#TeaserTuesday - TWC

 

I make quite the face when I remind myself that I started posting The Wild Charge last July, and it's still an ongoing manuscript at 102k words as of this morning. Ugh. 

But, however slow and inconsistent, progress HAS been made, and we've finally come to the third act. Today's #TeaserTuesday post is actually more of an author update. Chapter 35, which I hope to have up in the next day or so, kicks off the final, bonkers block of action in the novel. I have a sinking suspicion the word count is going to get a little nuts, but there are lots of moving parts to this thing; lots of plots and plans and actors to make their moves. If the first two thirds of the book felt more like traditional, Knoxville-based Dartmoor, this last chunk - I'm gonna go with "chunk," because this is a fat portion of the book - is going to feel more like an action/spy thriller. 

The resolution of the Abacus plotline - which has been going on for three books now - demands heavy involvement from our whole ensemble. It needs lots of scene breaks, parallel action, and I'm determined to work a Daredevil style hallway/stairwell fight in there, because I can. It's this section of the book, with its tense meetings in Italian restaurants, its uber-powerful villains, underground auction blocks, and corrupt fed involvement that was planned from the first, and which inspired all my original misgivings about writing the book in the first place. Not because I think it won't work; not because I think it will be "bad." But because it doubles, nay triples down on the "spy stuff" from Prodigal Son. It also delivers the resolution that Prodigal Son doesn't re: Devin Green and his "Foxy" sons.

I included that photo of two red foxes in my teaser this week for a reason. This book is two stories. Like all Dartmoor books, it touches on lots of characters and teases glimpses of other relationships, yes. But at it's core, it's about two things:

1) Tenny and Reese. Their struggle for personhood and humanity. Their integration into a family, and their understanding of what that means. And their love story. 

2) Fox. Though he wasn't raised like Tenny, and though he isn't self-pitying, he has demons, too. This is about him learning how to lay those to rest in his quest to show his brother - and his brother's boyfriend - that they're worth more than their violence. 

That's why there's three wraiths in black on the cover. It's a story about all of them; about three half-formed, highly-trained, badly-in-need-of-love people figuring their stuff out. 

I didn't want to write this book, but I'm pretty darn proud of it. I'll publish it formally (after edits and proofs) when I'm finished, but if you want to dive in now, the first 34 chapters, and beyond, are available HERE on Wattpad.