Summer Vacation Blog Tour--Day Four

Join me and the leader of the Four Brothers Clan, Mateo, on Keta Diablo's blog today. Come away to Smith Mountain Lake where Reese Emmerson thinks she'll have a quiet getaway. Ahhh, the best laid plans of mice and telepaths....

Own your copy of Hour of the Wolf today: http://cobblestone-press.com/catalog/author/cjelliott.htm

Four Brothers Clan, Book Two Excerpt

Excerpt Thrown to the Wolves, Book Two, The Four Brothers Clan Series featuring Sébastien

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Sébastien des Quatre-Frères watched his brother survey the enclave, set up in the heart of what les étrangers called The Everglades.

All was running smoothly today—as usual—but Sébastien couldn't help but sweat Matéo's scrutiny. Not that Sébastien would admit it in a million years, but Matéo always made him nervous. Not to mention that Matéo overreacted to everything these days, but with good reason.

Quinna slipped up to him, her honey-brown hair glinting in the scant sunlight. Scrubby Cypress foliage cast patches of shadow across her face. Her expression tugged at his heart; her pink lips pressed together as though she didn't know what to say.

Relax, she communicated with her thoughts. It's been quiet today. And he's only here to help.

Her hand grazed his bare arm. He tensed away from the contact. Shh. He'll hear you.

I'm channeling only to you.

Doesn't matter, Quinna. He hears everything.

“It's true. I do hear everything.” Matéo walked over to them and kissed Quinna's cheek. “And it pisses off my older brother.”

She lowered her head, dropped her gaze, and bowed deeply.

“Quinna, how long have you known me?” He lifted her chin. “Have I ever asked for this kind of deference from anyone, much less someone I think of as a sister?”

She rose to face him. Her voice sounded tight and thin like it always did when she was nervous. “No, Téo.”

“That's better. How have you been, ma chère?”

“Good, thanks. And you?”

“I'll be better when we figure out why les anglais are here.”

“If they're here,” Sébastien chimed in.

“Your subjects are sure they're here and it frightens them.”

With the abomination Matéo had put down last season and now two scouts missing didn't help the rumors.

“Let's get back to the chateau. If the trespassers are here, I don't want my presence to scare them off.”

Sébastien set his jaw at his little brother's arrogance. Well, his younger brother. Physically bigger, more gifted at the Ancient Arts, and higher ranking, the word 'little' didn't fit Matéo in any way, shape or form. Lupine or otherwise. Instead, Sébastien tucked a lock of glossy black hair behind one ear and held out his hand, motioning for his brother to precede him.

Hour of the Wolf, Book One, Four Brothers Clan Series

Hour of the Wolf, Book One, Four Brothers Clan Series featuring Matéo

Available now at Cobblestone Press

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Blurb:

Reese Emmerson's annual summer vacation to the solitude of Smith Mountain Lake started off normally, but then voices in the night tear her from her peaceful slumber. Not that this is unusual. She's been hearing the thoughts of others for as long as she could remember.

Now, the thoughts of two wolves are intruding on her consciousness. Wolves? Yeah, she really must be losing it. Then again, there may be some thing more dangerous going on. Without the help of a beautiful stranger, Reese will fall prey a sinister obsession.

Excerpt:

More than anything else, Reese Emmerson craved quiet. Not that she needed to escape from the hustle and bustle of Fredericksburg—as if the university town she called home could be referred to as hustling and bustling. She longed most for respite from the whispering.

One would think, for a person of Reese’s abilities, the daytime hours would be toughest, but this wasn’t the case. Daytime whispers were usually innocuous. Pick up a gallon of milk. Don’t forget dinner tonight with the dean. Chem paper due. French Lit paper due. Art History paper due. As an assistant professor of English Lit at Mary Washington University, she lived near campus, and there were always lots of whispers about papers due. These mundane things she could block out. Not like the voices she heard at night.

Does she know I’m screwing her roommate?

That’s it. Today was the last time I cut myself. For real, this time.

C’mon, take drink, you little bitch. Then you won’t be too good for me.

Help me. God, somebody help me.

I need something to come down. I need to sleep.

Reese understood a longing for deep, dreamless sleep. She rarely enjoyed a full night’s rest. Some random whisper would wake her; then her own worries would kick in. and she’d be up for the rest of the night. The hour of the wolf—that was what her father, Gene, called it. That time after midnight but before dawn when all one’s worries came home to roost. Fear preying on itself, using vulnerability and fatigue to inflate its importance. Reese knew the phenomenon all too well.

But at the cottage, the whispers couldn’t reach her. Situated near Smith Mountain Lake, but far enough into the woods that she had no neighbors for miles in each direction, the cabin gave her a much needed sanctuary. Even on the drive down, the whispers weren’t too bad except when going through Richmond, particularly Jackson Ward. Junkies and whores and gangbangers, oh my! Too much sorrow to block out there. But past that onslaught of desperation, Reese could turn up the radio and think for a little while that she was just like everyone else. It was one of her favorite games: pretending to be normal. But she wasn’t.

Own your copy today

The Four Brothers Clan (des Quatres-Freres) Comes to Facebook!

My book, Hour of the Wolf, and the Four Brothers Clan series has its own Facebook fan page! 'Like' it today :)

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Fans-of-The-Four-Brothers-Clan/112634338784601?ref=ts

And don't forget to add the brothers as friends for an inside look into their lives, shifter culture, and for special fan announcements.

Mateo http://tinyurl.com/mateofb

Sebastien http://tinyurl.com/sebastienFB

Remy http://tinyurl.com/remyFB

and Aime http://tinyurl.com/aimeFB

Weirldy 3 is HERE!

Get your copy of all the Weirdly goodness today! My alter-ego, mistress of the dark, CJ Elliott has a wicked little tale in this anthology that includes scary, creepy, eerie or just plain weird stories.

Best Laid Schemes by CJ Elliott
Adeline Pickington's husband is at it again. There's perfume on his clothes and lipstick on his collar. He's humiliated her like this so many times she might drink herself into an early grave. With a prenup in place, Addie can't walk out unless she wants to wind up penniless. Her only option: Kill the bastard.

Addie does her research, sets up her alibi, and follows her cheating husband to his 'fishing' cabin. She plans to murder him and his little floozie in flagrante delicto, but the best laid schemes of mice and murderesses often go astray. Now Addie's gotten herself into mess she may not make it out of alive.

Buy it now link
http://tinyurl.com/weirdly3

The Weirdness is Coming!

I'm thrilled to share with you Wild Child Publishing's upcoming release of Weirdly, vol 3, of which I am happily a part. Well, okay, CJ Elliott--my darker alter-ego is a part of it. And CJ has whipped up a doozie of a tale for y'all.

Best Laid Schemes is a twisted tale of betrayal, revenge, and madness. Adeline Pickington's husband is at it again. There's perfume on his clothes and lipstick on his collar is hard to miss. He's humiliated her like this so many times she might drink herself into an early grave. With a prenup in place, Addie can't walk out unless she wants to wind up penniless. Her only option: Kill the bastard. Addie does her research, sets up her alibi, and follows her cheating husband to his 'fishing' cabin. She plans to murder him and his little floozie in flagrante delicto, but the best laid schemes of mice and murderesses often go astray. Now Addie's gotten herself into mess she may not make it out of alive.

Watch for the weirdness, January 26th!

Delusions of Grandeur

As anyone who's read my work can tell you, I keep my characters and plots grounded in contemporary reality. Sharp prose-check. Engaging characterization-check. Sexy love scenes-BIG check. Flights of fancy....not so much. That is until I hit my latest bout of insomnia.

Getting only four hours of sleep every night leave one with much time to write. I've finished a few current projects, started edits on others so I figured it was time to dip into the NWIPF-- Neglected Work In Progress File. There I found a story that has been swimming around the goldfish bowl of my brain for nearly a year titled 'Hour of the Wolf.' Okay, it's more CJ's story than mine, but since we both occupy the same head and I don't have the strength to create a blog of her own, I figure it's okay to refer to the work as mine. (This multiple author personality disorder moment has been brought to you by Prozac). Sorry for the digression.

Anyhoo, I had only the broadest of strokes laid out for this tale of shape-shifting love:
Sophia came to Albemarle Sound for a little peace and quiet. Spending most of her alone, she's fascinated by a red wolf who's taken to visiting her nightly. When she meets Gabriel, a singularly handsome man in town during a shopping trip, he seems all too familiar. Is it Sophie's imagination or does this stranger possess a wolfish quality? Suddenly the wolf's visits cease and Gabriel disappears as well. Determined to find out what's going on, Sophia discovers a dark secret revealed in local folklore. Can she free the wolf and Gabriel from a curse that dates back to colonial days?

Could've been the 'singularly handsome man' part or the 'dark secret,' but something about the project intrigued me. I started to play around with an outline. A few hours later, the outline was finished and the project had gone from an idea for a short story to an epic novel complete with an underground society of American werewolves. I took the next step and broke the outline into scenes and chapters, then toiled away at character worksheets, backstories, geneology charts, and mapped out territories for the Lupine Alphas. See, I've even given my wolven folk a working nickname.

I should be all set to write....except for one thing....Am I out of my cotton-picking mind??? I've never created a fantasy world, I know nothing about writing a paranormal plotline, and the scale of the undertaking is freaking me out ever so slightly. An epic saga...did ya really have to start with an epic saga? I've got a bang up opening scene for the first chapter, but other than that, my fingers are frozen with anxiety. Have I finally gone off the deep end into delusions of grandeur? Stay tuned. The mental breakdown will be blog-a-cized.

Bread Dough Diaries--Epiphany #2

Happy Monday, all. While Monday marks the end of Easter festivities for some, it also means it’s Bread Dough Diaries day! Come on, don’t pretend like you aren’t excited, lol.
So, today’s installment is actually more of a Cake-Batter-Epiphany, but I think it qualifies since technically cake IS a type of bread–just ask Marie Antoinette. I know, I know, she didn’t really say that. Anyhoo, I started writing the first chapter of Clean–Book 2–Devil in the Details this weekend (woo hoo!) and of course, immediately came up against a snag. Here’s the situation:
The book opens with an echo of the ‘box nightmare’ that plagued our heroine, Della Jordan, from the first book. DJ indeed finds herself in a box, a broom closet to be precise, but this is no nightmare. She’s actually trapped in the closet with a five year-old girl who’s mother has just been murdered by three Russian mobsters. The thugs don’t know DJ and Natalia are there and our heroine would like to keep it that way. My challenge as the author–how to get them OUT of the closet.

Plan A- in typical DJ style, was to come out, gun blazing. She’d neutralize the threat then retrieve the little girl. But my bullsh*t alarm went off and I couldn’t write it that way. What’s wrong with that scenario? 1- DJ’s one tough woman, but I doubt she could take out three guys with only a .32 before one of them has time to open fire on her. 2- No matter what they show in TV and movies, five year-olds do not often keep their cool in a crisis soooo the only thing that’s keeping Natalia from kirking out is the fact that DJ is there to hold her hand. If DJ leaves the girl alone in the dark, the mother in me says the girl will start screaming and crying, especially because her mother has been killed. All the ruckus would give away DJ’s surprise attach for sure. Back to the drawing board.

Plan B- With this one, I thought I’d found the ideal solution. As DJ often did in the first book, she texts Mickey for help. Though he’s surprised to find out that she’s not in Barbados as she should be, he calls 911 and reports a domestic disturbance at the NJ apartment DJ’s trapped in. Ultra-pleased with myself, I went about my day….and then I decided to make cupcakes.

While I folded the cake flour into the batter, my inner monologue declared a loud ‘DOH!’ Of course Plan B wouldn’t work. Mickey can’t call the cops. DJ’s whole career is about avoiding police involvement. There’s a dead body in the apartment which means the po-po would have a few questions for Ms. Jordan. Damnit! Back to the drawing board.

Then, right in the middle of filling pastel-colored cupcake liners, the answer hit me. Mickey could still call 911, but instead of domestic disturbance, he reports smoke coming from the window of the apartment next door to where DJ is holed up. The sirens would still run off the Russians and DJ could slip out with Natalia without any law enforcement complications. And since I’ve got a source who used to be a NJ firefighter who can tell me what the firemen would do in the case of a false alarm, I can work out the details with a high degree of accuracy. Yessss! I licked the batter from my wooden spoon quite satisfied with myself. DJ’s out of the closet and I’m free to write on…until I hit another plot snag which I’m sure will happen any time now, lol.

The Bread Dough Diaries--Epiphany #1

Today I thought I'd share with you a new blog series I'm working on called The Bread Dough Diaries. With the help of a couple insightful friends (Thank you, Kensi and Muriel!), I realized that cooking and baking are integral to my writing process. Now, before you accuse me of cat-vacuuming--and believe me, I can cat-vacuum with the best of them--my culinary endeavors give me much needed meditation time. I have the best ideas when I'm away from the laptop with my hands covered in flour while I knead like a mad woman. Yesterday was no exception.


I've been struggling a bit to complete the plot outline for the second book in the Clean series, titled Devil in the Details. But yesterday, as I worked the gluten in what would become a five grain loaf, I had that gorgeous 'Eureka!' moment. It turns out that Boris took a blood-stained handkerchief from the target of a hit because.....y'all didn't think I was really gonna blurt out a spoiler like that, did you? Ouch, ouch! Stop flogging me! Sorry, I'm a story tease, I can't help it! Want to know more about the Clean series? Drop by CJ Elliott's website. There are some blurb-a-licious excerpts and even a sample chapter from the first book!



Viva the Bread Dough Diaries. Check 'em out each Monday on my blogs to find out what CJ and I are up to for the week!

Available today!

I'm proud to announce two new releases today. They're both bite-sized bits of action packed fiction.

The Wedding Feast is my first horror short story written as CJ Elliott. Buy it today at Wild Child Publishing

On the heels of unbearable personal tragedy, Chloe escapes to the peace of a family cabin in rural Kentucky. When her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, she's forced to go against her better judgment and accept a ride from a stranger.

Shade is tall, darkly handsome, and taciturn. He takes her to his cabin in the woods to use his phone, where he introduces her to his gaggle of motherless children. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, Chloe's visit stretches on and more mysteries about Shade and the children crop up. Can Chloe make it back to civilization and safety before this family's deadly secret engulfs her?

Another first for me, this BDSM story just might melt your hard drive! Buy it now at Freya's Bower.

Fiona Wilder's name didn't fit her at all...until she met Marcelo. Introducing her to a world of sexual play--limited only by their imaginations--he unlocks Fiona's wildest fantasies.

Book One: Master and Servant: Fiona becomes Marcelo's protégé, discovering the power that comes from submission.