A Walk Through the Backlist: Sons of Rome

 

"What you brought back from Romania aren't stories. They're living, breathing animals, more dangerous and violent than you can even begin to comprehend. You have the scourge of the Ottoman Empire in your basement, and you want me to wake him up?"

"Well. Yes."

After more than a decade spent daydreaming, and doodling notes in the margins of my homework, after a shocking sequence of coincidences in which the thing I wanted to write revealed itself to be rooted in fact once researched, in the midst of a terrible case of pneumonia that would take me six months to shake off, I started work in January 2017 on what has been my most ambitious, most complex, most ridiculous project. My folly. The series no one asked for, and which quite a few people sent me hate mail for writing; the series I try hard not to dwell on these days because if I do, it's the only thing I want to write. Sons of Rome. 

White Wolf

Red Rooster

Dragon Slayer 

Golden Eagle

Altogether, the series as a whole is a Russian nesting doll of premises (ha). But the main premise is simple: Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were not human, but vampire infants, washing up amid the reeds of the Riber Tiber in their little basket. The wolf who nursed them was not merely a wolf, but a werewolf, and thus began the tradition of vampires keeping werewolf Familiars. In the present-day storyline, Remus is dead, but Romulus is not, and he's got ambitions that might just bring the world to its knees, unless his nephews - Vlad and Valerian Dracula - and their friends, mortal and immortal, can defeat him. 

The action itself, however, unfolds in an intricate, non-linear fashion, including deep dives into the past: from Tzarist Russia to WWII on the Eastern Front, to fifteenth century Romania, to, in the next book, the reign of King Richard I of England. I've always told non-linear stories, because I find them more interesting. In the case of SoR, the historical periods are not visited randomly; rather, we look back at the pasts of our immortal characters in the order in which we meet them, which is all a deliberate choice when it comes to powering the modern-day storyline forward. We start with Trina, which means we have to meet Nik and Sasha first, and so our first dip into the past is to WWII. In Dragon Slayer, we venture back to witness the rise and fall of Vlad Tepes, and his battle with the Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror. As war looms in modern times, our various contingencies of immortals clash, and then come together toward a common enemy. 

Sons of Rome is an ongoing series, meaning that, while there are victories and resolutions in each book, nothing is finished yet. All of our many, many characters still have growing and evolving to do; no one's story has reached a conclusion. Poor Mia, for instance, catches some flak for not being as "interesting" as her immortal counterparts, but I have plans for Mia. Just wait and see. 

This series is dark, and violent, and heartbreaking...but hopeful, too, in its way. Its scope is vast, but though its characters are many, they are all lovingly detailed, and the ultimate drivers of the story. I love all of them, even Alexei, the little brat. It's the sort of series best suited to readers who truly love to read. Anyone who wants to "get right to the point," or keep up with BookTok trends for the sake of being part of the crowd, is going to get bored of or actively dislike this series. This one's for the doorstop lovers, who don't care how long it takes, so long as they get to spend a little more time with these characters, and so long as their stories are told in the best way possible. 

The first four books are available, and though I haven't worked on the series in several years - for financial reasons; I have to write stuff that sells right now - book four ends on a really sweet note, and not a cliffhanger, so you can read them without being left hanging. I'd love to work on book five! So if you haven't tried the series yet, and you like dense, lush, character-driven paranormal drama, Sons of Rome might just be for you. The Kindle editions are an absolute steal at just 99c apiece right now. 

#TeaserTuesday: "When did you know?"

Today's teaser is a bit of a spoiler for Lord Have Mercy Part 3, so if you haven't been reading along as the installments release and are waiting for the whole version, turn back now! I'll put it under a cut so it won't show on the blog home page automatically.

Here we go...

Music Monday: Big Son

 

I don't usually put together a playlist post until after a book drops, and that's not what I'm doing here, but I HAD to come rec the album that's been powering me through LHM part four. The whole thing's gold, but two songs specifically just scream Lean Dogs, and will definitely make it onto the final playlist I share. 

"Horses & Hellcats"

and

"Last of My Kind"

both by Shaboozey. Sometimes, I pick a song because of the lyrics, and sometimes because of the sound, and his music hits both perfectly for this group of characters, and this story.

We ride palominos like they're SRTs (Yeah) 

Once I pick a speed, ain't no catchin' me, ayy

Lookin' for me, I be out in Tennessee

I don't stay the night, grab the cash and leave

And there's no way out of the life that we chose

Everyone knows where it goes

Ayy, we ride palominos like they're SRTs

Once I pick a speed, ain't no catchin' me

6 Month Check-in

It's the middle of June, and the summer solstice was two days ago, so we're officially halfway through the year. How did that happen??? 

Today, I'm writing, and waiting for the day's heat to abate somewhat before I work with KitKat, but I think it's time for a 6-month check-in on the new release front. So far this year, I've released four books. They are, in order:

Lord Have Mercy Part II: Fortunate Son

Part two of the four-part serial that will altogether form Dartmoor book 10 when completed. The novel tells the story of the Lean Dogs' last stand against Abacus - the enemy that's plagued them for several books now - as well as a personal story for Mercy and Ava, tracking the unhinged FBI agent who, at the end of part two, has kidnapped their son, Remy. 

College Town

A standalone (with follow-up novella) second chance, small town romance between two childhood sweethearts, reunited twenty years after Tommy left Lawson without an explanation. It's a sole POV, past- and present-tense narrative filled with spice and sweetness, and a heavy dash of mafia action, with a twist, though happy, ending. Character-driven M/M romance. 

Lord Have Mercy Part III: Rising Sun

In part three of Lord Have Mercy, some bold, potentially foolish decisions are made, and our main players are splintered into three groups, which makes for some fun and unlikely team-ups. Tensions are high thanks to Remy's kidnapping, and our usually-strong club members are floundering. 

A Cure for Recovery 

A Tommy-POV epilogue novella for College Town, in which getting the happy ending doesn't mean that every day is happy. Tommy struggles to recover physically, and realizes he's not done much mental or emotional recovering in the process. A sweet, salty, spicy slice of life story about the ways that love takes work.

Right now, I'm writing Lord Have Mercy Part IV: Big Son, and once I finish it, I'll release it as part four, and then compile all four parts into one doorstopper of an epic MC novel. Then, I plan to tackle the next Drake book, Avarice of the Empire, which should offer plenty of twists, shocks, and revelations. 

I would love to break my personal record for number of titles released in a single year, but we'll just have to wait and see if that's feasible. 

Stay cool, everyone! 

Lighter Side

 

“I spent twenty years trying to get back to you, and I promised myself I’d do everything I could to make a life for us. To make you happy.”

Lawson blinks, and his eyes glimmer with welling tears. “Yeah.” His voice goes raspy. “I read your letters.”

A Cure for Recovery has been live in the wild for one week, proof that I can, in fact, write smaller, more self-contained stories! Sometimes. If I work really hard at it. 

Okay, that's not true - the working hard part. Cure felt like a welcome indulgence while I was writing, a happy time at the computer during every writing session. 

I have a confession: I'm not sure how well I judge what constitutes "dark" when it comes to fiction. I've been largely desensitized after a childhood spent reading and watching stuff that was way too scary for children. My favorite author is Stephen King, and I'm spending this year reading all of his works I haven't gotten to yet. I've always been drawn to horror, and mystery, and thrillers, and most of my favorite fictional characters are "problematic," sometimes in the extreme. This is all ironically hilarious because I'm a very cautious, apprehensive, downright boring person. And over the last few years, while I continue to read dark stories, I find that I watch less and less dark TV. I plan to binge the new season of House of the Dragon as a reward for finishing Lord Have Mercy in a few weeks, but otherwise, all I watch in the evenings are cooking shows, home reno shows, garden shows, or old sitcom reruns. I've noticed an uptick in my overall anxiety, and most days, while I'm writing about Mercy's monstrous exploits, I've got Modern Family or The Office streaming in the background to keep me company. No matter what I'm writing, November and December are Hallmark Christmas movie months. It's like the darker I go creatively, the more I need sunshine, and flowers, and animals, and nothing more stressful on TV than a game show. 

I do genuinely love lighter, softer, lower-stakes stories. Domestic dramas, and sweet romances, and wonderful little slices of life. But when I sit down to write that sort of thing, it always winds up warping into something much more violent and high stakes. For instance, I consider College Town to be one of my "lighter" offerings, but I still managed to work some mafia action in there, lots of cursing, sex, gunshots...

Turns out my lighter side isn't as light as I'd like to think. 

Thank you so much to everyone who's taken a chance on Lawson and Tommy! If you're on the fence, rest assured that though it might be a small town, second chance romance, it's far from staid and saccharine. 

Start with College Town, and then check out the new epilogue, A Cure for Recovery, at one of the links below. 

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

A Walk Through the Backlist: Hell Theory

Footfalls: light, precise.

A clink, a rattle; sound of the lock on the pie safe falling, and then the cabinet doors swung open, the dim lamplight washed over her, and she saw a man, crouched there in front of her.

Her first instinct was to scream. Miss Tabitha invited men over sometimes, men who…

But this man didn’t look like any of them. No, he looked far different.

His eyes caught her first, and held her attention, a warm honey color, green-brown like river water. His hair, silk-soft and wheaten, fell to his shoulders, artful across his brow, behind his ears. He had a face of sharp angles: cheeks, jaw, chin.

“Hello, little one,” he said, and his voice was velvet, was silk, was sinuous and slippery and good. He tipped his head to the side, which sent his hair sliding over his shoulder with a soft rustle. “What are you doing in here?”

Strangers always meant danger in this city, and fine tremors had hold of her. But Rose swallowed, and managed to say, “Miss Tabitha…”

“Ah. She won’t be locking anyone else in a cabinet, I don’t think.”

Rose shifted as much as she dared, skin prickling with goosebumps, and peeked over his shoulder. He even shifted, obliging her, and she saw Miss Tabitha at her kitchen table: slumped forward, eyes open, unseeing. Red on the table, all down her front; a puddle in her lap, dripping down onto the floor. Blood. Rose could smell it.

“Tabby and I go way back,” the man said. “I can’t say we were ever friends.” He held out a hand, palm-up, in offering. It was speckled with blood. When Rose looked closer, she saw that he wore a stippling of red on his face, across the bridge of his nose. “Would you like to get out of here, darling?”

Rose swallowed. Considered. Placed her hand in his. “I’m Rose.”

“Simon Becket,” he said, and drew her forward, and up, out of the cabinet. When her knees threatened to give out, he steadied her with a hand at each of her elbows.

He was very tall, she noticed. Very lean. He smelled like dusty old books.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“Yes.” And she did. 

I think we can all admit that the early days of the 2020 lockdown were a bit of a surreal acid trip for everyone. It spawned not one, but two new series for me: wacky side projects meant as distractions for my racing anxieties, and which quickly went from lightning-strike inspiration to fully-fleshed narratives. I talked about the Drakes in my last backlist post, but I wrote it in the back half of the year. 

In June of 2020, heavily inspired by a Hannibal rewatch, I released the first in a now-complete dystopian/supernatural/erotica/horror trilogy that's a blend of The War of Heaven and King Arthur legend.  I think it's the weirdest thing I've ever written, but it was delightfully fun to work on at the time. 

Despite having plenty of books to keep me busy, notably Dartmoor and Sons of Rome, I wanted to do something different. Hell Theory felt like a chance to shake off the rules of my previously established series and be creatively indulgent and off-the-wall for a little bit. 

Book one, King Among the Dead, opens with Rose Greer, meek and abused orphan, who's been locked in a pie safe by her foster mother. She hears a scuffle, and strange footfalls, and the pie safe opens to reveal her savior: Simon Becket. 

What follows is a post-modern, post-apocalyptic retelling of the Arthur/Guinevere/ Lancelot  love triangle, told through the lens of death, resurrection, little known Welsh saints, and a military installation that fights demons and angels both. There's some big who's-who reveals that I won't spoil here for anyone who hasn't read it yet, but it's equal parts action/horror thriller, mystery, and erotic romance, with an eventual OT3, rather than a hard choice when it comes to the love triangle. 

Each book is titled after a line in the Lord Tennyson poem "Idylls of the King," and the Arthur metaphors resonate throughout the trilogy. There's also a novella that falls between books two and three, highlighting the romance of two side characters, Gallo and Tristan. It's certainly different from my other offerings, but should be a definite win for readers who like dark stories, like the aforementioned Hannibal, also films like Legion and Constantine. 

The trilogy - and its novella - are complete! So they can be binged all at once. One of my goals this year is to make it available in paperback, and I'm thinking of compiling it all into one large volume, as opposed to three small ones. For now, you can find it in digital format here: 

Hell Theory 

"Mystic Wonderful" 

#TeaserTuesday: "Hi, baby."

 

We're getting closer! Slowly but surely. Have an extra long teaser to make up for last week's absence while I was editing. 

Slowly, Gray nodded. “Yeah.” Then he went startlingly still a moment, head cocked.

That was when Mercy heard it: the drone of an approaching boat motor.

Mercy slipped his half-smoked cigarette into the Coke can, stood, and pulled his gun. To Gray, he said, “Go through the house, tell them to get ready, then go out back, and find the path–”

“That loops back along to the east,” Gray finished. “Watch your six?”

“Yeah. Wait for my signal.”

A Cure for Recovery: Debriefing

When they get back in, the sun is setting lavishly through the skyscrapers beyond their window, liquid orange and glittering with eye-watering ferocity off every metallic surface across the span of city that separates their thirtieth-floor room from the river. Tommy’s drawn to the window; his breath fogs the glass as he stares out at the vista, the cars crawling below like ants, boats moving on the Hudson. He counts five rooftop gardens, one strung with fairy lights that snap on as he watches, tiny people gathering at a table and toasting one another with tiny glasses.

Even at his most miserable during their twenty years apart, he always found a kind of bittersweet comfort in the sheer busyness of the city. The knowledge that, even if he was pining and lonely, there were so many others out there, just beyond his window, living, and loving, and enjoying themselves.

Now, he gets to be one of their number.

He catches the ghost of his own smile in his reflection as he turns, and puts his back to the view, and focuses instead on the view that’s for him only. 

I'll keep it brief - ha - because this is a novella and not a big doorstopper, but there are lots of little truth bombs and tender moments in A Cure for Recovery that make me happy I took the time to pen it. 

When I was wrapping up College Town, I wanted to dig a little deeper into Tommy's recovery, and the challenges therein, but ultimately decided to end the book on a high note. The story had reached a natural denouement, and I felt like digging too deep into "what comes next" would throw off the pacing of the rest of the narrative. But his recovery - and recovery in general - was a topic I wanted to write about, so here we have A Cure for Recovery, which is essentially 38k words of domestic fluff and angst, without the mystery/suspense angle of the original novel, but with its own kind of muted, what I think of as a very real-world plotline. 

While I'm very happy with the way College Town ends, I don't think it allowed Lawson or Tommy the chance to unbox their leftover anxieties with regard to finding a true permanence in one another's lives. Lawson's still worried that Tommy will wake up one day, wonder what the hell he's doing, and go back to New York. And Tommy's worried that, after twenty years apart, and finally getting together, Lawson's going to resent having to play both husband and caretaker, furious at his own body for what he sees as "failing" him. 

Their circumstances in College Town were a bit extreme - the forced separation, the deception, the mafia plot - and Cure feels like a chance to step back and approach the practical, day-to-day aspects of their relationship. Making things work when lives aren't on the line, and it's just drinks at Flanagan's and career frustration. 

As a writer, I don't know that I ever truly leave a project, a story, or a couple alone. There's always ideas left dangling. In this case, Cure was a chance to share some of those in a coherent novella, and to help my brain work through some of the more domestic challenges of Lord Have Mercy. I'll put Lawson and Tommy to bed - for now. No promises I won't ever revisit them again. And I really hope you enjoy their epilogue, which does, never fear, feature another happily ever after. 

You can purchase it here: 

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

Symbiotic

From a technical standpoint - research required; logistics; scale - Lord Have Mercy isn't my most complex project. (There's a reason I haven't been able to find the time to work on Lionheart; it's a monster) But it is unique in that it's taking well-established characters I've been working with for almost a decade and shaking all of them up. Everyone went through a journey of growth and self-discovery in their solo books, but now they're all doing it again: an inevitable and organic evolution speed-run thanks to crazy circumstances. You could call it Ava and Mercy's book, but Ghost, Aidan, Walsh, Fox, Tango, Roman...everyone's having revelations. That starts to weigh heavily on a writer's mind. It's simply a whole lot. 

One of the scenes I'm working on today is Walsh-centric, with a little Michael supporting action, and I'm really pleased with how it's unfolding, and I think that's down to some of the breakthroughs that happened while I was working on A Cure for Recovery. 

No matter how different and distinct other projects look on the outside, for me, every project supports another project. It's a symbiotic process. Writing fantasy helped me sharpen and intensify Dartmoor. But there'd be no Drakes or Sons of Rome if I hadn't gotten comfy writing violence in Dartmoor. I'm always pleased to hear that a standalone project "feels" or "reads" or "sounds" "completely different" from my other work, because it means I was able to make it authentically itself, and not merely a carbon copy of work I've already produced. But there have been countless times that working through a certain scene in one project helps a scene in another project click. 

In this case, Walsh and Tommy really aren't all that alike, but writing about Tommy's struggles has helped me hone Walsh's self-sufficiency issues in a way that I'm now really excited about playing out on paper. It always makes me sad when I see an author work for years and years on one manuscript, convinced they have to make it perfect before they write something else. Writing something else will make that first manuscript better! The more you write, the more stories you finish, the more perfectly you'll understand what it really is you want to say with your work.

Lord Have Mercy has been a particular challenge all the way through, and I couldn't have done it without Lawson and Tommy's help. College Town, and then A Cure for Recovery provided immeasurable creative help in crafting this Dartmoor epic. 

Speaking of...

A Cure for Recovery dropped this week! It's now available in all the usual places: 

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

"Tommy’s been a Granger instead of a Katz or a Cattaneo for almost seven months, and he’s still not tired of signing his new legal name on documents, or seeing it printed in his email signature. He especially likes the sight of it in the elegant script of Leo and Dana’s wedding save-the-date cards.

But even the charm of his new name, and the new life it represents, can’t make up for the drudgery of yet another doctor’s appointment."

Tommy survived a shooting, retired from the NYPD, and married the love of his life, but recovery, he's learned in the seven months since, isn't as straightforward as physical healing. Set after the events of "College Town," A Cure for Recovery tells a domestic story of love, and frustration, and working through tough times with the people you love most. A story of family, and the fears and joys of a future you never thought you'd get to live.

This M/M novella is not a standalone and must be read after "College Town."

New Release: A Cure for Recovery

The way they’re leaning together, it’s impossible to tell which of them has trouble balancing; who’s the steadying presence, and who needs help.

Lawson’s legs work fine, but they both do need steadying, even if it’s not of the same sort.

Tommy thought, at first, that their rings, and their vows, and their hands laced together in front of a hospital chapel altar would banish all doubts, all guilt. That each of them would be sure of the other’s commitment and love and willingness to stay and stick out the rough spots. Seven months, but most especially the past few weeks, have taught him that’s not the case. The rings, vows, and interlaced hands were a big and vital step toward the rest of their lives…but they’ve both been in recovery that whole time: from heartache, for one, and from almost dying, in Tommy’s case; in Lawson’s case, he supposes it’s a recovery from whatever future he envisioned when he thought Tommy wouldn’t pull through.

There’s not a cure for recovery. Only the slow, day in and day out work of nonlinear progress. And love. Love carries more than its fair share of weight.

“Do you wanna go in?” Tommy asks, and realizes Lawson is studying their reflection, too, expression heartbreakingly tender. 

“Yeah.” His voice is a little uneven, but Tommy doesn’t comment on it; strokes his arm, instead. “Yeah, let’s go in.”

It's here! The College Town follow-up novella, A Cure for Recovery, went live for Kindle yesterday, and is now available across the board this morning.

Amazon (Kindle/paperback)

Kobo

Nook

The novella picks up seven months from where College Town left off, and this time it's Tommy who steps (cautiously) into the role of narrator. He and Lawson are married, living and working in Eastman, and Lawson's querying his project and working on another. Tommy's going through physical therapy, and struggling to come to terms with the fact that he might not ever be able to walk and live the way he once did. It's a story about the ways that we can be so happy and thankful for the lives we have...but how that doesn't necessarily mean that we're "okay" all the time. It's a little bit slice of life, a little bit of domestic angst, and lots of love.

It's not a standalone, so you'll need to read College Town first:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

** M/M romance

**explicit content