Paper Books or E-Readers?

I had this talk with my dad the other day: whether it was better to read on an e-reader--like a Kindle, Nook, etc--or paper copies. I do both, and hadn't put much thought into the methodology behind which one I choose for particular reading items. After the talk with dad, I now have things all racked and stacked.

E-READERS

I have an 8-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab with both the Kindle and Nook apps on it, and honestly, for reading fiction, I don't see too many downsides to using this over traditional people. It's amazingly convenient for traveling--I can take dozens of books in something the size of a paperback. I can bookmark, make comments, highlight, and so on. I don't have to worry about the paper fading or the cover tearing or anything. I can't dog-ear a tablet, and I can easily put in my backpack when I go mountain biking, so I have my choice of books to read during breaks.

However, I do NOT like reading from my tablet at bedtime, which is the time I most commonly read, because the blue light from the screen is known to disrupt sleep patters. Since I already have trouble sleeping, doing something that makes it harder right before bed is not the best idea for me. I do have a blue light filter, but I find reading off a paper copy more relaxing anyway. Also, e-readers have batters that run out, often need updating, and provide their own distractions, with the web and email just a touch away.

And e-books are generally cheaper than their paper counterparts, for obvious reasons, so there are some monetary gains from buying them.

PAPER BOOKS:

I much prefer paper books if I know the author, so I can get the copy signed. As I pointed out above, I also like them for bedtime reading, and for all around relaxation. I take paper books on airplanes, since you have to turn off electronics during takeoff and landing, and that's just more time to read. I also use paper books where I think the light of a tablet might disturb other people, or in bright sunlight.

I'm also not a fan of electronic magazines. For some reason, holding a magazine in my hands--being able to roll it up, thumb through the pages, and so on, is more appealing to me than swiping on a screen. Besides, I can't roll up my tablet to smash a spider. Gets too expensive. (Note; I do subscribe to Fantasy and Science Fiction on my Kindle app and love it...)

Paper books also look much better lining the bookshelves in a writer's home, something all of us like to do. Putting a tablet on the shelf just doesn't have the same effect.

So I guess I'm a hybrid reader, using e-books in some situations and traditional paper ones in others. They both have their place. A good story is a good story, be it in ink or ones and zeroes, so whatever lets me read it the best is what I'll use.

Meet Mike Tolbert - Smothered Excerpt

Since I missed my excerpt post on Sunday, here it is today instead. Meet Mike Tolbert, handyman and former U.S. Marine. In this scene, we get a peek into the demons that haunt Mike's mind.
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Mike swerved around a Prius that pulled out of a 7-Eleven on his right. Apparently the driver didn't care about right-of-way, choosing to place his tiny hybrid in front of Mike's five-thousand-pound Ford pickup just to make Mike swerve. As Mike cruised past him, a hipster with a scruffy beard and a frown flipped him off and shouted something about Mike's gas guzzler.

Typical Prius owner, Mike thought. More interested in making a political statement than learning how to drive.

It wasn't like Mike drove a pickup by choice. It was simply the vehicle best suited for a handyman's job. The truck was clearly marked, too, so the jerk had to have known it was a work vehicle. Some people protested just to have a cause.

Traffic on East Colfax had thickened more than Mike expected on a holiday, making his drive to his next job site slow-going. He hated working on Memorial Day, but he needed the money, and his customer—an older woman whose husband had just passed—needed help. This day he normally reserved for remembering his fallen comrades, the men he'd lost in that God-forsaken, overheated litter box called Iraq. Men—boys in some cases—who'd died in gruesome, horrible ways, usually screaming or frightened out of their minds.

Guys Mike would never forget.

Guys like Kyle.

They'd been on patrol in a suburb of Fallujah, a squad of Marines working to keep looters at bay and insurgents hunkered down. Corporal Kyle McElroy had point, with Mike following about ten yards behind. The sun turned their Kevlar into slow cookers, boiling their bodies and simmering their minds. They were professionals, but even pros struggled in that kind of heat.

Mike was looking up at a rooftop when the car bomb detonated, slamming him to the ground. His ears rang, and his vision blurred. He struggled to his feet to find Kyle on his back beside him, blown backward from the blast. Where Kyle's right leg had been only a bloody stump with a jagged spear of bone remained, the rest gone from just above the knee. Blood oozed from Kyle's nose and ears, and his left arm was bent underneath him, twisted almost beyond recognition.

Mike knew what would come next. The staccato firing of AK-47s erupted all around them, bullets whizzing past, ricocheting off the street, surrounding buildings, and vehicles. Mike managed to drag Kyle's limp body into an alley, while the rest of the squad ducked for cover. Mike applied a tourniquet to Kyle's leg, stopping the loss of blood, but they needed help fast. Kyle was alive, but not for long.

He heard Sergeant Ortiz on the radio, calling for air support to suppress enemy fire. Mike raised his M-4 carbine, peeked around the corner, and found himself staring down the barrel of an AK. A lone insurgent, scarf covering his mouth and nose, aimed at Mike's head.

What I'm Reading October 6th, 2016

I'm a slow reader. Like, hear-the-words-in-my-head slow. So I don't make enough progress to blog this particular topic weekly like I should.

But this week, I do have a new addition, Barbara Nickless' fantastic new mystery Blood on the Tracks (buy it HERE) from Thomas and Mercer, the crime imprint of Amazon. This is Book One of the Sydney Rose Parnell Series, and tells the story of a former Marine with PTSD who works as a railroad cop, trying to solve a brutal murder by a hobo. I'm about a quarter of the way through, and this one is a TOUGH book to put down at the end of the day. If I'm not careful, I'll find myself still reading at midnight, having to get up four hours later for work! I'll let you in on a little secret--Barb and I have been friends for a good fourteen years or so, and everything of hers I've read, I've enjoyed, but this is a step up even for her. Gritty, tense, and real. A strong female lead with realistic flaws, and a gripping story.

I'm also still reading the Alien Artifacts anthology from Zombies Need Brains, and it certainly lives up to the standards they set with their previous anthos. Wonderful stories of humans finding alien artifacts throughout the universe and how those affect the people finding them. Again, it's hard to build a themed anthology that's interesting, since the reader already knows at least some of what's going to happen, but ZNB's editors pick diverse stories that keep you reading.

And I finished Christine Feehan's Shadow Rider. Great story! I love Christine's writing, and her characters are both over-the-top and believable, something that's really tough to do. I struggled a little with the role of the female lead in this story, though, as she entered into a relationship with a male who dominates her completely. She's not QUITE submissive, but close, and seems to enjoy being told what to do, both romantically and otherwise. My suspicion, though, is that Francesca is going take on a bigger role in the family's shadow riding business as these books go along, meaning her character arc will bring out her feistier side, and make her a more active participant in her own life. Don't get me wrong -- I loved the book, and I have faith Christine will bring Francesca along nicely.

That's it for today. Read on!

Smothered Excerpt - October 2nd

Sundays mean excerpts! This is a scene in Mike's point of view from Chapter Seventeen, when he finds out his ex-wife's new beau has hit his daughter:
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Mike stepped out of his truck and into the oppressive heat and smothering humidity. He looked at the house in front of him. Sitting on a cul-de-sac, it looked exactly like the ones on either side of it, just with different paint and facings. Even the grass, with mosquitoes floating up from it to greet him, had been cut to the same length.

Mike saw the damage right away. The front gutter had ripped from the roof over the garage and now hung from one end, blocking the door. The homeowner—a twenty-something woman with her blonde hair in a ponytail—stood inside her garage, talking on her cellphone, gesturing wildly for Mike to come closer. Mike left the truck unlocked and strolled up the driveway, mopping at his brow while she chatted.

Denver technically sat on a high plains desert, so humid days were a rarity, but today he could have sliced the air with his packing knife and eaten it like pizza. With the heat came the mosquitoes, another rarity at 5,280-feet elevation. It made him love Denver even more: the lack of mosquitoes and cockroaches. They were around, but not nearly like they were in other places he'd lived.

Still, on this day, with leftover rain pocketing in low spots and still dripping from trees, the city had turned "muggy and buggy," according to one local meteorologist. And this neighborhood in Centennial had taken the brunt of both.

"Oh, thank you for coming so quickly," the blonde said, said, stuffing her phone in her back pocket. "My husband is deployed and I need to get to work. My boss is already pissed. I've had to take so much time off since Brad deployed. I think they might fire me. I'm Christine Stanley."

Mike looked around the garage. Posters of F-22 Raptors, B-2 bombers, and other aircraft plastered the wall. Hanging by the door into the house, a dark blue jacket gathered dust. A tricycle sat in one corner next to a two-seat stroller.

"Your husband's in the Air Force?"

"Air National Guard," she told him. "F-16 pilot at Greeley. They sent him to the desert again, covering for some active guys to come home. Of course, like every deployment, they botched up his pay. I hope you take credit cards."

"Well, to thank him for his service," Mike told her, "I'll get this fixed and you won't owe me until he comes home."

The relief on her face transformed her. Gone was the stressed-out woman trying to make ends meet while her husband was gone, and in her place stood a woman who seemed, for that instant, to have everything together.

"Thank you," she said.

"From one veteran to another," he said, "it's no problem. Now let me get this out of the way so you can get your kids to daycare and yourself to work."

Mike held up the gutter while she backed out under it, her kids waving. When she was gone, he surveyed the damage while cars whooshed by outside and birds sang in the trees. It looked like someone had jumped up and hung on the front lip of the gutter, pulling it down. The gutter was bent in the middle, forming a "V," and all the nails holding it had torn loose from the roof edge except for two at one end where the downspout held it up.

Mike set up his folding ladder and had climbed three steps when his cellphone rang. Normally, he'd have ignored it, but the ringtone was assigned to Maria. He never ignored her calls.

"Hey, munchkin," he began. The sound of sobbing stopped him.

"Daddy, can you come pick me up?" she asked through choked-off sobs.

"I'm on a jobsite right now, sweetie, what's wrong?"

She said nothing, which by itself put Mike's senses on high alert. In the background he heard Michelle's shrill voice yelling, the same shrill voice that had been directed at him more times than he could count.

"Maria, what happened? Where are you?"

"We're at Pitt's house." Now Pitt was yelling, presumably back at Michelle. Mike couldn't make out the words, but he knew rage when he heard it. "Daddy, he hit me."

Mike's world stopped. He no longer heard cars passing by, birds in the trees, or anything. His mind filled with the sound of Maria's voice and nothing else.

"He did what?" He kept his voice as even as he could, but his hands were shaking and he had somehow stepped down off the ladder without knowing it.

"He slapped me."

"Where?"

"On my butt. There's a hand print, Daddy. I took a—"

The sound of a scuffle reached Mike over the phone, and he held his breath until he heard Maria yell, "That's mine! You can't take it!"

She sounded distant, so Mike knew she didn't have her phone.

"Who pays for this phone, you ungrateful brat?" Pitt's voice still quivered with rage. "I do, so I will take it anytime I want, you understand?"

"That's my dad on the phone." Her voice was quieter this time. Confident. She knew Pitt stood on thin ice. Too bad Pitt didn't.

"Oh, so that's how it is? You go running off to your daddy every time things go wrong here?"

"At least he doesn't hit me."

Mike had heard enough.

Playlists!

Thought I'd do something a little different tonight and post up some tunes from my playlist. I listen to these while working the day job, and while writing, since music with lyrics doesn't really impact my writing too negatively.

I use Amazon Prime Music for my music, choosing to either shuffle all my songs (currently only 133 on the list...I just did a clean-out), or listening to a specific artist. Since I'm going to see Halestorm live in October, I've been listening to them a lot lately, but here are the first ten songs that come up on a random shuffle of my list:

1. I Miss the Misery - Halestorm
2. Angels Fall - Breaking Benjamin
3. Inhale - Stone Sour
4. Gone Sovereign - Stone Sour
5. Bring It - Trapt
6. Amen - Halestorm
7. Heaven Knows - The Pretty Reckless
8. Bitch Came Back - Theory of a Deadman
9. Silence and Scars - Pop Evil
10. Lydia - Highly Suspect

As you can tell, I'm a bit of a rocker, though there are some softer songs on my list. They just didn't come up this go-around.

And while I don't find lyrics affecting my writing, I do find the kind of music affecting the mood/tone sometimes. If I'm writing a love scene, for example, I wouldn't likely tune in any of these songs, but would opt for something more upbeat. If I'm writing a fight scene, though...

Happy Thursday, everyone!

Sunday Excerpt - Smothered

One archetype character in most romances is the "best friend" of the female protagonist. She often takes the form of a sister, best friend, co-worker, or even a mother, but I wanted to be a little different with Annie's BFF, so I made it a gay man, Jason. Here's a little tidbit from a scene where he shows himself to be the friend she needs:

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Annie fought back a sneeze as the smells of mildew, dust, and alcohol assaulted her nose. She shouldn't have been surprised, since her mom had been an accomplished drinker, and the house had sat empty for a year since her death. Sunlight sliced through the curtained windows in dusty blades of gold, lighting up the sitting room to their left, but leaving the hallway ahead of them shadowed and dark. Stairs rose to the left, carpeted with a red-patterned runner, leading up to the second floor. Annie led Jason down the corridor, peeking in the dining room, living room, den, and kitchen before stopping at the end of the hall.

Despite the smell, the interior was cool, as Annie had convinced her mother to install a central air conditioner during her last year. It had made her mother's final, bed-ridden days less painful, she thought, though her mother had never admitted it.

"No one home," she said. "Just furniture covered in sheets, some moving boxes, and dust."

Jason moved around her, his nose wrinkled. "And mice. I think I just stepped in their poop."

"You're such a girl," she told him, walking back the way they'd come.

"You should try it sometime," he said. "You might hold onto a guy."

She was about to wheel on him when the front door opened and the foreman peeked in. He looked like a child peeking into his parents' bedroom, wide-eyed and nervous. Apparently, he was a simple man from a farm, too.

"The men said you must go upstairs," he said, pointing. "Madre Muerta was there."

Then he disappeared like a mouse from the kitty's lair.

Annie sighed and put her foot on the steps. She paused, turned to Jason, and laughed. "We could run out like they did and scare them."

"Then who's going to carry all your furniture upstairs?" her friend quipped. "I know you sure won't do it. And that leaves me, so get up there and talk to your mom's ghost or whatever you need to do. Those sweaty men need to finish their job."

Annie chuckled and climbed the stairs, their wood complaining with every step. The house had been built in 1913, so some creaks were to be expected. Still, Annie knew each step's whiny voice, having grown up listening to them whenever her mother stumbled up to bed. They'd grown quieter, as if afraid now that her mother had died, or perhaps no longer protesting as much.

The upstairs hallway had four doors. On the left stood doors to the second and third bedrooms, with the second bathroom in between. On the right, the door to the master bedroom suite sat open, dusty light spilling out into the hallway from the tall window on the street-facing wall. Closing her eyes—a habit she'd acquired as a little girl who wasn't supposed to see inside that room—Annie tugged the door closed, letting out a breath she'd been unaware of holding.

Jason looked at her like she'd gone crazy, but she ignored him. He didn't understand. Couldn't.

"I closed that before the movers showed up," she told Jason. "One of them must have opened it after I told them not to. Remind me to yell at them."

"Oh, leave the poor men alone," Jason chided. "What harm is there in looking?"

No, he definitely didn't understand.

She peeked in the first bedroom on her left, the one where the movers had been stacking her things. The patterned wallpaper her brother had favored as a boy would have to go, sunlight having faded its hues, its corners peeling. Annie had managed to talk herself into taking the room, as it was a little bigger than her old space. She told herself that if she couldn't quite make herself take over her mother's old room, she at least deserved more than she'd had growing up. She was a successful marketing specialist now, not a frightened, bashful little girl, and Daniel had no claim on the house—Annie did.

Other than boxes and furniture, the room was empty, as was the second bathroom, with its outdated green toilet, matching sink, and shower. She liked the old, cracked subway tiles in that bathroom, and made a mental note to keep them when having the bathroom renovated. The room smelled of mold and had no heater vent, making it cold during the rough Denver winters, but she still couldn't make herself use the more modern master bath.

The third bedroom, at the end of the hall, held her paintings and boxes of art supplies, all stacked and piled like puppies dumped at the pound. The portrait of her mother had been covered again, but Annie had to shrug off the feeling that even through the thick, rough canvas, her mother somehow watched her, those cold eyes piercing material and flesh to see inside her heart.

Satisfied those three rooms held no supernatural threats, Annie took a deep breath, screwing up her courage, and faced the door to the master bedroom. Its cool, mahogany surface gleamed in the dim light of the hallway, showing a faint, twisted reflection of her face. She wondered how the door had remained so polished and shiny during the year since her mother died, but had not even completed the thought when something clattered on the hardwood floor inside. She jumped, grabbing Jason's shoulder for support. Her friend raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Annie gripped the chilly metal of the brass doorknob and eased the door open, peering through the growing opening. She felt like a little girl again, peeking inside the mysterious room, forbidden to both her and Daniel, fearing she might find her mother glaring back at her, ready to deal a slap or at least a sharp reprimand.

Something rushed at her on the floor, darting for the opening with a skittering sound. She jumped back, feeling stupid the instant she recognized the mouse. It dashed into the hallway and down the steps, leaving Annie panting like she'd run a marathon.

Jason laughed. "We probably shouldn't tell the men they were scared of a tiny mouse. Their machismo might cause some hurt feelings."

"Probably not," she said. "I'm hoping they'll finish this job just to avoid looking more frightened than a woman."

"You're a devious one," Jason said with a wink.

Annie hesitated at the door, her heart pounding, breath quickened. It had been a year since she'd gone inside, since her mother lay dying in the large, king bed. It seemed like an invisible force field blocked the door, pushing against her ever so gently, growing stronger the closer she came to entering, coalescing into an almost solid barrier that she couldn't force herself to step across.

"She's gone, Annie," Jason said, touching her shoulder. "It's all right."

What I'm Reading - September 22nd, 2016

Like any writer, I tend to have multiple books going at any given time. I'm currently plunging through four different books, in fact.

Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan is a sizzling hot paranormal romance about Francesca Capella, a wayward Italian girl in some trouble who finds herself in the hands of dark and dangerous Stefano Ferraro. Stefano is a shadow rider--a killer who gets around by disappearing into shadows--and a VERY traditional Italian man. So far, this is a nice blend of a supernatural thriller and a super-steamy erotic romance, where a strong female character gets involved with a stronger--even dominating--man.

I'm also reading an advanced reader copy (ARC) of Austin Rogers' space opera Sacred Planet. Austin's a friend of mine from my MFA studies, and he has put together a very entrancing story that blends science fiction and theology for a powerful story spanning a galaxy.

I backed a Kickstarter run by Zombies Need Brains, LLC awhile back, and just started my copy of Alien Artifacts, an anthology of stories about alien artifacts found by humans as we wander the universe. ZNB has always done great work, and so far, this book is another good one. Themed anthos can be tough to do well, but Josh Palmatier and Tricia Bray always do a great job populating theirs with superb fiction.

And finally, I just finished The Witcher Chime, by Amity Green. This is a horror tome that gave me more than a few nightmares. Neat take on ancient good and evil, superb setting and characters, and very suspenseful. I do NOT recommend reading it right before bed, like I did, as it really does cause some creepy dreams. But do read it.

Happy Thursday!

Love Wins Every Time

On this day fifteen years ago, hate won a battle against love as 19 men crashed planes into buildings and the ground, killing 3000+ people. That hateful act started a war, the ultimate victory of hate over love, in which thousands more lives were lost.

But as we remember the dreadful attacks of 9-11, I’m here to tell you that while hate might win some battles, love is winning the war. And fiction—especially the romance genre—proves it.

You see, people read fiction for hope. Because stories are about characters—people, usually—overcoming obstacles and triumphing over bad. And in romance particularly, stories are about love triumphing over hate, as evidenced by the genre’s insistence on happily-ever-after or at least happily-for-now endings. The basic thrust of the romance genre is that love conquers all, even hate. Even death. Even war.

According to Romance Writers of America (RWA), romance made 1.08 billion dollars in 2013. Folks, that's BILLION, with a B! During that year, 13% of fiction units sold were romance novels. The Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy has sold over 100-million copies and resulted in one of 2015's highest grossing movies. RWA itself has over ten thousand members, and in 2008 alone, over 7300 romance novels were published. Clearly, love remains a dominant force in American fiction.

So as you mourn today, as you remember the day that hate won a battle, remember too that love continues to win the war. That no matter how many lives are lost in hate’s name, that as long as people read or watch stories about love, as long as this romance genre exists, love is kicking butt and taking names. We’re winning the war on hate through words and stories of love. Love has always won, and it always will. Every time.

Sample Sunday - Excerpt from Smothered

Well, with the release of Smothered just two days away (Squee!), it seems like a good time for an excerpt.

The scene below takes place in the opening chapter of the book. Annie Brown has inherited her late mother's old Victorian home and is supervising the movers hauling items inside. The house is a bit run-down, as her mother had let maintenance slip in her later years. The workers seem a bit spooked by the old place, and Annie isn't exactly thrilled by the geriatric state of her new neighbors.

As if those things aren't enough, as she and her best friend Jason oversee the move-in, she gets a visit from someone she last saw in civil court, during a legal battle over the fate of the historic house.

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The sound of heels clacking on the sidewalk made them both turn as a tall, white-haired woman in a calf-length navy skirt, cream blouse, and black high-heels strode down the sidewalk. One of the movers started to cat call her, but a single down-the-nose glare from the frozen blue of her eyes stopped him cold, his mouth half-open. If he'd had a tail, it would have tucked between his legs.

Annie groaned and fought the urge to walk away. She'd dreaded this part of the day the most.

The woman came to a halt two or three yards short of their position, still exposed to the brutal sun, seeming not to notice its heat. Annie wondered if the woman's cold demeanor kept her cool even on a hot summer day like this.

"Ms. Brown," the woman said, contempt dripping from her words like blood from fangs, "I see you're moving in, right on schedule."

"Nice to see you too, Mrs. Mudge." Annie put on her sweetest tone, disguising the contempt she felt for the woman. "Yes, move-in is going as planned. Thanks for your concern."

Mudge didn't seem to notice Annie's sarcasm, or didn't understand it. "Be sure the moving truck is off the street by eight o'clock tonight, whether move-in is done or not. If you don't finish on time, have your ... employees come back in the morning. If Immigration hasn't scooped them up."

At the word "immigration," the foreman looked up, then turned back to his crew and spoke in Spanish.

"Don't worry," Jason told her, "they'll be done long before then. Will you be coming to the housewarming rave tomorrow? We have the most chiseled male dancers coming to perform on the front porch, followed by our own personal gay pride parade right down this very street."

His smile oozed sarcasm and Annie fought back a snicker.

"He's just kidding, Mrs. Mudge," she said. "I'm not having any parties. They're not my style."

Mudge wrinkled her nose and looked at Jason over the frame of her bifocals. Annie couldn't tell if she resented his blackness or his gayness. Probably both. Either way, Mudge didn't grant him the pleasure of a response, turning instead back to Annie. Reaching in her ultra-conservative handbag, she produced a thick packet of papers wrapped in a tasteful red jacket.

"Here are the Historical Society covenants," she said. "They're only eighty-nine pages long, so you should have no trouble reading them in a week. Maybe ten days. If you have any questions, anyone from the Society can help you. Just email the address on the cover."

Taking the packet, Annie rolled her eyes. "I'm sure I read much more complicated texts during my graduate studies. What's your degree in again, Mrs. Mudge?"

If the remark fazed her, Mudge didn't let it show. She adjusted her spectacles and looked down her nose again.

"Your late mother—God rest her soul—agreed to these covenants, but over the last two years failed to maintain their minimum standards, as you can see." Again she wrinkled her nose, as if offended.

"Yes, I'm aware of the lien your society so kindly placed on my mother's home right before her death. I like to think of it as helping her to her grave."

Mudge flinched, as if Annie had slapped her.

"We only did what our attorneys advised us," she said, pulling her glasses off and using a handkerchief to dab at the tiniest droplet of perspiration on her forehead. "In the best interests of the neighborhood."

Annie drew herself up. "I suppose it was in the best interest of the neighborhood to team up with my brother and sue for the house? To leave the house empty for over a year while we battled in court?"

"Your brother's interest—"

"My brother was only interested in money! He wanted to profit from the house, while you just wanted to control it."

"As I recall," Mrs. Mudge said, "you testified that you didn't really want the house. It holds bad memories for you. Remember?"

Annie winced, but she also recalled their early, happier days in the house, before her mother turned to vodka for companionship. Memories of pipe smoke and aftershave, crackling hardwood fires and laughter.

"I also testified that it held the only memories I have of my father. And this is all irrelevant anyway. The judge found the will legally binding and awarded the house to me. You lost."

Mrs. Mudge squared her shoulders, straightened her backbone, and sniffed.

"As you know, under the agreement reached in court, you have ninety days to get the house back in acceptable order on the exterior before we take further action."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Mudge," Annie assured her, "I'll make sure it gets done."

The Historical Society matriarch turned on her heel and strode off the way she came.

"Remember quiet hours, Ms. Brown," she tossed back over her shoulder. "This isn't the downtown bar scene."

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Mrs. Mudge ends up pestering Annie throughout the book, a constant source of irritation, stress, and conflict for Annie. The story takes place during the 90 day period Mudge mentions, and wraps up just as that period ends.

Hope you'll pick up a copy on Tuesday, when it hits Amazon!

Welcome to my Blog!

It's always hard to decide what content should go in your opening blog post, especially for a writer. Do I talk about my writing? Myself? What I'm reading or watching or listening to? Writers writing about writing is one of the most boring things to ever hit the internet, but as writers, we tend to be introverts, who don't like talking about our personal lives.

So to avoid going over the top on any subject, I'll brush on them all. I'll try just giving you an introduction to B.T. Clearwater, a little insight into who I am.

I write paranormal romance, horror, fantasy, science fiction, crime, and even a few westerns when the fancy strikes me. I focus mostly on paranormal romance right now, as I have one novel coming out in September in that genre, and I'm in the planning stages for a second. I write under a few different names, but I'll let you figure them out. No reason to release all the tension this early on. But I don't really worry, honestly, about genre when I start work on a story. A story is a story, if you tell it right, so why worry about labeling it needs it?

And my reading is similarly varied. Right now, I'm reading books in the genres of horror, crime, and paranormal romance. Again, a good story is a good story, no matter the advertising label slapped on it. And I'm enjoying all three stories equally, with Shadow Rider by Christine Feehan (the paranormal romance) being almost as tense and frightening as The Witcher Chime by Amity Green (the horror novel). Meanwhile, Issue Two of Crime Syndicate Magazine is as dark as both of them, and twice as gritty.

My musical tastes aren't nearly as encompassing as my reading and writing tastes. Admittedly, I'm a rocker. Halestorm. Disturbed. Stonesour. And of course, classic 80s and 90s rock, like Van Halen, Guns and Roses, and so on. It's not that I dislike other things--I can listen to just about anything and not complain--but the heavy stuff lets me vent some of my pent up frustration, and often times, the lyrics are much more meaningful than people give them credit for. And I find myself fascinated by modern music videos, as they're often stories in and of themselves. Stories that, sometimes, seem unrelated to the lyrics of the song.

I don't watch nearly as much TV or as many movies as I probably should, but I'll fess to being a Walking Dead addict. Not so much for Fear the Walking Dead. Love Grimm, and while I loved Once Upon a Time at first, I stopped watching it because it became kind of a dumping ground for Disney's fairy tales. On Sundays you won't pull me away from Game of Thrones unless the Bills are playing, and then I'll watch it later. Believe it or not, I also really enjoy Into the Badlands and D.C.'s Legends of Tomorrow, mostly because of their over-the-top characters, spiffy dialogue, and great casting. My favorite movies are Star Wars, The Princess Bride, Indiana Jones, Shrek, and The Lord of the Rings.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about my family. I'm twice-divorced. Seems my ability to write romance far exceeds my ability to maintain it in real life. I have two strong, independent daughters and two smart, driven sons. I used to be a cat person, but my last two dogs have changed my mind. So now I have a very old cat and a too-smart-for-her-own-good dog who uses cuteness like a billy club.

I do not discuss politics, religion, or social issues on the internet for two reasons. First, arguing these things on the internet, no matter which side you take, is a great way to alienate people and drive away potential readers/friends. Second, when you get right down to it, I'm just a storyteller, an entertainer. My job isn't to rub the smelly dirt of my reality in your nose and make you take sides in something. My job is to give you a break from that reality, an escape from the daily back biting, bitterness, and vitriol that clutters up your mind. I can't do that if I'm beating you over the head with morals or themes or self-righteous preaching from either side of the political aisle. It's not that I don't want my writing to mean something. Quite the opposite. I want it to be that thing that leaves you thinking about it, and lets that escape from reality linger and ferment into something intoxicating. I just don't want to pour that drink down your gullet--I want you to imbibe of your own accord.

So there you go. That's B.T. Clearwater in a nutshell. Or a nuthouse. I'll try to post at least every other week at first, upping it to weekly after that as I can. Hope you'll join me for future posts!