep's greatest hits in Nothing More:

Even though Cass fussed about him initially, he and Cass had something of an instant rapport. 

“Ta, darling.”

They traded cheek kisses, and she returned to her office in time to breach the tail end of a conversation she didn’t like at all.

For starters, Shepherd had joined them, and stood now at the edge of the coffee table, hands in his pockets, jangling change. He looked up from whatever Cass had been showing him on her phone, and gave Greg a dismissive headshake. “Nah, see, that’s for putzes. You gotta have the real thing. The mess, the sap, the hassle, dropping F bombs while you wrestle it outta the truck – that’s part of it. The magic of Christmas and all that shit.”

Meet Sophie

 

Contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy

Meet Sophie

 

 

Ash tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes as he regarded the pink-swaddled baby in Ava’s arms. When his lips pursed, and his little jaw worked side-to-side, he looked hilariously like Ghost. Ghost himself stood behind the chair where Ash sat perched on his knees at the side of the bed, arms folded, a glimpse of Ash’s future self.

Beware of Dog: The Debriefing

 

Here we go: the official Beware of Dog debriefing post. I reserve the right to tack on additional posts in the likely event that I forget to include something of importance here. There will be spoilers, so I'll include a cut to keep plot details off the main blog page. Proceed at your own risk! And if you haven't grabbed your copy yet, you can find it here:

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Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Nineteen

 

               “Something’s up with you.”

               Mercy glanced over without turning his head. The fire didn’t quite reach Walsh’s face, just a red flicker against his pale eyes. “I’m lying on a big-ass rock and I haven’t showered in days. Yeah. Something’s up.”

               One slow shake of Walsh’s head: not buying it. “You slipped out of dinner the other night.”

               “For a smoke.”

               His brows went up. “You need to be very careful, brother. If you like young ones, that’s your business–”

               Mercy put a bite into his voice, one Walsh would know wasn’t bullshit. “Yeah, it is.”

               “ – but Ava, that’s a whole other issue.”

               Mercy glared at him.

               Anyone else would have caved and looked away, but not Walsh. “I’m just saying, is all. I’m the first one to notice. But I won’t be the last.”

While I was writing Fearless, I was already envisioning stories starring the rest of the Dogs, and that definitely flavored the amount of attention I paid all the secondary characters when I wrote scenes like this one. Obviously, I didn't share everything I already knew about Walsh here, but knowing him inside and out helped me craft Mercy's perception of him. Secondary characters serve first and foremost to provide outsider perspective for a hero, but if that's the only way an author views a character, the characterization inevitably falls flat. That's how you end up with "sidekicks." With secondary characters who either throw up roadblocks for the sake of plot, or who serve as a hero's "yes man." Your main characters then feel very main charactery, and everyone else is cardboard high school play props. Conversely, fleshed-out secondary characters with their own agency and agendas increase the tension in a realistic way. 

On a lighter note: the campfire scene is my favorite of Chapter Nineteen because, as was inevitable, people are starting to notice. Mercy and Ava have zero chill when it comes to one another. An outside observer who is busy, or caught up in his own thoughts all the time (*cough* Ghost *cough*) won't notice, but the quiet, thoughtful people in their sphere are definitely picking up on the vibes. 

The next scene is Ava's first day back at school, and the meeting she has with Maggie, the principal, and the guidance counselor. It was important to me that we get to see Maggie's maternal ferocity on-page. Ava's still young here, and still has timid moments - at least around adult authority figures. But it's no wonder she turns out as fierce as she does as a mother given her own mother's fanged approach to dealing the school on Ava's behalf. 

     

               Mullins aimed a wagging finger at Maggie. “That attitude right there is why Ava’s having trouble getting along with her classmates.”

               Maggie fired back. “That attitude is the only thing that gives my baby hope that she isn’t alone when it comes to dealing with the spoiled Mean Girls who run schools all across this damn country. You can run this place, Mullins” – she gestured to the room around them, the school – “but you can’t run my family. You keep Ainsley Millcott away from my Ava, and you and me won’t have a problem.”

This scene, and others like it, provide an interesting opportunity: in a novel in which the outlaw MC was painted as villainous, Maggie's blunt, threatening approach with Mrs. Mullins would rightfully paint Maggie as the bad guy. But my approach with Dartmoor has always been that, if I'm writing from the MC's perspective, then they don't see themselves as villains, and my characterization of them should always be intimate and sympathetic. We the audience know that Mrs. Mullins and Mr. Freeman are seeing someone who is essentially a mob wife use said mob as a threat against public school employees. But we're sitting in that chair with Ava, and we share Maggie's outrage that Ava is treated differently not just by students, but by teachers and administrators as well, because of her background. We also, like Ava and Maggie, know a faint prickling of fear that Ava will be denied opportunities, or even harmed, by a principal's prejudice. 

Beware of Dog: The Playlist

 

It's not Music Monday, but Mondays are for the Fearless read-along these days, so I'm posting the Beware of Dog playlist today. 

Thank y'all for supporting the book! It was fun and refreshing to write, and I got very attached to Cass, and Shep, and their relationship. 

Beware of Dog is One Week Old

 

With the cat, of course

Beware of Dog published one week ago today! Feels like longer. 

If you haven't grabbed a copy yet, you can do so here:

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If you have read the book, you can keep scrolling for some personal headcanons/alternate version of scenes. There are spoilers here, so proceed with caution! 

Ready?

Last chance to back out...

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Thank You!

 

She sighed again, and tucked her hair back when the wind swept it across her face. “I’m not upset with you,” she said, softening. “I know none of this was your idea. Shep was…well, Shep was being a good guard dog, but not with any kind of finesse.” Her gaze turned thoughtful as she studied Cass’s face. “But he wasn’t doing it on anyone’s orders, and if he had been, he definitely wouldn’t have had clearance to go into the Blackmons’ home and lay hands on a little rich boy flying his colors.”

Cass nodded. She knew that was true. But her pulse was still racing, and she didn’t know if she’d like the rest of what Melissa had to say.

“He did what he did on his own. It was an emotional response.” She tilted her head a fraction, hair blowing out to the side, blue gaze shrewd and too-knowing. “He really cares about you a lot.”

Inwardly, the statement filled Cass’s chest with warmth. It sent pleasant shivers down her arms and back. But it frightened her a little, too; cut too close to the bone of all that she’d been thinking and feeling lately. “If you say so.” She missed the mark on flippant. Her voice trembled at the edges.

Melissa wasn’t deterred. She was locked on, grave-faced, in full-on detective mode. “I don’t know Shep well,” she started.

“No,” Cass said. “You don’t.”

Melissa blinked, but otherwise took that statement in stride. “I have, though, learned a thing or two about the Lean Dogs in general in the last four years. Presidential orders are well and good, but if one of these guys thinks his woman is in danger, he’s going to do what he’s going to do, and he’ll deal with the fallout with Maverick afterward.”

“I’m not his woman,” Cass protested, but damn, it sounded good. Sent a thrill through her. 

It's been QUITE the busy week, so I'm behind on replies, emails, comments, etc. But I wanted to pop in and say THANK YOU, dear readers, for buying, supporting, and reading Beware of Dog, and leaving such lovely feedback. This book took much longer to publish than I anticipated, but I'm proud of it, and it wound up being tons of fun to write. So thank you, thank you 💖

If you haven't yet heard, book six in the Lean Dogs Legacy series is now available!

Kindle

Paperback

Nook

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I'll post a full debriefing sometime next week. Until then, happy reading. 

#ThrowbackThursday: That's a Wrap!

 

And that's a wrap!

I've spent ten years writing these characters, and in some ways, it feels like a long, slow decade, and others, it feels like a blink. I'm insanely proud of the final books in both the Dartmoor and Lean Dogs Legacy series, for a variety of reasons. Both are brimming with full circle moments, but both are bursting at the seams with all the characters we've met along the way; all their baggage, all their growth, all their love for one another.

I tend to focus on my failings, and what I need to do next, but sometimes it's important to look back and see how far I've come.

All told, there are eighteen books across the original series and its spin-off series. They're best read in chronological order, which is also the order of publication. It goes:

Fearless
Price of Angels
Half My Blood
The Skeleton King
Secondhand Smoke
Snow In Texas
Tastes Like Candy
Loverboy
American Hellhound
Shaman
Prodigal Son
Lone Star
Homecoming
The Wild Charge
Long Way Down
Nothing More
Lord Have Mercy
Beware of Dog

Shaman (Ian's novella) is the only book not available in paperback, and all the rest are also available for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, as well as paperback. 

Over the course of the series, the club goes from a big criminal fish in the relatively small pond of Knoxville, to an international underground superpower. It's wild to look at everyone at the end and see how far they've come. 

If you ask me about my favorite book, or favorite scene, or favorite line, it would shift from day to day. Walsh is my favorite Dog, but I don't know that his is my favorite character journey; I'd be hard-pressed to choose that. As of right this moment, I'd say my two favorite scenes in the whole series are two from Lord Have Mercy: feeding Big Son; and Aidan, Ava, and Ghost in the St. Louis cathedral. 

I'm not going to lock the series away in a time capsule and say I'll never return to it. It's always a possibility. As of now, I don't have any pressing stories within the universe I want to tell. The series has found some new and first-time readers in 2025, and I hope its audience can grow. These characters are so vivid for me, and have taught me so much as a writer, that I'm always going to find blog inspiration in them, and maybe a fluffy bonus scene or two to share here on the blog. 

I'm also running a chapter-by-chapter Fearless read-along, so be sure to join us for that every Monday! 

And if you haven't read Cass and Shep's story yet, it'll be one week old this Saturday! You can grab it here:

Kindle

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Now I'm curious: after ten years and eighteen books, do y'all have a favorite book? Character? Couple? Scene? Any character you were hoping to get a book for? Lemme know! 

Thank you all for all your continued support! It's been one heck of a ride. 💖

Workshop Wednesday: Tension

 

Devin gazed at the phone a moment longer, then nodded to himself, blacked the screen, and slipped it back into his pocket. “Right then,” he said, face creased with smile lines. “Our girl wants us to get along. She wants me to treat you with kindness, so that’s what I intend to do.”

He stuck his hand out, and it was a friendly gesture, this time. “Hi. I’ve no idea what my real name is, if I ever had one, but I’ve been Devin Green for forty-some-odd years now. It’s suited well enough.”

Shep was still reeling from the text. Simple words, and a truth he’d already known, but hearing the way Cass had strung it all together for her father had left his sinuses stinging. He accepted the handshake. “Frank Shepherd. I’m gonna marry your daughter.”

Devin’s smile lines deepened. “Good. I think that’s what she wants.”

In case you missed it, Beware of Dog dropped on Saturday, and you can grab a copy here:

Kindle

Paperback

Nook

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I won't do an official debriefing post until next week, so I can discuss spoilers, but the book inspired today's workshop post about narrative tension.

I can't write a story if I don't have a firm grasp on my characters. But the engine that drives any story is narrative tension. You can have the wildest, most creative plot in the world, but without tension, the narrative is going to fall flat, and turn out boring and forgettable. Tension can be high, it can set your teeth on edge and make you squirm while reading, but it can also be subtle and low stakes.

Obviously, there's tension present in the main conflict between the heroes and the villains. In Beware of Dog, that tension comes from Sig Blackmon and his family, and the people they hire to do their dirty work. 

But I wound up leaving quite a few scenes on the cutting room floor because they amounted to nothing but fluff, with zero tension present. I might end up putting them here on the blog, for anyone who likes the fluffy bits, but I felt like they detracted from the novel itself, which is chock full of tension.

There's the romantic/sexual tension between Cass and Shep, of course. Then there's the tension of their relationship being secret: both of them are worried about telling her family, and, to a lesser extent, Maverick and the rest of the Dogs. There's tension between Cass and her roommate, Jamie, who she's trying to help. And, some of my favorite not only in this book, but in the whole series, the tension between Devin and his kids, and amongst said kids themselves. 

In real life, tense relationships between family members are not fun. But if Devin and his brood were loving and well-adjusted, those family scenes would be boring on paper. In BoD, it's a low-stakes sort of tension. By this point, we know that Fox and Walsh love each other, but that tension between them makes their conversation on the clubhouse porch interesting, rather than a sap-fest. And for Shep, much like Mercy, he resents Devin's absence in Cass's life, and isn't shy about expressing his feelings on the matter. 

“Your boys have been giving me shit,” Shep said, “and now you’re gonna give me shit, and none of it’s gonna scare me off, so why don’t we cut it out already?”

Devin studied him a long, unblinking, eerie moment, then nodded, and the life flooded back into his expression. “Fair enough. But I’m still going to say my piece.” He shifted his weight, cocked a hip. Ready? Or relaxed? God knew. “Son—”

“Don’t call me son. I’m not your son, and I hate your f***ing guts.”

Devin’s brows twitched, but mildly, and not with anything like surprise. “That’s a bold statement.” His lips quirked. “I’ve not heard the old ‘hate your guts’ since the boys were in short pants.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Smart. They’ve said it since.” He tilted his chin. “Them I understand. Why do you hate me, then, Francis?”

Not only does all of this interpersonal tension create a more interesting reading experience, but it also makes it much more rewarding when two characters finally come to an understanding. Just like trials and tribulations make a character's journey more satisfying, so too does a disagreement or a personality clash elevate a friendship when it finally forms.  

He doesn't have a ton of page time here, but I love Devin in BoD. I would say he's become one of my favorite characters to write, but he pretty much started out that way. Instead, let's say I'm thrilled to see so many readers express their affection for him, now that he's grown on them. 

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Eighteen

 

After, replete in the slanted bars of sunlight, Ava whispered that she loved him.

He didn't reply, but he folded her love up tight like a note and pressed it deep inside himself, where no one would ever find it. 

Once one of my books is out in the world, I don't ever sit down and reread it. I flip through them, to check details for the follow-up books, and to create teasers, or blog posts. But I don't read them word-for-word. This read-along has been a unique exercise in that respect. I always know what I was trying to accomplish with a given scene, and, ten years after its publication, it's been rewarding to look back at Fearless and see that (at least from my perspective) I hit the emotional marks I was aiming for. 

In the case of Chapter Eighteen, I'm glad of the way Mercy and Ava's romance feels doomed. This is the calm before the storm, but we can see the clouds building along the horizon, and we know, through Mercy's and Maggie's POVs, that the peace won't last. Ava knows they're doomed, too, but she's got youth and hope on her side; she doesn't want to dwell on all the ways they're headed for disaster, and instead keeps trying to pull him along toward a hopeful place with her. It's (purposefully) a little bit heartbreaking that he won't say he loves her back. 

In thinking about future books, this period of optimism, and the subsequent fallout, breaks something soft inside of Ava. She was always going to be a lioness, like her mama, but the wound to come is going to leave a nasty scar. She forgives Mercy down the line, of course, because her love for him is unconditional. She even forgives Ghost. But the Ava we see in Lord Have Mercy is the direct result of being young, and in love, and hopeful...and then having all those hopes dashed in violent fashion. 

James didn't mind cleaning up the spill; Ghost didn't want the spoiled milk poured in the first place. 

Properly placed foreshadowing is, in my opinion, part of what grounds a story, no matter the genre, in the real world. The club grows by leaps and bounds over the course of the series, and even here, early on, we see Mercy recognizing that Ghost is ambitious, and isn't going to rule the way James has. 

Fearless does so much heavy lifting with regard to setting the stage. It's the reason it's such a large book, and why it doesn't focus solely on Ava and Mercy's relationship. So much of what we learn about the other characters here, even just sprinkled throughout like the quote above, means that later books make complete sense. My goal from the start was to create a place that felt tangible, and real, and like you could pick up the phone and call any one of these characters and know how they'd respond. 

This is the chapter where Mercy has Ava bite him on the chest. One of those feral scenes I really enjoyed including, because they're that couple. 

Like Leah, I'm "proud-slash-freaked-out."