Made for Breaking - 99 cents

It's supposed to be a rainy, cool, yucky weekend here on the east side of the country. And I love nothing better than reading a new book on a rainy weekend. So the first Russell installment, Made for Breaking, is back at 99 cents. I'm trying to spread the word, so tell your friends. It's been my record-breaking seller, and I'm so glad to share it.

The Last Week for 99 Cent Downloads!

Just wanted to take a second to thank my readers for their support and say that this is the last week to get Made for Breaking for 99 cents. So anyone curious about the Russell debut novel, you can get it at the discounted price through Friday.

And then in December...

A Look at "God Love Her"

It's my plan to share some of this chapter by chapter at some point - still shooting for a December release. But I wanted to share this little bit today. Happy Saturday, all! Hope it's as blue and beautiful where you are as it is here. Spoilers for Made for Breaking.

 

 

Dinner was stir fry, risotto, and fried apples. Layla offered to help and was finally allowed to prep the rolls, so long as she stayed sitting down and promised not to “overwork” herself. Ellen and Cheryl were delighted to learn that, unlike Lisa, she could cook and liked to. Lisa made a face at that.

            After, Layla was denied her wish to help clean up, and instead slipped out the backdoor. The evening was all in grays and purples, the ancient oaks throwing lace shadows across the silver stretch of lawn. Security lamps on their power poles were flickering to life around the drive. Crickets called to one another, and above them, in the trees, the cicadas. It smelled like sun and grass and hot pavement, and the heady sweetness of Cheryl’s gardens. Layla wandered in the shelter of the shadows, and finally found a bench beside a koi pond; she had a view of the driveway, the back of the house, and, if she squinted, the ghostly pale shapes of the fish slipping beneath the lily pads down at her feet. It was the loveliest thing she’d seen in over a year. The peace of it was drugging; she could feel her headache ebb, the stress bleed out of her muscles.

            It lasted about five minutes before the pine straw crunched behind her.

Made for Breaking Playlist

A little bit of musical inspiration, some just for fun, some as soundtrack wishes. None of it intended to be too artsy.

 

 

 

"Heart Like Mine" - Miranda Lambert

*

"Free" - Jypsi

*

"Little Lovin'" - Lissie

*

"Skeletons" - Eli Young Band

*

"Wildflower" - The JaneDear Girls

*

"Thickfreakness" - The Black Keys

*

"Fine Line" - Little Big Town

*

"Maintain the Pain" - Miranda Lambert

*

"Wolf" - First Aid Kit

*

"Bones" - MS MR

*

"You Lie" - The Band Perry

*

"Get What You Need" - Jet

*

"Hunger Strike" - Halestorm

*

"Everything You Want" - Vertical Horizon

*

"You're Gonna Go Far Kid" - The Offpspring

*

"Can't Get Enough" - Bad Company

*

"Live Wire" - AC/DC

*

"Outlaw Man" - The Eagles

*

"Chariot" - Gretchen Wilson

Release Day

Technically, today is release day. Though Made for Breaking has been available since Wednesday and I'm so very excited that people have been taking advantage of that! For the longest time, I wasn't sure I'd ever finish this book, and I've been surprised, humbled, tickled, etc. by its early sales. I just wanted to say happy Saturday and thank you kindly to my readers and downloaders. Writers write regardless of audience, because we can't keep our ideas contained, and it is such joy to share those ideas with others. Thank you for letting me share. Guess I better hurry up and get the sequel written, huh?

Made for Breaking can be downloaded here and ordered in paperback here. I hope to post teasers for the sequel, God Love Her, soon, so be on the lookout for that.

Who Needs a Release Day Anyway?

I'll let you in on a secret. Unless you're on the Ticketmaser website counting down the seconds until you can buy your way into the concert you've been waiting with baited breath for, most things go on sale in advance of release dates. I, for instance, always get my books situated before release day, just to make sure it's all working. In this spirit of situating, Made for Breaking was ready today, so it would be extra ready Saturday...and I've already got sales. *pause for moment of sheer excitement!!!* So why make everybody wait? The 99 cent Kindle download is available now, paperback soon to follow. It's on sale all this holiday weekend! Thank you, lovely readers. I needed a pick-me-up this week.

Are Y'all Ready?

Just a few more days!

 

 

 

Saturday, 8/31/13. Only 99 cents the first weekend.

Update on Made for Breaking

Never again, he'd promised himself. Never again was he going to let himself be weak.

~Drew, Made for Breaking

 

 

 

 

I'm doing my final read through on it now. Planned release date is August 31st!! So get ready. I'm so glad to finally bring this project to print and to embark on a new series. So look for the first Russell novel Saturday, August 31, and release weekend will also be a 99 cent weekend for Made for Breaking.



Snippet from Chapter 28 of MFB

 

Back in business!!

 

Excerpt from Made for Breaking...

 

*There's some language, so....yeah...*

 

 

Could he really be this stupid? Drew had always known he wasn’t gifted – hell, he wasn’t even sure he was smart – but was he really so stupid as to find himself in this position?

            “A mistake?” he’d asked Lisa afterward, in the moonlight, in the panting silence. And he’d said nothing since. He’d laid her over the hood of a car, without condom, sweet talk, or promise, and had then been mute their whole drive to Double Vision. Now, he watched her serve drinks from a bar stool, and he watched the fine tremors of intensifying anger go dancing across the taut muscles in her arms. She smiled, she even forced a laugh or two for her customers, but underneath her glittery lip gloss and smoke gray eye shadow, she was seething. At least…he thought so. He had no other explanation for the way her face snapped back like a rubber band when she thought no one could see her; her lips thinned and her eyes flashed and she was a little bit terrifying as she pulled glasses and poured shots.

            He had to say something.

            “Lisa,” he tried as she passed in front of him. When she ignored him, he waited for her to pass back the other way and said, “Lis,” with a pleading note in his voice.

            She halted like she didn’t want to – arms still reaching out ahead of her, legs mid-stride and off-balance – and darted him a glance from the corners of her eyes, refusing to give him her full attention. She said nothing.

            “Can we talk?” he asked. “Maybe when you go on break?”

            In answer, she snatched her apron off, fumbling with the strings and cursing under her breath; she headed for the back hall at a march and Drew slipped off his stool to head after her.

            Down the wood-paneled, fluorescent-flickering corridor that led to the exit, the din of the bar dulled to white noise, the music a hot pulse that came up through the floor. Lisa’s angry strut reminded him, for some reason, of a cat, and her dark ponytail whipped as she ducked through the door of the employee locker room, a warning toss of sleek hair that told him to follow at his own risk.

            He paused a moment, his casted hand on the doorjamb, and asked himself what he would say. Was he afraid of her? Of what she would expect now that he’d touched her – been inside her? No. There was guilt, and regret, and worry, but there was no fear. And under the others, deep down and fragile, was even a kernel of hope – hope that her skin was still tingling the way his was, that she wanted a chance to try again. Because he was a dumbass prize fighter with nothing but a duffel of clothes to his name, and Lisa Russell was the best thing to happen to him since…ever. And because of that, he had a feeling that, whatever he was to her, it wasn’t good, and didn’t even begin to hedge toward best.

            Steeling himself against her eruption, he pushed through the swinging door.

            And wasn’t prepared for the scene that greeted him.

            Lisa sat on the same long wooden bench where she’d bandaged his hand before, her platform sandals tucked together on the floor, an arm around her middle, thumbnail clenched between her teeth, lashes batting a fast rhythm against her cheeks. In the moment between the door closing and her eyes snatching up to his, guarded and closed, he could have sworn she was about to cry. There were tears in her voice, but not on her face as she launched her offensive.

            “Never again,” she said with such force that it catapulted her to her feet, her body rigid with the tension of conviction that crackled through those two words. Her eyes had a wild, animal shine to them, and her straight, white teeth were bared like fangs. “I said – I’ve been saying – that I would never let some guy compromise anything about me ever again!”

            Drew hadn’t expected this; he blinked stupidly. “Lisa, I asked you –  ”

            “Oh, fuck your asking. I knew better. I let you –  ” She spun away from him and paced down the length of the bench, little hands balled into fists at her sides.

            He sighed. Even worse than having a female with hurt feelings over his silence, he had indignant, don’t-need-a-man Lisa on his hands. He could have apologized for his silence – soothed with empty platitudes – but he had no idea how to fix this, whatever it was. After a long moment of watching her narrow back – and wishing he’d had a chance to see the skin beneath her yellow halter top in warm lamplight – he said, “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

            Her head whipped around.

            “Remember? You said, ‘tell anyone and I’ll kill you,’ so I wasn’t gonna to say anything. I figured we were gonna pretend it never happened.”

            Something went rippling across her face: pain, regret, guilt, something. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Right.”

            “Right,” Drew repeated, studying every twitch of her lashes, waiting for the moment when she let slip what was really bothering her. “So we don’t have to do this” – he gestured between them, at the empty air charged with what they weren’t going to say – “if you don’t want to. We can honest to God pretend nothing happened.” That wasn’t what he wanted, but she did…

            Maybe she did. She did, didn’t she…?

            Her eyes moved over him, sharp and attentive, assessing. He remembered the breathy sound of his name on her lips in the garage, the seeking way her fingers had probed through his shirt. Her invitation then had been unmistakable then. Now – this new invitation – was unbelievable.

            Realization slammed into him: she didn’t want to pretend, she wanted to acknowledge, and she wanted him to be an obnoxious ass about it. She wanted him to stake a claim.

            “Yeah,” she said, and blinked hard again. “Yeah, we should do that.” She shook her head. “Sorry I jumped all over you about it.”

            She didn’t look at him as she moved to the door, but she hesitated. It was only a second, but it was long enough to confirm his suspicion: never again was sounding like a long damn time all of a sudden.

Whatever happened to...

My very first book, gosh, four...? Five years ago? A while ago. It was about a girl in her twenties going "home" to Georgia and meeting her father's side of the family for the first time in years and years. It was part-mystery, part-romance, part-action/adventure, part-outlaw and part-gritty. I was so happy. All this time I'd wanted to write a novel, and I finally had. It was huge - 150k words or thereabouts. It was - when I go back and look at it now - nowhere near up to snuff. But I wasn't worried about that. In those first precious weeks before I began the arduous querying process, I was on cloud nine about finishing that book. After a truly disheartening round of rejections - and it hurts; I don't care who you are or how cynical you are (like me), it hurts so bad, worse than any boy leaving you in the dirt - I nursed my wounds, concentrated on college, my horses, and dabbled in fanfiction. But the trusted few who'd read that first novel kept asking me about it. They really liked it. Sly was sexy, they thought, and Layla was relateable, and the plot was grabbing. (Their words, not mine. I just wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and pretend I'd never written the thing).

When I started blogging, I dusted off the characters from that first novel and wrote a sort of prequel, about Layla's cousin Lisa, and her guy. It was really fun. And then, like I always do, I got discouraged and backed off of it. And when the Walkers slammed into me, I shelved Made for Breaking indefinitely.

I picked it back up a few weeks ago, and to my shock, I stepped right back into the story without a hitch, like I'd been working on it all along. And even scarier, I liked it. Those characters, I realized, are pre-Twitter, pre-blog, pre-discouragement, and pre-second-guessing. They're shadier than the Walkers, morally sound and legally gray. They were straight out of my imagination, from a simpler, braver time, without the taint of "market." Sometimes ideas should be shelved. They weren't strong enough. But is this one of them? Was I way off base, or closer to it than I ever thought? The Russells - and all their devil may care Steve McQueen coolness - are a lot like the heroes dominating the ebook sales right now.

My cousin, a few weeks ago one night at dinner, told me, "Stop saying 'if' and 'maybe' and 'I hope. You ARE a writer. You WILL make this work. No more doubting yourself.'" It was a good little kick in the pants. I have worried, for almost five years, that readers won't like the Russell clan - won't like Sly and Layla - because they felt daring, and I was too scared to be daring.

So I figure...yeah, why not? Made for Breaking is getting a big face lift, and I'm hoping to release it and Remains this summer. Panicking? You bet!