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Sofia is alone in the world, running on a treadmill, and honestly, no one messes with her. Except her ex-husband the mob boss. So when her son disappears, she's trapped between the mob world she left behind and law enforcement who can't see past her last name. UNTOUCHABLE was my first published novel, not even two years ago, and I still love Sofia. She's tough on the outside, isolated everywhere, and so lonely inside it's palpable. The FBI agent tasked to her surveillance knows better than to get involved, but one coffee with Sofia drops his IQ, and he says yes before he brain engages. Now they're on the run, with 72 hours to find her son or lose it all. Man, I still love this storyline, and I'm still looking for a man like Logan. Calm and cool on the outside, and burning hot on the inside. Don't miss UNTOUCHABLE @ $.99. Hot, sexy, romantic suspense with a fast pace that keeps the pages turning.
Weird crimes are the source of infinite story ideas for writers. Take this story about a taxi driver who drugged female passengers so they would pee in the backseat. Seriously. Weird.
As I said in the post earlier this week where I detailed the weird crime that inspired the opening of Unstoppable, truth is just as strange as fiction and we writers dig that stuff. In Unstoppable: BAD BOY MICK DONOVAN IS OUT TO AVENGE HIS BROTHER’S DEATH, AND ALIGNING WITH DESTINY HARPER AND THE FBI TASK FORCE IS HIS TICKET. BUT LANDING IN THE MOUNTAINS AMIDST A BLIZZARD AND A PAST DEZ WOULD RATHER FORGET TESTS WHAT MICK WILL SACRIFICE FOR REVENGE.
Sunday, I detailed the first true crime story that inspired the opening of Unstoppable. The second story will be posted on Entangled's blog once the book releases (yep, I'm a tease). :) But, if you read the original post, you know that my Mayberry-like suburban neighborhood wasn't exactly as perfect as it seems from the outside. In fact, I remember hearing the shots fired, but in my head, I thought: "No way, not this neighborhood." Although police still haven't released the cause of this shootout, the idea sparked this scene:
Multiple pops sounded like firecrackers through the radio, but the double tap pattern was unique to guns, not fireworks. The wheels of her car squealed as she took the corner faster than planned. She stopped in the middle of the road as she approached the target house. A sedan was parked on the street in front of the house. The driveway was clear. A narrow front porch was barely big enough for the body crumpled near the open door. The face was turned toward the house, but she recognized Agent Summerfield’s bald head.
“Officer down,” she said over the radio. “Repeat. Officer down. Requesting backup.” Heart pounding, the echo of gunfire fading, Dez scanned the neighborhood for the source and found a man on the roof of the two-story across the street. She couldn’t leave the family unprotected, but she had no clue what she was walking into. The glint of early morning sun caught the flash of metal as the suspect lifted a rifle. Either he was gunning for her or he was going to make sure Summerfield was dead. “Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered under her breath. Anger rose inside her chest, covering the fear and adrenaline. This was the kind of crap that went down when you didn’t stick to the plan. When you didn’t wait for backup. Now she was sitting in the middle of the suburbs with some nutjob taking aim and had about two seconds to decide on a course of action.
To celebrate the release of the new cover, I've got a giveaway going through Rafflecopter. Be sure to add Unstoppable to your Goodreads TBR list. The prize is a list of romantic suspense titles that are on *my* TBR list! One winner walks away with 5 ebook titles.
Unstoppable releases 5/1/17.
Weird crimes are the source of infinite story ideas for writers. There isn't enough time in the world to write about all the crazy stuff that happens in our mixed up world. Take this story about a murder attempt and a Ouija board where the writer of the article says things went from "buddy to bloody." Sometimes, truth is just as strange as fiction and we writers dig that stuff.
Unstoppable, the next in my Untouchables series, is no exception. While it is fiction, the real world does provide plenty of inspiration. There were two real world crimes, plus my Police Informant, that added realism to Dez and Mick's story. The first weird crime aspect relates to something absolutely unheard of in our neighborhood. We live in a very suburban suburb, the kind where people walk their kids to school. After dinner they walk their dogs or a baby stroller through the neighborhood. We're Mayberry normal in the middle of a midsize city. What isn't normal is guns in the street, but that's literally what happened. Twice. The second incident I'll post next month, but the first instance was just bizarre. My daughter the ballerina came home to say she had to drive the long way around because the police had blocked off an entire street. Because this is abnormal, we hit the Internet to figure out what the heck was going on. Turns out, this suburban street wasn't Mayberry after all. Witnesses said that they heard gunfire first. Moments later, two guys ran out of a house and into a newer red pickup truck. Another man chased after them firing a handgun. The pickup goes tearing off and the man who had chased them sat down on his front porch holding his gun. This happened just before 4:30 in the afternoon. People were outside doing yard work and kids were playing. What the heck? The original scenario in itself is bizarre, but what happened next is even stranger. The truck was found at a stoplight less than two miles away. One person was dead at the scene and the second was in critical condition. Had they driven out of the neighborhood the other direction, they would have been at a major hospital, but that wrong turn caused at least one death. Police aren't saying what incited the incident, but that just makes it more interesting for my writer mind. So of course, I had to put the puzzles together in a way that made sense for me. Unstoppable opens in what Dez considers a sickeningly sweet suburb where things immediately escalate. Gunshots fired and... well, the AND is what happens next in Unstoppable. :) I'll post that opening scene later this week. To celebrate the release of the new cover, I've got a giveaway going through Rafflecopter. Be sure to add Unstoppable to your Goodreads TBR list. The prize is a list of romantic suspense titles that are on *my* TBR list! One winner walks away with 5 ebook titles. Unstoppable releases 5/1/17.
Memory is a tricky thing. Bad memories filter to the top while good memories settle to the bottom of a very deep well and we struggle to keep them alive. The key is to replace the bad memories with good—or drown the bad in that well, whichever works. I’m a violent sort, so I’ll be drowning those suckers. Holidays in our house growing up were mostly good, but that means I have only this vague recollection and warm, fuzzy feelings for Christmas. Well, all but one. The year I turned five, my father was recovering from a major car accident. Money was tight and we ultimately lost the house and Dad’s business to medical expenses. That was the year someone adopted us. Just for Christmas presents that is. We were the little angels on a Giving Tree. The night before Christmas, a group of men brought what seemed like a truckload of presents for four kids and two adults. They deposited them under the empty tree just like Santa. I bounced on my toes in sheer joy at the mass of goodies. Too young to read, I didn’t know which presents were mine, but my older brother pointed out a ginormous and awkwardly wrapped present labeled “girl, aged 5.” It was bigger than me and taller than my teenage brother. It was mine, mine, mine! As the men left to bring another load of goodies, I scooted closer to that funny shaped present. I may have poked the side and heard the wrapping crinkle. The finger may have—accidentally of course—punched through a spot in the wrapper. Come on, I was five. What would you do? I looked. Inside was something soft, brown, and fuzzy. Fur! I couldn’t see the face, but I pictured a smiling bear face on this wonderfully massive gift. After the elves disappeared, Mom noticed a trail of white stuff all over the family room floor. Not just a few drops, but copious amounts of tiny white Styrofoam balls. Everywhere. She followed the trail to that awkwardly wrapped gift where, sure enough, a hole in the toe and wrapping caused it to bleed all over the house. She didn’t know I had seen and loved and coveted that fluffy, loveable, stuffed bear, because that would have meant admitting that I had peeked. So she did what any mother would do. She waited until I went to bed. Come Christmas morning, there was no awkwardly wrapped giant bear to unwrap. It had disappeared overnight. There were other presents under the tree for “girl, aged 5;” hats and gloves and girlie things, but what I remember most is that giant bear that could have been mine if he hadn’t leaked a trail of stuffing all over the family room floor. That long ago Christmas may be why I’m a bit fanatical about making Christmas special for my kids. And why I wrote the not-quite-perfect Christmas story for Sofia and Logan. Don’t get me wrong, Logan’s trying to create good memories to drown out the bad of Sofia’s former life, so when the presentfest begins, Eli is in for a giant surprise: Excerpt: With a squeal, Eli leaped from the table and ran for the tree. Wrapping paper flew as he shredded into the first present, a plastic dinosaur the size of a football. Holding her phone out, Sofia hunkered on the floor and snapped pictures. Dumbfounded by the wild activity, Logan perched on the floor against the sofa. Eli unwrapped several dinos before hitting the jackpot with a dinosaur sanctuary straight from the movies. The delight in his screams lit the house more than the Christmas lights. “Mom.” “That one is all Logan.” The boy’s eyes grew larger. “Thanks, Logan.” “Couldn’t you find something bigger?” Sofia mocked. “No.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Eli’s joyful face. “But I did try.” “How long did you spend in the toy store?” This time, he did turn to her. The teasing glint in her eyes and the lightness on her face hadn’t always been there. He’d done that, he thought, and it was a gold-medal moment. Making Sofia smile was his new goal in life. She deserved all the smiles she could get. “Blake and I might have spent two or three hours in the toy store,” he admitted. He pointed to Eli trying, and failing, to open the sanctuary box. “It was worth it.” Christmas morning starts off perfect-ish in their house, but a mysterious phone call before dinner threatens more than their holiday celebrations. One thing is for certain. This holiday is one she’ll never forget.** Now it’s your turn. Post in the comments about the one Christmas you can’t forget and why it’s so memorable. **reposted from my original article on Ever After Romance In the spring of my seventh grade school year, I wanted a yearbook so bad I could taste it, but my family lived on a necessity-only budget. Yearbooks fell under the category of luxury, so I didn’t even ask. But I still wanted one. We played cards and board games frequently, because that was free, so one night, I asked my dad to play poker with me, something we did for nickels and dimes. I played that night until I’d earned my yearbook money and then I quit, just like that. Dad was mystified by my sudden departure. Mom teased me for years that my father would have given me the money if I’d asked, but I had an independent streak. Somehow, asking seemed like a sign of weakness. The independent streak that some might call stubborn was a character trait that started young, and continued through most of my life. It’s the reason I found a job working in a distant mountain town for two consecutive summers of high school. I lived and worked there, several hours from family. I wanted to do it on my own. It’s likely the same independent streak that had me joining the Air Force before I was wise enough to know better. Like me, Sofia--the heroine in Untouchable--is one of those people who won’t ask for help, even when she needs it. Asking for help is a sign of weakness to Sofia, but it’s more than stubbornness. She wouldn’t know who to ask even if she tried. She’s caught between her mob boss ex-husband and the law which considers her a conduit into the family. When her son is kidnapped, she doesn’t look for help. She starts looking for answers. Now it's your turn. How independent (aka stubborn) are you? Do you ask for help or do it yourself? * This is a repost from Untouchable release in 2015.
Below is an oldie but a goodie on following your passion. You see, the world will tell you that following your dreams is silly or irresponsible or naive, but "they" don't know everything. While the old blog may have been mercilessness killed, I still manage to find these old posts every once in awhile. Enjoy! And remember for Nanowrimo or whatever passion you are pursuing this month, it is possible! My mother didn't want me to be a writer. I think she cried as much about my being a writer as she did when I told her I'd joined the Air Force. We had just left the movie Full Metal Jacket when I told her I'd signed the contract and would be leaving for basic training in less than thirty days. She bawled like she was going to my funeral. I just watched the first five minutes of the movie, and I can see why she cried. Hell, the only reason I didn't cry was because I thought the movie was a Hollywood exaggeration. For my part, it was.
I had more of a Biloxi Blues kind of basic training experience. It wasn't a comedy, because they really do get in your face and scream a lot. They deprive you of sleep and basic human courtesy, but in the end, it's the Texas heat that gets to you. As the Mathew Broderick character says, "It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't stand this kind of hot." I had a very long conversation with my daughter yesterday about following your passion. We went to dinner together while my son had a sleepover and we had the kind of heart-to-heart that a parent prays for and fears at the same time. She knows what she wants in life and she sees obstacles rather than opportunities. She's afraid that at the ripe age of 15, life is passing her by. And I get it (I was 15 once and remember it absolutely). When we know what we want, when it's a visceral thing, we want to get to it, and life--even a good life--can get in the way. But passion is not diminished with time. Passion grows stronger and our mission more absolute with time. Sadly, delay and grief and struggle amplify our passion. The reason my mother didn't want me to be a writer is, "writers live a hard life." I wanted to laugh at her. As a teenager, I probably did. Because I didn't see the pain, I saw the glory. Because as much as writers are an introverted lot, we do it to have our work read in a very public way, and if we're lucky (and we all hope we are) our words are read by the multitudes. But my mother was right. Writers live a hard life. Guess what? So does everyone else. The difference for people of a creative bent--writers and artists and actors, etc--is that we take the hard life and make it look good.We take the garbage the universe heaps upon us and use it in our art. My early writing was naive. And if I had lived to my current age in an insulated and perfect existence, it would still be naive. It might be decent writing, good grammar and a steady plot, but it wouldn't be real. Few of us live a perfect life and we're not all that interested in reading about it. Even Disney gives their Princesses a sad backstory with loss and grief. How humans deal with the grief and loss and imperfection is what makes the story interesting. What I told my daughter is this: If you take a dozen people who have made it to the edge of success in your chosen field and you compare life stories, those with perfect lives don't stack up. If the full dozen people are all technically proficient in their craft, but one has overcome loss and has an emotional trigger that pulled them from the past to where they are now, that's the person who gets the job. Why? It's not because the interviewers know the story. No one ever knows your story, but the determination and heart and emotional energy that brought you out of the depths of your story and into success, that draws people like a freaking magnet. For artists, it's that element where we overcome the obstacles that gives our writing depth. If I were to go back to that moment when my mother looked at me, eyes watering, and she said, "writers live a hard life," I wouldn't have laughed at her, because it's true. We're more introspective and more hurt by the vagaries of the world. but the world needs us. When I combine my technical skills (God-willing, I have them) with my life experiences, and I'm open with the world and share my imperfection and my fear and my insecurity, I can turn a piece of writing into art. And if an editor looks at my story and the story of a dozen other technically proficient writers, but my story--imperfect but emotionally true--has that something that can't be faked, that is the ultimate truth, that's the story that matters. Whether it sells now or never, whether it's read by one or a million, it's the story that tells the truth and effects the most change that matters the most. Passion can't be faked. Experience can't be faked. Neither can struggle. I never ever ever EVER think that we endure hardship for the benefit of the world. In fact, that kind of attitude pissed me the heck off, BUT.... The role of the artist is to convert those negative experiences into a universal message that has the potential to change the world. Some writers change the whole world. Others change a segment of the world. Others change the world of one person, just one person, and that's the one that mattered most. My mother didn't want me to live a life with a universal message. She didn't want me to know hardship and grief and pain and all the thousands of things that I must KNOW on an intimate level to be a good writer, but I wouldn't exchange that knowledge for a safe existence. My daughter isn't looking at becoming an accountant. She's not seeking a safe existence. And like my mother before me, I'd like to shelter my daughter from pain. I don't want her to have to life a hard life. But... I want her to live a real life. The thing I want most for my children is that they pursue their passion. I cannot say that I want them to face it without fear. War is a fearful thing, and pursuing our biggest desire is a kind of war. Most of us don't have the courage for it. We get washed out in basic training, but if we have a passion, those obstacles and fears and events that get in the way, they are what make our passion important. I could have given up on writing a hundred times. I'll be tempted a hundred more. But I'm not giving up. That's the difference between passion and plan. A life plan has a timetable and a series of steps to success. A passion is messy and imperfect and covered in land mines. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Whatever you do, accountant or nurse or librarian or artist, I hope you pursue it with passion. It's not instant success, but it is personally fulfilling, and if you're lucky, after twenty years, they'll give you a gold watch and "good job." The gold watch and the "good job" don't matter. It's the personal fulfillment that makes a hard life worth living. Follow your passion. Your age doesn't matter. Your life experience doesn't matter. Your socio-economic strata doesn't matter. You were given a passion for a reason. Live it. Little known fact: Abraham Lincoln wrote a mystery story. How I've gone my whole life not knowing this is beyond me, because it's so cool! According to these peeps, it was common in that era for lawyers to write fictionalized accounts of their cases. Add to it, Lincoln was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, and you can see that writing a mystery was the next natural progression. This article gives a more in-depth story behind the story. And if you're dying to see if our esteemed former president was a good writer, here's a link to the PDF version of The Trailor Murder Mystery. I can't wait to hear what you think. Comments welcome below. |
AuthorFunny story. During the Mercury Retrograde Incident in September 2016, Cindy's original blog disappeared. Five years, gone in a random act of chaos. Now she gets to repopulate her blog world one post at a time. Join her if you dare. :) Archives
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