The Current WIPs

 

Val’s expression didn’t waver, but Trina saw his hands tighten together, one slow pulse of tension, before they relaxed again. Nik had struck a nerve. It seemed to be a family trait.

Lanny gathered a breath as if he meant to speak, and Trina jabbed him in the ribs so hard he flinched away from her with a muttered curse. No other sound broke the strung-tight silence of the room. Trina swore she could hear the snow melting in the windowsills. The vampires probably could.

This was not, everyone save Lanny seemed to grasp—and he likely did, too, but he’d never been one for awkward quiet spells—, remotely similar to the standoff Trina and Nikita had held on the hill an hour ago. Not two family members bitching at each other over inclusion and exclusion. It was an old-school power struggle, a war for supremacy over not simply a family, but a potential army. Four of the people in this room held royal titles. One was the last tsarevich of Russia. One was not only a prince, but the son of one of Rome’s original founders. It didn’t much matter that Nik was a vampire; he’d been a civilian, unremarkable, without a drop of noble blood, forced into the Cheka to save his own royalist skin. By rank alone, he shouldn’t have been considered for a leadership role.

But she knew that everyone in this room had looked at him on more than one occasion to lead them. That when push came to shove, it was his coldness, his history, his brutal efficiency, that they all needed as head of the pack.

Even Val knew it.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to draw swords and fight him to the death on principle. He was Dracula’s brother, after all. 

Amelia was already up and moving about the chamber, silk robe belted tight against the morning chill, slipper-shod feet slapping quickly across the floor as she retrieved the fireplace poker and knelt to stoke the coals in the hearth.

“No, allow me,” Cassius said, and hurried forward to deposit the breakfast tray on the table in front of the sofa. “Amelia.” There was a pleading note in his voice, one he’d never heard leave his own lips before. It startled him so badly that he tripped on the edge of the rug and nearly lost his balance.

Amelia added fresh pieces of split wood from the leather sling beside the mantel and pulled the grate closed. She stood, brushing bark and dirt off her hands, and sent him an amused look. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” he said, face warm. “I was going to build the fire back up when I arrived. I didn’t expect you to be awake this early.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, and folded her arms tight across her middle. Then she snorted. “Besides: I’m used to war camp hours. Do you really think me a slugabed?”

“Of course not. But I thought, after so long on the march, in bed rolls and cots, you might be in desperate need of a good night’s sleep somewhere warm and safe.”

“Safe?”

“Warm and comfortable at least.”

“Did you sleep well when you were my prisoner?” she challenged.

“At times, yes.” When her brows lifted in surprise, he said, “I was more afraid of being returned than of being killed. Whatever my fate, I took rest when I could.”

Her lips compressed, and twitched to the side, as though unhappy with his answer.

“I’ve not known freedom. Not ever. This is more of an adjustment for you, my lady.”

 

New Substack Book: Don't Let Go

 

Some of you might remember a mystery/thriller/police procedural romance I teased last year. To finish it or not to finish it became the question. Launching my Substack and finishing up Avarice of the Empire put the thriller, Don't Let Go, on the backburner. 

Reexamining it now, it feels ridiculous not to finish it, not since there's 61k words already written. Since it's a departure from my usual series, and more of a marketing risk, I've decided to share it on Substack. I posted chapter one already and will drop chapter two today as well. I love the idea of Substack becoming a place where I can experiment a little, and share stories with subscribers that might otherwise never see the light of day.

I'll be posting it chapter by chapter just like Inherent Violence. I hope you'll check it out. Happy reading! 

Title Reveal: Field of Fire

 I've spent today's writing time focusing on Drake Chronicles Book 7, which now has a title! 

Keep scrolling for a sneak peek at chapter one of Field of Fire, the seventh and final Drake novel.

🐉🐉🐉

The cry came again, closer, and cold terror gripped Reggie around the heart. Sank claws, and fangs, and threatened to crush his chest. “Gods,” he whispered. “Oh, Gods.”

The Sels had drakes. The Sels likely had hundreds, maybe even thousands of drakes, based on the roadside assault: the portal, the dog-sized drakes pouring through in whole flocks, and the massive head and neck, lopped off when the portal closed. What were they flying toward now? How could they hope to survive it?

He hauled on the left rein. “Lennie, no, turn away—”

Too late.

The cloud floor exploded ahead of them, a hundred or so yards away. White burst through white, a tumble of soft, dull clouds, and something hard and gleaming, reflecting the pink sunrise with dazzling brightness.

Valencia pulled up short, halting in midair, wings beating backward. Reggie lurched forward in the saddle and caught himself on her shoulders. When he glanced down, a gap in the clouds revealed jagged peaks below, like the squiggles on a map from this height.

Nausea rolled through him. He sucked in a breath and sat up, reaching for his sword hilt with one hand, for all the good it would do.

As tatters of cloud streamed sway, the enemy took shape. Drakes. Three of them, of similar size to the fire-drakes, but a gleaming snow white in color.

Alpha roared.

The largest white drake roared back.

Three things happened at once.

Reggie recalled what Amelia had said about Oliver and Tessa, about their drakes being cold-drakes; being white.

Reggie spotted riders on two of the drakes. The straps of saddles, breastplates, and the flutter of long leather reins just like the ones he held.

And Alpha ducked his head, pumped his wings, and flew toward them like an arrow loosed from a bow.

“No!” Reggie bellowed. “Alpha, no!”

Newsletter 2/1/26

 

**This is a mirrored post from my Substack, where you can read it, and all chapters of the Alex Bonfils-centric Dartmoor tie-in novel, Inherent Violence. 

February greetings from a snowy corner of Georgia. It’s been bitter, windy, ice-breaking weather here, but thankfully we avoided the snow and freezing rain that’s struck Tennessee two weeks in a row. I’ll take all the small favors I can get. Now that the Christmas season is well behind us, I’m ready to trade the midwinter blues for green grass, happy horses, and evenings that melt long and slow into night. Daylight savings can’t come fast enough.

As for today, there are a few news items of note:

• I broke ground on the seventh and final Drake Chronicles book this morning, as of yet untitled. Book six, Avarice of the Empire, released at the end of December and offered some wild twists, including a surprise ending that leads directly into the action of the big finale. I’m determined that book seven will be the last book, even if it winds up being a chunky installment. Before anyone asks, I have no idea when it might release. Sorry! There’s lots to juggle at the moment.

• Last week I started a new post series all about writing. Writing 101 focuses on the importance of reading for writers, and Writing 102, the next installment, will discuss journaling and practice writing. This is a deep dive look at craft, from concept to completion, and as of now, I’m planning to update it on a monthly basis, depending on the rest of my writing workload.

• The Alex-centered Dartmoor novel Inherent Violence is rolling along here on Substack. We’re up to Chapter Twenty-One as of last night, and in Chapter Twenty-Two, Miranda gets to meet the old ladies. For anyone asking if I’ll eventually turn this book into a Kindle/paperback release, the answer is that I haven’t decided. Low Lord Have Mercy sales lead me to believe that it wouldn’t sell very well, and in this format, I get to offer it as an exclusive to Substack supporters. So, we’ll see, but I’m not sure.

I have a bit of personal news as well. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my stories a week or so ago when I talked about my health issues. I don’t want to say too much yet, but suffice to say that I felt terrible for most of 2025, especially in the back half of the year. At the beginning of January, I started seeing a new doctor, one who’s actually taking my pain and other symptoms seriously; she’s being proactive, and that’s been a tremendous relief. I had an ultrasound last Tuesday to check on one thing…and the radiologist wound up finding something unexpected. My doctor ordered an MRI, and I have that this coming Tuesday evening. We’ve been moving forward with the hypothesis that I have endometriosis, or ovarian cysts, or both, and now there’s another complication that needs examining. I’m nervous. Hopefully the MRI can shed light on everything that’s going on, and we can move forward with a clear surgical plan.

All that’s to say that I’m not sure what my schedule for the next few weeks or months is going to look like. I’m going to write as much as I can, with the idea that I’ll have scheduled posts set to drop in the early stages of any surgery recovery period. If I’m laid up for a while, I won’t be much use at the barn (ugh!) but should still be able to write. I’ll keep y’all posted!

Stay warm, everyone :)

11 Years ?!

 

January is "birthday month" for Fearless. 

Writing books didn't turn out to be the self-sustaining, successful career I'd hoped, but I suppose you have to look at the odds: the odds of finishing a book; of publishing a book; of finding even one reader; of hearing that your words impacted someone in a positive way. Eleven years later, readers are still buying Fearless, still giving Mercy and Ava a chance to charm them, and that's a pretty special thing. 

Thank you to everyone who's been along on this wild ride with the Dogs! ❤ I can't believe it's still going. 

#TeaserTuesday: You Coward

 

NOW AVAILABLE

“Pull him out,” he instructed, and Valgrind burrowed his head down into the snow. He withdrew a moment later, hauling Rune out by the back of his tunic.

Rune sputtered, and kicked, and swung his arms, and showered snow everywhere.

Valgrind craned his neck around so Náli was face-to-face with Rune’s spitting, cursing, red-cheeked visage. Close enough that Náli could slap him—which he did.

His hand left a gratifying red mark behind, each finger distinct, and snapped Rune’s head to the side. When he turned back, he no longer looked panicked, but, thankfully, furious. Good: an angry man was a man who could take action. Fear and panic were nothing but wasted effort.

“Shut up and listen to me,” Náli said, not as himself, but as the Corpse Lord. His was a laughable sort of authority, but by some miracle, Rune shut his gob and went still in Valgrind’s grasp. “We can’t go after Tessa because Tessa’s not here.”

Rune blinked at him, uncomprehending, and then scowled. He pointed toward the capital, somewhere beyond the peaks. “Of course she’s not here. That Sel took her! Which is why we need to give chase! Our drakes are faster than the big one, and…what?” He broke off, frowning, when Náli shook his head. “You turn back if you want to, coward, but that’s my wife! I’m going after her!”

Náli almost slapped him again. He said, “That Sel opened a portal and took her through it. We can’t go after her, because it’s not a matter of flying faster. She’s gone, Rune. And we can’t follow.”

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Thirty-One Part One

Monday. Funeral day. Ava sat up before her alarm went off at six with a strange weightless feeling in her stomach. She’d been to almost a dozen such funerals, but never because of murder, and never after such a strange few days as these last few. MC funerals were bedecked in pomp, steeped in nostalgia, works of art, really, and for the first time since coming home, she woke up and felt almost like her old self. Like the club daughter, instead of the country club girlfriend. 

Welcome back to the Fearless read-along! Picking up where we left off, Chapter Thirty-One is a long one, so I'm going to split it into two posts. 

It's funeral day for the Lean Dogs: time to lay Andre to rest, and to make statements to the public, and to their enemies. 

In a fictional sense, funerals make for great tipping points. The reminder of our brief time on earth, the harsh reality of our own mortality, brings characters to decision points. This happens in real life, messily, imperfectly; in a novel, it can be cold and clean and a necessary catalyst for change. 

 

             The second her feet touched the floor, in the chilly dark of her room, the energy began fizzling in her veins, that strange, morbid excitement. A member was dead. Bring out the bikes, say all your prayers, give thanks for your once-percent blood. And so it always went. 

Ava wakes the morning of the funeral nervous and (guiltily) excited. The club daughter in her will always love the chance to show up for her family; to be counted amongst the Dogs. She's her mama's right hand, and there's a certain importance that makes her relish the role, even as a pall of sadness lies over them all. 

She begins the day comparing Ronnie to her family, and not merely finding fault with him, but actively asking herself why she's with him. Oh boy, Ronnie. It was never going to work, but then he drives the point home by being an ass at the funeral home. He's tried the Understanding Good Guy route, and now goes for scorn and shame; he's really so stupid he thinks that she'll chase after him, and put some distance between herself and her family. 

Ava cast a glance into the next room, at Ronnie massaging his scalp from his slump on the sofa. Why? she wondered. Why am I not allowed to have what my parents have? Why do I have – Ronnie dug his phone from under his pillow and checked it – this?

On Mercy's side of things, president-to-president contact is made with the Carpathians. Ghost lays down the law, Jasper bristles, and the stage is set for active combat. 

“Alright, Jasper,” Ghost said. The conversational tone, the assumed familiarity was grating on the younger man’s nerves, Mercy could see; Jasper’s jaw worked. “As much fun as this is, I didn’t come here for a social call. This” – Ghost circled a finger in the air, indicating the trip they’d all made to this side of town – “is your warning. Your polite warning. I am not having some all-out war with your crew. I don’t have time to play Cowboys and Indians with you. If you make one more move toward that end, I will kill you. I will destroy you, in every way possible.”

It's surreal to revisit this war with the Carpathians after Lord Have Mercy. The club started out fighting local enemies, and as the Dogs gained power and influence, so too did their enemies. It makes me want to shed a proud little mother tear over the ways they've grown since this first book; the challenges they were able to tackle and overcome as the years went by. 

The back half of the chapter contains all the ~revelations~, and the steamy bits, and I'll post about that next Monday.