Updated Sched

I updated my (tentative) 2014 schedule, finally!!  

A Fighting Chance in February. You already know the premise so I'm not going to give you the rundown again. 

Fuel in May. Female POV. Drug trafficking. Brazil. A love interest who might be a cold-blooded killer. Fun times.

Breathlessly in December. This is Abel's book. And probably my last foray into contemporary romance for a very long time.

A Fighting Chance --- "But" -Tuesday teaser

 A Fighting Chance won't be out until next year (Feb), and this will probably be the last teaser until after Christmas, but I'll post some fun stuff about Jesse and Drew: dream cast, inspiration, why I love underground fighting, my take on fictional violence ('cause it's here aplenty lol), etc. Anyway, here's the (unedited) teaser:

The two of us are still carrying on the same silence from before. There's no radio playing and barely an audible exhale. But it’s hardly cold and empty silence. The Mexican heat is permeating the car and kindling a strange energy between us. The air in here is churning with something.

Something flammable, something volatile.

I can feel it beneath my skin. In my lungs. In my blood. 

“You’ll be happy in Glory,” I say finally. “You will make a great life there for yourself with Buck, even without your parents’ help. You’ll probably end up with that job you want. You will put this behind you and never have to think about it again. And that’s why letting you go is the best idea…” I swerve into a U-turn, angering every driver in the vicinity, as I pull off to the side of the road. I get out of the car, run around to the other side and open her door. “But...”  

What comes after the "but"??????? We all know it's the most important part of the sentence!! LOL Of course I would leave you hanging in the middle of dialogue! You'll just have to wait and see. ;)

A Fighting Chance -- "Scare"

“Sometimes, I think...we’re only for each other…”

“Shit...” she whispers.

“What?”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“Yeah, it does…”

“Good. Because I swear to God, Jess, I’m either going to love you until I die or loving you is actually going to kill me. And both of those options scare the shit out of me.”

A Fighting Chance teaser (unedited)

“Will you say yes now?”

Her lips hum across my cheek and stop at the corner of my mouth. “I’m saying it…” 

So I kiss her, and we surrender to desire we both know is reckless and forbidden. But it’s also hungry and unstoppable. Between ragged breaths, my tongue strokes hers, and her fingers dig into my back as mine sink into her hair. I feel her touch everywhere, inside and out, and I’m shaking when my teeth graze her neck. My lips trace the slant of her jaw, and the sound of her moans only stokes the desperate fever in my bones.

Drew, breathless, pulls back, her fingers still clawing me. “What else are you asking, Jess?”

“What else do you want, Drew?” I whisper, but her lips just fall on mine again. We collapse against each other, and the friction of our bodies is overwhelming. I drown in the heightened pleasure of her touch as her needy fingers curl into my neck and her breasts mash against my chest. We kiss with even more abandon than before, sinking into every ounce of raw, naked lust we’ve both been suppressing. The rough way our lips move makes mine feel bruised, and I don’t care because the taste of her mouth is intoxicating.

The thing about lines? They stop being dangerous the moment you cross them; they stop mattering then, too. And instead of admitting that, you just set another limit, raise the stakes, draw another boundary for your sins, and find a way to justify your actions. Like how I tell myself Drew and I are just kissing. It’s the mix of alcohol and old feelings in a hot nightclub. Nothing a little morning sunlight won’t fix. I tell myself at least we’re not sleeping together. But the truth is, I would have. Right here if she let me.

"A Fighting Chance" cover reveal.

The super talented Arijana K of Cover It Designs created a hot cover for "A Fighting Chance." I seriously cannot tell you enough how fantastic she is. It's dark, it's sexy, and it's just awesome! Can't wait for you to see it! If you're a blogger and want to be a part of the cover reveal on Dec 6th, make sure you keep an eye out for the sign-up at http://atomrbookblogtours.com/ over the next few weeks.

A Fighting Chance teaser

"“I saw you fight in Guadalajara. You were trying to be noble.” Sandrine sticks another cigarette between her lips and exhales smoke through her nose. “There is no honor in this, Jesse, and don’t bring it into those places with you. These guys will kill you if you let them. Without hesitation or remorse or any regard for who’ll miss you. Never forget that.”"  --A Fighting Chance, 2014. [teaser from unedited version].

A Fighting Chance teaser

The blurb of AFC is below this post, but if you're too lazy, here's the three sentence synopsis: Jesse Chance is a former underground fighter who moved on from the life when his mom died. He's been at college far from his home in Glory, Texas, but his dad shows up, begging for his help. And what he ends up having to do forces him back into the ring.

 And this is the unedited teaser:

I’m standing in front of Murphy’s Bar, unable to decide if the unbearable heat or the heavy ball of emotion in my stomach is worse. I take in the evening scenery, and it’s like I’ve unearthed Glory from a time capsule, because not a single store, house or car has changed in four years.

“Well, well…the bastard son returns,” Jeremy Huck says. He’s still fucking leaning on the wall outside of Murphy’s like he’s holding it up. “Heard you went off to some Yankee college. What? They put you out?”

“Is my dad in there?” He’s not answering my calls, and this is the best place to find him after dark.

“You have one of those?” I don’t even bother giving him the finger or a response, and I edge past him and step inside. It’s full of the usual crowd, another thing that hasn’t changed, and the jukebox still plays too low to hear it. “Henry left about ten minutes ago,” he continues, trailing me. “His barstool’s still warm, though. Go sit. He left his drink, too. You can have it. Like father, like son of a whore.” My elbow connects with his face right in the middle of his laughter. There's a cracking sound—some might call the noise sickening, I call it earned—and he drops to his knees. Blood is already gushing from his nostrils, seeping through the spaces between his fingers, by the time I turn around, and he’s howling in pain. Dammit, I was hoping for teeth.

“Motherfucker, you’re still a piece of shit! You’re trash! You came into the world a piece of shit, and no fancy car or fancy college is going to change that, Chance.” His twin brother, Isaac, runs toward me but has a change of heart and tends to Jeremy instead.

            Everyone in the bar is watching us. Some of them crane their necks to get a better look and I see the recognition in their eyes, followed by agreement with the Hucks. I tsk. These are the people who marched into Sacred Hearts Baptist to pray for the soul of my mother the sinner on Sundays, and angrily urged me to slam another boy’s bloody face into stretched canvas on Thursdays.

Home sweet home. I walk outside, keeping my back to Murphy’s to let the Hucks know neither actually poses any threat to me, but I’m ready to go back to my hotel, a tiny inn a few towns over. I want to go back to Hamilton, actually. I want to hide. The old feelings come rushing in, and for a moment I hear a never quite forgotten voice in my head reminding me, too, of what I am here. Worthless. Unloved.  I haven’t heard that voice in a while, even though it belongs to me.

It’s only after I release a breath that I realize I’m clenching everything from jaw to fists. Shaking, too. I wish I could say Jeremy's words don’t matter anymore, but they do. They fester; the psyche collects them like a bag that never fills. It just expands and reshapes itself, finding new ways to pack all the hurt, humiliation and pain into its spaces, and then makes room for more. What’s interesting is that if you internalize enough negativity, other people’s insults just end up complementing the damage you do on your own. Glory carved quite a wound in me. And some wounds just don’t heal. But I spent a lot of time re-cutting it myself.