Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Three

 

"Never forget how small you are, Felix. When a man starts thinking he can control the beast, that's when She swallows him whole. No one remembers his name; he ain't nothin' but bleached bone washing up amongst the reeds, bits of him deep in the belly of a gator somewhere along the slimy bottom."

Like Chapter One, Chapter Three is putting in the work with this book. In Chapter Three, we finally, properly, meet Mercy.

Nothing about him surprised most anyone, really. 

One of the things I'm doing as we go along with this reread is address some of the cutting, usually hilarious bits of criticism the book, and I, have received over the past decade. Not because I have an axe to grind, but because I'm hoping to offer some insight into my process, and explain the mindfulness behind all the little creative choices in the novel. One such funny critique was - paraphrasing here - "Why should I care about alligators?" I wrote this post about it last year, so I won't rehash it all, but it's a very intentional choice in Chapter Three to introduce Mercy's POV with a glimpse at his childhood. Mercy is an unlikely combo of childishly sweet and extravagantly enthusiastic about violence. I don't think that characterization works without understanding the ways his early years were his most formative. 

Mercy's a strange bird. I researched the current MC romance trends back in 2014 when I started writing, saw the man-of-few-words, grunting, woman-ordering-around stereotypes, and swerved hard in the other direction. With all the guys, but mostly with Mercy. If I was going to write a Southern Epic, I was going to write a Southern Epic Byronic hero to go with it. My Cajun Heathcliff crossed with a modern Rhett Butler. His Cheerfully Murderous personality is 100% inspired by my now-departed dog, Viktor. 

A visit to the swamp of the past is a slow start here...but it all comes back in the end, and it's an essential part of understanding Mercy. 

Our other big introduction here is, of course, Ghost. 

Though a few inches shorter, Ghost was an imposing figure in his own right. The kind of man who made taller men want to bend their knees so they were on the same level. Lean and hard with muscle, his parentage of Aidan had never been in question: the same strong nose, dark hair and eyes, low brows that gave him a perpetual scowl, and a firm jaw that was always grinding. He’d boxed in the army, and he still had a fighter’s wide shoulders and catlike grace. Ghost never fidgeted; he had no nervous tics. He occupied a room with such indomitable presence, a radiant, unaffected confidence that was a part of his every fiber, and never a show.

Writing Ghost has always been fun, because I've always greatly enjoyed his role within the story, and have always spun him in a way that I knew would make readers dislike him. Let's be blunt: he's an asshole. But it was super important to me to showcase a couple of things, especially early on:

Firstly, that he's not going to be the same sort of president James was. He cares about the success and viability of his club beyond the social aspects. Lots of guys love to talk about being an outlaw, and playing by their own rules, but Ghost has the ambition and the ruthless savvy to back it up. In all honesty, I hope no one expected an MC president to be a nice guy. 

I also wanted to show a clear juxtaposition between Mercy's dad's "Daddy" bonhomie, and Ghost's relentless practicality and total disregard for niceties. It's something that will, ten years later, be echoed quite satisfyingly in Lord Have Mercy when Mercy stands up at church and says that there are times he's wanted to strangle Ghost, but that he loves him better than he loved his own father. That's a big deal. 

One last parting note: I love this line, because it's Mercy acknowledging what we'll all soon learn about Ava:

It seemed only fitting that as Ghost became the new president, Maggie would finally take her rightful place as queen of the MC.

               Ava didn’t know it yet, but she had that same steel in her.

Fearless Read-Along: Unconditional

 

Tomorrow we move on to Chapter Three in our read-along, so get your final Chapter Two questions, comments, observations, etc. in at the FB discussion group (there's obviously not a real time limit, you can ask about anything at any time). 

Today's post - later than intended thanks to a storm and a ten-hour power outage, yikes! - isn't so much focused on Chapter Two as on Ava and Mercy in general. Y'all had some great observations this week, specifically with regard to the Valentine's post. 

I loved hearing which romance in the Dartmoor Series was everyone's favorite. Lots of Ava/Mercy votes, as expected, but a fair number of Ghost/Maggie, Michael/Holly, Walsh/Emmie, and Reese/Tenny, too. I love seeing that variation, because I've always sought to showcase different relationship dynamics and character archetypes throughout the series, knowing everyone has different tastes. But even so, Mercy and Ava's love story sticks out; it feels more "epic" and cinematic than some of the others, and I think - and y'all awesomely pointed out! - that that's down to the unlikely and unconditional nature of their romance. 

Mercy and Ava are rare in that they quite literally know everything about one another. In part because Mercy was around while Ava was growing up, but also because, in the back half of Fearless, Mercy entrusts Ava with the dark side of his family history. She of course already knows all about the dark things he's willing to do for the club, and for her. There's no secrets between them, and they're both very, very secure in one another's love and affection. They aren't hiding anything from one another. Neither of them thinks about being unfaithful or is otherwise tempted in any way.

Whatever else is happening around them, there's never any doubt that they'll do absolutely anything it takes for one another and their family. That's a rare thing in real life, I think, and it's what makes their relationship so special. 

It's also a perhaps more extreme echo of Ghost and Maggie's relationship. Ghost is gruff and unpoetic, and as a couple they're longer-established and less demonstrative than Mercy and Ava are in the beginning, but Maggie and Ghost are just as ride-or-die for one another, something Aidan's unpleasantly reminded of in Lord Have Mercy. 

Happy Book Birthday to College Town

 

It's Valentine's Day, and the one-year bookiversary of College Town. Mired deep in the middle of writing Lord Have Mercy, at that stage in a book that size when it feels as though it will never end, I was struck by a sudden burst of unrelated inspiration, and ended up writing a standalone M/M romance that not only helped me work through some sticky places in LHM, but became my favorite project of the year. 

It features a second-chance romance between childhood sweethearts, some mafia action, and a surprise twist ending. You can grab a copy here, or at B&N or Kobo, and there's also a follow-up novella told from Tommy's POV, A Cure for Recovery. Both are perfect short and spicy-sweet V-Day reads. 

Blurb:

Welcome to Eastman, home of the Eastman University Eagles. They’ve got twelve bars, twice as many coffeeshops, and Lawson Granger’s probably going to die behind the counter of Coffee Town, watching all the bright young people in town get their degrees and get on with their lives. He’s not miserable, exactly, but between working retail, writing books that’ll never get published, and helping take care of his infirm father, his life’s running a little short on joy. He has his family, though, and his best friend, Dana, and dreaming about being published is somehow better than accepting that he never will be.

Then the boy who broke his heart twenty years ago walks into the shop one day and throws Lawson’s entire small world into chaos. Tommy Cattaneo grew up handsome. And rich, clearly, judging by his suit, and his watch, and his chauffeured Lincoln. If Lawson’s shocked to see him, Tommy is dumbfounded. Lawson’s happy to pretend they’re strangers, despite the traitorous racing of his heart, but Tommy is adamant that they talk. He wants to explain why he left town suddenly…and returned twenty years later, with a beautiful fiancée, and a mansion, and a wardrobe that costs more than Lawson’s car.

When it becomes clear that Tommy means to stay in town for a while, and that he won’t take no for an answer, Lawson agrees to hear him out. Just once, and then he can lay his old heartache to rest. It’s probably a stupid excuse, anyway. I mean, t’s not like Tommy’s in the mafia…right?

#WorkshopWednesday: Nonlinear

Chapter One lays down a lot of foreshadowing, and Chapter Two ups the ante. By this point, it's very clear that something's gone down in the past between Mercy and Ava. But there are also lots of little hints about Ava's upbringing, the club's history, and even Tango's dark past. In a different sort of novel, this could merely be foreshadowing as a shorthand backstory. But this is me, and my favorite literary device is the nonlinear narrative structure. 

You'd be hard-pressed to find one of my books that doesn't include flashbacks. (I think the Drakes are straight-up linear, so that's something.) The most common criticism of the "Then" and "Now" technique is that frequent or lengthy flashbacks disrupt forward momentum, and force readers to flip back because they've forgotten where the present-day story line left off before the flashback began. Valid criticisms, but criticisms I'm willing to risk because, for me, a linear narrative can just as easily be struck down by a case of "what's the point?" In a novel of this size and scope, a linear storytelling structure can start to feel like an endless slog. 

With Fearless specifically, it was important to me that I show, explicitly and in detail, Mercy and Ava's first doomed romance when she was seventeen. Because it's taboo, and shocking, and ends badly, I felt like readers needed to walk through step-by-step with Mercy and Ava in order to understand just how much they mean to one another. Seeing it firsthand builds more empathy for their unlikely situation than summarizing it in a couple paragraphs. I could have started in the past, and written straight through to the present day, but I feel like that would have made the book feel longer and less accessible. Readers would go through that whole roller coaster with Mercy and Ava, be left sad and disappointed, then see there were four-hundred more pages to go in the book. I think lots of people, having experienced one denouement, would have set the book aside, and might not have returned to it. 

By starting in the present day and introducing a juicy new conflict and a scary enemy, it establishes intrigue from the very first. Readers can then safely enjoy the large flashback portion of the book knowing that Ava and Mercy will reunite five years later. That they'll be back in one another's orbit, still drawn to each other, and with much more story to tell. 

In this way, the beginning of the book hooks you in; the second part gives you the sordid history, so you'll understand why things are so dramatic now; then parts three and four carry us home. I genuinely can't imagine writing it a different way. I think the nonlinear narrative style allows you more leeway with backstory, rather than less. I think it makes the novel richer in the long run. 

#TeaserTuesday: AOTE Cover Reveal

 

“I want to believe you.” That was far too candid, but she was past the point of caring.

He nodded. “I understand why you don’t.”

Amelia frowned, and massaged at the tension that sprouted in the center of her forehead. “Gods…why are you so bloody agreeable all the time? I hate it.” When she gapped her fingers and peered through them, she saw that the slight frown he’d worn the past few minutes had turned the other direction. His lips formed the barest upward curve, more a neutral expression than a true smile, but something bright had come into his eyes.

“I’ve never actually been part of an argument before,” he said, like a confession.

She snorted. “No free will, no romance, no arguing, hm?”

“None.”

Tired of holding it, arm full of pins and needles, Amelia laid the sword carefully on the ground, within reach should she need it. She rested her elbow on her knee, and cupped her chin in her hand. “I should kill you, you know.”

He nodded, and looked neither surprised nor alarmed. “You’d be within your rights, both as an Aquitainian and the commander of this army.”

“See?” She sat up, and gestured at him with both hands, frustrated, tired, bloody sick of making decisions and then wondering if they were the right decisions. “Agreeable. Too agreeable. What sort of man says ‘yes, my lady, you’d be within your rights to kill me?’ This is why I don’t trust you. Why you must be spying on us.”

He waited a beat, seeing if she was done, she supposed. Her too-quick, open-mouthed breathing filled the tent, and she clamped her lips shut tight.

When she was quiet, he said, “It’s as I’ve said before: I don’t wish to be a Sel any longer. Not to be a Selesee slave, at any rate. I want to be free. And I believe helping you is the only way I can be.”

A part of Amelia wanted to scream.

A larger part of her wanted to tip over onto the cot, curl up, and sleep for three days.

She did neither, but said, “When was the last time someone offered you water?”

“A…while.”

#TeaserTuesday: LDL 6

 

So hot off the press it doesn't even have a title yet. I started planning this before I broke ground on Lord Have Mercy, and, unfortunately, it won't leave me alone. This one scales back to a more intimate, personal conflict, a little more romance-focused, less club-takes-on-the-world. We're back in New York with the youngest of Devin's brood, set three years after Nothing More. 

 

Shep expected an interrogation, and wasn’t disappointed. The second they heard a door click shut down the hall, Toly turned to him, eyes nothing but dark slits, jaw set at a tense angle. The whole effect was ruined by the squirming baby on his shoulder and the disaster of his hair, but Shep was going to enjoy that rather than point it out.

“Where was she?”

“Sounding awful fatherly there, Moscow,” Shep drawled.

Toly exhaled forcefully and didn’t deign to repeat himself. He was serious, Shep saw, and he could respect that; in this case, he was serious, too.

He dropped the asshole act. “Big white townhouse on the UWS. She was sitting on the sidewalk when I got there, halfway to hypothermic, and some little punkass was trying to give her something in a Solo cup.” His hand clenched on empty air at the memory of seeing her like that, clearly incapacitated, weaving where she sat in an inelegant heap on the cold concrete, some chinless little shit looming in her face and waving around more drugs in a cup. “When she called, she was slurring and out of it. She said she only had three sips and shouldn’t have been drunk.”

Toly’s expression darkened. “And you believed her?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“She just lied straight to my face.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t lie to me.”

Toly opened his mouth…and then closed it. A groove appeared between his black brows.

Shep found that he didn’t want to backtrack or otherwise diffuse the statement. It was true, and he liked that it was. In fact, it felt satisfying to define it out loud that way. Maybe she was a little shit, but she didn’t feed him fibs the way she did other people. He got the truth; it almost felt, strangely, satisfyingly, like he’d earned that truth.

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Two

 

             “What’s wrong with you? You were fine, and then you just weren’t.” His head dipped, his eyes bright and knowing. “When your brother mentioned whoever that Mercy person is – that is a person, right? And not the dog? I honest to God can’t tell.”

               She felt her lips form a smile, but she was deep inside her own head, somewhere back behind her face and whatever mannequin expression it managed to propel toward him. “I’m just tired,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong.”

               “Okay, clearly, I don’t know jack shit about all this biker nonsense” – a part of her recoiled against that phrasing – “but I know you well enough to know that something’s up. It was like someone flipped a switch back there at the…the…”

               “Clubhouse.”

               “Yeah.” He reached for a lock of her dark brown hair and gave it a little tug. “You’re not yourself.”

               Maybe, she thought bitterly, you don’t know when I’m being “myself.” You wouldn’t like me if you ever saw the real me. 

Reading this chapter was an exercise in what my mom likes to call giving myself some grace, because I wanted to rewrite the entire thing. I wouldn't change anything that happens, that's all fine and necessary, but I very much wanted to change the way I describe all of it. I think that's going to be something that plagues me through the read-along. It's been ten years, and I'm a stronger, better writer now...but now is not the time to invest time and effort into the herculean task of rewriting this monster. I'm choosing to see it as a net positive that, ten years later, I've grown enough as a writer to see where I would tighten and adjust my old work. 

Anyway. Chapter Two introduces us to some more major players, chiefly Maggie and Carter. The queen is busy getting the clubhouse set up for the big party, and we also meet her fellow old ladies. It was a little surreal to see Ava thinking of herself as not being one of them: she's still unattached to a Dog here, and after ten years of writing her as Mrs. Lecuyer, it's startling to go back to the time before. 

I said in the FB group last week that I think Maggie is one of the characters who changes the least over the course of the series, and I definitely stand by that statement. As much as I love writing characters who struggle, and who overcome, and who learn about themselves and their families in the process, this ragtag group of characters needs a rock, and that's Mags. I don't think she ever lets anyone down over the course of ten books...although, to be fair, Aidan's a little bummed after LHM for obvious reasons. He gets it, but it still stings. 

Speaking of struggling, poor Carter's in a not-great place here in Chapter Two. His dreams of a bright future have been shattered, and he's more than a little lost in life, searching for a purpose. I think that's something that attracts men to outlaw MCs in real life - that need for a purpose, feeling out of options and shut out from society - and it's something I tried to bring to life with Dartmoor. No one successful and well-adjusted prospected with the club, though many of them ended up that way after patching in. 

Anyone reading Fearless for the first time probably feels bad for Ronnie at this point. Ava isn't acting like herself - or she isn't acting like the version of herself Ronnie has always known. Chapter Two is the beginning of the end for them: every second spent in Knoxville she feels more divided, and his insistence that something is wrong only makes her resent him more. In this chapter, we see Ronnie starting to push back against her emotional whiplash.

Of course, knowing what I do about Ronnie, it's hard for me to feel too bad for him. 

In Chapter Two, we "lay eyes" on Mercy, but we don't see Ava interact with him. It was important to me that he stand out physically in his scene to really drive home what a blow the sight of him is for Ava. I'll admit, and I think it's obvious in the glimpse we catch of him through Ava's eyes here, that I did not initially envision Jason Momoa when crafting Mercy. There's only a tiny handful of characters I had actors in mind for from the start, and Mercy wasn't one of them. But my friend Lisa mentioned him in the early days of Dartmoor, and it caught on quick with readers. At this point, I think Jason's the universally accepted head-canon, and his real-life personality is a good fit for Mercy. 

Comments, questions? Drop them below, or head over to the FB group to join the book club discussion! Grab a copy of the book if you haven't and read along with us! 

Fearless Chapter One: Breadcrumbs

 

Chapter One breadcrumb moment:

"The straps just covered the tiny tattoo on the top of her left foot."

Some books are very free-wheeling, and I feel things out as I go. But all the main plot beats of Fearless were nailed down before I started writing, so it was an exercise in dropping all the breadcrumbs at the right moments.

Folding backstory into the current narrative of a story is one of my favorite challenges. Through seemingly innocuous dropped comments and well-timed flashbacks, you slowly reveal a character's history rather than info-dumping. And that process, no matter how fleshed out my notes and outlines ahead of time, is always an exercise in "feel." I always want it to seem organic, and it's hard to know when the right moment will occur until you're in it. 

Fearless Chapter One: First vs. Last Lines

 

I thought it would be fun to look at the very first and very last lines of the three main characters introduced in Chapter One. I'm struck by the sheer wealth and breadth of what takes place between seemingly throwaway tidbits of dialogue. Aidan's last line winds up being the funniest by default. Ava's last line is the perfect, final cherry on top of the Dartmoor sundae, the ultimate summation of the ending of the whole series: so very much has happened, but now everyone's home. And my favorite last line, and one of my favorite scenes in the whole series, belongs to Tango. "I'm glad you're not dead." Because this girl doesn't write tragedies. 

Fearless Chapter One: Setting

 

Yesterday we kicked off the Fearless read-along, in which I'll focus on one chapter per week. You can visit yesterday's post for all the info and links to the discussion group. I'm hoping to make this the most comprehensive look back at the book to date, so all your comments and questions are welcome. 

Chapter One does a lot of heavy lifting, and that's by design, because I knew this book was going to be a massive endeavor from the start. One of the many things the first chapter does is establish the setting - or both settings, as it were. 

We get a mention of New Orleans, which I made Mercy's birthplace because I love Anne Rice. Her Vampire Chronicles brought that city to life for me in such a way that I knew I wanted to visit it with my own writing. My version is a little less Mayfair and a lot more swamp, but its storied, supernatural aura lends itself perfectly to the mythical aspects of this novel, and the series as a whole. 

I chose Knoxville for several reasons. I wanted the club's mother chapter to be based in a Southern city, but not my own, and not one as bustling as Nashville or Atlanta. Knoxville certainly has its own energy and attractions, but it's not as well-known as tourist stops like Memphis. It has a smaller feel, and I think that allows the Dogs to have a larger, more influential presence, rather than be swallowed up by a major landmark. Plus, I have family ties to the city. My mom's family is from there originally, and the orange blood runs strong. 

I use some real city sties in the book, but the main settings, like the Dartmoor property, Bell Bar, and the bakery Mercy lives above are all fictional. 

Given Mercy's boating past, the Tennessee River is one of those unlooked-for bonuses that happen sometimes in writing. A wonderful and useful coincidence. 

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter One

Welcome to the 2025 Fearless read-along! Starting today, I'm hosting a read-along of the big monster that started it all, book one in my outlaw motorcycle club series, Fearless. If you've been here a while, chances are you've read the book, but maybe it's been a while. If you're new, I hope you'll enjoy your first trip to Knoxville and NOLA in the company of my motley crew. 

Fearless turned ten last month. TEN. We've had a decade of Dogs, and that's hard to wrap my head around, honestly. I've posted about it at length during that time, offering bonus "footage," insider info, and full debriefings of new releases. I started a read-along of the whole series in 2020, and then sort of speed-ran it and didn't go into great detail once Covid hit. This time, I want to really take my time and foster a book club atmosphere where I can revisit the book - I haven't read the whole thing in years - reflect back, answer questions, and participate in conversation. 

Whether you read ahead, or simply want to participate in the chats, I'll be focusing on one chapter per week (there's 53!). I'll do a blog write-up that I'll post here and try my best to respond to everyone's comments. I've also started a Public Facebook group for faster back-and-forth. 

Here's where you can participate: 

• Right here on the blog.
• On my Instagram: @hppress
• In the Facebook group: HERE

If you need to grab a copy of your own, or send one to a friend, you can find it HERE. 

I hope you'll all join me! It should be fun. 

Let's kick it off with Chapter One...There will be spoilers, so beware...

I'll be honest and say that reading my own work is always a surreal experience. It's uncomfortable, most of the time, like being forced to look at photos of myself, which I hate; I would like to not be perceived in physical form, thank you very much. Reading my own words makes me self-conscious, and cracking open Fearless last night was no exception. I can definitely see the ways my writing has grown and improved in the past ten years; it would be alarming if it hadn't. There are sentences I would tweak or even eliminate if I wrote the same story now. 

But you know what? I was actually really excited by Chapter One. It's been so long that it felt like reading a stranger's work. It gave me a little of that tight-stomached excitement I always love to discover in the early chapters of a really fat book. That excitement that comes with realizing that I'm going to enjoy this big, fat book. That the author's voice is one that clicks with me. When I know there's so much more to come, and I can't wait to get to it. 

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” 

This chapter establishes so much of what I wanted to get across with the book as a whole. The Nietzsche quote to start us off is a caution sign: these characters are outlaws. Unapologetic counter-culture lawbreakers who make their own rules whether anyone likes that or not. Through Nietzsche's words, I'm asking the readers to set aside all their own interpretations of life, of right and wrong, to shed their personal moral codes, and take a walk in this family's shoes. If you go with them, that quote cautions, you should expect to see the world differently in their company. 

It was vitally important to me to do two things with Chapter One. The first was to highlight the fact that Ava might be struggling to straddle the dividing line between two worlds, that college has affected her, and she wants to belong in that world...but that she isn't now, nor has she ever been ashamed of her MC origins. I think it would be easy to portray her as someone clinging desperately to her new life, to show her reject club life, but that's not her. She's a club girl first, everything else second, and so the drive through Knoxville to get to Dartmoor brings all that home life roaring back to the forefront. 

The second big goal was to establish this novel as one that is intentionally old-fashioned. I started writing it because someone from my fanfic days reached out to let me know that my old abandoned fics were being harvested for parts by several self-published romance authors, and asked if those ideas were "up for grabs." They weren't. I decided to harvest my own parts, and create my own biker series, and instead of taking the then-current trend at face value, I decided I wanted to write a Southern epic. One of those lush and sprawling, unhurried, Gothic romances of the eighties and nineties that couldn't seem to settle on a genre, and which were bursting with sensory details and rich settings. Books that were events. I wanted it to feel cinematic, highly visual, and for each character POV to be realistically biased; these were their stories as they wished to tell them, actions seen through their eyes. I knew this style wouldn't be for everyone, but it gave me the room to write a novel that was both an action/adventure thriller, and an epic love story told through multiple points of view. I had wiggle room....and I set out to use it. 

One trait of the Southern epic that I don't think is exclusive to Southern writers, but which is certainly typical, is the habit of tucking stories inside of other stories. Current actions bring to mind past events and previous acquaintances for the characters, just like our own memories are triggered by our daily lives in real life. 

Here in Chapter One, Ava looks at Ronnie, and thinks how her grandmother would approve of him, which of course makes her think of the ways her grandmother never approved of Ghost, and how Maggie doesn't care. It's just a few lines, but it's already layering the characterization in; before you ever see Maggie, you know what sort of woman she is based on these lines. 

He was, quite honestly, a dreamboat.

That’s what her grandmother would have said. Grammie Lowe, Maggie’s mother, had been repulsed by Ghost, and all the MC boys, from the get go. “Trash,” she always said, even within Ava’s hearing, something which Maggie and her mother had fought about endlessly.  “They’re Ava’s family,” Maggie had hissed. “Don’t you dare try to turn her against them, or make her feel ashamed of where she comes from.”

Maggie had never felt shame, not once. 

Speaking of layering: I really wanted to start with just Ava, and then layer everyone else in bit by bit. We start with Aidan and Tango here, and it's fun to go back and read that, even when they bicker, Aidan and Ava do truly love each other. Aidan was old enough when she was born to be a helpful older sibling, and it makes his head spin a little that she's all grown up now. He's going to give her crap, but he'd take a bullet for her any day. 

Another Southern epic thing: making the setting mythic. I don't know if any of the natives would describe Knoxville, TN as one of those almost-otherworldly cities, but given the Old West/Knights of the Roundtable mythos surrounding biker clubs, it felt appropriate here. 

Home.

Knoxville, Tennessee.  Between Interstate 40 and the Tennessee River, it flourished beneath a veneer of Southern pride and university spirit, lying in the shadows of the blue humped backs of the Appalachians. It had the privilege of being both a bustling city, and a college town. There was orange everywhere. A bright Vols orange. The football games pulled in a certain amount of tourists, as did the vibrant bar scene, the shopping, the restaurants, and the gleaming black river that wound through the Tennessee hills like a heavy cottonmouth snake.

Ava cracked the windows and breathed deep. “Smell that,” she said.

“Fish and river water?” Ronnie asked.

Undeterred, she shook her head and kept smiling. “That’s home.”

And then the most magical sound reached her ears: bikes.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Ronnie, here. Poor Ronnie. (Not.) Some of the criticism of Ava stems from the notion that she "toys" with Ronnie. That she's leading him on. The reality is that, without knowing how much Mercy still loves her, with no knowledge that it was Ghost who forced them apart, she spent her college years hurting and loving Mercy, but without any hope of ever being with him. She really does want to make things work with Ronnie. She tried - and that worked while they were still in Georgia. But she's 22, gosh, that's young, and naive in certain respects, and she underestimated just how badly her relationship with Ronnie would blow up, his true identity notwithstanding. Her intentions here at the beginning are pure...but being back with the family would have driven them apart eventually even if Mercy wasn't still around. I wanted to show her taking a chance on what she would label a "real, mature relationship." I think that's realistic and likely, and it also gives us a chance to see the struggle in trying to belong to two worlds. 

We end the chapter with Aidan dropping the bomb that Mercy's in town. I love that it's Aidan who tells her: that brother/sister bond again. That worry on his part, because none of his brothers were going to tell her. Sidenote: the club as a whole softens considerably toward all of the women as the series goes along, and that's an intentional slow shift. 

“Oh, hey,” Aidan called from behind her.

She paused and half-turned. “What?”

Aidan’s expression lost its teasing aggression and became serious, unusually so. “NOLA’s in the house.”

New Orleans. The city that was the birthplace, former and current home of…

She sucked in a breath through her teeth, unprepared for the sudden ferocious stab of pain in her belly. The hurt that came spilling out of her heart and began to boil in her insides. Heartbreak was never cured; it just went into remission. And here it came roaring back, leaving her feverish and weak and unable to move in the bright afternoon sun.

It took her three tries before she wet her lips and said, “So what do I care?”

“No one else was going to warn you.” Because the club didn’t worry about the hurt feelings of one member’s daughter. No amount of personal bullshit could touch the MC…well, it wasn’t supposed to, anyway. Aidan, as he studied her, became almost sympathetic, his features tight and somber as he gauged her reaction. “But I thought you should know that he’s here.”

And that's Chapter One! Next week, we actually go inside the clubhouse. 

You can head over to the FB group or leave comments/questions here or on my Insta. Thanks for being here! 

Fearless Read-Along, Anyone?

 

Happy Monday and Happy February!

Given it's V-Day month, and given that, last month, Fearless officially turned TEN YEARS OLD - holy crap, it's been a DECADE - I was curious if anyone was interested in doing a read-along. I started one back in Jan of 2020, and then the Covid crazy hit, and things got kind of disorganized.

Drop a comment below if you're up for it.

I want this time to be MUCH more organized on my end, going one chapter at a time. I'm thinking a chapter a week. The plan will be to write a blog post that I put up each Monday, and then we can have a discussion/you guys can ask questions from there.

Should I make an FB group for it? I'm trying to decide how best to consolidate it and collaborate across my 3 main socmed outlets.

Let me know! I'd love for this to be the most in-depth, BTS look at the book ever.

Dragon Day

 

National Appreciate a Dragon Day you say? 

*throws these dragons at you*

Dragons have always been an essential fantasy staple, but they feel like they've gone mainstream lately - not that I'm complaining. My favorite dragon has always been Gorbash; I probably watched Flight of Dragons two-hundred times as a kid. I haven't watched it lately to see if it holds up, and I don't think I want to. I want to remember how much I loved it years ago and feel nostalgic. It was part of the Intelligent, Talking Dragon genre, more Smaug than Drogon. 

As far as my own efforts go, I've written the dragons in the Drake Chronicles as mentally linked with their riders, but ultimately as animals, without speech or human reasoning. They do have an incredible sense of empathy with their riders, however, and are not mindless snarling and snapping beasts who devour everything in sight. Mine are a blend of dogs and horses personality-wise, domesticated, and useful, and affectionate. 

Little Valgrind is admittedly my favorite. He's a cute, dumb baby, and Nali loves him, though he'd never admit it aloud. 

If you're all about the current dragon craze, the first five books of my adult epic fantasy saga are available in digital and print form, and I'm currently working on book six. There's romance, political intrigue, tenuous alliances, interesting villains. There's Ragnar 😉 There's wolf shifters, and necromancy, and dream-walking. Don't let the slow-burn start in book one fool you: it's definitely magical, and more than earns the fantasy label in the rest of the series. 

Reading Order:

Heart of Winter

Edge of the Wild

Blood of Wolves 

Demon of the Dead

Fortunes of War

#TeaserTuesday: Prisoners

 

“Heirs, slaves, or soldiers,” Ragnar repeated. “Is that all you produce over there? What about farmers? Blacksmiths? Craftsmen? The tents we raided up north were swimming in gold trinkets and fancy cups. Someone made those, didn’t they?”

“Those would be slaves.”

“Is that how it is, then? In your empire? You’re either at the top, or someone at the top owns you?”

Cassius turned his head as they walked, his gaze near-colorless in the shade of the pines, cutting and far too bold for that of a prisoner. After a long beat of eye contact—as if Ragnar was going to be the one to look away first—Cassius returned his gaze to the road and sighed. “Have you considered that’s the precise reason I allowed myself to be captured? The reason I’m helping your people?”

“Not my people, mate. You’re helping the Southerners.”

“Your prince is aligned with the Southern cause, though, is he not?”

“He’s not my prince.”

“No.” Cassius sent him another sideways glance. “What is it you call him? Your alpha? He’s your master.”

Ragnar bristled. He didn’t realize he’d growled until Cassius’s brows lifted in surprise; then, aware of the rumble in his chest, he pushed it louder, deeper.

Leif was his alpha. His master. But the intricacies of pack dynamics couldn’t be understood by anyone outside the pack, much less a Sel born into captivity. To Cassius, Ragnar’s submission to Leif’s authority, to his body, would resemble his own upbringing. A relationship between slave and slave-owner. He couldn’t begin to comprehend Ragnar’s relationship with Leif. Couldn’t conceive of—of the way—of the fact Leif didn’t see Ragnar as—

The shock of pain and pressure at his throat proved he’d tried to shift, and his growl choked off. He coughed, and thumped on his chest, his heart racing, his wolf whining and whimpering under his skin.

“Are you well?” Cassius asked.

Snow Days

 

If you follow me on Instagram (@hppress) things have been very horse-oriented lately. Sorry not sorry for the equine spam! As of today, I'm 14k words into my new standalone project, but I'm still not ready to share anything about it, so I thought I'd fill the voice with more farmy content. 

After a week of bitter cold temperatures, Friday marked the first true snow day in Georgia since 2017. It began as two or so inches of fluffy powder in the morning - but then, this being Georgia, that couldn't last; it shifted to freezing rain in the afternoon, which made for a thick, icy crust overtop of everything, far too slick for the horses to go outside. 

This was the young girls' first time seeing snow. They were a little nervous that first day, mostly thanks to the crunching of my footsteps and the manure cart's wheels. I was nervous about putting them out two days later when there were still slippery spots, but, like with fireworks, and gunshots, and most things I fret will spook them, they handled it like little champs. 

Life with horses - with any large, outdoor animal - is just different than life with cats and dogs alone. Having them forces you to take all sorts of things into consideration. "I love being snowed in!" isn't anything horse people say. Snow days don't involve books, and hot chocolate, and cozy socks; it means sliding down hills on numb toes and chapping your hands pulling ice chunks out of water troughs. It's worrying that your horses will colic, toting warm water, tossing hay over and over. It's a life all horse people choose, but it's one that doesn't leave room for sleeping in, or vacations, or making plans that don't revolve around turnout and feeding times. 

In the midst of watching the fire coverage coming out of California, I can't help but feel heartsick over the horse evacuation efforts. What can anyone say about the horrors of it? What can any of us do, save pray for everyone affected, and donate to the brave souls on the ground putting in the hard work? That's all we can do. It's heart-wrenching. And as shattering as it is to see people lose everything they own, the horse owner in me can't imagine the panic and terror of not only losing your home and your belongings, but trying to move your animals in the midst of hell on earth. The videos of people leading their horses down the street, the staggering kindness and generosity of those who've come with trailer in tow to haul horses out of harm's way, the farms and show grounds that have offered a safe place to land...in the midst of tragedy, there are glimmers of the very best of humanity. 

Hugging my babies extra tight, and praying for California ❤

New Year, New Hope

 

Bitter morning greetings from the farm. "Bitter" by Georgia standards, anyway. Everyone up north is laughing at us down here. But anytime you have steep temperature drops, it can be problematic for animals. Thankfully so far we don't have snow - it's predicted for Friday, ugh - and the girls are drinking plenty of water (a big deal when it gets cold) and keeping warm with blankets and lots of hay. I like to stage little piles of hay around the paddock as opposed to using round bales, that way they go from pile to pile and continue moving in a more natural, grazing-like pattern. Gotta keep the circulation going. 

It's surreal that it's 2025 already. I always take a little time away from social media/writing around the holidays, especially during that weird, liminal space between Christmas and New Year's. But this year, I've been very off-and-on ever since September when LHM dropped. Not only was that book mentally and emotionally draining to complete, but then it's proved to be my worst selling book of all time. That coupled with some tumultuous real-life changes hit me with my worst writing slump ever. I've had a few stops and starts with existing series, dabbling with the Drakes or SoR a few hundred words at a time, but I've had lots of days when I sincerely thought that's it. I can't write another book. My mom always said, "Yes, you will." Like it's a given. It didn't feel like it there for a while. 

Yesterday was the first time since August I've written more than 2k words in a single day. I started something new, brand new, not related to anything else I've written, and slowly but surely over the course of the day, I felt some of the old spark returning. I won't get my hopes up, and I'm not ready to post anything like a teaser for it yet, but things were clicking yesterday. I woke up this morning eager to pick up where I left off. I started College Town at this time last year, and it was a much-needed break and creativity booster. Maybe this new standalone can be one of those as well. 

In this period of stagnation, there's two things keep coming back to. Recurring thoughts. 

The first is an exchange between an author and an anonymous commenter I encountered on Tumblr 6 or 7 years ago. The author, who was very talented, was bemoaning the amount of online hate and bullying her work was receiving. She decided to allow anonymous comments and posed the question: "Why are you over here trying to crush me, who has a small audience, and who just wants to share my work, instead of railing against the drivel being pushed out by huge publishing houses?" I'm paraphrasing, but it boiled down to: why are you picking on me instead of these huge corporate productions? Why single out a bespoke piece of fiction posted for free on the web? One anonymous commenter - only brave enough to say this thanks to anonymity - replied: "Because we know we can influence you." The commenter went on to say that they knew they couldn't affect a massive, NYT bestselling author with multi-million-dollar contracts, that they couldn't alter the course of a movie they disliked. "But we can stop you," this person said. The online, creative equivalent of kicking a puppy because you couldn't take on the hulking schoolyard tough guy. If you can't fight Dwayne Johnson, why not punch a baby? 

The other thing I've been thinking about is the way publishing part one of Fearless in August of 2014 made some folks so, so angry. When the ceaseless bullying I was dealing with while writing fanfiction in college got to be too much trouble, I jumped ship to writing original fiction. I only sold a few books here and there, but at least it was peaceful. Then the same bullies from the fanfic world jumped to Amazon, and when I started releasing Fearless in installments, the same old crap started all over again. 

Because I'm self-published instead of Stephen King, there's been no shortage over the last decade of people seeking to influence me. Some of them want me to pay them to read and talk up my books; some of them want to tell me what I can and can't write; some of them want me to go away and never publish another book. It's been, in a word, exhausting. I feel extremely fortunate to have amassed my small following and to have brought them joy through my work. It's incredible that anyone has read something I wrote, and sent me a kind message, or left a thoughtful review. Truly astounding. I shouldn't complain at all. 

But it does deeply sadden me that Dartmoor ignited such anger and hatred and bad acts from people. Some authors, some readers paid by those authors, some influencers wanting to steer the market. I'm very pleased with what I accomplished with Dartmoor, and I can only hope, going forward, that maybe if it's laid to rest, some of the nonsense will stop. Was it about that series? Those original bullies? Or is it just a me thing at this point? I know it's always been a point of contention that I don't pay readers and influencers. I can't afford to, because where does it stop? You'll dig yourself into the hole that way. I know the book world is a minefield of toxicity, but maybe, for me, it can be a little less toxic going forward...?

That's my hope: that I can write some new, and fun, and interesting stories in 2025, and shed some of the hatred that was heaped on my head thanks to Dartmoor. It began the very day I published part one. Perhaps, finally, I can slough it off. 

That got maudlin, didn't it? No more. I'm off to re-bust some water troughs, and then have some coffee and get back to work. Cheers to a brighter new year, friends. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your kindness. It means more than you know.