#WorkshopWednesday: Why Authors Ask For Reviews

 

A phrase I've seen oft repeated across bookish social media is "reviews are for readers." They are! Usually, this phrase is used when readers feel that an author has overstepped his or her boundaries and replied directly to negative reviews of their books. But it's also a reflection of the fact that reviews are indeed written by readers for other readers, so they know what they're getting into before they purchase a book.

Why, then, do authors always ask readers to leave a review? Let's get into it. 

Sometimes, you come across a review in which it becomes obvious that the reviewer is addressing the author directly. Some readers think the point of a review is to educate the author on how to write a "better" book in the future. Some are gentler than others, but still issue suggestions or requests. 

I hate to be blunt, and I don't like to speak for all authors, but I think it's safe to generalize when I say that authors, myself included, do not look at reviews as inspiration, or reprimands. I do love to talk about my books with readers on social media, via Instagram posts, or blog posts like our Fearless Read-Along. Nothing makes my day like having a reader quote a favorite passage to me, or share personal stories with me about how a scene in one of my books reminded them of a loved one, or a special memory. That sort of thing is crack to an author. 

But reviews serve a different purpose. By the time an author publishes a book, it's been edited, and re-edited. It's been proofread. We've bugged our editors and loved ones about plot points and word choice until they're sick of us. What we put out (this is at least true for me) is what we mean to put out, for good or for ill, knowing that some readers will love it, and some will hate it. I reserve the right to respond to direct messages, emails, or comments on my blog or social media, but I don't ever respond to reviews left on review sites. Occasionally, I'll deal with someone who's a bad actor: a person who leaves a string of disparaging reviews and then reaches out offering to be my editor. They think all those poor reviews will convince me I need to hire them. It never works. I vague blog about them until they crawl back under the rock from whence they came, and move on. Long story short: reviews don't tell the author what to do/not do; they help other readers decide if they want to read a book. 

That's why authors ask for reviews. The more reviews a book has, the more attention it gets: both organic, and through the algorithm. Unfortunately, popularity still matters, even after you leave high school, and books with a high number of reviews tend to draw larger numbers of new readers. On Amazon, the more reviews a book has, the higher the book's ranking, and the higher its visibility. Books that receive lots of ratings and reviews get bumped up in the Amazon algorithm, and casual Amazon scrollers are likelier to see it. This is exactly why some authors buy reviews. The higher the visibility, the higher the sales, the higher the probability that it's worth an author's time to write a sequel.

Basically, it's all a numbers game, which is a little bit soul-crushing when you're an artist who wants to think hard work, dedication, attention to detail, and artistry will carry you forward. Instead, it's all about rank, and views, and clicks, and the cha-ching, baby. 

I do so love reading comments; I'm trying to be better about responding to all of them. And having chats online about our favorite characters. But reviews really are for readers, in more ways than one. 

#TeaserTuesday: Do As You Are Told

Amelia knew what it looked like when a bath was being prepared, but she still asked, “What’s happening? What are they doing?”

The man sighed again, and headed for the door. “Be sure to clean her hair down to the roots. It stinks of dragon,” he addressed the women, who nodded in silent understanding.

Amelia stood, wobbled, and caught herself with a hand braced on the high back of the chaise. “Wait!” she called after him, surprised when he stopped, and then turned. “Whatever this is for”—she gestured to the bath preparations, water spilling over the edge of her cup, heart pounding—“I won’t go along with it. You can’t make me do anything.” It sounded childish the moment it left her mouth, and his small, tight smile said he thought so, too.

“Miss Drake,” he said, falsely patient, “you are no longer the lone dragon rider amidst an army of Southern misfits. You are here, in our possession. You will do as you are told.”

The or else went unspoken, but she shuddered all the same. 

For reasons I've never understood, every time I reach 50k words on a manuscript, my progress slows. I don't stop writing, and I don't lose sight of what comes next, but the day-to-day composition becomes a slower, more arduous process. Instead of hammering out words, I write a few sentences, then stare out the window; then check my email; then scroll Instagram; then write a few more sentences. I don't know why this happens, but it happens with every book. It's some sort of malaise, that eventually lifts, and then I sprint through the final 10-20k words of the book. I'm trying to learn to accept it and not fret about it. Every time I think "oh no, I've lost the magic," but every time I work through it. Jesus take the keyboard, I guess. 

It might have something to do with the fact that the 50k mark is usually where things start to go really south for the characters. It's the thick of whatever sticky situation they'd landed in, and there's a subconscious part of me that places a heavier emphasis on those scenes. That's certainly the state of things right now in Avarice of the Empire. Our three Drakes are in trouble. 

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Twenty-Two

 

   

           He wanted his girl, and he couldn’t have her, and he wanted to crack someone’s head open with his cue stick.

               By the end of the night, he would want to crack his own head open, for not pulling her into his arms that morning and asking her what was wrong. 

 

This is one of those evil cliffhanger chapters; the sort that, when reading for the first time, requires you to turn the page and read just one more chapter. It's also a chapter that highlights why multi POV is my preference when writing any sort of book in any genre. 

Real life is limited POV, and we have only our own observations and experiences to go on. After a tumultuous event, we compare notes with others involved, and get a clearer picture of what was actually happening, as opposed to our personal perception of what occurred. Limited POV books (I've written two, College Town and Walking Wounded) can be really rewarding when the main character experiences a big reveal, but I find they don't provide the real-time action experience I'm aiming for in most of my books. 

Writing is a very cinematic process for me. I'm blocking shots in my head, and panning an imaginary camera. In a film, we'd cut from scene to scene, from character to character, in a way that tells the complete story, rather than a part of it. 

Ava and Mercy are both hurting here, and if we stuck with Ava's POV, we wouldn't get to see Mercy's anguish based on his outward behavior alone. Given what comes next, it was essential to spend some time in Mercy's head. Ava's thinking he hates her, wondering how to handle her pregnancy, meanwhile he's applying ointment to a tattoo of her teeth and feeling sorry for himself. It's much more painful (awesome) when you get to walk in both their shoes. 

Carter lived in a seedy neighborhood, full of unkempt lawns and rusted-out decades-old cars. All the angles seemed a little off, a little saggy, a little too slanted. The houses gave the impression of slitted eyes peeping from the wilderness, sleeping beasts who didn’t want to be approached. 

Carter's POV here is important for two reasons. One, just to show what sort of person he is, and where he comes from, so that him eventually prospecting the club makes sense. I always forget much I love Carter; brave boy! It also offers a glimpse into the sad truth that status doesn't always mean anything. Carter's one of the most popular kids in his grade, but comes from a rough home life. Ava's a pariah, considered trash by her peers, but comes from a well-kept, loving, stable home. 

The other reason I wanted to use Carter here is because it keeps the action rolling right along. It creates urgency for the characters, and the reader. If we learned about Ava's abduction through Carter telling the guys about it, the impact is passive, as opposed to the very active scene of him finding her truck, and then her phone, and realizing what's happened. Plot momentum is too often conflated with brevity. A short book, filled with quick, punchy sentences offers a false sense of forward movement. In truth, momentum is created by active scenes of unbroken narrative. Mercy hearing about Ava is a passive scene, no matter how much it affects him; Carter finding the phone is an active scene. The more active scenes you include, the more the book starts to feel like a movie you're watching, and that's always my goal. 

Up next: it's a doozy. It also contains one of my favorite moments in the book. "Ava, call him off."

Fave BoD Scenes in No Particular Order: The Wedding

 

Raven stood up by the arbor, her matron of honor. Since Cass had chosen only one bridesmaid, Shep had picked one groomsman, and that was Toly, his hair slicked back tight along his scalp, wearing all black under his cut. He had the rings in his pocket, Cass knew, as they’d planned.

She saw all of this with a cursory glance: down to the flower swags on the chairs and the swinging lanterns on poles. Then her attention fixed and held on Shep, who was waiting for her.

He’d clearly spent a lot of time and a lot of product on his hair to capture the perfect artless wave on top where he kept it longer. Raven had provided him with a nicely-fitted black button-up shirt, pressed and sleek under his cut, which gleamed with a fresh layer of oil. Dark jeans. His boots were oiled, too. Even his wallet chain looked extra shiny.

The fingers of his right hand tapped at his thigh, a nervous tic, and he leaned fractionally so he could get a better look at her as she and Devin started down the aisle. His face looked so young: nervous, and hopeful, and excited, and cautious. His throat jerked hard as he swallowed, and then his lips twitched into a little smile that made her want to cup his face in both hands and rub their noses together.

Even as her eyes filled with tears, Cass smiled; it felt like her face splitting itself in two, unstoppable and bright and bursting with all the energy that mounted in her chest.

Shep’s smile widened, a helpless response, and he looked so happy, happier than she’d ever seen him.

As they made their slow progression across a scattering of petals, Devin patted her hand where it rested in the crook of his elbow and leaned in to whisper, “That’s a happy man.”

“Yeah,” she said, shakily.

“What d’ya say we walk faster?”

“Yes, let’s.”

I don't normally write weddings. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever actually shown a wedding on-page in this series; usually I reference it or have characters remember it in hindsight. But given the circumstances in Beware of Dog, it felt important to show that, despite the rush, and the courtroom reasoning, Cass and Shep are truly excited to tie the knot. It also offers a chance to show her family accepting Shep as her partner, and as one of their own. 

If you haven't read BoD yet, you can grab it here:

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#ThrowbackThursday: FOW

I think it's safe to say that Fortunes of War is the most divisive installment of the Drake Chronicles. So far, anyway. Some people enjoyed it, some people swore never to return to the series after it, and some are, thankfully, hanging in there to see how the series resolves. 

For my part, I had a bit of wicked, writerly delight in twisting our already-tangled threads into even more difficult knots...but that's because I know what comes next. The author always has the advantage of foresight. And to some extent, those really angry reviews tell me that those pissed-off readers were really engaged with the characters, and are as a result feeling some big emotions in response to those characters' decisions and actions. The reader anger is a good thing, in the short term. And like I've said before: I've still got lots of cooking to do.

When I started writing Heart of Winter, I intended it to be the first book in a trilogy - but not in the way you're probably thinking. HOW was originally going to include the events of Edge of the Wild and Blood of Wolves, too. All three books of the existing series were going to be the first novel in the trilogy. My brain works best in long form, and fat books are my jam. I stepped away from my norm, though, because I'd not written in this genre before, and didn't want to invest months on an 800 page monster until I got a feel for how the story would be received (even in 2020, "romantasy" wasn't a word being used). As a result, each book in the series is shorter and more manageable. 

When looked at this way, books 1-3 are technically book one, which means books 4-6 are technically book two. The second book in any trilogy is one in which the characters' problems multiply, without any solutions in sight. The second installment in any trilogy is messy; a little scary, oftentimes hopeless. Think of The Two Towers, or The Empire Strikes Back. There are small-scale victories, sure, but overall, the story resembles a shaken can of Coke. 

I think Fortunes of War suffers for this. If looked at in the trilogy format, it's the middle part of a middle book, and it raises far more questions than it answers. 

For the final part of the "trilogy," I've decided to end the series on book seven. It'll be one big final act, in which all the conflicts are resolved. Some big action, some swoony romantic endings, and everyone goes home happy. I'm working on book six now, and it does answer some important questions...but also complicates things further. It drops a reveal that no one has guessed yet, so I'm very excited about that. It also reveals why we spent so much time on seeming side pairings in Fortunes. 

It was slow going at first, since I took so much time away from the series to work on That Giant Book, but now I'm back in the groove, and hoping Avarice won't take me much longer. If you stuck it out through FOW, you won't want to miss this one! 

#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:

Kindle

Paperback

Nook

Kobo

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:

Kindle

Paperback

Nook

Kobo

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! 

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