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Monday, July 14, 2025

Fearless Read-Along: Chapter Eighteen

 


After, replete in the slanted bars of sunlight, Ava whispered that she loved him.

He didn't reply, but he folded her love up tight like a note and pressed it deep inside himself, where no one would ever find it. 

Once one of my books is out in the world, I don't ever sit down and reread it. I flip through them, to check details for the follow-up books, and to create teasers, or blog posts. But I don't read them word-for-word. This read-along has been a unique exercise in that respect. I always know what I was trying to accomplish with a given scene, and, ten years after its publication, it's been rewarding to look back at Fearless and see that (at least from my perspective) I hit the emotional marks I was aiming for. 

In the case of Chapter Eighteen, I'm glad of the way Mercy and Ava's romance feels doomed. This is the calm before the storm, but we can see the clouds building along the horizon, and we know, through Mercy's and Maggie's POVs, that the peace won't last. Ava knows they're doomed, too, but she's got youth and hope on her side; she doesn't want to dwell on all the ways they're headed for disaster, and instead keeps trying to pull him along toward a hopeful place with her. It's (purposefully) a little bit heartbreaking that he won't say he loves her back. 

In thinking about future books, this period of optimism, and the subsequent fallout, breaks something soft inside of Ava. She was always going to be a lioness, like her mama, but the wound to come is going to leave a nasty scar. She forgives Mercy down the line, of course, because her love for him is unconditional. She even forgives Ghost. But the Ava we see in Lord Have Mercy is the direct result of being young, and in love, and hopeful...and then having all those hopes dashed in violent fashion. 

James didn't mind cleaning up the spill; Ghost didn't want the spoiled milk poured in the first place. 

Properly placed foreshadowing is, in my opinion, part of what grounds a story, no matter the genre, in the real world. The club grows by leaps and bounds over the course of the series, and even here, early on, we see Mercy recognizing that Ghost is ambitious, and isn't going to rule the way James has. 

Fearless does so much heavy lifting with regard to setting the stage. It's the reason it's such a large book, and why it doesn't focus solely on Ava and Mercy's relationship. So much of what we learn about the other characters here, even just sprinkled throughout like the quote above, means that later books make complete sense. My goal from the start was to create a place that felt tangible, and real, and like you could pick up the phone and call any one of these characters and know how they'd respond. 

This is the chapter where Mercy has Ava bite him on the chest. One of those feral scenes I really enjoyed including, because they're that couple. 

Like Leah, I'm "proud-slash-freaked-out." 

1 comment:

  1. The chest bite (and later tattoo) is one of the most romantic things I’ve ever read. I love it. How did you think of it?

    ReplyDelete