Teaser of The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise

When Holding Out for a Fairy Tale released last month, I promised I'd post a teaser for the 3rd book in the Least Likely Partnerships series, and here it is!

From The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise

The rock came out of nowhere. It smacked Christopher in the back of the head with a crack that echoed around the street. He stumbled forward, dragging his feet to a stop as his vision went black. He braced his hands on his knees as his field of vision filled with splotches of neon light that seemed to flash behind his eyelids.

The screech of tires and laughter from the street behind him cut through the pain. He bit back on the panic that threatened to paralyze him and forced himself to move. He staggered off the sidewalk toward the hedge separating him from the parking lot on his left.

“No one wants fucking perverts like you jogging past our playgrounds!”

Christopher ignored the voice, just added it to the list of evidence he was collecting in his head. He noted the make and model of the vehicle, a new Ford Explorer with dark tinted windows. A young man, obviously still a teen, was standing on the passenger side seat, half of his body through the window. He was holding onto the roof rack of the SUV with one hand. The driver’s side window was down and Christopher could see more kids in the SUV. He didn’t recognize any of them, but he would be able to identify them later if he had to.

He shoved his way through the hedge, desperate to put even the illusion of a barrier between himself and the SUV.

“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a high pitched voice shouted from across the parking lot. 

The SUV peeled away and the laughter faded.

 “Chris?” Christopher turned toward Brittney McAllister, the woman his lover had almost married once upon a time, and the current Baker County chief medical examiner. He let her slip under his shoulder and guide him through the parking lot to the Coroner’s Office.

"Hi,” he whispered, delicately reaching toward the back of his head. “Am I bleeding?”

“Yeah. Sit down on the steps, let me take a look.”

Christopher lowered himself on to the concrete and bent forward. Even though getting to know his lover Doug’s ex had been awkward, the angry glares and suspicious looks from the rest of the small town of Elkin left Christopher grateful for any ally he could get.

For a while, he’d really believed that once he’d settled in people would stop comparing him to his brother and warm up to him.

He’d been stupid and naive.

The people of Elkin would never warm up to someone they considered a threat to their children, and he was too closely connected to his brother’s case for them ever to see him as anything else.

Christopher winced as Brittney’s fingernails lifted his too-long hair. She hissed behind him. “Those rotten little bastards. Come on inside, I’ll call Doug.”

Christopher caught her wrist. “No. He’s got enough shit to deal with thanks to me. It’s fine.”

I'm Being Interviewed at LaQuette's Living & Loving the Written Word Today!

June Updates!

Today, yes TODAY, I’m being interviewed over at LaQuette Likes! This is my first author interview, and I’ll be sharing a bit about how I got started writing and I'll be talking a bit about Holding Out for a Fairy tale! Head over to her blog to check it out!

This month I finally finished and submitted The Way Things Are, the story of longshoreman Patrick Connelly and his doomed attempts not to hit on his son’s sexy probation officer, Ken Atkins. There’s a new teaser in the interview here! (And unlike my first crack at novel length fiction—about Patrick’s son Jay and his adventures with spray paint—this one will have the attention of professional editors before it sees the light of day!)

And finally, the third book in the Least likely Partnership series is coming together! With any luck, it will be available in May, 2015! I say with any luck, because it’s summer vacation. There’s something very strange about writing explicit sex scenes or writing about… well, horrible things, with 4+ rowdy kids screaming about video games four feet away.