LHM: The Skeleton King Once More

 The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

 

“Are you sure about this?”

It was so unusual a question coming from Michael that Walsh paused and gave it due consideration. He was already seated at the head of the table, but hadn’t gotten comfortable: he didn’t figure it would be his chair for long.

Michael stood at the door, his back to it, one hand on the knob, ready to usher in their brothers.

Who might not consider Walsh their brother in about ten minutes.

Was he sure about this?

Other than Michael, he hadn’t yet told anyone about what he was about to say at church. Michael was a very good listener, but not the best advice-giver. That was probably part of the reason Walsh hadn’t tried to bring anyone else into his confidence. He wasn’t looking for anyone to take a side, here. He’d like to escape with his life, to live out his days with Emmie and Violet, in whatever shape those days would take once he’d lost the club’s support. But otherwise, he wasn’t picky. Michael had said he wouldn’t let anyone kill him; that was enough. It was clear, now, that he could not sit idly by in Knoxville, lying to his brothers, while New York and New Orleans decided the future of the club he’d dedicated himself to. He would play his part, and play it as well as the other Dogs would allow him to.

“I’m sure,” he said, and meant it. Felt calm, steady. “Let them in.”

Aidan was the first through the door, and he sat down beside Walsh, in his new chair, in his new role, his VP patches still shiny-white and clean-threaded on his chest.

It was Aidan who would react the strongest, and Aidan who Walsh felt was owed a pound of flesh for emotional trauma. If Aidan took a swing at him, he was going to sit still and let him take it. 

My approach to storytelling has always been organic. I prefer the gardening process to the meticulous pre-planning method: no detailed outlines that require strict adherence. I know who the character is, what he or she wants, and what he or she is afraid of. When a character - or a couple - is the main focus of a book, I have a handful of scenes that I know must happen in order to move the story along. But when it comes to secondary and tertiary characters, I let them grow and develop as they will. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and so their actions, and the actions of those around them, impact their storylines going forward. 

I feel like this approach could paint a writer into a corner - but for me, it only ever presents opportunities. An idea will feel right in the moment, sometimes inexplicably, and then several books down the line I'll realize just how useful a seemingly small develop has the potential to be. 

Walsh comes to a BIG decision in Lord Have Mercy, one that's been slowly building since The Skeleton King. 

In Fearless, a newly-elected Ghost nominates Walsh as his VP, and that was the obvious and natural choice. Ghost has Plans and Ambitions for the club, and not only is Walsh the Money Man who can make them happen financially, but he's also a steady, serious, thoughtful right-hand man who isn't swayed by emotional arguments. Then, of course, along comes Emmie. And then Violet. I think, deep down, so deep down that he doesn't acknowledge it even to himself for much of the series, Walsh worries that allowing himself to have a family, and to love them - to love them more than he loves his club - makes him weak. His self-containment has been an asset all his life - one that he finally understands, in LHM, as armor. A shield against feeling. One that's been completely unsuccessful: he does love his family, he can't and won't change that, and he's not, in fact, handling the stress of club expansion well at all. Like with Ghost, he spends the course of the series slowly becoming surlier, drinking and smoking more, and sleeping less. 

I loved getting to hand Aidan the VP patches, but that couldn't have happened without the audience understanding, completely, Walsh's decision to step down. I've always blamed my diverting, side-story focus on Walsh as playing favorites, but while writing LHM, that favoritism proved to be the very necessary groundwork needed to retire Walsh as vice president in a believable and emotionally satisfying way. He'll stay on with the club, of course, Money Man and Skeleton King both. And he's very committed to helping Aidan succeed in his stead. 

This scene, where he comes clean to the club, and then walks out declaring that he's going to New Orleans, and then gets hit in the face, is a favorite of mine. 

“I’m not really the president, and going forward, I might not be anything, depending on how the voting shakes out. So I’m not going to give orders. You can stay here if you want, or you can hand over your cut and walk away, or you can…make up your own mind. About what to do next. Ghost is in New York.” He pushed back his chair, and stood, and his legs were steadier, stronger, than he’d hoped. “I’m going to New Orleans.”

Then he turned, walked to the door, opened it, and walked through it.

His heart was beating like a high school drumline, but the steadiness persisted. He’d come to a decision, and it was the correct one. Whatever happened afterward, he was sure of his decision to go south.

He heard footfalls behind him – but not the slow, ground-covering gait he’d expected from Michael. No, these were quick, almost running.

He reached the bar, and turned.

And his face exploded with pain.

A bright, hot, numbing shock of it along the left edge of his jaw, and Walsh had time to be grateful that whoever it wasn’t hadn’t aimed for the eye, and risked knocking him out. Then the momentum of the blow carried him sideways, he tripped, knocked over a stool, and would have hit the floor if he hadn’t fetched up against the bar. He caught himself with a hand braced on the smooth wood surface, and reached to touch his struck face with the other, ready for a second hit.

But it was only the one, and as the seconds ticked by, the first cold numbness of the strike warmed, and then flared hot, and the pain crackled in electric arcs along all the affected nerves. The skin was already swelling, tight and hot to the touch, but a quick probe with his tongue proved none of his teeth were loose, and he hadn’t bitten the inside of his cheek. He was going to have one hell of a bruise, but it wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

Anyone in the chapel could have chased him out and hit him, and any of them would have been justified. But when he turned his head, he of course found Aidan standing there.

But it was an Aidan who still looked as vice-presidential as he had in the chapel, save the working and flexing of his right hand. The knuckles were red where he’d struck Walsh, and the way he flattened and then cracked them looked like it hurt.

“You can hit me again, if you want,” Walsh said. “I won’t try to stop you.”

“I will.” That was Michael, sliding in between them, seemingly out of nowhere. “You had your hit. That’s the only one.”

#ThrowbackThursday: Monument of Stones

Alexei didn’t like snow.

He had. Once. The crunch of it beneath his boots recalled rosy cheeks, and panted breaths; shrieks of delight, and the high, bright laughter of his sisters. Mama’s face watching from the window and Papa laughing lower, quieter on the steps, reminding the girls every so often not to throw anything at him too hard. Careful of your brother. Gentle, now. Not too hard. An impromptu snowball fight against the glittering backdrop of the Winter Palace, and the balls small and lobbed softly, the patches of ice pointed out, because a simple bruise could send Alexei straight to bed for weeks. Grisha had returned to his hometown, and there would be no tickle of beard, or murmured words to soothe the pain away now, should he slip and fall.

But that was all in the past: sledding – when he was allowed – and riding with Mama in the sleigh, furs tucked snugly around him. Hot tea soothing cold-nipped noses…all fond, comforting memories overlaid now by the memories of Siberia. Of the too-small house where blackout shades had kept the neighbors from seeing them, while men with rifles kept them from leaving. A prison – a Red prison. And then, later, waking in the pit. Running barefoot through the snow with the scent of blood in his lungs. Bolsheviks; enemies; dinner. 

The teaser here is not from Golden Eagle, but from The Winter Palace, which I managed to add about twelve-hundred words to yesterday! Progress! Words on page! Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, and the necessary glut of research notes weighing on the entire process, there is something undeniably comforting about writing this series. It's the only series I write in which there's not a chorus of haunting little you know what they're gonna complain about? voices chiming unhelpfully in the back of my head while I write. I don't heed those voices, but they're obnoxious; I've gotten really good at predicting what sort of flak a particular novel will draw. But with Sons of Rome, not only do I ignore the doubt - it isn't there to begin with. It's always been an indulgent series to write; it feels like writing just for my own enjoyment, with zero expectation of an audience, and it's therefore a lovely surprise when I share it and have positive responses to it. 

I've known from the get-go that Alexei had an important - a vital - role to play in the series overall, and thanks to a long-held fascination, it was never a hardship to research and incorporate tales of the royal family. But while writing Golden Eagle, I realized how much I was enjoying Alexei as a character. That I liked him. I love all of the characters in this series, and I especially love that so many of them have so much growing and coming into their own to do before the end. I think, when we finally get to the Campus Martius, I might even be proud of our little tsarevich. 

#TeaserTuesday: Haunted

The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Given my love of horror - of the Classic, Gothic variety, and the more contemporary - and given the violent-by-necessity nature of Dartmoor, I've always tried to lever a bit of the horrific and the fantastic into the way I write certain scenes for that series. The whiff of the supernatural, though Dartmoor's horrors are solidly human. 

For funsies, I searched the word "haunted" to see how many times I used it in Big Son. The answer is four:

“Colin,” Alex prodded, ungently, and Dandridge sent him a cool it look.

Colin dropped his hands, and his expression was haunted. He looked like he’d run here on foot, wan and sweating and spacy.

What's Next?

 

Since it's not the end of the year, I'm hoping to add to this 2024 stack by at least one more title. But as of now, the book release count is up to five:

College Town

A Cure for Recovery

Lord Have Mercy Part Three: Rising Sun

Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Does the final version of LHM count as a release? Since it's only a compilation of previous releases? I'm gonna count it. It broke my brain, so I'm including it. 

All of these releases are available for Kindle, paperback, Nook, and Kobo, and all of them could use some review love! 💖

The typical course of events for me is: edit a project, publish a project, and already be several thousand words into the next project by the time it goes live. Usually, I'm already making daily word counts on the next book while I'm advertising the latest release. 

But that's not been the case this time. After LHM, I knew I needed a bit of a break. I thought if I took a week, that then I'd be raring to go on the next project. But instead, it's been two weeks, and I find that I'm still sluggish. Usually, when someone asks "what's next?" I have an answer ready to go. This time? I'm debating. 

Earlier in the year, I said I was going to dive into the next Drake Chronicles book after I finished LHM. Now I'm not so sure. 

I know I need a Dartmoor break - and for LHM to earn its page count in sales. I have dabbled a little with Avarice of the Empire - the next Drake book - in the past few days. I've added about a thousand words. Today, I'm actually working on the Sons of Rome novella that comes between Golden Eagle and Lionheart, The Winter Palace. Despite a persistent, full-body malaise, it's always a bit of a thrill to return to Nikita's pack. And since the novella is set in Buffalo, a modern-day concurrence of the events that will play out in the Appalachians and eventually Romania in Lionheart, it's not slowed by necessary research. Given the last SoR release was in 2019 - eek! - that may be the project I settle down and get serious with in the weeks to come.

Still, another part of me wants to write something new entirely. Either mystery/crime, or horror, or a blend of both. 

Energy levels are still low, though, so I'm taking things one day at a time. Trying to spend more time outside, walking, working KitKat, enjoying the first orange flickers of fall. The truth is, I don't know exactly what's next, but I do know that spooky season puts me in a vampiric mood...

Fulk shifted back to his human-shape first, snowflakes caught in his unraveling black braid, pale face furious. “What the hell was that? Who’s shooting?”

Anna was next, smoothing down her long coat and making a disgusted face at the mess of wounded vampires. The snow was patchwork crimson, now, and reeking of copper. “It sounded like–”

“Trina,” Sasha said, sprouting back on two legs, wiping his bloody mouth with the back of his hand. He grinned, tips of his fangs showing, cheeks pink from the cold. “I know the sound of that gun.” The sparkle in his eyes dimmed and his smile slipped when he met Nik’s gaze. “Oh.”

“Yes.” Nik bent to retrieve his knife and wiped it on his pants leg. “Very much oh.”

“Jesus,” Fulk swore. He smoothed his hair and regathered his composure. “There weren’t any others, we made sure. Go see about your insubordinate relative.” He jerked his chin toward the trees. “We’ll see about dispatching these wretches.”

Nikita sent him a raised-brow look.

Fulk chuffed and rolled his eyes. “If it would please, captain.”

Anna grinned. “I’m not gonna bend and scrape. You’re not my master.”

Nikita turned. “Sasha, with me.” If the ensuing conversation went the way he suspected it would, they’d need a moderator.

 

~*~

 

Trina hooked her great-grandmother’s rifle over her shoulder on its strap and shimmied down the tree she’d climbed. She was getting better at that – the climbing up and then climbing back down. It was becoming instinctual, finding handholds, sensing which branches would hold and which were suspect. She landed with a thump of her heavy boots in the snow, and when she looked up, Nik was cresting the hill, wind blowing his black coat dramatically back, blue eyes neon against the bleak landscape.

Here we go.

Sasha kept pace at his side, lips smeared red – she’d watched him take a bite out of the lead vampire through her scope – tucking his hair back and talking frantically to his husband in a voice too low for her to hear. Nikita ignored him, taking long strides toward her. He showed all his anger in his eyes; the rest of his face was the same eerily blank mask she thought so many poor Russians had cowered before, once upon a time.

She resettled her rifle, tugged her ski cap into place, and waited for him, feet planted, unflinching. She’d seen a lot of scary shit in her time as a cop, and in her time as a member of this improbable, immortal pack.

She wasn’t afraid of Nik.

#ReadingLife: The Stand

 

Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long.

And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again. 

I finished reading The Stand the same day I published the paperback version of Lord Have Mercy. The start and end dates printed on the final page mark The Stand as being a work in progress from February 1975 to December 1988. Given Lord Have Mercy is just a few thousand words shy of its word count, I think the fourteen months it took me to complete it aren't too shabby. 

Every time I mentioned being a King fan, this was the book most recommended to me, and I can see why. I'll be honest and say that it's a book I resisted for a long time, mostly because when it comes to being scared, I'd much rather read about vampires, and ghouls, and killer clowns that rampant diseases. Especially in a post-Covid world, I was leery. But as is typical of all his books, The Stand is a book about many things, and the superflu is not so much an antagonist as a catalyst for exploring the horrors - and joys - of humanity. 

From a craft perspective, I think it's probably his crowning achievement. But he says it isn't his favorite book, nor is it my favorite of his works. The Clown Book still holds the top spot in my heart. In fact, though I could definitely tell that this was his work, peppered with his particular attention to detail, his music tastes, his idiosyncrasies, the book as a whole felt totally different from his other novels. I see it as one of those monolithic, lightning-strike books that feels like it possesses you, and needs to come out, and which leaves your fingertips as though you're channeling someone else's voice. It's his, but it's a version of him. Him wearing a different hat. I feel the same way when I shift between writing my different series: I can't decide whether I'm more authentically myself when writing Dartmoor, or Sons of Rome, or the Drakes, or one-offs like College Town. I think the answer - for me at least - is that different books allow us to explore different back corners of our minds, and, during the creative process, we exorcise different demons, and experiment with different forms of self-expression. 

Funny as it sounds, King handled the characters of The Stand with more gentleness than I've come to expect from him. An authorial voice that was kind and even delicate at points, with Frannie, with Stu, and Glen, and even with Larry. And yet, despite that, it's the overall story that will stick with me, rather than the characters; though I enjoyed their perspectives and felt fondness for many of them, I don't feel the need to scoop any of them up and drop them in my pocket a la Eddie Kaspbrak. I'll never grow bored of the marvel that is the individual reception of books. You never know which book, which scene, which character will strike a chord, and that's the forever magic of stories. 

LHM: Knoxville

 

   The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Driving into the city had put a lump in Mercy’s gut, but this was different. Bittersweet, yes, and tainted, as all his memories were by the relentless knowledge of what happened to Daddy, to Gram. But no matter what tortures this city threw at him, he could never bring himself to hate the water. It had raised him alongside his father, the only mother he’d ever wanted or needed. There was water in Tennessee, sure, the Tennessee River, that fat black snake that curved around Dartmoor and slithered its slow way up to Neyland Stadium. But this was the swamp, and it smelled different, and it tasted different on his tongue when he opened his mouth to inhale, and it coursed through his bloodstream.

As a reader, I can fall in love with any setting. I can luxuriate in any aesthetic, and feel at home in any city, in any kind of house. It's all down to author voice. Descriptive language, and sensory detail, and authenticity. 

As a writer, I don't have strong preferences when it comes to choosing the location of a story - but once I'm committed, then I'm dedicated to making it feel like a real place for readers, whether it's an existing city - what I use most often - or a fantasy landscape. Everything from weather patterns to predominant architecture styles all come into play, and the street view on Google Maps is incredibly helpful. 

With Dartmoor, I knew Mercy was from New Orleans, and a great deal of thought went into making that happen. But the decision to put Ghost's mother chapter in Knoxville was more of an afterthought. At first. 

I had two criteria: I wanted it to be a Southern city, because bikers are a bit of a throwback, and the South felt like a good fit. And I knew it needed to be a college town, or near enough to one to commute, since Ava was going to be in grad school. That eliminated UGA right off the bat - sorry! Just not a fan! I did try to be fair, and Ava's undergrad degree is from Georgia: she wanted a fresh start, ha, and Ghost was happy to send her out of state. I'm a 'Bama fan, so I didn't want to play favorites and send her there - though I will say that my eventual plan is for Cal to get recruited there to play college football.

Eliminating those two schools, UT became the no-brainer option. My mom's family loves Tennessee. There's lots of alumni on that side of the fam, and my great uncle, Ted, was an artist who did a lot of design work for the school. That orange T? That's his! 

Once I made the decision, the reasons started piling up, until I couldn't imagine Dartmoor Inc. being anywhere else. It's a pretty city; hopelessly Southern, but with a mountainous, and more temperate climate than Georgia, with colorful autumn foliage and cool, misty river mornings. I love that it isn't Nashville; that it isn't a bustling, cultural hotspot; it's smaller, and quieter, except on fall Saturdays, and it's much easier to see the Dogs ruling over it than a bigger, busier city. It feels like a non-obvious choice, and that's why I love using it. 

I have family history there; in certain lights, I probably bleed orange. But it's been interesting, unexpected, and enjoyable to find a love for the city through writing about it. It feels like a home away from home, and it's certainly become home for a wayward Dog or two, Mercy most of all. 

In Lord Have Mercy, I included a few lines about the ways he loved and hated New Orleans; the ways it would always be a part of him, and he'd always cherish it, but that he didn't want to be there. It's a haunted place for him. 

But Knoxville is where he learned how to smile again. It's where he fell in love. Where his babies were born. He'll always be Swamp Thing, but there's nowhere else on earth he'd rather be than Knoxville, TN. 

Rocky Top, you'll always be
Home sweet home to me
Good ol' Rocky Top
Rocky Top, Tennessee
Rocky Top, Tennessee

*UT plays Oklahoma tonight. Go Big Orange! Please envision Ghost in his white-base, orange-T baseball cap, taking it off every now and then to check that his hair still looks great. 

He walked into the chapel – the same chapel, with the same table, same chairs, same framed photos and flags that he’d known since he’d come here, feeling then as though he’d lived an entire, miserable life, brought low by terrible grief…only to find that entering this room for the first time, and finding a girl hiding in a cabinet, had been, in fact, the beginning of his life. His real life. His best life. 

LHM: Cutting Room Floor

   The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle and paperback:

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Believe it or not, you can write a 469,000-word book and still leave a few scenes on the cutting room floor. Or, rather: there are scenes that never made it to the document in the first place, despite early intentions. 

LHM: Proof is Here

 

My paperback proof for Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel arrived yesterday, and its chonky. The Kindle version is 1,609 pages, but the paperback is limited to a more manageable 827 pages. While I was able to squeeze all four parts together within the page limit, the nine-point font is difficult to read. Today, I'm working on shoring up any unnecessary page breaks in the hopes that I'll be able to cut more pages, and then enlarge the font to at least ten, hopefully eleven, which is what I normally use for my paperbacks. I'm a little more than halfway through, and down to 802 pages, so fingers crossed. 

But even if the font has to stay tiny, it'll still be available, and that's better than I expected. So BOLO for an announcement and a link soon! 

#TeaserTuesday: As if He'd Never Left

  The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle.

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

It took ten books, and ten years, but the big man finally got back to the swamp. A bit of a blessing and a curse for Mercy, really. But wonderful for me; I love seeing Swamp Thing in his natural habitat. 

The cigarette flicked down into the water, a tiny red shooting star, and Bob straightened away from the pillar so the moonlight carved a sickle down the side of his face, layering shadows in the corner of his eye where he had a half-dozen more smile lines than Mercy remembered.

“As I live and breathe,” he said, and his voice was the same, and Mercy wondered how he’d ever made room for trepidation within the maelstrom that was worrying over Remy, “if it ain’t ol Merci himself.”

“Nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Well, I’m gonna. You can’t go forgetting where you came from.”

LHM: Fathers & Sons

 The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle.

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

Barbara tipped her head, mulling it over, lips compressed. “Felix did always love that man. More than he deserved.”

 

Despite the action, the romance, the shootouts, the super-secret spy ops, and the organized crime politics, Dartmoor is, at its heart, a family story. I’ve longed maintained that its extreme situations and heightened stakes make for interpersonal family dynamics twice as messy and twice as engaging. It’s a club family, true, but one populated by smaller biological families, and they deal with all the trials and triumphs of every family, just on an outlaw scale.

 

LHM: Some More Faves

The following post contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son, which you can grab here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

You can also snag the complete novel, all four installments compiled, for Kindle.

Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel

In Friday's debrief post, I talked about my favorite scenes, but there were many that were truly inspired and that I enjoyed reading as a spectator during the various editing stages. While I was writing, I kept thinking "why is this taking so long?" And now that I'm finished, I keep asking "why do I feel so mentally drained?" And I think that's because every single scene in this monster of a book felt necessary. Each one furthered the tension of the overall narrative. Each was a building block, and a puzzle piece, and was balanced on a knife-edge. Each one kept me in that make-or-break headspace that ends up being so exhausting. 

The result is that I have very-favorite scenes, which I mentioned Friday, but I also have lots of general favorites. Lots of lines that proved immensely satisfying to put to paper. 

In no particular order, some highlights (for me) are: 

LHM: The Debriefing

 

"I’m here to say that, in years past, I’ve hated Kenneth Teague so much that I wanted to strangle him. And, in the years since, I’ve loved him better than my own father. Because my daddy lied to me an awful lot, and Ghost lies, sometimes, yeah, to protect us, but he always tells the truth in the end. And this is his club. His family. I owe every good thing in my life to him. So he has my vote.” 

Big Son has been live in the wild for one week, and yesterday, I dropped the compiled edition of Lord Have Mercy. All 1,609 (holy crap, guys) Kindle pages of it are now available in full, and I even managed to get a paperback version formatted and have ordered a proof. I’m not sure yet if I’ll release it as such, because the print is so very small. I’ll look at my physical copy first before I decide.

But in any event, it’s out there! It’s done!

I’m still waiting to feel something besides crushing relief and exhaustion. My mom said, “You should be proud,” and I’m just…tired. I wanted to recapture the setting and the feeling of Fearless, but this time there was a plethora of new characters to utilize, and an overarching enemy plotline to wrap up, and the entire effort became monumental, and monumentally stressful. The four parts altogether measured up to a whopping 469,000 words. I’m insane. I’m a crazy person – and I’ve felt it, physically and mentally, for the past month or so. I’m grateful that the book exists, but I’d like to sleep for a week, please and thank you.

I’ve been thinking all this past week that I’d wake up one morning ready to type out a stellar and comprehensive debriefing for Part Four, but in truth, since I’ve been blogging about the book for a year at this point, I think I’ve said all there is to say about its themes and characterization, and my authorly intentions with every installment.

But I will add…and here come the spoilers…

I think – hope – that it was clear all along that Remy was going to be found and that Boyle was going to get his comeuppance. I never care if the happy ending is predictable, nor if the action enables readers to anticipate what’s to come chapter by chapter. That’s called narrative follow through, and is an intentional feature rather than a bug of storytelling. I always deliver happy endings, but this one was buried at the end of a long, winding, tense road, and, though it’s silly, given I created her, I’m proud of Ava. Of the role she played. She’s never been a sweet, innocent darling, and has always been Mercy’s monster counterpart. But, just like with Mercy, that monster part of her doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her children fiercely, or that she can’t show them tenderness and leniency.

I think of Mercy and Ava’s storyline, chiefly its culmination here at the end, as a confirmation of everything we already know about them, rather than any sort of revelation. There was none of the usual romantic tension present in a romance novel: the will-they-won’t-they, the heat, the developing chemistry. In that respect, I don’t know that it can be classified as a romance, despite their romantic love being what ultimately saves the day. And without any of that traditional romantic tension, the whole novel felt like a big risk: will readers want to return to a relationship that is already well-established and not in danger of collapsing? I know I enjoy that, as a reader, but in general, writing a second book about a couple in a series isn’t always a recipe for success. Which is why, though this is their book, the emotional revelations happen for other characters.

For Alex, yes, as he wrestles with the meaning of his bloodline, constantly asking himself if he’s inherently violent or “bad” thanks to Remy’s DNA. One of several favorite moments for me was the scene outside the hospital when Tina assures Alex that he’s more like Mercy than Remy, and that both of them are better men than he ever was. At the beginning of the novel, Alex would have hated hearing that he was similar to Mercy, but by the end, is touched and comforted by the knowledge.

I think the most significant emotional storyline in the novel belongs to Aidan and Ghost. And, by default, Walsh.

My favorite scene in the whole novel is the conversation between Aidan and Ghost in the cathedral. From a strategic standpoint, I loved the contrast of their meetings being “church,” but this honest and raw moment between them happening in an actual church. But chiefly, I loved writing that scene because Aidan got to be as upfront and as vulnerable as he’s ever been with Ghost. And Ghost, well…Ghost is Ghost. Everything he says in this book is wholly honest, and like Tango tells him a few scenes earlier, they’ve all realized, finally, that being a good president and being a good father aren’t the same thing, but that he does love them, in his hardass way. His club, in turn, has decided to love him back, knowing what they do of him. He has grown, though; wanting Aidan to be his VP is a huge step, and a vital one. I know there were readers who were hoping that Aidan would never forgive him, or maybe even that Ghost would be excommunicated from the club, but those things were never on the table. The club’s one big messy family, and they fight, and they want to hate, but they love each other, at the end of the day.

Walsh’s storyline here is the culmination of a very slowly-unspooling thread from multiple books. I needed to keep checking in with him throughout LHM so that his decision at the end made narrative sense, and I think it does. He was a good VP, but, ultimately, he’s the Money Man, rather than an ambassador, and Aidan’s affable bad boy charm is, at this point, a better fit for the role.

In the vein of Fearless, this book has lots of small, delightful moments that I enjoyed writing: the Ava/Tenny team-up; Toly’s motion sickness; Ghost’s astonishment over Fox’s thoughtfulness, getting to see him on an op for the first time.

I feel like, as the weeks go by, I’ll think of other posts I want to write. Favorite lines I’ll remember; little nuggets that can be mined for future books. But for now, I’ll leave it here, and leave you with links. Thank you so much for sticking through a year of a slow rollout, and for reading. If you get the chance, a review would be greatly appreciated.

Xo

Lauren

Big Son:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

Complete Novel:

Kindle

Final Version! LHM

 Hot off the press...

The Kindle version of the whole, compiled edition of Lord Have Mercy is now live.

As I feared, despite using the tiniest font possible, I can't fit the whole version into one paperback. I squeezed it from almost 1400 pages into the Amazon-allotted 827, but the margins were too narrow, and expanding them ruined the page count. So for now it's still in four parts for paperback.

But the Kindle - and soon Nook and Kobo - version is available all in one format. As promised all along, I didn't want to penalize anyone who read the book parts, so the price is that of all four parts compiled.

You can grab it here.

Dartmoor X, Now Complete

 

“Col?”

“Yeah,” O’Donnell said, and sidled past Ava. He was holding three large rocks.

Shit, Harlan thought. If they were going to kill him – and of course they were – he’d prefer to be shot.

But O’Donnell didn’t pummel him with them. Instead, he stepped over to the edge of the dock, cocked his arm back, and hurled the first rock into the water. Harlan heard its deep plop as it hit the surface.

O’Donnell drew a deep breath and bellowed, “Big Son!” He chucked the next rock. Plop. “Big Son! Come and get it, you big son of a bitch!”

The third rock. Plop.

Silence.

O’Donnell propped his hands on his hips, and looked up over Harlan to meet Mercy’s gaze. “It’s been a long time, Merc. He might not come.”

“He’ll come,” Mercy said, sounding sure.

Who? Harlan wondered. Who’ll come? Dread welled up in his stomach, as powerful as the pain, because, really, he knew. Not the specifics, not who, or what, or how, but he wished, suddenly, that O’Donnell had bashed him in the face with a rock. 

In case you missed it last week, Dartmoor Book Ten is now fully complete and all four parts are available! In the next few days, I plan to see about compiling all four volumes into one monster of a doorstop, but it is, officially, finished. 

Be on the lookout for my debriefing remarks over the next couple of weeks, but until then, you can grab a copy of Big Son here:

Kindle/Paperback

Nook

Kobo

LHM Part Four: Playlist

 

If you missed it over the weekend, Lord Have Mercy Part Four dropped on Friday! 

If you click on the "Music Monday" tag on the blog, you can find the playlists for the first three parts. I discovered Shaboozey while writing Part Four and his music was profoundly helpful in that endeavor. I can't recommend him enough especially "Last of My Kind," which I feel speaks to both Mercy and Ghost, and which you should definitely listen to. 

New Release: Lord Have Mercy Part Four

 Here we go!!

A kidnapped child.

A mother out for vengeance.

A father on the hunt.

 

This is Boyle’s reckoning.

 

In the fourth and final installment of Lord Have Mercy, the Louisiana swamp serves as backdrop for a no-holds-barred showdown of epic proportions. In Viriginia and New York, Ghost, Fox, and Ian seek to take down Abacus once and or all. In New Orleans, Mercy and Ava close in on Boyle, and finally learn the truth of his obsession. This is not a standalone, and must be read after the first three parts of the novel, available now: The Good Son, Fortunate Son, Rising Sun.

T-Minus...

 

I’ve been scarce lately as I finished up first writing, and then editing Lord Have Mercy Part Four. I decided I wouldn’t post again until I could post the purchase links. I’m sorry to say that this is not the purchase links post, but that, today, I finished applying the very last of my proofreading corrections, and the book should go live sometime this weekend, after I add the last tweaks from my editor. So, next post will be THE post. Promise.

This post is part heads-up, part-initial, decompression ramblings.

Heads-up, first:

The fourth and FINAL installment of the four-part Lord Have Mercy extravaganza is finally complete, and will be available in a matter of days. That means Dartmoor Book Ten will be complete. Anyone who’s been holding out to read it until it’s finished will need wait no longer. All four parts will be available.

In order:

The Good Son

Fortunate Son

Rising Sun

Big Son

As promised, I’m going to compile all four parts into one book, just as I did with Fearless back in 2015. It’ll be Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel. This whole combined version will definitely be available for Kindle/Kobo/Nook, but I’m not yet certain if I can make it available for paperback. I’ll do my best with formatting, but all four parts together are, as they stand now, in their current print size, more than 1,400 pages. Amazon’s print limit is 837, so…yeah. I’ll try. If I can’t make it work all in one, I’ll leave it in its four parts for print.

So be on the lookout for the drop this weekend, and then the complete novel drop sometime after that.

That’s housekeeping taken care of.

On a personal note…

I don’t remember a time I’ve been this mentally exhausted after finishing a book. My overall anxiety’s been sky high the past couple of months, and I think most of that’s down to the book. Despite the necessary research and chess-maneuvering of Sons of Rome, this book, with all its build-up, its previous books, the expectations placed upon it, LHM became the most intricate and difficult project to date.

In truth, that’s why I was so hesitant to begin work on it. I knew back in 2020 that Lord Have Mercy, in some fashion, needed to happen. A sprawling Southern bookend to Fearless. I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and that it would take several more books to lay out the groundwork and get us to this point. Those books were Lone Star, Homecoming, Long Way Down, The Wild Charge, and Nothing More. Groundwork thus laid, I was still leery, because, honestly? I’ve always had the sense that, no matter its outcome or its action, this book – by nature of being number ten in a series, and the obvious comparisons to book one – was going to get drug up and down the street like a dead racoon caught in the grill of a Peterbilt. I know it’s going to catch hell from the critic crowd. “I usually love this author’s work, BUT…” Tale as old as time.

But knowing it was going to get ripped to shreds didn’t stay my hand on the wheel while writing. And when I finished my final read-through, and stepped back from it, I felt both defiant, and victorious. We went back to the swamp on my terms – on my characters’ terms. I left some side-story doors open for the future, and willingly shunted some characters aside. This book is about Ava, and Mags, and Ghost, and Aidan, and, most of all, it’s about Mercy, and his brothers, and the tenuous balance, across the board, between fathers and sons, and the legacies inherent.

I don’t know when I’ll do a true debriefing. Honestly, I’m going to need a little break. But there are sentences in this book that are some of my best work. And, more than anything, I’m struck by the proud knowledge that there’s only one Mercy. And there’s only one woman he could love.

I hope you’ll enjoy the book, when you read it.

I can’t say a big enough THANK YOU to those who’ve read along with each installment. Y’all kept me going. It took more than a year, but given its word and page count, I think that’s forgivable. When it arrives, if you enjoy it, I hope you’ll leave a review to that effect. As crass as it sounds, the more I sell, the more I can keep writing. And though I might need a brain breather, I’m certainly not out of ideas.