tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15287681626506116532024-03-19T04:48:20.339-04:00Hoofprint PressLauren GilleyLauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.comBlogger1422125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-61171680181231027732024-03-15T13:03:00.001-04:002024-03-15T13:21:12.327-04:00Beware the Ides of March <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgoBT85MMrzSv_U22kLczKg2C1IZQfrod1NeTp1We_k1OMBmRmsY90PhJhY-Qkg4R7Vupzt_frPry4L_IwuiALeognEEG_fqIh4Yfj-2uSxlypeiOK3ge8ysZJu-0aT2X6iLquVFGNvM1SNt96whKH9eLGx1Qv48SAFlDBpExK6WTKo2gqNXewJYdK4Q/s828/593C1A95-E502-40ED-AADB-11719CABD6E4.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="828" height="628" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgoBT85MMrzSv_U22kLczKg2C1IZQfrod1NeTp1We_k1OMBmRmsY90PhJhY-Qkg4R7Vupzt_frPry4L_IwuiALeognEEG_fqIh4Yfj-2uSxlypeiOK3ge8ysZJu-0aT2X6iLquVFGNvM1SNt96whKH9eLGx1Qv48SAFlDBpExK6WTKo2gqNXewJYdK4Q/w640-h628/593C1A95-E502-40ED-AADB-11719CABD6E4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">“The evil that men do lives after them;</span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><div style="text-align: center;">The good is oft interred with their bones.”</div></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><div style="text-align: center;">― <span class="authorOrTitle" face="Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">William Shakespeare, </span><span id="quote_book_link_13006"><a class="authorOrTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2796883" style="color: #333333; font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Julius Caesar</a></span></div></span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Today is the Ides of March. On this day in 44 B.C., the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar - the first, but certainly not the last Roman emperor - was assassinated in the senate, stabbed fatally, twenty-three times, by his own senators. An event, a power struggle, a story, that has inspired quite a bit of my writing, here in the year 2024, even in the smallest of ways. There is a certain flavor of Rome in my Drake Chronicles, and references made even in Dartmoor. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And then, of course, there's the Sons of Rome. Which I haven't worked on since 2019 - *ducks tomatoes* - and which I'm feeling very nostalgic about today. Something I've loved doing with that series is taking deep dives into contentious historical leaders which public opinion seems to have come to a conclusion about; I've loved researching, trying to dig out the true stories behind the myths, and then bringing those figures to life as walking, talking, breathing, fighting characters made of flesh and blood and emotional decisions. We've explored Vlad Tepes at length so far, and learned a little of the fabled Robin Hood. <i>Lionheart</i>, which is another beast of a book comparable to <i>Dragon Slayer</i>, focuses on the notorious Richard I, the Lionhearted, of England. We've glimpsed Romulus and Remus in Valerian's memories, but we haven't actually been to Rome yet in the series. We haven't gotten to <i>see </i>Caesar, and I intend to take us there. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If I ever get around to it. <i>Lionheart </i>is a wildly ambitious project I've kept on the shelf the last few years for financial reasons, trying to keep the books coming rather than immerse myself in the tangled research and notes and long days of story crafting that <i>Lionheart </i>is going to require. I do so want to write it, though. And the next book, and the next. I want us to get to Rome. To the Campus Martius, and a final showdown for the ages. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Now I've made myself sad. There's a part of me - a small, ill-advised part - that almost wants to do <i>Lionheart </i>on Wattpad, just to keep plugging away at it, and to offer it up a little at a time, so that at least you're getting some of it. I'm undecided, though. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you're looking for a wonderful Caesar biography, I can't recommend Adrian Goldsworthy's enough. And <i>The Roman Way</i> by <i>Mythology </i>author Edith Hamiliton is a lovely look at Roman customs and beliefs. </span></div>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-7201120963613284702024-03-14T14:58:00.002-04:002024-03-14T14:58:45.813-04:00What Now? <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6yH6sp3klwmVWeAsYyZ4z8QIYPg6Su93DuAlAPP_6cyeBYdRp54hFsTyYpVBP3Bw2BPaw2v0wqcDFAEHHUGA-i91pWNsMfyiCb1erBFBL7ujIHGW0zIIi-Vo19H5ltjuVJiBZLeOHM6sJCsSWlDzMYxyrl_rZbxAIqHnOmsRRoAj5SBS2as4v_fMIUU/s831/FB0C8647-5126-4A7C-BB63-398A46951AE2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="828" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio6yH6sp3klwmVWeAsYyZ4z8QIYPg6Su93DuAlAPP_6cyeBYdRp54hFsTyYpVBP3Bw2BPaw2v0wqcDFAEHHUGA-i91pWNsMfyiCb1erBFBL7ujIHGW0zIIi-Vo19H5ltjuVJiBZLeOHM6sJCsSWlDzMYxyrl_rZbxAIqHnOmsRRoAj5SBS2as4v_fMIUU/w638-h640/FB0C8647-5126-4A7C-BB63-398A46951AE2.jpeg" width="638" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The business of writing and publishing books completely warps one's perspective of time. I don't know for a fact, but I suspect the music business works at much the same pace. A project takes months to complete, hours, even minutes, to consume, and then it's "what now" before a writer has a chance to catch her breath. Famous authors have the gift of notoriety on their side - if they produce one book a year, or even just one every two years, they have such pull in the industry, are so well-recognized by readers, that advances and royalties for that one novel can carry them well into the future. For indies, for me, constant production becomes necessary. I can release a book one day, and feel woefully behind the next. Taking breaks feels like stealing time; like I should be working no matter what. It's only words, after all. It's only butt-in-chair, fingers-on-the-keyboard. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I'm well aware that this is a deeply personal anxiety speaking, that I am not actually losing ground, though that's what it feels like. The more I write, the more it feels like I've backslid; the less it feels like I've actually accomplished. Silly? Yes, sure. But there all the same. It's an anxiety that makes it difficult to celebrate releases. Why feel triumphant over one book when there's another already underway? </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">On days - weeks - when I'm feeling most frustrated, it's important to take a step back, and look at the big picture, and I'm <i>trying </i>to get better at that. Because, despite my personal anxieties, and despite the sales and reception of a book, each published book is a story that didn't exist in the world before I hit "Publish." And even if it's stressful, that's a pretty special thing. To create stories, and to have those stories read. And because I know this is true for me as a reader, you never know which of those stories will grab someone's heart and squeeze hard. If just one person finds something worthwhile and meaningful in a story I've written, then it was a story I needed to share. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It's been a very challenging week working on <i>Lord Have Mercy</i>. Every scene I've written has been fraught, tense, and as delicate and necessary as a Jenga block in constructing the story as a whole. I've taken lots of walks, and done a lot of staring out the window. I feel <i>behind</i>. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But that's not true: <i>College Town</i> is one month old today. *balloon drop* I love that little book. I love its characters, and its plot, and I love the things I learned and accomplished with its prose. I'm always looking ahead, but this year, I want to be able to sit in the moment of a new release, and savor it a little. To reflect back on them, and steal a little time to be proud of what I've written, rather than <i>only </i>rushing breakneck toward the next chapter. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You can grab <i>College Town</i> at Amazon, B&N, or Kobo, and if you enjoyed the book, I would so appreciate a review! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p></span></div>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-53112269025278147252024-03-12T08:43:00.001-04:002024-03-12T11:09:42.031-04:00#TeaserTuesday: Rising Sun <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This book has been a bear to write for several reasons, chief among them the intricacy and overlap of its plot, or plots, as it were. And also because, rather than the peaks and troughs of my other books, the tension has been on a steady uphill climb the entire way through. The majority of the characters are having the absolute worst time of their lives, and that's a lot of tension to keep cranking up for a lot of people, and it's quite the mental and emotional effort. Ava's head, especially, is an effortful place to be at the moment. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The following teaser contains MAJOR SPOILERS for parts one and two of Lord Have Mercy, so either turn back now, or run go grab copies before you continue.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Have-Mercy-Part-One-ebook/dp/B0CBXYZTZ9?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.s_v6SqZ5VKa3Wt6w_479ijxVcdbGsEGFaR7F-zgC-zBp4TcVlplW8SJQfKtcrXlDON1xhDMPBDvvEkvAJLQ1Zj_6dISv8vkH79c19YpN5Niv2oKVROBvRdow34L6064cPMytkL6r00KiLWZmpmhzs2fYn99E5_8-EIl903FW8PftaRA4r4qH68XRBS2RxjnLV_exFEyD3brIoIgVLFIf555UPMyxEwhD5SHLa1J9OkM.zvr3fmcr9EzBN9Ihmj0jGQwiOsRY8uJd9yilSRxMrH4&dib_tag=AUTHOR">Lord Have Mercy Part One: The Good Son</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Have-Mercy-Part-Two-ebook/dp/B0CRNC44QS?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.s_v6SqZ5VKa3Wt6w_479ijxVcdbGsEGFaR7F-zgC-zBp4TcVlplW8SJQfKtcrXlDON1xhDMPBDvvEkvAJLQ1Zj_6dISv8vkH79c19YpN5Niv2oKVROBvRdow34L6064cPMytkL6r00KiLWZmpmhzs2fYn99E5_8-EIl903FW8PftaRA4r4qH68XRBS2RxjnLV_exFEyD3brIoIgVLFIf555UPMyxEwhD5SHLa1J9OkM.zvr3fmcr9EzBN9Ihmj0jGQwiOsRY8uJd9yilSRxMrH4&dib_tag=AUTHOR">Lord Have Mercy Part Two: Fortunate Son</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Part Three is titled "Rising Sun," and no, that's not a typo on "Son." We're going back to NOLA, so, "There is a house, in New Orleans..." etc. There's going to be four parts total. Part Four will be titled "Big Son." </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Sm9NrR9z83ggYqtPjIqn5fUAVU8qum4KBl4c-F654995NBqt7djz5efLLtbIQyExVwJJE8EapojiV1xDAYZ7eYg5vbbXIQqVqcwdrkJVN5FC4VWcNQc6JkiqHsfwqgeFRoMyVMjumyB5IsrnmyHtKsD3S9eRMaqwNwzjnucymzuNWqmPb7GlIVufHVs/s1080/RS%20teaser%203-12%20ava%20fire.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Sm9NrR9z83ggYqtPjIqn5fUAVU8qum4KBl4c-F654995NBqt7djz5efLLtbIQyExVwJJE8EapojiV1xDAYZ7eYg5vbbXIQqVqcwdrkJVN5FC4VWcNQc6JkiqHsfwqgeFRoMyVMjumyB5IsrnmyHtKsD3S9eRMaqwNwzjnucymzuNWqmPb7GlIVufHVs/w640-h640/RS%20teaser%203-12%20ava%20fire.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ava was not
so deep in her practical, life-preserving numbness that she’d thought Mercy
appearing would fix things. But before his arrival, she’d felt as if there was
no way to make progress; it wasn’t possible to find Remy without Mercy,
therefore every hour that Mercy was away from them was an hour wasted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sitting
beside him, his familiar heat radiating through her skin in all the places they
touched, something ugly, all-encompassing, and obliterating rose up in Ava like
a tide. She recognized the basic shape of it, and knew that it was a choking
wave of emotion. Despair. Grief. Hopelessness. It would be so, so easy to close
her eyes and slip beneath its black surface; to let it strangle her, freeze
her, batter her against the rocks of all the ways <i>she couldn’t handle this</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">If she
allowed herself to fall into that tide at all, she’d be lost. She focused
instead on the strong bones of Mercy’s wrist, the warmth of his skin as she
wrapped her hand around it. “He grew up in New Orleans,” she said, because
focusing on Boyle, on getting him, was the key to keeping her head above water.
If she kept Boyle at the forefront of her mind, she could hold onto her anger,
and her anger was a life preserver. “That’s how he knows you.” She turned her
head to look up at him, and his expression made her hesitate. “What?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He gazed at
her with a heartbroken gentleness that she neither wanted nor expected. “Have
you slept, baby?” he asked, in the same tone he used with Millie when she was
feeling sick or unusually fussy. “You look tired.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ava stared at
him, waiting for a more reasonable question. When none came, she said,
incredulous, “Did you not hear what I just said?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I did,”
Mercy said, tone careful. “But I don’t wanna talk about him right now.”
Impossibly, infuriatingly, he said, “Have you had anything to eat? How are Cal
and Millie? Did you tell them?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ava stared at
him, and willed what he’d just said to make some sort of sense. She didn’t
realize she’d tightened her grip on him until she felt his wrist shift within
the circle of her fingers, and looked down to see that she’d dug in with her
nails, his skin white and dented in sharp little crescents. Another fraction of
pressure, and she thought she’d draw blood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The notion
sent a shock through her – but not of revulsion. She was digging into him, her
nails like talons, their baby was missing, and he <i>didn’t want to talk</i>
about Boyle right now. He wanted to know if she’d <i>eaten</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ava turned
loose of him, and scrambled down off the table so she stood in front of him,
hands on her hips, chest hitching on her next breath. Her pulse had kicked into
high gear, and then kept accelerating; she thought she might be having a heart
attack. Is this what it had felt like for her dad? This shuddering jerk of her
heart that kept ramping up and up? Until it was like thunder inside her? Until
her head felt as wobbly and airy as a balloon on an unraveling string? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Are you
seriously,” she panted, “asking me if I’ve had lunch?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Ava,” he
said, like he was talking to a spooked animal. Or to someone who was being
irrational. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For one
awful, choking moment, she was seventeen again. Was standing in the sunlit
kitchen of his old apartment, the one above the bakery that had, for a little
while, been their apartment, when they were first married, when she was
pregnant with Remy. When she’d found him packing all of his things, found him
leaving, and he’d told her that he was going, with the sad-for-her gentleness
of a parent breaking the news that a beloved dog had died. That day, he’d
treated her like a child, or like an idiot, and he hadn’t done it before, or
since. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Until right
now. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-56251740561995232152024-03-11T21:18:00.003-04:002024-03-11T21:18:24.687-04:00#CollegeTown: Rude Reunion <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance, <i>College Town</i>, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmtoGIxzXsekMu9Oa3DFSxB_bWtcOu5tYj_-dTm1SgHdnB3kH6IE1Y9l1HiF2yv8wi94FRatNOqUkcVefIwdzWpdDGAhoHhS_kNvp-0XTox1dHkI_dgqKD8SC6RiHQNY-GsK0bkrhyLjlgcWpmdtHWUplgllYZUvwLx1KGvY7D4Jin0VqrGqHN04dh2o/s1080/CT%20buy%20you%20coffee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmtoGIxzXsekMu9Oa3DFSxB_bWtcOu5tYj_-dTm1SgHdnB3kH6IE1Y9l1HiF2yv8wi94FRatNOqUkcVefIwdzWpdDGAhoHhS_kNvp-0XTox1dHkI_dgqKD8SC6RiHQNY-GsK0bkrhyLjlgcWpmdtHWUplgllYZUvwLx1KGvY7D4Jin0VqrGqHN04dh2o/w640-h640/CT%20buy%20you%20coffee.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s brows quirk, but he
says, “Okay. I was going to find a way to contact you, though. So we could…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Talk? Yeah. You’ve said.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Lawson. Please.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What do you want me to say?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Can…” Tommy glances across
the alley, pained. When he looks back, there’s a pleading tilt to his brows
that Lawson remembers all too well; it doesn’t work as well as it used to, but
it hurts to look at. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson lifts his brows and
gestures to the building he’s propped against. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Fine, a cookie. You always
liked the cookies here when we were kids.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“My break ended two and a half
minutes ago.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Okay,” Tommy says, huffing a
little. “A drink, then, later. Tonight. There’s two dozen bars in his town.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You gonna bring the little
missus?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy flinches hard. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“That’s who she is, right?”
Lawson presses, though it makes his chest ache, makes his hands tremble where
he’s tucked them into his armpits. “The ring’s hard to miss. You guys, like,
match or whatever.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s lips press tight
together, and two bright flags of color stand out along his high, narrow
cheekbones. He looks small; his bespoke suit seems to swallow him a moment. After
a moment, he says, slow but firm, “Let me buy you a drink. Just the two of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What if I say no?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">His chin juts out, an old
familiar, mulish angle. “Then I’ll come back tomorrow and ask again.”</span></span></p></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">One of the many magic things about fiction is the chance to explore, and even enjoy, situations you don't want <i>anything </i>to do with in real life. I know that, personally, I don't want to be a part of a romantic relationship that begins contentiously, barbed with insults and misunderstandings and resentments...but <i>boy </i>are those sorts of relationship beginnings fun to read about. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Someone on Facebook - I believe - said Lawson and Tommy reminded them of Reese and Tenny, and, <i>yes</i>, that's for sure the vibe I was going for. I think most writers are guilty of revisiting themes and character dynamics with different spins, and I definitely am. In real life, I crave calm and peace, but when it comes to fictional romance, there's something delicious about the <i>drama</i>. And, let's face it, there's no drama if the characters are mature, and rational, and on their best behavior at all times. Stories need conflict. They need <i>friction</i>. Tommy and Lawson's rude reunion was extra fun to write because I knew that, by the end, I could counter with such sweetness. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For me, that contrast between the drama and the tenderness is a must with this kind of storytelling. I want the characters to earn it. If everything's lovely and reasonable all the way through...then was it even a story? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s voice lifts into a
hopeful register. “Can I spend the night?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson could have argued
against a declaration, or a grudging question, but this honest, little-kid,
wishful asking…oh boy. He’s not strong enough for that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Do you want to spend the
night?” he asks, hedging. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yes,” Tommy says, simply. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson feels him watching him,
the weight of his gaze on the side of his face. Goosebumps break out down his
arms, visible thanks to his short-sleeved shirt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s hand lands slow and
light at his elbow, and then strokes down his forearm, fire pressure, smoothing
the hair in the correct direction. <i>Your choice</i>, that touch says. <i>You
can kick me out</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">They spent the night together
at the mansion, but this is different, and it makes it marginally less
terrifying that Tommy seems to know it. The mansion is a non-personal, rented
space, not much different than a hotel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But this is Lawson’s home.
This is where he grew up. This is the bed where the two of them learned how to
love one another with their bodies, while the house creaked and drowsed around
them, and snow drifted up in the windowsill. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson <i>could</i> kick him
out. It’s tempting, in a way. But as he’s done since the day Tommy first walked
into Coffee Town, he tortures himself with choosing to take what he can get
while he can get it, and damn the consequences. </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /></div></span><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-5749606849201805832024-03-09T16:02:00.000-05:002024-03-09T16:02:25.604-05:00Writing Pieces of Yourself <p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0KAidetY-NA4jSP1HTVpeZsuqlLAMpVwmxnkxkAB6qYCE-sDxpUblabIT0FryO8IArEBTU1K69nOHjuc7OTQQOBF1s4WxJ6dhQk6Oqxzda_yt_BFcUk1-38bOK2rwrJaexIyZf4Y2WkL5wNSSF3msr7oyzPDIIaefgrG56U3np4RUVGxGO4fEOQxn4Q/s828/22C7C1F3-A678-4467-92C0-D876196A3820.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="823" data-original-width="828" height="636" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0KAidetY-NA4jSP1HTVpeZsuqlLAMpVwmxnkxkAB6qYCE-sDxpUblabIT0FryO8IArEBTU1K69nOHjuc7OTQQOBF1s4WxJ6dhQk6Oqxzda_yt_BFcUk1-38bOK2rwrJaexIyZf4Y2WkL5wNSSF3msr7oyzPDIIaefgrG56U3np4RUVGxGO4fEOQxn4Q/w640-h636/22C7C1F3-A678-4467-92C0-D876196A3820.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Something I've always found funny and fascinating is the variety of assumptions readers make about an author's personal life, personality, and history based on the books they write. I myself tend not to care. Fiction is fiction, and I like to maintain that screen of privacy. My interest in an author starts and ends with his or her way with words.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't ever mind fielding questions from my own readers, though, and sometimes get a good chuckle over what they <i>think </i>I'm like based on my characters. Most often, I'm asked about my Dartmoor crew; about which character I've modeled after myself. I've even had Emmie called a "self-insert." Well, Emmie does ride horses, and Ava and Sam are writers. But I have a confession to make: personality-wise, I'm most like Ghost. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I don't know if anyone who knows me well in real life would agree with that answer, but as far as my own self-assessment goes, he's more or less my avatar in the world of Dartmoor. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I'm a generally unpleasant person: grouchy, suspicious, impatient. I curse faaaaaar more than I should, and the moment I have a passing thought that I should try to sound more ladylike, I'm cursing again. I don't usually realize I'm doing it; I grew up on a horse farm and it's more or less punctuation at this point. Why use a comma when you can use a nice, juicy expletive instead? I'm unromantic, cynical, and pessimistic. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But I'm not <i>just </i>like him. I'm polite when I need to be, and I'm neither a man nor the president of a motorcycle club. But I'll certainly never be the heroine of a romance novel. I could pull off sarcastic sidekick, maybe. That's a role for me. But never that of the soft and sweet, wide-eyed, wondrous leading lady. My "Good Lord, what <i>now</i>?" view of the world is much more Ghost-like. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Ghost's POV has been indispensable while writing </span><i style="font-family: helvetica;">Lord Have Mercy</i><span style="font-family: helvetica;">. Let's face it, this book is bonkers, and it helps, every couple of chapters or so, to use him as the lens to view it through. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">To some extent, I think fiction writers fold little pieces of themselves - even the tiniest slivers and glass fragments - into all of our characters. After all, everything they've all ever said has come out of my brain and been typed by my fingers. But, over time, as you write, you learn where to fold the ugly parts of yourself, how to wrap them up so they're more acceptable to the audience. For instance, early on in my publishing career, I wrote a book called <i>Made For Breaking</i>, and across the board, readers <i>hated </i>Lisa Russell. There was far too much me in her, and those are traits, as stated above, for sarcastic sidekicks, not leading ladies. After that, I changed tack, and now, I wind up putting most of myself into my male characters. I think that's the main reason I've come to enjoy writing M/M so much over the past few years. It's easier to be vulnerable, to write about love, without worrying if the woman I've written is an acceptable one...or if she's too much like me. Lawson, most recently, wasn't me, but there was a fair amount of my brain inside of his, and it felt nice to expunge it on the page that way. Now, I model the women in my books on women I know and admire, whether real-life or fictional. Even so, there's no guarantee they'll be seen as "likeable." </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I suppose, if pressed, I'd say I try not to write admirable or likeable characters, but endearing ones. Man or woman, with each of them, I want to draw those fine lines around their eyes, and those nasty little smirks, and those annoyed eye rolls in a way that reaches straight out to the readers and reminds them of someone they know in real life. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You might not love them, might not even like them, but you <i>know </i>them. That has been the greatest and best challenge of writing fiction. </span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-77054171600328682002024-03-08T13:03:00.001-05:002024-03-08T13:03:42.073-05:00Friday Update 3/8<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Day whatever-the-heck of being sick with...covid? Super covid? Recurring covid? Stomach bug? Just my general crappy immune system plus, ahem, monthly stuff? Who knows. But I am upright! I'm even at my desk. I even had coffee. It seems like every time I get on a real roll with working and getting farm stuff handled, I get sick. I think stress - I'm a chihuahua in human form at the best of times - gets my system down, and then I catch something, and then the roll grinds to a halt. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">So. Slow news week around here. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things this weekend, but still taking it fairly easy today. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I managed to make some really good headway on <i>Lord Have Mercy</i> before I got sick, so I'm not too worried about the scheduling there. If you're waiting anxiously, and haven't had a chance to read it yet, I'm going to gently nudge you toward <i>College Town</i>, which is very different, but also very soft and sweet beneath its bristled surface. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8LTI9-YPy-2SbS1kU6CfW1DOesUGgW9cqUHCV4HmKiaDYnhTvsS3PT7hyphenhyphenJ7eymbyngzgGZjMQ-QAFQ3_jb6b1oex92KgTJa8tKuwhhnCvtBo8x7GT6U8MdplbcdV2GyXNSVmKiVXzXs3VKFJC6nQWJVWfMEghjA4qxd7HeXDcK1Bo9tDCdrPIS8BmT0/s2164/3-8%20CT%20moodboard%20with%20text.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2164" data-original-width="2164" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8LTI9-YPy-2SbS1kU6CfW1DOesUGgW9cqUHCV4HmKiaDYnhTvsS3PT7hyphenhyphenJ7eymbyngzgGZjMQ-QAFQ3_jb6b1oex92KgTJa8tKuwhhnCvtBo8x7GT6U8MdplbcdV2GyXNSVmKiVXzXs3VKFJC6nQWJVWfMEghjA4qxd7HeXDcK1Bo9tDCdrPIS8BmT0/w640-h640/3-8%20CT%20moodboard%20with%20text.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There's a strong dash of organized crime action in this one, but lots of domestic, small-town aesthetic, and I'd forgotten how much I missed writing that sort of novel. I'm definitely seeing more romance standalones in my future. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I hope you'll give it a chance. It certainly hasn't a different feel and flair than, say, Dartmoor, or my fantasy/paranormal books, but it's a <i>fun </i>read. Tidy, tight, steamy, with a surprise twist ending. You can grab it in paperback and ebook. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-85743345185488820042024-02-27T08:13:00.002-05:002024-02-27T08:13:21.691-05:00#TeaserTuesday: The Storm Was Ava <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvekMtKkwxW94wQshmsmOWcf9AHSKawHkK7W-R5g7vXtBkyNzu0XwGF-iL6yyfunE1l3K4WT4tY96HqjozACFR5icGCC_sx3Ld3HzrSS-BrnzNOTVQ9kwTDD3dD0JbhbHBNjo4o21zlBUiO5NhyR47Q6vd9d8zSGLdDGBoITO1xzoiIhdG2iDmNs4nwoc/s1080/LHM%20storm%20was%20ava%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvekMtKkwxW94wQshmsmOWcf9AHSKawHkK7W-R5g7vXtBkyNzu0XwGF-iL6yyfunE1l3K4WT4tY96HqjozACFR5icGCC_sx3Ld3HzrSS-BrnzNOTVQ9kwTDD3dD0JbhbHBNjo4o21zlBUiO5NhyR47Q6vd9d8zSGLdDGBoITO1xzoiIhdG2iDmNs4nwoc/w640-h640/LHM%20storm%20was%20ava%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes,
spring storms popped up spontaneously: a sudden streak of lightning, a mass of
clouds that boiled up out of a sunny day. Startling cracks of thunder and
sudden buckets of rain that soaked all the unsuspecting pedestrians who’d
assumed they wouldn’t need an umbrella. But sometimes those storms were
forecasted a week in advance. For days, the TV meteorologists warned of strong
winds, torrential downpours, hail, and pop-up tornadoes. <i>It’s going to be
bad</i>, they said. <i>Make a plan. Have flashlights and radios at the ready.
Be sure to get to the lowest level of your house, preferably in a room without
windows</i>. The whole week leading up to the day of predicted storms would be
clear, and crisp, and it seemed impossible: how could anyone know that far in
advance that the weather would be sinister five days from now?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But, sure
enough, on the day, the sun rose up into a tumultuous sky; the air felt soupy
and electric. Charged. Birds flocked high overhead, running ahead of the nasty
red line you could see on radar, inching closer and closer as the day
progressed, and the humidity piled up like wet quilts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maggie felt
as if she’d been living one of those days: watching the bands of severe weather
sweep across the state all day; breathing labored thanks to the thickness of
the air; all the fine hairs on her arms standing on end as the static
electricity built and built. When it struck, the lightning would not be a
surprise, but it would still be devastating. And in so many ways, knowing a
storm was coming, the dread of it, was worse than dealing with the sudden,
unexpected appearance of one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The storm was
Ava, and it was brewing up like a pot of coffee, spitting tongues of lighting,
grumbling with thunder. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-47146445326253488592024-02-26T15:53:00.001-05:002024-02-26T15:53:24.108-05:00#ReadingLife: The Tommyknockers <p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpmAtJwouezOnzfad59JQLg3zf6KpSgGS0Lgc4zvBfLf6xJZpg5kucB3T1x4I3GqVmORqJuc0C8jhyRtzOssIdnXQPQuOwCsb3zS4Nsft2D3iRdzct8Bgb49JgWNMUxvBu00SG1SEq6fQVY82M6wDLDLfVUd5MoziE6e2DzuHayODJyFZJqxuykKxlQtE/s828/532E3713-1F2D-4903-AB4C-A6418F7B7CCC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="827" data-original-width="828" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpmAtJwouezOnzfad59JQLg3zf6KpSgGS0Lgc4zvBfLf6xJZpg5kucB3T1x4I3GqVmORqJuc0C8jhyRtzOssIdnXQPQuOwCsb3zS4Nsft2D3iRdzct8Bgb49JgWNMUxvBu00SG1SEq6fQVY82M6wDLDLfVUd5MoziE6e2DzuHayODJyFZJqxuykKxlQtE/w640-h640/532E3713-1F2D-4903-AB4C-A6418F7B7CCC.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>[I]t was good to be with your friends, good to be where you belonged...good to have some safe haven to come to.</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">After last year's unintentionally timely, and much-needed <i>It</i> reread, I decided I was going to spend 2024 tackling the Stephen King novels I haven't yet read. The man's written a lot of books, so that should keep me happily in doorstop novels well into next year, especially given my lack of reading time.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My first read of the year was <i>The Tommyknockers</i>. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Despite its whopping 864 pages, this one reads as a much quicker book than <i>It</i>. As opposed to the monolithic study on childhood, and the impossibility of returning to it that is <i>It</i>, <i>The Tommyknockers</i> has a distinctly pulpy feel. That's not a mark against the novel; I love the way pulp novels can bravely throw wild, sometimes silly ideas out there and then catch you with a sideswipe that cuts straight to the bone. There's often a lot of truth in silly, and <i>The Tommyknockers</i> is no exception. It left me very nostalgic for the books of the eighties and nineties which were concerned with storytelling in the truest sense, as opposed to "being edgy," whatever the heck that actually means. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The horror in this novel is of the big, existential kind, and is undercut by the personal horror of, in Gard's case especially, the struggle with addiction. The "Becoming" is a science-fiction means of amplifying all the ways the people of Haven are terrible; these are ways in which<i> all people</i>, to a certain extent, are terrible in a non-evil, but still oftentimes harmful way. Horror - effective horror - takes real world, small-scale fears, and spins them into something supernatural and fanged. King's great gift when it comes to the genre, and storytelling in general, is rooting that horror deeply and believably in a cast of very flesh-and-blood characters who feel knowable to the audience. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My favorite lines are always those little nuggets of broader-reaching gold that are so terribly true, and perhaps not the sort of thing general audiences would expect to find in a novel of this sort - but which I'm always counting on from one of my all-time favorite authors. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>All the intelligence and determination in the world cannot create art without a bit of talent, but intelligence and determination </i>can<i> create some great forgeries. </i></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Last night I started <i>Needful Things</i>, and it's another great big chunky book, so I look forward to falling into its version of Maine for the next couple of months. </span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-84505921438461340702024-02-25T19:19:00.003-05:002024-02-25T19:19:39.227-05:00#CollegeTown: Insecurity <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9AkLnj7H2iRteTE4qtldlVaBh50u9DPo6qelIZuzGIVLbRnGaJqld896me3IJ4Vuh-ayXLI-uPWDST84wvvomhy7OSxbJMZLAfXnwcj2f0rM63tFQ9x7dFdPRF_Mgij10Z68-istguX1sASV6qrl3Fv4t0HYp54w7J-FtgIznjhRaaUedSGhrnipmSE/s1080/CT%20suburban%202-25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9AkLnj7H2iRteTE4qtldlVaBh50u9DPo6qelIZuzGIVLbRnGaJqld896me3IJ4Vuh-ayXLI-uPWDST84wvvomhy7OSxbJMZLAfXnwcj2f0rM63tFQ9x7dFdPRF_Mgij10Z68-istguX1sASV6qrl3Fv4t0HYp54w7J-FtgIznjhRaaUedSGhrnipmSE/w640-h640/CT%20suburban%202-25.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><p></p><blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson opens his door and
climbs out because he can’t take Tommy’s pitying look any longer. “Come on if
you’re coming,” he says, slings his bag over his shoulder, and doesn’t wait up.
“Let’s get this over with.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The car door shuts behind him,
and Tommy’s fancy shoes grit over the loose patch in the concrete of the
driveway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson’s spurt of defiant
bravery lasts all the way up the (not a ramp) back steps to the door, and then
he pauses, and rattles his keys in his hand, and wonders if he should have
called ahead. He entrusted Dana with his parents, with the explanations, and
though he’s had two days to think of it, he still has no idea what he’s going
to say. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He lets out a long, slow
breath as he stares at his haggard expression in the little square windows set
in the door. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A hand lands in the middle of
his back, a specter of a supportive touch, quickly withdrawn. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He fits the key in the door
and lets them in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today’s Thursday – is it
really only Thursday? – which means that Mom will be elbow-deep in alterations
today. As expected, the kitchen is cool, and clean, the breakfast dishes in the
drying rack by the sink, the pan she fries the eggs in still soaking inside it.
He hears the TV on in the living room, some old rerun with a laugh track, which
means that Dad was still wakeful after breakfast, and is in there with her
while she works. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson stands a moment by the
table, looks reluctantly over at Tommy to see what his reaction is. He expects
more pity, or even disgust. How could someone who dines at exclusive
restaurants and wears fifteen-thousand-dollar watches be anything <i>but</i>
disgusted by this suburban time capsule? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But Tommy is <i>smiling</i>.
It’s a small, private thing at first, but as he takes a slow turn and gazes
around the room, dark eyes flicking back and forth in quick snaps, it grows and
grows, and he’s flashing teeth by the time he gets back around to Lawson. “It’s
the same,” he says, like that’s a good thing, giving a disbelieving, but
obviously delighted shake of his head. “The curtains! And, look.” He goes to
the molding around the pantry door and taps at the old marker lines where Mom
used to measure Lawson’s height as he grew. “You were never this little,” he
chuckles, bending to tap the lowest line. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson swallows, and swallows
again. “Yeah, well, you still are,” he says, weakly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy chuckles some more. </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>College Town</i> is, at its heart, about home, and about happiness. About the ways home and happiness look different to different people; the ways our own insecurities can lead us to assume that someone living somewhere else, doing something else, will find the place we lay our heads to be lacking, to be insufficient. That sort of insecurity shapes so much of what we fear, and what we present to the world. I've seen readers say they want their book protagonists to be confident, but it's insecurity - and learning to live with it, and learning not to listen to it so much - that provides tension, and, therefore, a story. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">College Town is live for all your contemporary, second chance, standalone romance needs; it's a perfect Sunday night indulgent read. You can find it here: </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-86724720102910249722024-02-23T12:39:00.000-05:002024-02-23T12:39:51.081-05:00#CollegeTown: Let's Go Home <p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> The following post contains spoilers for my latest novel, College Town, a standalone, second chance romance. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you can grab it here:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFcK5YWF2Jc68XjyV0KNNjLVsPhrCbP4Uvfhb6bU7Xv-llj4kqPjlcFNrLXBx4J-abisO7MuZPYX-nt8Dc0Xml7rFIg1VdlnQnoe1DY_MxisXDAgHPoE0Dy4cpQk8Ld9kPwsSDyO8w0HjntKm5HUaN3bxJvjGaCcazV6WiM9Jw4uVcGk5RZUbqfSVZ1sQ/s1080/CT%20let's%20go%20home%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFcK5YWF2Jc68XjyV0KNNjLVsPhrCbP4Uvfhb6bU7Xv-llj4kqPjlcFNrLXBx4J-abisO7MuZPYX-nt8Dc0Xml7rFIg1VdlnQnoe1DY_MxisXDAgHPoE0Dy4cpQk8Ld9kPwsSDyO8w0HjntKm5HUaN3bxJvjGaCcazV6WiM9Jw4uVcGk5RZUbqfSVZ1sQ/w640-h640/CT%20let's%20go%20home%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The final chapter of <i>College Town</i> is one my favorite chapters out of all my projects. It goes back and forth between Tommy's hospital stay and subsequent release, and the night of the 20-year high school reunion. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You know,” Lawson says, “when
I first got this email, I was dreading this party.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah. But it was fun.” </span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Chapter one opens with Dana breaking the bad news to Lawson that she agreed they would co-host the reunion, so it was fitting to close the book with the party itself. Lawson's world looks completely different than it did when he first started dreading the event; he and Tommy went through a whole heck of a lot in a short amount of time. It's a well-earned happy ending. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I had a reader ask me several years ago if I felt "pressured" to write a happy ending for each of my books. <i>College Town</i> being a proper romance, it of course had to have one: that's one of the non-negotiable hallmarks of any romance novel, the happy ending. But I write happy endings for all my books, romance or otherwise, not because I feel any sort of pressure to do so, but because I don't have any interest in writing an ending that <i>isn't </i>happy. I've certainly read books with melancholy, bittersweet, and even haunting endings that were fantastic...but, personally, I always want to leave readers with a sweet, warm feeling as the book closes. I do enjoy torturing my characters with drama and angst, but at the end of the story, I want to reward them for hanging in there. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">One of the things I've always asked myself with regards to sad endings, or major character deaths is: Aside from "reflecting reality," does this tragedy actually <i>enhance </i>the story? Or is it simply a means of adding grit? As a younger writer, when I was in college, my peers were very into realism, and I admit to getting swept up into that idea, too. Real life isn't always happy; a story can't be <i>good </i>unless it's strictly realistic. But the older I get, the more strongly I reject that idea. Life is hard, sometimes it sucks, and there's no shortage of real-world heartbreak - why can't our stories be an escape from that? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I enjoyed Lawson and Tommy - and their friends; the girls were the real MVP of this book - so much that I could have easily written another dozen chapters of domestic bliss and day-to-day activity, but I'm very happy with where I left things for them. They're going home, in more ways than one. </span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-70959578211868288852024-02-21T14:29:00.003-05:002024-02-21T14:29:58.015-05:00#CollegeTown: Setting <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuUwsPIpuW0Cb_gda_-L1HhmTA48gcK662BGz4T-BDnN1c2gRsBc9Xnxz9v_a1IZWpZOXFBdk6aPOl3Oyksc5REYaVl0UoXTwSSgEW6aUb2z_lEzA2wpn8z-2_G1vom0767UZiQFxqs1cS51PdIT52fTxTXkQUnliwohb_SRAvnsgxBB6dtaYwsixuU-A/s828/252E3AFF-75F0-4561-9481-F858259F258A.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="828" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuUwsPIpuW0Cb_gda_-L1HhmTA48gcK662BGz4T-BDnN1c2gRsBc9Xnxz9v_a1IZWpZOXFBdk6aPOl3Oyksc5REYaVl0UoXTwSSgEW6aUb2z_lEzA2wpn8z-2_G1vom0767UZiQFxqs1cS51PdIT52fTxTXkQUnliwohb_SRAvnsgxBB6dtaYwsixuU-A/w640-h630/252E3AFF-75F0-4561-9481-F858259F258A.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;"><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;"><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;">College Town</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;"> has been live in the wild for one week! Honestly, at my current level of fatigue, it feels more like a month. I've been spamming the heck out of y'all with promo posts, and I can't claim I'll be quitting that anytime soon. It was a delightful book to write, a great way to stretch and grow as a writer, and a story I'm really proud of. You can find it here:</span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">In today's debrief, I want to talk about setting, and my different approach to it with this novel. Turn back now if you don't want to read any spoilers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">With Dartmoor and Sons of Rome, the characters live in, move through, and travel toward real world cities. Knoxville, and New York, and Amarillo, and New Orleans in Dartmoor. New York, and Buffalo, and a variety of locales in Eastern Europe - chiefly modern-day Romania, Russia, and Turkey - for Sons of Rome. I use a blend of real and fictional landmarks, and have spent a lot of hours walking down streets on Google Earth to get the lay of the land. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But with <i>College Town</i>, I made the decision to be purposefully vague. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Eastman is a fictional town, but I purposely didn't reveal exactly where it's located. We spend time in places like Flanagan's, Coffee Town, Estelle's, and the characters' homes, but Eastman itself is less of a presence in the story, the way Knoxville feels in Dartmoor, and more of an extended metaphor for Lawson's life. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">In the US, college towns are a unique blend of small town and destination spot. They aren't the sleepy, Mayberry cities of Hallmark movies; they're full of young people going to school, and alumni returning for games, for reunions, for lectures. They're a crossroads of sorts: the student population will always make it feel like a youthful place; a place that is, at least a little, frozen forever in adolescence...the way Lawson seems to be. He's stuck, and he lives in a city that is forever stuck thanks to the big, sprawling shadow of the school it's known for: a forever reminder that he wasn't able to graduate and therefore can't move on. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I kept Eastman vague because I wanted it to feel, as much as possible, like any college town in the country, just as Lawson's situation is one that feels so universal in today's world. So many people, including myself, aren't where they'd always hoped and thought we might be, struggling with a sense of self-worth and accomplishment. The title, then, isn't a reference to the town itself, but to that sensation of coming up short in your own life. </span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You’re still friends with
Dana?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He sounds so surprised that it
gives Lawson something to focus on. He turns down the next aisle of parking
spaces, going slow to avoid the shoppers that move in drifts. Slow enough that
a man with a gun could catch up to him on foot, but he’s betting the guys
behind him don’t want to be witnessed murdering someone by fifteen people in
broad daylight. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah. Of course. She’s my
best friend. Always has been.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A beat. Tommy says, “Of
course.” Forced lightness. “But I thought maybe she’d moved away.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What’s wrong with staying
here?” Lawson bristles, though he knows exactly what’s wrong with it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Nothing,” Tommy says in a
rush. “I just thought…nevermind.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No, what? What did you ‘just
think?’ That she might have actually been successful? And gotten the fuck outta
Dodge?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy sighs. “Law–”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Not me, though. My dumb ass
is still here. Still working a high school job in a college town, because I’m
such a–”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Shut up,” Tommy says, without
heat. “I see you. Hold on.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson’s making his second
pass in front of the Happy Hobo, and coasts along the curb, hands at ten and
two. “What do you mean ‘hold on?’”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I mean <i>hold on</i>. God.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson looks into his rearview
mirror, and sees a hulking black Lincoln SUV pulling up behind the Mercedes.
Its windows are tinted, too, but sight of it makes Lawson’s heart leap in an
entirely different, less terrifying way. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Is that you?” he asks.
“Behind the Benz?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah,” Tommy says, tightly,
and then a horn blares. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A man on the sidewalk jumps in
alarm. The couple crossing in front of Lawson’s car break into a run. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Mercedes peels away from
the curb, goes around Lawson, and speeds off and away, barely missing a
pedestrian. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson steps on the brake and
lets his hands fall to his lap, where they jump and skitter like landed fish.
His breathing goes thin, and high, and he can’t reel it in. The panic,
ratcheting his whole body tighter and tighter throughout the crisis, crashes
over him now all at once, a great tide of it, and he bends to press his
forehead to the wheel, dizzy, stomach churning. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Hang on,” Tommy says, and the
call cuts off. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson hangs on – barely, in
the case of his sanity – because there’s nothing else to do. He can’t even
summon the energy to reach over and disconnect the call from his end. The
barest glance reveals his phone has handled that for him, its screen all cheerful
oranges and pinks before it goes black. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The sharp rap of knuckles on
his window should startle him, but he hasn’t got enough adrenaline for that.
When the rap repeats, he heaves himself back and sees Tommy’s scrunched-up,
worried face on the other side of the glass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">For a moment, Lawson’s
seventeen again, and Tommy’s hair is too long and curling riotously over his
ears, the lines on his face and the wrinkles around his nostrils born of fond
annoyance. <i>Law, open the fucking door</i>. Because they were locked just
because he got so cute when he was huffy. Then he’s thirty-seven, and Tommy’s
voice is much lower, and rougher, when he says, “Law, open the fucking door.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">What can he do but comply?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he shoves it open, Tommy
leans in right away. Grips his shoulder, then his biceps, even ghosts a hand
through his hair, brief but electric. He takes Lawson’s chin in a firm grip and
turns his head so they’re eye-to-eye. God, it’s been twenty years since Tommy
touched him, and the effect is no less staggering. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not that he gets to bask in
the magic of the moment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy snaps his fingers in his
face. “Lawson. Are you having a breakdown?” he asks, quite seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Uh. No?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy frowns. “Yeah, okay.
Come on.” He tugs, ineffectually, at Lawson’s arm. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson blinks at him. “My
car.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Leave it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“But I’m in a No Parking
zone.” He doesn’t know why logic, of all things, plagues him now, when Tommy’s
touching him, and leaning into his car, close enough to touch back. When he’s
wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a red tie, and the
sunlight winks off his watch, and strikes all the gold and tawny filaments in
his dark eyes. He’s like the stern, masculine specter of a Renaissance
painting, and Lawson’s worried about <i>No Parking zones</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He's never claimed to have
good timing. </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div></div>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-11528078436147296582024-02-20T13:51:00.000-05:002024-02-20T13:51:06.575-05:00#TeaserTuesday: Reveals <p> <span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;">The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance,</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;">College Town</i><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;">, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3flwx_xBt65fI3F9pvK_Lr7xKGyhL3HLqLXY88LZFgVF6RSPQDTXPeEzDRnKn4CFd93Klbz-ZRJ8QD2xKOZm-WoF_0cdZVncXmiqEl0qXIJ7-7ew9UBXf5Ebjfqvogo3ruGNqCLRzfNzdh7fUTwuwxI8FGYhReDHoHSdLEudZF8fWXJYfc5NbSayxoi4/s1080/CT%20teaser%202-20%20weird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3flwx_xBt65fI3F9pvK_Lr7xKGyhL3HLqLXY88LZFgVF6RSPQDTXPeEzDRnKn4CFd93Klbz-ZRJ8QD2xKOZm-WoF_0cdZVncXmiqEl0qXIJ7-7ew9UBXf5Ebjfqvogo3ruGNqCLRzfNzdh7fUTwuwxI8FGYhReDHoHSdLEudZF8fWXJYfc5NbSayxoi4/w640-h640/CT%20teaser%202-20%20weird.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Can’t have that.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Lawson. Do you have any idea
how amazing that is?” He tips his head back toward the laptop. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“It’s weird.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah, and that’s why it’s
amazing. It’s you!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Because I’m weird. I get it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No.” Tommy rolls his eyes.
“Because it’s unique, and it’s full of your voice, and it’s <i>alive</i>. Your
characters feel like people I <i>know</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“To be fair, there’s a fair
bit of you in the Luke Thomas character.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah.” Tommy snorts. “That’s
kinda hard to miss.”</span></span></p></blockquote><span><a name='more'></a></span><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You know me: I love a good flashback. There's not much I love more about writing than incorporating the past, a character's beginning, his formative years, into the present action so that it creates a <i>whole </i>picture. Usually, this involves folding flashbacks and memories into the main action of the novel as I go; it's an organic process, and a spontaneous one: I don't know quite where I'll drop the information in until an opportunity arises within the text. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">While the writing process with <i>College Town</i> was still organic in a word-to-word sense, I began it with a very clear idea of how I was going to reveal everything. I wanted to begin with Lawson at Coffee Town, this seeming-screw-up who has somehow not lived up to his potential, and then chapter by chapter we begin to see the whole picture. It was important to me to reveal Tommy as a kid, first, and, going forward, to carry that dual portrait for a stretch: Tommy the kid, and Tommy the wealthy adult. I wanted those sharp contrasts that slowly merge and blend until the audience can see that, like Lawson, he's fundamentally the same person, but heavily shaped by circumstance, and guarding himself carefully. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">By the time we get to the scene in the teaser above, Tommy's deep-down sweetness and personality are shining through in full force - though there are still reveals to come. Twist ending, anyone? I loved having that ace up my sleeve and holding onto it until the very end. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">With further regard to parallel flashback/present day structure, I felt it was important to spend the flashbacks building slowly to "the breakup," and then actually show the breakup in the midst of the present-day reconciliation; Lawson gets to look back at the past alongside the audience, and finally understand what "I can't" meant, armed with all these new revelations. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The other reveal - not as dramatic, but also important - was Lawson's father. I didn't want to info-dump the fact that his father is living post-stroke, and struggling with mobility and communication straight at the beginning. There's a quick mention of "Nancy," and the "chair." But we don't see or hear much from Dad until Tommy's fully back in the picture. It's a weightier reveal in that way: the audience understanding just as Tommy does. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I would say that all of my writing is purposeful: I'm very particular about my prose, and I say what I mean and mean what I say. But I'm not much of one for outlining ahead of time. <i>College Town</i> was the first time I did this much pre-planning for a story, and it enabled me to lay out the plot in a more deliberate way. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>College Town</i> is now live, and you can grab it at one of the links at the top of the post. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-17067632398600062772024-02-20T08:34:00.000-05:002024-02-20T08:34:15.865-05:00#TeaserTuesday: Call Him <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DjqTGo3QVVvRleFuXFi4AhL5nkk-ngmkYVJ-eoMla732ilQE5Okzv5wZLT7tP1IoV_01SxXdZOB8LdzZlepuIOABwERO6b4VFyBs4EGM-Ht_Rrk1MRfvM3UeZvKfaGMqiB3mUhsJTNedRumQ_wQGkKpdFCSpNQOZcjRh4HvVeij244vesFSHveN5W8U/s1080/RS%20teaser2-20%20truck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DjqTGo3QVVvRleFuXFi4AhL5nkk-ngmkYVJ-eoMla732ilQE5Okzv5wZLT7tP1IoV_01SxXdZOB8LdzZlepuIOABwERO6b4VFyBs4EGM-Ht_Rrk1MRfvM3UeZvKfaGMqiB3mUhsJTNedRumQ_wQGkKpdFCSpNQOZcjRh4HvVeij244vesFSHveN5W8U/w640-h640/RS%20teaser2-20%20truck.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I don’t know
what Boyle wants,” Reese said, “other than Mercy. And Mercy’s the only one who
can get Remy back. He’s his son: he deserves to know.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tenny made a
considering face, and glanced up at him through his lashes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What if Fox
hadn’t told you?” he prompted. “What if, in New York, no one told you what
happened to me?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tenny didn’t
breathe for a moment. Then he took a drag off the smoke that was still jammed
in the corner of his mouth, and spoke around it. “Call him.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Reese did.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-4630719180507718642024-02-19T15:40:00.000-05:002024-02-19T15:40:44.350-05:00The Brain is a Muscle <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiea357s58mutXaQJWZM50P0O3xvxOHlBwJUsx0HdxsxuHcGLnBNWXxqNoHBv7F3rQHNJQjhTWABsjgZW1vPNMFJG6afgOQ2TCJHA3mf94Go8hanTlOq-iPjLM23a4xfyNVjutv8Hd3TeQPvGiLevQRfjYKHi4A1Brc549og7-NP_u9XaJ8QbR7qNGCh5Q/s828/B960B64F-F104-4C76-B957-6DDA79B88695.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="828" height="630" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiea357s58mutXaQJWZM50P0O3xvxOHlBwJUsx0HdxsxuHcGLnBNWXxqNoHBv7F3rQHNJQjhTWABsjgZW1vPNMFJG6afgOQ2TCJHA3mf94Go8hanTlOq-iPjLM23a4xfyNVjutv8Hd3TeQPvGiLevQRfjYKHi4A1Brc549og7-NP_u9XaJ8QbR7qNGCh5Q/w640-h630/B960B64F-F104-4C76-B957-6DDA79B88695.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I've you've been hanging around the blog for a while, then you'll know that I love comparing writing to participating in a sport. In my particular case, that sport is horseback riding, specifically dressage, but it can apply to any physical endeavor</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> that requires practice, dedication, attention to detail, and which requires you to learn, grow, and stretch yourself over time. Your imagination may be this spinning sphere of untapped magic in your brain, but your brain itself is a muscle, and it requires pushing if you want to become a stronger writer. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Every book in this photo (<i>Fortunes of War</i> is just a corner down in the bottom) represents a push. A stretch of some sort; trying something I've never tried before in a novel. I like to think every novel's been a stretch, and in many ways, they have been, but my '22, '23, and now '24 releases have been very active exercises in playing around with mental muscles I was too cautious to touch before. I've been very actively engaging with more subtle, nuanced forms of literary expression: leaving old crutches on the cutting room floor, and knowing better when to hold, and when to twirl. I can look back at <i>Fearless</i>, and then look at <i>College Town</i>, and I can see that in <i>Fearless</i> I was in a big, swinging working trot, and in <i>College Town</i> I piaffed all the way through. That's dressage-speak for saying I've really stepped up scene-setting in the most effective way possible in the intervening eight years.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">One of my personal mantras is: I don't like to suck at things. If I'm going to do something, I want to do it well, and I want to continue to get better as I go along. Not because improving my craft will help me be more successful - it won't; I've come to terms with that - but because there is such joy in improving. In gaining new skills. In being able to chart your progress. As much as I love the sport of dressage, I hated showing, mostly because I had the dry heaves for twelve hours straight and then almost passed out when I finally got out of the saddle; stupid nerves. But also because I didn't need that sort of recognition. I derive immense satisfaction out of gaining new knowledge and witnessing my own improvement. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">For all that <i>College Town</i> is a small book, it's one that's the direct result of stretching, and pushing, and learning, and practicing over the past decade plus, and for that reason it's a wonderful bright spot (for me) in my writing career to date. In fact, each book in this photo is very special to me for different reasons. They're all so different, and writing each one enabled me to write the next, and the next. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. I would write no matter what, but I'm glad I get to share it with you all 💕</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Here's where I drop the obligatory <i>College Town</i> links: </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p></div><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-21458429395913147662024-02-19T12:05:00.001-05:002024-02-19T12:05:30.206-05:00#CollegeTown: The Playlist <p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ZuipbKq-QWUu_0dzmlfF9gcrhuxCe9flEERnqWvlU-depcyHNUiKIl4n6S5eb4JEinu4lII6zap2cepW-0Ko0wSeVnYeD7l5RhjOEas-dm2C6qttQjDdUb0A8pVhACVbIBmThAE1hK-qdLWT2AtzSz54KDGDV4hjeexxu_vWzNYCvpVWyV_6TXBO1ig/s1080/CT%20playlist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ZuipbKq-QWUu_0dzmlfF9gcrhuxCe9flEERnqWvlU-depcyHNUiKIl4n6S5eb4JEinu4lII6zap2cepW-0Ko0wSeVnYeD7l5RhjOEas-dm2C6qttQjDdUb0A8pVhACVbIBmThAE1hK-qdLWT2AtzSz54KDGDV4hjeexxu_vWzNYCvpVWyV_6TXBO1ig/w640-h640/CT%20playlist.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: courier; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: courier; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;">A shallow grave where I can keep it safe</span></div><span style="font-family: courier;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;">Or hide away, for just in case I need it</span></div><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">My old friend, it's time to say goodbye again</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">No need to tell me where you've been</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">I feel it</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">Shallow graves for shallow hearts</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">For pick-me-ups and fall-aparts</div></span><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">For promises that never started right </div></span></span></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote><span style="font-family: courier;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;">~ "No Place Like Home," Marianas Trench</div></span></span></blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><span style="font-family: courier;"><span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;"></div></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I have extremely eclectic taste in music, but this book playlist just might take the cake. The top list is songs I listened to while drafting the novel, some of which would slot easily into a soundtrack, some which Lawson would listen to with headphones in the middle of his teen angst, but a few which were simply fun to revisit to get in a late 90s, early 2000s mindset. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The Stardust Set List is all the songs most frequently played during my own roller rink days at Sparkles, and which Lawson, Dana, Tommy, and Noah definitely skated to before they got too cool for the rink and migrated permanently to the arcade. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>College Town</i> is live for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kindle:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Everything You Want" - Vertical Horizon </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"By Now" - Marianas Trench </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Every Day Is Exactly the Same" - Nine Inch Nails </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Photograph" - Def Leppard </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"All You Wanted" - Michelle Branch </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Easy Lover" - Philip Bailey & Phil Collins </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Deep" - Nine Inch Nails </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"I Can't Make You Love Me" - George Michael </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Four-Thirty" - Sara Evans </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Grown Men Don't Cry" - Tim McGraw </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"No Place Like Home" - Marianas Trench </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Stardust Set List</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Quit Playing Games With My Heart" - Backstreet Boys </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Wannabe" - Spice Girls </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Barbie Girl" - Aqua </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Jump Around" - House of Pain </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Want You Back" - Nsync </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"I Wanna Dance With Somebody" - Whitney Houston </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Freedom" - George Michael </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"No Scrubs" - TLC</span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">"Everybody" - Backstreet Boys </span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-24165706559347358722024-02-18T09:18:00.001-05:002024-02-18T09:18:09.560-05:00#CollegeTown: The Unbearable Burden <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The following post contains spoilers for my new standalone romance, <i>College Town</i>, which I've placed beneath a cut for safe keeping. If you haven't read the book yet, and don't want to be spoiled, backspace now and come back later. If you're looking for a copy of the book, it's available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Thusly warned, proceed. Breaking my debriefing for <i>Fortunate Son</i> down into smaller, thematic chunks was much more enjoyable and manageable than my usual info dump, so I'm doing that here as well. Ready? Let's go.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijwKaodjVr-e7AY8HS44L0IYsKzMNVRA7G2ypsQwq565SSgPWu2KOcbNEFigkQ7XAP4eQm_H30M2LtHVzWvVqJTDEK2NqOhRylUK5hcrnc5Z7Ystn0IQYQ726HeijFryzWfAM66Zvu1T1-UGpsoQWQTVLN3K05iHP_qW94sICs3s4wJUVHsuiiEq3QrlU/s1080/CT%202-18%20burden%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijwKaodjVr-e7AY8HS44L0IYsKzMNVRA7G2ypsQwq565SSgPWu2KOcbNEFigkQ7XAP4eQm_H30M2LtHVzWvVqJTDEK2NqOhRylUK5hcrnc5Z7Ystn0IQYQ726HeijFryzWfAM66Zvu1T1-UGpsoQWQTVLN3K05iHP_qW94sICs3s4wJUVHsuiiEq3QrlU/w640-h640/CT%202-18%20burden%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There's an exchange that takes place during the Flanagan's scene (the second one, that's essentially a double date) when Tommy asks about what Lawson's currently writing:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You don’t do high-brow.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Thanks, man. Appreciate it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No.” Tommy waves like he’s
dispelling smoke. “No, I mean – you write <i>characters</i>. And <i>action</i>.
And…” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson tries to snag his
mudslide from him and Tommy clutches it to his chest with an affronted noise. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“There’s characters,” Lawson
says. “And action…of a sort.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Okay, then what’s it <i>about</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson sighs. “The unbearable
burden of being alive. There. Happy?”</span></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Lawson's being a smartass...but only a little. Shortly after this scene, they go back to Lawson's house, his childhood home that remains unchanged as a museum exhibit from their childhood, and I feel like the scenes that unfold here are the beating heart and soul of the book. Lawson helping his dad, as is his nightly routine, but having a long-overdue conversation with him in the process. And Tommy sitting at the table, looking at old photos, and truly coming to understand - not just hear, not just think about, but see firsthand - Lawson's situation. His "unbearable burden of being alive." </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">They both get quiet. The
album, Lawson knows, starts to thin. Fewer photos in general, and fewer happy
ones, specifically. He knows there’s photos of Dad in the hospital, smiling
gamely, offering a thumbs up to the camera. Sometimes Mom stands beside his
bed, and sometimes Lawson. There’s photos of his homecoming, and some candid
shots of Lawson helping his dad, taken by Mom unbeknownst to both of them. From
that point on, in the Time After, there’s no more pictures of weddings or
parties or Mom’s garden beds. No more cheesy shots of Lawson trying to look too
cool for school – there was no school after that, and each time Mom tried to
snap his photo on his way to a new job – tending bar, shelving books, folding
t-shirts, stocking shelves – he blocked the camera lens with his hand until she
finally understood what he was telling her: I’m ashamed. <i>Oh, sweetie</i>,
she said, and kissed him, but stopped trying to take his photo. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson stands at the sink, and
dries dishes, and he knows exactly why a hush has fallen over the table, only
the crinkle of plastic pages turning signaling that Mom is still sharing the
album. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he slots the last plate
into the rack, he hears a rustle of fabric, and Tommy say, very softly, “I’m
sorry, Lisa.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson turns around, and sees
that Tommy’s put an arm around Mom’s shoulders, and that she’s tipped her head
against his, seeking comfort. Tommy rubs her shoulder and she reaches up to pat
his hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After a moment, Mom lifts her
head, and Tommy withdraws his arm, albeit slowly, turning his head to regard
her with open concern. “Thank you, hon,” Mom says, voice a little watery. She
dashes at her eyes, and pushes her chair back; Tommy’s hand falls completely
away. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Well!” Mom says with false
brightness. She gets to her feet, shuts the album, and drags it up into her
arms. “I should head up. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow and I don’t need to
keep pestering you with old pictures.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Lisa,” Tommy starts, face
hangdog, eyes puppy-sad. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“It was <i>so</i> nice seeing
you again, Tommy,” she says, eyes wet, smile too wide. “You’ve got a standing
invitation to dinner, so be sure to stop by some night when you have the
chance. Glad you boys had fun!” She turns to Lawson on her way out. “Thanks for
cleaning up, hon! I’ll see you in the morning.” She blows him a kiss and whisks
out of the room, skirt swishing in her wake. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson braces his hands back
against the counter and listens to her slot the album back into its place on
the shelf in the next room; the stairs creak in all the familiar places as she
heads up to bed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy twists around to
straddle his chair and folds his arms over the back of it, chin propped glumly
on his fist. Now that Mom and the album and the cheery mood are gone, he looks
exhausted and drawn. “Sorry,” he says, words muddied by the way his chin is
smooshed into the back of his hand. “I said I bet she had some funny pictures
of you. I didn’t mean for all of that to happen.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson shakes his head. “Nah.
She was gonna find some reason to get the album out. If you kept coming
around.” He doesn’t mean for the last to come out hopeful, but he thinks it
does.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s brows quirk. “I do
have a standing invitation for dinner, after all.” His smile is the barest
upward twitch at the corners of his mouth, but it tugs hard at Lawson all the
same. </span></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Because I was only writing from Lawson's POV, and wasn't revealing what was in anyone else's heart or mind through direct perspective, it was essential that every scene be precise in its execution. You know exactly how sad and sympathetic Tommy is here without ever getting inside his head, even if Lawson is still paddling a canoe up De Nile. In Lawson's mind, the photo album is a pared-down representation of what he sees as his great shame: he didn't finish school, didn't land a lucrative career. He <i>isn't </i>the kid he used to be - he's an adult with his priorities straight, with a good work ethic, with a wealth of love and care to offer - but he sees himself that way. Even if he doesn't agree with the means, Tommy's made something of himself, and Lawson's stuck. To his mind, how could Tommy sit here in his time capsule kitchen, looking at old photos of bad haircuts and hospital stays, and <i>not </i>feel like he dodged a bullet?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It's clear, though, even through the screen of Lawson's assumptions and prejudices, that Tommy wishes he'd been here for all of it, even all the bad parts. In his own life, he's dealt with all the dangerous, crazy drama that populates my other books: drug deals, and underground business meetings, and shootouts. But none of that bears the heaviness of living day-to-day without much hope, but with a lot of love for the people you're limping along with. Lawson's circumstances are so wonderfully ordinary, and so terribly burdensome, and it's a burden Tommy can't believe he's held up beneath so well. He's so, so impressed by him, and doesn't even know how to convey that properly. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I've written a lot of books about wild, outlaw drama, and though those books do tackle <i>real </i>issues, and are fleshed out with real life details, I wanted most of that stuff to remain at the edges of this story. It was the perfect counterpoint to writing<i> Lord Have Mercy</i>, which is so very plot-driven. This novel got to be entirely character-driven; it got to be <i>soft</i>, and sad, and poignant. Because Lawson's life is so normal in a way that an outlaw's isn't, I had the chance to write in a way that was taut, and sharp, and relatable in an immediate way, and their love story gets to be this tender little nugget of ordinary that glows with vicarious warmth. </span></div><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-11370427696270765092024-02-17T13:42:00.002-05:002024-02-17T13:42:55.105-05:00He's the Same #CollegeTown <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwZqsk1RTaaV8ZDKrQIEHec0v2pc6r9q48OxSp-pnHc9-ydRxCgfkW1NNlRvTcKc48YEmyYmfchupF5UZZeN0k__lnWo-pQVYNWPFyyJMiclPGSKj3Q_YE-hXO8o0NxU3Xtr9SunBZiNQgWrsyW-FyxR1Yr-_WwAG6lAn1Ye0aa5IeQeUJ7RZuvbbllw/s1080/CT%202-17%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwZqsk1RTaaV8ZDKrQIEHec0v2pc6r9q48OxSp-pnHc9-ydRxCgfkW1NNlRvTcKc48YEmyYmfchupF5UZZeN0k__lnWo-pQVYNWPFyyJMiclPGSKj3Q_YE-hXO8o0NxU3Xtr9SunBZiNQgWrsyW-FyxR1Yr-_WwAG6lAn1Ye0aa5IeQeUJ7RZuvbbllw/w640-h640/CT%202-17%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">When they were teenagers, Dana
and Tommy were the pool sharks of their group. Dead-on-balls accuracy, trick
shots, patience, and killer stares. They consistently wiped the felt with the
other kids at Stardust until it wasn’t even fun any longer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">One night, Dana’s uncle – good
old childless Uncle Trey, never opposed to sneaking them a beer or a joint or a
handy excuse to feed their parents – brought them right in here to Flanagan’s,
a memory that, like the play, assaults Lawson with savage poignancy. It was a
Friday, the place packed to the gills, the air thick with cigarette smoke
because the practice hadn’t been outlawed indoors yet. Trey offered to play a
guy for use of his table, and then handed the cues over to Dana and Tommy,
which inspired uproarious laughter from the guy and his friends. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“They’re just kids!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“You shouldn’t have any
trouble beating them, then.” Trey slapped a twenty down on the edge of the
table, and clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “My girl here’ll break.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">Trey split the night’s
winnings with them, fifty bucks a piece for Lawson and Noah, who hadn’t played,
and a hundred for Dana and Tommy, who made mincemeat out of hard-drinking grown
men. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">Lawson’s better than he used
to be, though. If nothing else, his long arms give him the reach he needs. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“Oh come on, that’s not fair,”
Tommy says over the rim of his glass as Lawson sinks a perfect twofer. He’s on
his third beer, pleasantly pink-cheeked and relaxed, lip smudged with grease
from the cheesy tots and the bacon cheeseburgers they scarfed between rounds.
He’s ditched his jacket over the back of a chair, and the fitted blue Henley
beneath is <i>doing things</i> to Lawson’s stomach, the way the top button’s
undone, the way it clings to the narrowest part of his waist. “You didn’t say
you got <i>good</i>!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">Tommy’s not the only one
feeling a pleasant buzz. Lawson’s warm, and loose-limbed, and he takes delight
in hoisting his cue over his head in an exaggerated stretch that draws Tommy’s
gaze to the strip of stomach he flashes. He grins. “Nah, I didn’t, you just got
worse.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“I’m out of practice,” Tommy
protests, sets down his beer and picks up the chalk. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“Uh-huh, keep telling yourself
that.” Lawson reclaims his beer and climbs up onto his stool while Tommy fusses
with his next shot. Out of practice or not, he’s still killer at the table,
though that’s largely because it takes him a full five minutes to calculate the
trajectory of each shot. Lawson sips his beer and admires the view, Tommy
pushing his sleeves up, and then up again when they slip; squatting down so
he’s on eye level with the table, sketching angles in the air with flat hands,
a process which Leo watches with something like a naturalist’s fascination. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">“He’s the same,” Dana says
quietly from across the table, startling him. When he glances her way, he sees
her absently munching on the pickle spear that came with her club sandwich,
shrewd gaze following Tommy’s progress around the table. “It’d be harder if he
was different, you know? A real New York city asshole, or, you know” – her
brows lift meaningfully – “a <i>boss</i>.” The <i>mob</i> part goes unspoken.
She shakes her head and looks back at the table. “But he’s still Tommy, you
know?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">Lawson drains the rest of his
beer too quickly, and stifles a burp. “Yeah. I know.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><br /></span><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-5652943002580160812024-02-16T13:43:00.000-05:002024-02-16T13:43:26.388-05:00Friday Updates 2/16<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgXjUChlYPkV30puYWqAbGgBH8Rh-Th_vkMljQCRCNpmtYL_HN4HDCuV2foPf10qSytbKSWl4tYS6T2qh_W2nptb1UZFs0CnbisgcOpy8r0kgWteLfH4uebQaVGggI-heBjbknT5u4H98k65uVIjgCCAENkz3-v4-DUTIyJhE7h_7Mw0gTPVdNNAEL9g/s828/2354893A-BA7A-4443-8B49-69C6816ABD60.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="828" height="626" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgXjUChlYPkV30puYWqAbGgBH8Rh-Th_vkMljQCRCNpmtYL_HN4HDCuV2foPf10qSytbKSWl4tYS6T2qh_W2nptb1UZFs0CnbisgcOpy8r0kgWteLfH4uebQaVGggI-heBjbknT5u4H98k65uVIjgCCAENkz3-v4-DUTIyJhE7h_7Mw0gTPVdNNAEL9g/w640-h626/2354893A-BA7A-4443-8B49-69C6816ABD60.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Friday greetings from the farm! I always know that the grass is greening up - before you can see it, really - when the horses start venturing farther and farther out in the pasture. They have something like eight acres on that side of the driveway, but if the grass is dead and brown, they loiter up at the barn and wait for handouts. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUKVPopLSA1ZG8NQ-7r830c9Kjz0u28ku8nLzRq8bp5GYrIlmLTSkVFiMIUiXOLk_oDq2ZDSN4F1DhMDjSuy0LaN2ghyphenhyphenc3LMDVvXioNOWLL9826QVPbIgWiEN1qpeA4imZir7U4zGIT8wt6CmT2UV1Vur6QIg1w1ghHy0-7LnPEAePfNvJaGBwQ1bzprY/s4032/510B2868-83B6-4DC8-9059-A097CD2B1F8B.jpeg" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUKVPopLSA1ZG8NQ-7r830c9Kjz0u28ku8nLzRq8bp5GYrIlmLTSkVFiMIUiXOLk_oDq2ZDSN4F1DhMDjSuy0LaN2ghyphenhyphenc3LMDVvXioNOWLL9826QVPbIgWiEN1qpeA4imZir7U4zGIT8wt6CmT2UV1Vur6QIg1w1ghHy0-7LnPEAePfNvJaGBwQ1bzprY/w480-h640/510B2868-83B6-4DC8-9059-A097CD2B1F8B.jpeg" width="480" /></a> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">On a personal front, Kit Kat's been here for almost two months, and she's definitely settled in at this point. She and AB are BFFs now, and even Max has come around and likes her now. Yay! She's growing, and learning, and is - so far - the friendliest, loveliest little baby. I can't wait to see what color she is once she sheds out for spring.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Speaking of spring, brace yourselves for flower photos. The pears are budded, and the daffodils are just starting to bloom. The landscape is still dead and brown at a glance, but spring is poking her first fingers up through the soil. This weekend, I'm starting my seed trays for tomatoes, dahlias, and geraniums. Now's the time to add compost to the cutting beds and prune back the roses. It's also time to divide my dahlia tubers, which is going to be tricky and tedious, and I'm honestly not looking forward to it, but it should make for an even bigger dahlia harvest this year. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Okay, now for the updates you're <i>really </i>here for: book stuff. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKCpNWSYVHhRGRy4-u9ziS7NgBnxC12zsLPK1xqTyXeMkHe43ige4nvGyfasp11J5dAlzijV-SpmD9gOjBH5x7gQf1gHFjfZM_SamwphsoLuKTpygYi67AkTI9k8m5betMViNqnEUYhBFYnJDoCeXJ6t3mvc5VY6v1cIG36FORToGFuLh5pBahmXsAjo/s2400/College%20Town%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKCpNWSYVHhRGRy4-u9ziS7NgBnxC12zsLPK1xqTyXeMkHe43ige4nvGyfasp11J5dAlzijV-SpmD9gOjBH5x7gQf1gHFjfZM_SamwphsoLuKTpygYi67AkTI9k8m5betMViNqnEUYhBFYnJDoCeXJ6t3mvc5VY6v1cIG36FORToGFuLh5pBahmXsAjo/w400-h640/College%20Town%20cover.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This past Wednesday, I released my second book of 2024, <i>College Town</i>, a standalone, second chance, small town M/M romance. You can read more about it<a href="https://hoofprintpress.blogspot.com/2024/02/teasertuesday-tomorrows-day.html"><b> here</b></a>, and purchase it at one of the links below. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This was a really fun project, and I enjoyed the change of pace. I'll post a debriefing sometime next week to talk about nostalgia, creative decisions, and Lawson and Tommy's sweet (mostly) love story. I hope you'll all enjoy it, and if you do, a review would be a lovely boost for the ol' ratings 💝</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">As far as current projects go, I'm working on <i>Lord Have Mercy Part III: Rising Sun</i>, which I'll be playing close to the vest during the writing phase. I overshared while I was drafting Part II, so I'm going to post more cautiously about WIPs going forward. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you haven't yet read them, Parts I and II are available, and are necessary reading before Part III drops sometime in the next couple of months. More details on an exact date coming soon.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Speaking of posting, though, I'm hoping to do more of it. The algorithms on all the social media sites are a nightmare, and I've had readers reach out weeks later in surprise that a book has gone live, so I'm working on a more regular post schedule to hopefully combat that. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">If you have any questions you'd like me to address in my <i>College Town</i> debriefing, you can drop them below, and I'll incorporate them into my post. Have a lovely weekend, everyone, and I hope the grass is starting to green up in your neck of the woods as well. </span></div>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-62109246273674988642024-02-15T16:46:00.004-05:002024-02-15T16:46:37.860-05:00Sparkles...I mean, Stardust <p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;">As much as I enjoy writing all the drama, and violence, and chaos of my series, be they biker or dragon or vampire, there's something really special - to me at least - about writing the domestic details of a story. That's where I sometimes-sneakily, sometimes not-so-sneakily work tidbits of my own real life into a story that is otherwise not at all about me. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I like to think it was a universal Nineties Kid experience to go to the roller-skating rink. That was Sparkles where I grew up, which serves as the direct inspiration for Stardust in <i>College Town</i>. All the local schools had their own designated night, and inevitably, without fail, I woke the next morning with a horrific stomach bug. It turns out that if you skate around for hours holding a boy's sweaty hand, you <i>will </i>wake up puking later that night. Worth it. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Sparkles gave me rotavirus, but it also gave me the incredible childhood memory of my friend Drew trying to show off, slipping, and falling butt-first into the fluorescent-orange cheese of the nachos he had set aside for safe keeping. Oh, Drew. Poor Nacho Butt. Wherever you are out there in the grownup world, I hope you haven't fallen into any more Velveeta nachos. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>College Town</i> was, overall, a real Nineties Kid experience, and more than a little bit of a current "what am I doing with my life writing books?" experience, too, and that's part of what makes it special for me. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp59ILxThTJXvjORXwUcNtAhRSSmqH0_Shwlx7NkMA_mtIXAFVXq-X4m8nthJm-MXjtN_47JVxcakeIo_UrDuX07q_HA9txxl_LmPf9MYZiajoTvz4_Im4U-MVHoW46to7CLNrtxlOt_5AIja6teLEzOxcd1jf_93VUoJFnXDF6vHvU-MfSbL26Gk49IU/s1080/CT%20roller%20rink%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp59ILxThTJXvjORXwUcNtAhRSSmqH0_Shwlx7NkMA_mtIXAFVXq-X4m8nthJm-MXjtN_47JVxcakeIo_UrDuX07q_HA9txxl_LmPf9MYZiajoTvz4_Im4U-MVHoW46to7CLNrtxlOt_5AIja6teLEzOxcd1jf_93VUoJFnXDF6vHvU-MfSbL26Gk49IU/w640-h640/CT%20roller%20rink%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It took two whole weeks for
the Cattaneo twins’ story to come out: hinted at in fits and starts by Noah,
while he went pale and rubbed at the back of his neck, and finally revealed in
full, in a very flat voice accompanied by an uncomfortable little shrug by
Tommy when Lawson tried to invite him to Stardust Roller Rink for Eastman
Middle Night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Everyone goes, not just me
and Dana. We take our own rollerblades, but you can rent skates for free on
Middle Night if you’re not afraid of catching gangrene and losing both feet.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What? Gangrene, that’s not
how…” Tommy sighed and shook his head, and glanced away down the sidewalk as
they walked toward the buses. “Whatever. I’ll…” The shrug. “I don’t know if my
mom will let us come. She’s been…” A fidget of his backpack strap. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson was trying to watch him
only in his periphery, trying not to stare, but he turned his head when he
caught the shift in his voice. The way he went airless, and uncertain; that
clench of pain low in his throat. “What?” he prompted, as gently as he knew
how. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The shrug came again, and
Tommy took a deep breath that he let out in a rush. After, as if by rote,
without any emotion, he said, “You know how we moved here from New York? Well,
the reason was because my dad died, and my mom got scared, and moved us all the
way out here, and now she’s really overprotective of us, and wants us to come
home right after school. And.” He stalled out, and chewed at his lip. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy’s hand swung along at
his side, small and curled-tight and lonely-looking. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson said, “Hey, man, that’s
okay. Even if you can’t make it, I still wanted to invite you.” When Tommy
glanced over – brows lowered, skittish – he offered his best smile, and after a
beat, Tommy’s brow smoothed, and he returned it, crookedly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Later that night, Lawson tried
and failed to prove that he could skate backward, landed hard on his butt on
the polished wood of the roller rink, and felt his face go up in flames. Mark
and his friends laughed and whooped as they flew past, and Dana shot them the
bird before she offered Lawson a hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he was upright again, he
turned, face still hot with shame – and then hot for another reason, when he
saw a familiar pair of figures at the carpeted bench that ran the length of the
rink. One tall, one short, both with brown hair gleaming green beneath the neon
lights. Both were in the process of tugging on pairs of shitty rented skates,
but Tommy paused, and caught his gaze, and grinned, still a little crooked, but
wider this time, eyes big and black in the dimness of the room. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Oh,” Lawson murmured, before
he could catch himself. “They came.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana dug her knuckles into his
spine. “Don’t just stand here. Go tell him hi.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He did. </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">College Town is available now across all platforms! Links below:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677" style="color: #3778cd;">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration-line: none;">Kobo</a></b></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-27943537277369196582024-02-14T20:57:00.002-05:002024-02-14T20:57:27.567-05:00Once More For the Evening Crowd: College Town is Live! <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZF9vF_0deaqZ2ZbbnyKoheHmSK6r0w2MtIWCRQO2SRjeUnhfIYK6LFlmM9fjvYc-RtfYaQSyTpPtdDh-Q6ZwkxOSLRtBajFuW8ywYn-vGqiTUvjnZ9Jv9Pad4ib8xEDKPRZZ6EW6YGq77Wq8cRUQ8sPRN7v0ClP4FkXLWb-FkfNzHupihD4Ga_GVab4/s1080/CT%20teaser%20happiness%20balloons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZF9vF_0deaqZ2ZbbnyKoheHmSK6r0w2MtIWCRQO2SRjeUnhfIYK6LFlmM9fjvYc-RtfYaQSyTpPtdDh-Q6ZwkxOSLRtBajFuW8ywYn-vGqiTUvjnZ9Jv9Pad4ib8xEDKPRZZ6EW6YGq77Wq8cRUQ8sPRN7v0ClP4FkXLWb-FkfNzHupihD4Ga_GVab4/w640-h640/CT%20teaser%20happiness%20balloons.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></i></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Because we have seen the
fragility of happiness, we treasure the little things. Our hope is of a modest
variety, but it’s still hope. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A hope for fresh starts.
For first steps. For quiet, earnest words of love that are not confessions, nor
declarations, because we know the love already exists, it is our constant
companion, but hearing it still warms the cockles of our grownup, glued and
taped-together hearts. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I suppose what I’m trying
to say is: children think that only one thing will make them happy, but that
simply isn’t true. Happiness is a tapestry, rather than a rare artifact. And so
is love. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It takes us a little time,
and no small amount of effort, to pick out all the knots and lay the threads.
And that effort is what makes it </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">ours</span><i><span style="font-size: large;">. </span></i></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Hi, evening crowd! I want to work this year on posting more often, because all those pesky algorithms hide posts from followers across every social media platform. So in case you haven't seen the news already today, my latest release is now live! <i>College Town</i> is a sweet and spicy, emotional and angsty standalone M/M romance in which two childhood friends turned lovers get a second chance at happiness twenty years later, although thanks to scary and uncertain circumstances. The paperbacks just went live, and it's also available for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I hope you all had a lovely holiday, and I hope you'll enjoy Lawson and Tommy's story. </span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677" style="color: #3778cd;">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town" style="color: #3778cd; text-decoration-line: none;">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-7129576676560596742024-02-14T12:48:00.002-05:002024-02-14T12:48:47.926-05:00College Town <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP8mLJmXpTEwuyXG6rfqbCA1ycDp_LijOtUwii8Vkzd7I5Pd3ORKrcM1b2LyhlW0ww6G46PsePFmiRaHrIInyw2DBVrwrvpMYRYxvbJmqR_3EI4GAxYwPKQrX_0ygY7zyGmz3RuSBdEW1Ws9L6wfkWAV9YNjqOAYbH477mEhQEA2HXNS2DrLuqPTkSCUI/s1080/CT%20teaser%20now%20available.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP8mLJmXpTEwuyXG6rfqbCA1ycDp_LijOtUwii8Vkzd7I5Pd3ORKrcM1b2LyhlW0ww6G46PsePFmiRaHrIInyw2DBVrwrvpMYRYxvbJmqR_3EI4GAxYwPKQrX_0ygY7zyGmz3RuSBdEW1Ws9L6wfkWAV9YNjqOAYbH477mEhQEA2HXNS2DrLuqPTkSCUI/w640-h640/CT%20teaser%20now%20available.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div><p></p><blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tommy stands, but he grabs
Lawson by the face. “What do you need?” he asks, very seriously. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson closes his eyes and
presses his forehead to Tommy’s chest. “For this to be real,” he admits.</span></span></p></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVYK8a-xvElqyg_tz8lgXnN7MyGsZ-1Y1PpC02Zcbl4R3iDEZ-JIFhQ1Mdni2NbLeGSb_ItldFOA1VdRT5gmg0UQX-9nP5TT9crXkO1s2F907IzWC087101PvjuwaXPudkJVWNgHrW73t6bnTfyqpSy5Y2QzYmaMDDn4n_Gx16HXyY9VAnUxqFVkj9nA/s2164/CT%20teaser%202-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2164" data-original-width="2164" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVYK8a-xvElqyg_tz8lgXnN7MyGsZ-1Y1PpC02Zcbl4R3iDEZ-JIFhQ1Mdni2NbLeGSb_ItldFOA1VdRT5gmg0UQX-9nP5TT9crXkO1s2F907IzWC087101PvjuwaXPudkJVWNgHrW73t6bnTfyqpSy5Y2QzYmaMDDn4n_Gx16HXyY9VAnUxqFVkj9nA/w640-h640/CT%20teaser%202-14.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1">Amazon</a> - <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">B&N</a> - <a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>College Town</i>, a standalone M/M romance, is now live in all the usual places, links for which are provided above. This was the first time in a looooong time that I've written a self-contained story, and I enjoyed it so much I can't wait to do it again. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Look for a debrief in the next week or so, and until then, happy reading. I'm posting chapter one under the cut below so you can check it out. Thanks so much, everyone, and reviews are love! </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Warnings for language and self-conscious angst... </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span><p></p><h1 align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a name="_Toc157433291"><b><u><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;">1</span></u></b></a><b><u><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></b></span></h1><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Growing up is shit. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It sucks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not because adulthood
itself sucks all that much. It does…I mean, it really does…but the problem
isn’t the achy back, or the fuzzy short-term memory, or even the crushing
anxiety of thinking you might have to declare bankruptcy. None of that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">No, it’s realizing that the
person you thought you’d be when you were a kid never manifested. The beautiful
house, the flashy car, the high-paying, prestigious job. You didn’t wind up
with any of those things. And worst of all, the absolute gut punch of it all,
is the crushing truth that, as an adult, once that sugar-sweet high of
adolescence has worn off, there’s no such thing as true love. There’s love,
sure: all sorts of love. But that bone-deep, blistering, clean-scouring and
soul-transcending sort of love you read about in books and watched unfold in
movies? That’s not real. The tooth-rotting love you felt as a kid fades in the
face of the real world; it slips away. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The best you can hope for,
then, is something like contentment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">~*~<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Welcome to Coffee Town, the
only place you can soar with the Eagle Espresso. Can I interest you in one of
our fresh-baked Danishes?” Lawson deadpans, features schooled to match. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Pffft.” Dana leans across the
counter and socks him in the arm. Hard. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He cracks. “Hey!” Laughing, he
rubs at his arm. “Jesus. See if I ever offer you quality customer service
again.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Offer me an Americano and go
on break so you can keep me company.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No can do, chica. I lost
break privileges.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She lifts her brows,
disbelieving. “You what?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I’ve” – he lifts his hands to
do air quotes – “<i>abused</i> them, apparently.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Her gaze drops to the counter,
then lifts again. “Are you writing on your breaks?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Well…” He tries not to
cringe, but fails. “It’s just,” he rushes to say, “coffee house, computer –
that’s a peanut butter and jelly match made in heaven right there.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah, but you writing in
public isn’t,” she says, and raps her red-painted nails on the marble. “Come
on. They can’t deny you breaks – that’s like, I dunno, an EEOC violation or
something. Americano.” She points at him, then over her shoulder. “Join me.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“But–”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Now, Law,” she says over her
shoulder, and wends her way through the crowd toward a table. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson pouts, but only a
little. Takes the next order, then begs an unimpressed Megan to take over at
the register, pulls Dana’s Americano, snags a cookie for himself, and makes his
way to the prime window table she’s procured for them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You could at least sit in the
corner by the bathroom,” he says as he folds his long frame down into the chair
and slides her coffee over. “It’s bad enough my manager’s gonna be pissed, now
we’re taking up, like, the best table.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She makes a face of faux
affrontery. “I’m a paying customer. I can sit where I want.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson puts his elbows on the
table and hunkers down over his cookie. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Sweetie, don’t slouch. Your
manager’s not gonna say shit while I’m here.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">That’s true, and hearing it
honestly helps a little. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">By virtue of the fact that
Lawson is almost forty and a failed novelist, working the counter at his home
town coffeeshop, his manager, Kyle, is younger than him. A lot younger than
him. A little floppy-haired tyrant who walks with his ass on his shoulders,
running Coffee Town like it’s a place that matters, and not the shop nearest
campus and the busiest by simple virtue of walkability. Kyle screams if Lawson
fucks up the machines; screams if he has to recount the till after close every
night; screams if he gets so absorbed in writing that he eats three cookies
instead of his allotted one and lets his break run three minutes over the
allotted fifteen minutes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson hates him, but, well,
it’s not like he has any other job prospects at the moment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">Look at me now</span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">, he thinks in the direction of the kids
who’d harassed him in high school. <i>Even more of a fuckup than you all
thought I’d turn out to be</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana, though, golden hair
braided in a princess crown on top of her head, all of her glowing with good
health in the radiant sunlight beaming through the window, is very much not a
fuckup. She’s anything but. His best friend – real tried and true, since they
were in diapers, blood brothers and die-for-each-other BFF kind of love between
them – started college the summer after high school graduation, right here in
little ol’ Eastman, and got her bachelor’s in three years. Then her masters
after that. Then opened her own accounting firm, just one block down from the
sun-warmed table where they now sit. Dana is a practical person. A shark, he
tells her, laughingly, so she’ll shoot him the bird and then smirk. She was
never cursed with romantic passions and creative streaks; was never crippled by
the sorts of big dreams that have held him and weighed him down, iron shackles
around both ankles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today, Dana wears a simple,
perfectly-tailored white shirt, and a black skirt, both understated enough to
tell him they’re <i>expensive</i>. Diamond studs wink in her ears, and he knows
for a fact that her tasteful nude lipstick is seventy-five dollars a tube. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He doesn’t know, honestly, why
she’s still here. In Eastman. In this college town with its odd mix of farmers
and students. She’s not stuck, like he is; she could go somewhere bigger,
somewhere as fabulous as she is. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But she sips her Americano and
pins him with a look, and says, “Actually, I’m not here just for the coffee.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Aw. You’re here for my pretty
face?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No.” She smiles, but small
and tight, a sudden tension stealing over her features, and it sets a warning
siren to spinning distantly in the back of his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He pauses with his cookie in
front of his mouth. Slowly lowers it back to its napkin. “Okay.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She hesitates a moment,
trailing her nails down the side of her cup, a soft scratching sound. It’s not
like her to waver, and it immediately sets his teeth on edge. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She starts to bite her lip,
white teeth poised above it, a girlhood habit he knows she’s tried to outgrow.
She wins the battle, and lifts her gaze, a quick flicker up through her lashes,
expression smooth, but braced for his reaction. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">His stomach sinks. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Matter-of-factly, she says,
“Our class reunion is in December.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He knows that. Has known it
for months – for almost a year, when the email hit his inbox with an innocuous
ping, and then the bottom dropped out of his stomach. That little innocent
tagline sitting at the top of his unread Old Navy promotions and Dell customer
service surveys: <i>It’s the Big Two-Oh, Eastman Raiders! </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He was walking down the
sidewalk, after a quick Seven-Eleven run to grab more Equal packets for the
tables, mindlessly scrolling, and the email leaped off his phone, grabbed him
by the throat, and shocked his heart into a wonky two-step. He halted, slumped
sideways against the rough brick of the wall, actually touched the fingertips
of his free hand to his chest and felt the jackrabbit hitch beneath his
breastbone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Had it really been twenty
years? Twenty? Since he plucked the mortarboard off his head, turned it in his
hands, and wished it had felt like a victory, instead of the end of something? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Yeah, it had. That tracked. He
was thirty-seven, so the math added up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">But still. <i>Twenty years</i>.
Twenty years in which, he realized, standing on the sidewalk with his pulse
throbbing in his throat, he hadn’t moved on even a little bit. Still caught in
an ugly, childish hope, burdened by the defeat of knowing it was a hope that
could never be realized. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He gave himself a solid thirty
seconds to grieve. Then he thumbed the email into the trash, pocketed his
phone, and pushed off the wall. Love wasn’t real – not the kind he’d thought
he’d been in back then. And nobody really went to their reunions, save cheerleaders
and quarterbacks. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So he knows about the reunion,
but he’s tried very hard not to think about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He’s shocked it’s Dana
bringing it up, of all people, considering she knows the exact shape and flavor
of the bitterness that sat on his tongue on graduation day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He sits back in his chair and
folds his arms. “What about it?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Her brows jump. <i>Calm down</i>.
“You know how Harmony is the president of the Reunion Committee?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“One.” He lifts a finger from
the crook of his arm without unfolding. “Why the fuck is there a ‘Reunion
Committee?’ And two: how could I possibly have known Harmony was the
president?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Uh, maybe because Harmony is
our friend?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He stares at her, unblinking. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Maybe because she sends out,
like, weekly update emails about her kids, and her pottery class, and her,
frickin’ new favorite HGTV show?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He shrugs. “I don’t check my
email,” he lies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana makes a face, because she
knows he’s lying, but doesn’t call him on it. Instead, she does something much
worse. She takes a deep breath and says, “You know how her sister’s pregnant?
The sister who lives in North Dakota?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Before Lawson can ask what the
hell that has to do with their reunion, he realizes where this is headed, and
his stomach locks up hard, like the cash register when he can’t get the key to
work. He sets the cookie down for good, and shoves it over to her side of the
table. Folds his arms, and says, “No.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She lifts a hand and says,
“Now, hold on. Let me finish.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>No</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Lawson.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“<i>Dana</i>.” His heart
hammers, and his palms prickle with sweat where they’re stuffed under his arms,
and every part of his being is going <i>no, no, no, no, no</i>. He <i>can’t</i>
go to a reunion, can’t even be involved in planning it, sending emails,
checking names off lists, ordering fucking cheap champagne, because a reunion
means a homecoming, and a homecoming means…<i>could</i> mean…no. Just no. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana sighs tightly through her
nose, and presses on anyway, despite the way he starts wagging his head back
and forth exaggeratedly. “Harmony has to go out of town to help her sister, and
she called me last night in tears, begging me to take over the Committee for
her.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He stops shaking his head to
huff out an, “Ugh.” Harmony crying is a sad, sad, Disney movie affair, all
giant eyes and hitched breaths and an uncontrollable swell of sympathy that
leads people to do anything to stem the tide of tears. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“And, so…” She shrugs. “I’m
now the de facto head of the Reunion Committee.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He pulls an exaggerated face,
one that normally makes her laugh. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now, she frowns, and says,
“I’m nominating you as co-head.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson takes a deep breath,
and says, drawn out and slow, “Noooooo.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Her posture collapses, from
straight-backed Executive Woman in Charge, to something slumped and pleading
that reminds him of high school. Of earlier. Middle school, elementary. <i>Come
on, Law! That’s not faaaaiiiir! </i>No, life isn’t fair. He’s learned to live
with it. Mostly. But not so well that he can do <i>this</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He hitches up straighter in
his chair and presses his clammy palms to the table edge. Fixes her with as
steady a look as he can manage. “Dana. Honey. I would die for you, you know
this.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She nods, corner of her mouth
curving upward in a smile. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“But I will absolutely not,
under any circumstances, get within fifty feet of this fucking reunion.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She considers him a moment,
nails idly scraping the sides of her cup. “He won’t be there,” she says,
finally, quietly, little more than a whisper. “You know that he – that the two
of them won’t come.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I don’t know anything.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Her head tilts, and the
sympathy in her gaze sends his gaze skittering out through the window, where a
woman tries unsuccessfully to drag a tantrum-throwing toddler past a window
display at the gift shop next door. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He sees her hand cross the
table from the corner of his eye, but still flinches when it settles against
the back of his. He recovers fast, though, and turns his palm up to tangle
their fingers. God, they’re holding hands in public; they’re <i>those</i>
people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Well, I know some things,”
she counters, voice supportive in a way he both craves and hates – hates that
he needs that reassurance. That he isn’t stronger than this. “I know that I
love you, and that you’re one of my favorite people in the whole world, and I
know that you’re going through kind of a shitty time right now–”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Don’t,” he interrupts, a lump
forming in his throat. “Just…don’t, Dana.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She squeezes his hand and
says, “I also know that those two shitheads won’t show up to our reunion, so
there’s nothing to worry about on that front.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He dares to glance back across
the table at her, and sees a ferocious sparkle in her blue eyes. “Because they
don’t give enough of a shit to come.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Because they know we’d rip
them new ones and they don’t have the balls to come,” she corrects. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A middle-aged woman sits down
at the table beside theirs, gaze going to their joined hands and lingering
longer than is polite, open curiosity writ on her face. She probably thinks
they’re lovers having a meaningful heart-to-heart. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana squeezes his hand once
more, then withdraws hers, and Lawson folds his arms again. She takes a deep
breath, and dons a businesslike air once more. “Come on. You’re better at this
sort of thing than I am.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He snorts. “That’s
demonstrably untrue.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Stop selling yourself short.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Stop trying to upsell me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Law.” She pouts. “Come on,
Law, pleeeeeaaaassse!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He has no natural immunity to
begging; it’s always tripped him up. <i>Please, Law, God, please</i>. Hands
twisted up in his shirt, breath hot against the base of his throat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He squeezes his eyes shut
against memory, not that it helps. He does things physically, sometimes, in the
hope it’ll slam the door on harmful mental practices. It doesn’t, but he goes
through the motions anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Fine.” When he opens his
eyes, she’s grinning, and he throws his hands up. “Fine! Fine, I’ll help you
run this fucking reunion!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana’s grin widens.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The woman beside them lets out
a shocked gasp. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson turns to her, donning a
grave face, and says, “Ma’am, don’t let her face and hair fool you: that girl
is a Grade A demon.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The woman rears back in her
chair, baffled. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dana laughs. “I love you!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah, yeah. Keep that.” He
flicks his fingers toward the cookie that still sits in front of her. “I’m
suddenly feeling nauseous as all hell.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She rolls her eyes, and opens
her mouth to respond – and a shadow falls across the table. Lawson knows from
the shape of its hair that it’s Kyle, just like he knows, before he turns his
head, what sort of expression Kyle’s wearing: the pinched-brow, cat’s asshole
mouth pucker of the truly self-righteous. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lawson smiles sheepishly at
him. “Hi, boss.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Kyle jerks a thumb over his
shoulder. “Break room. Now.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yes, boss. Right away, boss.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When he glances back at Dana
over his shoulder as he follows – trying to duck his shoulders so he doesn’t
tower over Kyle quite so dramatically – she winks and sticks her tongue out at
him. He shoots her the bird, and she smiles. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">They’re okay. They’re always
okay.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">He just hopes <i>he</i> will
be once this whole reunion business is said and done.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"> </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-25237215562371295792024-02-14T08:53:00.001-05:002024-02-14T08:53:22.495-05:00New Release: College Town <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHhefXrWGAX7qX7t5Jl-z7X_24ETHyvg45kNQtAtLsZGTsEtNv2m4laVTFo-5xT9u_lGSQ6HzaST6uiyhOk4oLMhc54vKqFKMjHNqA13DGPOsJr1LFxVcT7f9FbZDIzskYRs7mrIJFFx-GC7ThTxNbpKxsOgeuatM4RWab12e1CBj8RbmufXIcENeprs/s1080/CT%20now%20available.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHhefXrWGAX7qX7t5Jl-z7X_24ETHyvg45kNQtAtLsZGTsEtNv2m4laVTFo-5xT9u_lGSQ6HzaST6uiyhOk4oLMhc54vKqFKMjHNqA13DGPOsJr1LFxVcT7f9FbZDIzskYRs7mrIJFFx-GC7ThTxNbpKxsOgeuatM4RWab12e1CBj8RbmufXIcENeprs/w640-h640/CT%20now%20available.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"></span></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">The gross thing about love
is the way it can make your whole life feel bigger. It makes </span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;">you<i> feel bigger. Like you’re important;
like your feet barely touch the ground.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And then, when it’s
snatched away – when it </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">runs</span><i><span style="font-size: large;">
away – nothing cuts like the pain of being reminded how terribly small you are. </span></i></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .3in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Happy Valentine's Day! <i>College Town</i> is live! </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVN9K1DG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PZEQKJHVHV70&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IzTCaPLXUn2wXVCu7KXzrAgdM_TmQYeGFPqF5z-FMUXIk1Wz17D9RfZjKjZB0KqgZRq_Odc_Inqr9PS-QN4KVZTAgb1gUcEKcwtbM6i-RnGOx1em0a8hxY6QS07Fj1Dqmnk6qwhxsbx1Kt3Xyu3ljw93HSbIR1zyHs9mxXONMF7-lZeo3DR0R90P0ip9lvNuHnYgUW0NCiZTOV5Vc76SY_D7SvCG5DJoZobhOKf7Z6k.UVLdAGrwNGuJ4OpRE2MxsM1YLzaYMuK3qof7Q31tYbo&dib_tag=se&keywords=college+town&qid=1707916918&s=digital-text&sprefix=%2Cdigital-text%2C242&sr=1-1"><b>Amazon</b></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/college-town-lauren-gilley/1144889745?ean=2940186129677">Barnes & Noble</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/college-town">Kobo</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">You can read more about the book <a href="https://hoofprintpress.blogspot.com/2024/02/teasertuesday-tomorrows-day.html"><b>here</b></a>. Hope you enjoy my sweet little standalone while you wait for the next <i>Lord Have Mercy</i> installment. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-28284469144549774942024-02-13T09:14:00.001-05:002024-02-13T09:14:26.358-05:00#TeaserTuesday: Tomorrow's the Day <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1L6XTl47hk71xgZFV8tX2-cblMZqiWak_CG_mK_DhdVPsHImxPArDRd8N9kZE0HYr1lsjhB4zbn_sLBilowphP2i9RGvRbcSWoIa-vOtHf-zBj2f4aUMl9R2O8pm4SI8nzK0WEBWTIOnkEYJSEjZZg3VYESU7h7yckWDv-t-zImLMXhIrb7AwnWB40W0/s1080/2-13%20CT%20teaser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1L6XTl47hk71xgZFV8tX2-cblMZqiWak_CG_mK_DhdVPsHImxPArDRd8N9kZE0HYr1lsjhB4zbn_sLBilowphP2i9RGvRbcSWoIa-vOtHf-zBj2f4aUMl9R2O8pm4SI8nzK0WEBWTIOnkEYJSEjZZg3VYESU7h7yckWDv-t-zImLMXhIrb7AwnWB40W0/w640-h640/2-13%20CT%20teaser.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Tomorrow's the day! (Amazon permitting. Fingers crossed the upload goes through.) My next release is a standalone romance called <i>College Town</i>, and for today's Teaser Tuesday post, I wanted to offer a quick overview of what to expect, since this will be the first standalone I've published in quite some time, and since it's formatted a little differently from my series work. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Title</b>: <i>College Town</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Genre</b>: M/M romance </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Length</b>: ~120,000 words </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>POV</b>: 3rd person limited (single narrator)</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Prose style</b>: present tense, with past tense used for flashbacks</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Tropes</b>: Second Chance Romance; Childhood Friends to Lovers; Reunited Years Later</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b>Content Warnings/Additional Tags</b>: misunderstandings; miscommunication; unreliable narrator; self-esteem issues; teenage heartbreak; coffeeshop; mafia; sick/disabled parent; strong language; explicit sex; violence; idiots in love; hospitals; injury </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I <i>think </i>that covers everything. The main points of note are the fact that the novel is written in present tense for all the present-day action (<i>he says</i>), and in past tense for flashbacks (<i>he said</i>). I used present tense back in 2016 when I wrote <i>Walking Wounded</i>, and I find it adds a real sense of immediacy to the story; it felt like the right choice here, and I think it really establishes a reader connection with Lawson right away. The other point would be: the explicit sex. There's only two main scenes, with mentions of others, but they're steamy, so be prepared for that. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">*Sidenote: some, but not every chapter begins with an italicized, first-first person blurb that's a sample from the manuscript Lawson's working on in the novel. He's a writer, so the blurbs give a little more insight into his reflections on love and life. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I'm calling this one "A Romance" because it fits the bill better than the majority of my work. It's a technical, categorization label, only, but one I've learned over the years is very important to most of the book world. Generally, my books have too many secondary and tertiary storylines to earn the title, but with this book I set out to write a straight-up romance. It's something I'd like to do more of, because it's a unique challenge! Lawson is the sole narrator in this book, which is another departure for me, but as such, the story stays tightly focused on the romance, and our romantic leads. Despite the word count, it makes for quick-feeling read.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There's a lot of cursing, hot-and-heavy bedroom action, and a healthy dash of mafia drama, but for all of that, I'd describe it as a sweet and emotional story. I'll post links when it becomes available tomorrow, and I hope you'll really enjoy it! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Here's the blurb:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">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. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">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. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: large;">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? </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><div><br /></div></span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><p></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-1323324198126819452024-02-01T16:13:00.001-05:002024-02-01T16:13:27.359-05:00#ThrowbackThursday: Halfway There <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjioMqtnzuQQtj_F_YPEt0A1o11byDyWLCugf20NFCkrUdxr3TMHlhw6-8EgA1X6G9O3K-Nb-WcPY0Jy4hGuWrqyl0e2JFIWCcgnfHpkEJAe6EErCL5g0-3ehXDv-OSAihxIMYcDTuPUDvLAiMh8khJs4L-5qpMozSxHBqkxTnvGfl8cqn464WEmuQKZt8/s828/19DAD0CD-9795-4DF5-A2A8-3CD88F29F0A8.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="828" height="632" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjioMqtnzuQQtj_F_YPEt0A1o11byDyWLCugf20NFCkrUdxr3TMHlhw6-8EgA1X6G9O3K-Nb-WcPY0Jy4hGuWrqyl0e2JFIWCcgnfHpkEJAe6EErCL5g0-3ehXDv-OSAihxIMYcDTuPUDvLAiMh8khJs4L-5qpMozSxHBqkxTnvGfl8cqn464WEmuQKZt8/w640-h632/19DAD0CD-9795-4DF5-A2A8-3CD88F29F0A8.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Sometimes I worry that I talk too much about my new releases, and I try to keep things chill. Don't want to bore anyone with repetition. But I had a comment on Instagram this week from someone who didn't know that <i>Lord Have Mercy Part Two: Fortunate Son</i> had released yet, so today's Throwback Thursday is a reminder that Part Two IS in fact live, along with Part One. We're halfway through the four-part <i>Lord Have Mercy</i> extravaganza! </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Today, I'm splitting time between editing <i>College Town</i> - which releases 2/14! - and writing <i>Lord Have Mercy Part Three: Rising Sun</i>. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">As I've mentioned previously, I will be releasing a final, compiled addition of<i> Lord Have Mercy</i> once all four parts are finished, though I'm not yet sure if the entire novel will fit in a singular paperback volume. Time will tell. Thank you so much to everyone who's reading along as we go! The end of Part Two leaves off at a perilous moment, so I'm working fast and furious to get Part Three out ASAP. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Here are the purchase links ICYMI:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Have-Mercy-Part-Two-ebook/dp/B0CRNC44QS?ref_=ast_author_mpb">Kindle/Paperback</a></u></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><u><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-have-mercy-part-two-lauren-gilley/1144568236?ean=2940185640975">Nook</a><br /></u></b></span><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><u><br /><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lord-have-mercy-part-two">Kobo</a></u></b></p></div>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1528768162650611653.post-30615417729009691202024-01-30T17:18:00.002-05:002024-01-30T17:18:38.669-05:00#TeaserTuesday: Rising Sun <p><span style="font-family: helvetica; text-align: justify;">This <i>Lord Have Mercy: Part Three</i> post contains spoilers, so I've split it under a cut. Proceed with caution if you haven't read Part Two yet, or, better yet, go grab a copy! </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><u><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Have-Mercy-Part-Two-ebook/dp/B0CRNC44QS?ref_=ast_author_mpb">Kindle/Paperback</a></u></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><b><u><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-have-mercy-part-two-lauren-gilley/1144568236?ean=2940185640975">Nook</a><br /></u></b></span><b style="font-family: helvetica;"><u><br /><a href="https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lord-have-mercy-part-two">Kobo </a></u></b><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BDBObDyP837AqbHhC3uFD3lhewzwpxv_ZZ8zZYlvw-olHOmkkkQOrrT-7vo60A5AoEr_yXDOC9aM5qeoZbxsl0VM8BYD0WVzF2yMeY38Btcld4fkhxoDHk6YpVKdG2Dcf6l3pwyHcmMbi62O_vUSPd3UmTl_8XkIinRGtKUH1-Lv8Nn0_2bQMQuCOtY/s1080/1-30%20RS%20teaser%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-BDBObDyP837AqbHhC3uFD3lhewzwpxv_ZZ8zZYlvw-olHOmkkkQOrrT-7vo60A5AoEr_yXDOC9aM5qeoZbxsl0VM8BYD0WVzF2yMeY38Btcld4fkhxoDHk6YpVKdG2Dcf6l3pwyHcmMbi62O_vUSPd3UmTl_8XkIinRGtKUH1-Lv8Nn0_2bQMQuCOtY/w640-h640/1-30%20RS%20teaser%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGHjQkPJRR1GhsZBylw938cZFQtowXYuITrzSLKgM3595Lr7oIK0in9VTwOBCfwhejCbvh6Xh8sS24L_GR7fonTF_jRIkxiaSDAo8ZBpOK4vOcE_eIOC2nRit4gFCrBll0hvnqkCit8CCv-lwZ73cvC1gfHnh5tLtpRyIb4eIG6Pv8DqKnB4SchEZhCQ/s1080/1-30%20RS%20teaser%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGHjQkPJRR1GhsZBylw938cZFQtowXYuITrzSLKgM3595Lr7oIK0in9VTwOBCfwhejCbvh6Xh8sS24L_GR7fonTF_jRIkxiaSDAo8ZBpOK4vOcE_eIOC2nRit4gFCrBll0hvnqkCit8CCv-lwZ73cvC1gfHnh5tLtpRyIb4eIG6Pv8DqKnB4SchEZhCQ/w640-h640/1-30%20RS%20teaser%201.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: .4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It had been a
long time since he’d looked at Ava and seen the little girl with pigtails who’d
once begged him for a ride on the back of his bike, but that was how he saw her
now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She stood
wearing Remy’s backpack, and holding his jacket folded over her crossed arms,
covering her stomach like a shield. She held her head high, chin level, and her
cheeks and eyes were dry. The look she gave Vince was nearly contemptuous.
“Right,” Ghost heard her saying, as he approached. “But he <i>wouldn’t</i> have
left on his own. Not like this.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Still,”
Vince said. “I don’t think it’s time to panic.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ava glanced
meaningfully at the officers gathered around them, and her lip curled faintly
in disgust. “This isn’t panicking?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">How had the
little girl he brought home from the hospital become this calm, collected grown
woman all of a sudden? One who should have been collapsed in a heap by all
rights right now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The kid
didn’t run off,” Ghost said, and Vince drew back when he slotted into place
beside her. Ghost put an arm across Ava’s shoulders, and they were as
unyielding as iron. Fine tremors moved through her, the only sign that she was
about to vibrate out of her skin. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“He…” Vince
made a face. “He <i>might</i> have. Sometimes children–”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Cut the
shit,” Ghost said. “We’re not talking about <i>children</i>, we’re talking
about <i>Remy</i>, and Remy wouldn’t walk outta this school for anyone except
his mom or dad, and we know they didn’t take him, and they sure as shit
wouldn’t have left his stuff behind.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Vince sighed,
and scrubbed at his jaw. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” One of his officers leaned in to
whisper something to him, and he nodded. To them, he said, “I’ve got officers
doing a walk-through of every classroom and the grounds. The dogs ought to be
here within the hour.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">As if on cue,
the sound of canine toenails scrabbling over terrazzo echoed around the corner.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Don’t
bother,” Ghost said, turning to see Michael and two of his uncle’s best
trackers heading their way. The Blueticks were hooked together by a harness,
and Michael held both chains in one gloved hand. Long ears swung like pendulums
and the dogs snuffled noisily along the floor. “We’ve got that covered.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Jesus,”
Vince said, “that’s not sanctioned.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You gonna
stop me?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.4in;"><span style="font-family: "Garamond",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What do you
think?”</span><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></p>Lauren Gilleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11870429911671320992noreply@blogger.com6