Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024!

So I swore that for 2023, I would get my "year in review" post done by the end of December...and then it didn't happen. Oops. Sorry. But, to be fair, a LOT happened and even more new and exciting things are in the works for 2024!

First, the recap:

2023 was the year of eight books. It was fun and I'm so happy the Searching the Skies series is complete and out there for the world to see...but I'm not sure if I ever want to do that again. I also finished and released Sonata for Springtime, which was an achievement considering how long the first third of that manuscript sat on the time-out shelf, along with two spicy novellas, Train Hard, Rest Harder and Tangled In His Possession.

2023 also brought about a new logo and an Etsy shop for physical products (focusing on personalized signed paperbacks, but there are some stickers and bookmarks in there too!). 

A lot of what I started working on in 2023 was in preparation for my big plans for 2024. In no particular order:

The rerelease of The Edge of the Sphere is now available for pre-order! This is the last of my earlier books where the rights reverted back to me when the publisher shut down. Obviously it has some gorgeous new cover art, and I edited the hell out of it to bring it up to my current standards. Part of me can't believe I wrote this book twelve -- yes, twelve -- years ago, but I still love the characters and their story. Paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited will be available on January 19th!

Next, people keep asking me about audiobooks, and I've finally decided this is the year. At some point, I'd love to have the majority of my publications where I own the publishing rights available in audiobook, but since this is a brand new adventure for me, I'm trying to take things slow. (But let's just say one may already be in the works...)

Lastly, remember the logo rebrand and the physical merchandise I mentioned? Much of that is due to me booking my first in-person appearances at signings and conventions, starting this year. As of right this second, I'm booked for two in 2024 and two in 2025, but I have some applications and feelers out for a few more. I'll post a schedule soon!

Here's to a happy and productive 2024! Cheers!

From 2021 to 2022

Hey, I'm only a week late with my "year in review" post! 2021 was a busy year writing-wise and 2022 looks like it's going to be the same. Let's recap what happened and what's coming up!

2021:

The big event of this year was re-releasing the Disintegration series. New edits, new formatting, new (awesome!) cover art...and then I had to market the damn things. Overall, I'm happy with how everything went, and I'm beyond thrilled that these books I've loved so much for so many years are back out in the world and resonating with new readers.

I also released a short story, Sweet Escape, which is now on Kindle Unlimited after retiring from the role of being my newsletter freebie. Feedback on that one has also been good, and I'm happy with that, too. (How could you *not* be happy when chocolate cake is involved?)

As far as writing and planning ahead goes, I signed a bunch of contracts for some upcoming releases, which I'll elaborate on in my next section, appropriately titled...

2022:

The first round of edits plus the mock-up of the cover are done for A Flame Among the Stars, my upcoming lesbian fantasy romance. Longtime artist buddy Boobulon is doing character artwork for the main cast, which I also can't wait to share! No official release date yet, but we'll still label it as "coming soon!"

I also successfully accomplished many parts of another big item on my to-do list - rebooting the Searching the Skies series. To quickly recap, Book #1 was my first published book ever, Book #2 came out about a year and a half later, but while Book #3 was planned, it never happened for various reasons. At the beginning of 2021, I fiiiiinally wrote Book #3, which didn't take long at all, since it had been bouncing around in my head for many years. I also realized it didn't have a satisfactory ending to the series as a whole, so my planned trilogy is now five books long. (Hey, it worked for Kevin Smith.) I signed contracts for Books 1-3, and I'm nearing the end of writing Book #4 now.

I have another short story that's just about ready to go, but I'm trying to space out my publications. This one just needs one more quick edit, formatting, and a finalized cover. For that last point, I'm still working on my basic graphic design skills, but I was able to create a pretty cool text effect for the title. Somewhere in the back of my head, I do want to write more short stories, yet, as we all know, these things take time.

Lastly...I have to figure out what I want to do with The Edge of the Sphere, the last of my books where the rights reverted back to me after the publisher shut down. I'm kind of torn here - I do still like a lot of the story, though I definitely don't consider it my best work. It needs some editing, though not a ton. (I think I even started working on that a while back, but I don't even know off the top of my head.) It needs a new cover, and I'd have to decide if I want to tackle it myself or outsource it. If/when I get around to re-releasing it, I'd probably do a paperback version, so I might want to turn this one over to the pros again. My biggest issue, though, is marketing and promotion. Do I really want to spend a lot of time on a book I like very much, but may not love? Do I just want to sort of passively put it out there and let my other books sell it for me? I don't know. When I have the schedule for everything else more formalized, maybe I'll think about putting it back out there during a quieter period.

Whew! That's quite the list! Somewhere in here, I need to catch up with my reading and my Netflix, both of which have been seriously neglected over the past year. But first, back to writing the final chapter of Chasing the Skies! (Yes, it has a title already, yay me!)

Structure/Pacing in Romance (specifically THOSE scenes)

I'm still happily chugging along on Elemental Forces. I passed the 20K word mark and have plenty of story left to tell. While I don't have a firm word count estimate just yet, this is shaping up to be the longest book I've written in quite some time.

Believe it or not, I don't have a written outline here. At this point, everything's plotted out pretty well in my head, so maybe I'll never get around to making one. But as I've been thinking over the structure and pacing in this project, I realized that I have two distinct categories for my books, and most romances probably fall into one or the other. And those categories are differentiated by...wait for it...*drumroll*...the sex scenes.

(The rest of this post will probably not be sexy. Sorry to disappoint.)

Category 1: One Sex Scene

All the novellas go here, which makes sense. (Hey, sex scenes take a lot of words!) I guess in these books, the primary plot/conflict/focus/whatever you want to call it is the good ol' "will they or won't they?" and everything gets wrapped up in a pretty little bow at the end when the characters finally bang. Excuse me, get their "happily ever after." Sure, other plot stuff happens, but it's all leading up to the big moment. To be fair, in some of my novellas, the one sex scene doesn't come right at the end, as the characters still have to work out their relationship issues before riding off into the sunset, but the concept stands.

Nothing is absolute, though, so there are some slight exceptions. Elysium, while novella-length, *technically* has two sex scenes, but they're back-to-back, so lumping them together is fair. Likewise with Seductive Suspect, which hovers on the border of "long novella" and "short novel" - the two sex scenes are adjacent to each other, and then the resolution of the mystery part of the plot comes afterward.

Category 2: Multiple Sex Scenes

It's not a surprise that the longer books go here, and then that got me thinking about various plots and their purposes. "Happily ever after" is still always the primary goal of romance, but the length of the route to get there varies. I admit this is where I sometimes struggle with the pacing. When the main characters get together relatively early on, the plot has to keep moving. It's easy to say "time for a sex scene, yay!" but the scenes also have to mean something and not feel gratuitous. I also realize this is highly subjective, as a look at any book with conflicting reviews will indicate. This also probably gets into the topic of romance vs. erotic romance vs. erotica, which I'm not going to touch here.

When writing Disintegration (which I'll likely re-release sometime in 2021), I was extra super careful while plotting out the progression of the sex scenes in the book, of which there are many. Almost, if not all of them are relevant to the plot, each building on the one that came before it. On the other hand, in Fire Beyond the Frost, there might be one or two in there that aren't necessarily relevant to the overall plot, but hey, they're fun, so why not. Then, while I was reviewing The Edge of the Sphere for its eventual re-release (no date set yet), there was even a sex scene I'd completely forgotten about. OOPS.

So, those are my two categories I've discovered. Is one better than the other? No, of course not. Does one take more careful plotting than the other? Eh, possibly. Most writers have cut huge chunks of work out of their final product, and I'm no exception. As noted above, there's no right answer for when to include these scenes, or how many to put in, and so on. If it works, it works, and I try not to ask too many questions when it *does* work!

Summer!

I'm too lazy to look, but I'm pretty sure I make a post every year about how I usually don't get a lot of writing done during the summer. I am still plotting my next project, I'm getting The Edge of the Sphere ready for re-release by the end of August, and I'm also working on some website/marketing/behind-the-scenes stuff that is either boring or not ready to be unveiled yet. So, while I guess that all counts as being productive, I haven't written any new words since the short fanfic I finished at the beginning of the month.

We did make it up to Cape Cod last week, which turned out to be great. I was worried about how the trip would go, both due to the virus and my mom not being there, but overall, everything went well. One of my biggest concerns was stopping at the rest areas on the travel days, since it's too long of a trip to make without stopping at least once. I intentionally picked the smaller ones, though even the big ones looked less crowded than normal, and everything was fine. I wouldn't want to travel anywhere outside the northeast right now, but as our neighbor who lives up there full-time told us, everyone's pretty much been behaving themselves in our town. We usually ate the vast majority of our meals at the house anyway, and we're lucky enough to have a small private beach at the end of the street.

To be fair, our house isn't in one of the super-touristy areas, and we've decided not to do activities like mini golf and go karts. We did, however, drag the kids out hiking with us, and while there was some whining, they did well for the most part. We'll investigate some new trails next time we're up, especially since the ones we went on were not crowded AT ALL in the morning.

Yeah, I'm not stepping on those wooden planks again.

We could definitely tell there's fewer people around than is typical for this time of year, but hey, I'm not complaining. I know of at least three families who canceled their rentals up there because they're "restaurant people", which is fair. (Or, as one of them told me, she wasn't going to pay a lot of money to listen to her family whine about not being able to do anything they wanted for a week. You can get that at home for free!) I wouldn't say it's completely empty up there, but there's definitely a decrease in traffic.

The reviews for this trail said it looked like something out of The Hobbit. I wouldn't know firsthand, but sure!

I kept saying that we'd see how the first week went and then make our decisions for the rest of the summer. When I was stressed out up there last year, one of my coworkers/friends summed it up perfectly: when the kids are young, it's not a "vacation", it's a "family trip". This was probably the first time in a long time I was really sad to leave. The current plan is to go up again on Sunday, stay for two weeks, come home for a week, and then go up for one more. I'll be bringing my work equipment to work remotely if necessary, and if school is going to be mostly virtual, we might even stay a little longer.

No one else was here when we visited. NO ONE.

I might as well mention that I finally read two books last week I'd been meaning to get to for a while and liked them both, so that was another plus. There are quite a few ebooks on my to-read list that have no waiting list at my library at the moment, so I'm hoping I'll be equally lucky this trip. I also picked up my knitting project I'd abandoned around February in favor of the baby blanket, made a big mistake, but then managed to fix it without having to rip it out. Everything seems to be going so relatively well, maybe I should attempt to write a few words!

As always, I hope everyone's staying safe and healthy. Enjoy your summer as best you can, and be sure to take care of yourselves, too.

Choosing a Direction

In my last post, I made a short vague statement about revisiting an old project/idea, accompanied by a promise to write a blog post about it. You know how sometimes when you sit around thinking about something, debating all the pros and cons and everything, if you wait long enough, a decision is made for you? That's kind of where I'm at right now. So, here's the promised post.

A couple of weeks or months ago (time has lost all meaning in this pandemic), I was thinking about some of my earliest books. I reviewed my contracts to see when the rights would revert back to me, and I was there on most of them. I was debating emailing the publisher to clarify a couple things, and then working on a plan for what I want to do with the books. I ran this by usual sounding board buddy Boobulon, and his immediate reaction was to encourage me to do this, reminding me that the works are mine, and if enough time has passed, I should take advantage of the reversion clause. I thanked him for his input, and ultimately filed the whole thing away in the "stuff to maybe get to someday" mental folder.

Then this morning, I got an email saying that the aforementioned publisher is closing/being absorbed by another company, and all rights have reverted. Okay, that's taken care of, I guess. There was a list of options regarding relisting with the new site, paying a fee to retain cover art and formatting, and so on. I've given all of this some thought, and luckily, for what I want to eventually accomplish, I don't have to *do* anything or contact anyone. The rights are mine, and I'm not going to have the books listed with the new site.

To steal the title from my last blog post: So, what now?

That's where things get a little trickier, and I will actually have to do something other than sitting around on my butt. Some decisions are clear, while others, I haven't formed a definite plan yet. In no particular order:

For all of them: Redoing the covers. Whether that means throwing together something basic on my own or paying someone to do it for me, we'll see. (Maybe a combination.) I also decided to do all the formatting on my own. The Kindle publishing platform is less finicky than it used to be, and while yes, it's another chore to do, it's not the worst thing ever and I can handle it. For availability, as of right this moment, I am leaning toward making them all Amazon exclusives, free for Kindle Unlimited members, and a low-ish price for non-KU people. I have Feelings about Amazon becoming a monopoly, but for right now, I think it's the best way to go.

The Edge of the Sphere: This one's the easy one. New cover, check the formatting, done. I think I'll try to get this done by the end of the summer.

Disintegration/The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions: Since these two go together, I guess I should come up with some sort of branding and scheduling plan. Also, there's a glaring typo right in the beginning of TFotMS that's been bothering me since it was published, so I can finally fix that, at least. I've been poking around on stock image sites, and I may wind up outsourcing the cover design for this one, but we'll see. Not a priority right now, although I do still love this set of stories.

Searching the Skies/Defying the Skies: Arrrrrrrrgh. Lots going on here. This was actually what made me start thinking about looking into the rights reversion in the first place. I'm sure I mentioned it at least once here, but once upon a time, this was intended to be a trilogy, and then for a variety of reasons, the third book never happened. It has a pretty good outline, but I never even started writing it. Another complicating factor is that when I first got this idea, I went back to review, and StS needs a lot of work to make me feel comfortable rereleasing it. A LOT. The foundations are there, there's still a lot of the story I love, but there's a lot that makes me cringe because I know I can do better now. I'm not talking a total revamp/rewrite here, at least, but it definitely needs some polishing. (DtS has held up better. Yay for growth.) Yet another thought I had was, if I did clean up Book 1 and wrote Book 3, if I want to shop this around to a new publisher as a completed set, rather than doing it all on my own.

Then that leads us to perhaps the biggest question of them all: How much time do I *really* want to spend on this? Which is the better use of my time—giving these existing books the best shot I can, or focusing on the future with new projects? I mean, I can try to do both, but I also know my limitations.

To steal the overused emoticon from my last blog post: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My tentative plan is to get The Edge of the Sphere back out there soon-ish, but also focus on the new project I've been outlining and work on that. The other books will be relegated to the backburner for now, but I guess if I get into a writing slump with the new project, I can work on rereleasing the old stuff. As far as writing the third book of the Skies trilogy goes, I really don't know. It's not the priority now, but who knows, I may get excited over the idea again. At least it looks like I'll be keeping busy!

Going Back to the Same Well

As my old series Trope-tastic Thursdays indicated, tropes are not a bad thing. We all use them, whether we're aware of them or not. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say there are some tropes I like better than others, and some themes or character types keep popping up.

I'm on Chapter 3 of the new project, Sonata for Springtime. (I had to take a little break due to Influenza B, but I'm better now!) The characters were pretty fleshed out in my head before I even started writing, but now that I'm actually writing, they're becoming more and more defined, of course. In writing my protagonist, Jonathan, I'm finding a lot of similarities between him and other main characters I've written in the past.

This character type that I'm apparently so fond of is not particularly happy or unhappy. He's just plugging away, letting life happen. No major struggles, but no great passion for anything, either. He's just kind of...there. But then BOOM! Romance happens. Or at least the chance for romance arises, because we still need some conflict to drive the story forward.

Let's take a look at my backlog and see how many times I've done this. Stephen from The Edge of the Sphere definitely qualifies, as he's probably one of the most passive characters I've ever written (in the first half of the book, anyway). Caleb from Flight of the Dragon Queen (the 1Night Stand series) probably also qualifies, though at least he was slightly more proactive in contacting Madame Eve for a date. In Out of Orbit, Aras was content with his life until Jasmine almost literally crash landed in front of him. And then we have a rare female example with Veronica in Seductive Suspect, who gets shoved into the story's plot by her sister.

I don't know why I keep coming back here. I've done plenty of other heroes and heroines, including some who have suffered great trauma but are cured by True Love Forever. (Or, as my college friends used to call it, the "fuck the pain away" plot. :D ) Maybe it's because even though I love sci-fi and fantasy and all these wildly imaginative worlds, I also like regular people doing regular things. We can't all be dark and brooding, after all.

So while I could probably use a little more variety in my writing, it's not like all these characters are exact clones of each other, either. It's working for the story I want to write, so I'm not going to create some tragic past or heroic adventure for Jonathan just to mix things up. He'll have plenty to worry about anyway as the book progresses, don't you worry.

Hello Blog Hop!

We’re ringing in the New Year with lots of giveaways! And by sharing some fun and wacky facts about ourselves. There’s a new giveaway at each stop so be sure to visit them all!

I'm giving away an e-copy of The Edge of the Sphere, for reasons you'll learn as soon as you read my list of quirks. Follow the directions on the Rafflecopter to make sure you maximize your chances of winning!

Now on to my list of fun, silly things that I don't think I've ever revealed on this blog....

1. I refuse to use store-bought tomato sauce. I know I'm anal-retentive in a lot of areas in my life, but I insist on knowing exactly what goes into my sauce. When writing the beginning of The Edge of the Sphere, I needed to convey what type of person Stephen's ex-girlfriend was and the sort of things they argued over without spending a lot of time on it, so I borrowed from my own non-negotiable demands. (Though unlike Alison, I don't hold it against people who try to serve me can from a jar. Most of the time. ;) )

2. I've always looked very young for my age. (I appreciate it, I promise!) I've been mistaken for a college student within the past couple months, and I'm approaching the ten-year anniversary of graduation. Sometimes when I'm out with my kids, people think I'm the babysitter/nanny.

3. I'm afraid of snails, to the point where I have a panic attack if I even see a picture of one. I don't know what it is about those little fuckers that freaks me out so much.

4. I will eat any kind of seafood, even if I don't know what it is. (And I have done this on some Caribbean vacations, in fact.)

5. When I was younger, my ideal woman was Geena Davis's character in A League of Their Own. I didn't know if I wanted to grow up to be her or date her.

6. One of my claims to fame in college was being able to tell what season a Law & Order rerun was from before the opening credits rolled. Seasons 7 and 8 were the most challenging because the casts were the same, but the film had a different quality.

7. I love Legos and I buy a new set to add to my Lego Christmas village every year. Hey, there are perks to being an adult with disposable income!

Stephen’s quiet life is turned upside down when he experiences vivid dreams of a woman he’s never met. Liora, having grown tired of her forced isolation and servitude in the land of Marindal, uses the mystical sphere housed in her cellar to attempt to reach someone to help her break free. They meet up several times in a subconscious illusion Liora creates for them and quickly form a strong bond. Stephen follows her to Marindal, where he’s instantly captured by her cruel master, Thirvar. Plans for escape become their top priority, and their feelings grow deeper during their secret meetings in the realm of fantasy. The knowledge that they will want different things once they are safe from Thirvar’s clutches taints the prospect of reaching their goal. They are faced with the decision between seeking out the lives they left behind and taking a chance on the future of their love.

Good luck in the giveaway, and don't forget to visit the other stops on the blog hop! 
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Coincidence vs. Influence

Back in September, I blogged (again) about those "oh, shit" moments I've had when realizing something I've written is very, very similar to something that already exists. It's happened to me a couple times, but I've reassured myself that there's always enough differences for it not to be a big deal. To recap that particular post, I'd just sent in the manuscript for The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions, had played through Dragon Age: Origins, and to my surprise/dismay, one scene in the former bore a striking similarity to one in the latter.

Sometimes the reverse happens, and I fully acknowledge what has influenced me in writing. In a very old post, I freely admitted that the setting for the interlude between Parts 2 and 3 in The Edge of the Sphere came right out of one of the games in the Myst series. It wasn't an exact replica, and I did make some changes; even if someone who was familiar with the game read that scene (or vice versa), I doubt he/she would think, "Hey, that seems an awful lot like ______!"

Then there's a third situation that sometimes occurs, and it's where I find myself now: starting to write something and not realizing until the project is underway what, precisely, were the influences that shaped the ideas. My current WIP, about two-thirds of the way done, mostly takes place in a fantasy setting. There are dragons. From this post alone, it's not too hard to tell what helped inspire me. (I think my thought process was actually something along the lines of "Man, I really love Dragon Age, and there are some kick-ass women in that series. I should write something with dragons and kick-ass women!)

I planned, I outlined, I sat down to write. It wasn't until recently that I started pinpointing the other influences that snuck in. Granted, generic "fantasy" has a lot of common elements, but I noticed some more specific similarities sneaking in. The biggest one (that I laughed at) was when I went back to do some revising, I finally noticed that my heroine bears a striking resemblance to Princess Cassima from King's Quest VI, one of THE games of my childhood.

Minus the pointy hat/head scarf thingabob

I know, I know. At first glance, the "damsel in distress" thing has been done to death. But while both Cassima and my female lead are imprisoned and technically need to be rescued, don't underestimate them. In fact, the only way to win KQVI is to sneak Cassima a dagger before triggering the final sequence so she can bail your ass out in the final battle. (Didn't give her the dagger? Game over. Hope you have an earlier save state.) As for my character...well, I can't give away everything here. ;)

I can pinpoint the influence of other books/games/movies not only in this story, but in just about everything I've written. I don't consider it a bad thing - we all have the books/games/movies we love, and as long as it's not a blatant ripoff (and who's to judge what is or isn't), it's fun to pay homage to the fiction that's shaped us. After all, no one ever sets out to emulate crap, right?

Winter Wonder Man Blog Hop!

Hop along to all the sites on the list!

It's blog hop time! (And don't you just love the title of this one? I do!) We've had some crazy cold temperatures here in the northeast and though it's been milder this week, we're allegedly due for some more snow this weekend. I hope you've all been finding ways to stay warm!

Let's snuggle up to some heroes on this blog hop. The other authors and I are waxing poetic about what makes them so wonderful. It's a rather subjective topic, of course, and I'm sure we can all go on for pages and days. Me, I like there to be something that sets my hero apart from the other people around him. There's got to be something special, something unique, something that captivates his love interest and doesn't let him/her go.

That special something doesn't necessarily have to be a grand heroic act or an impressive feat of strength. I sometimes refer to Stephen MacClare, one of the protagonists of The Edge of the Sphere as my "quiet hero". He may not be physically imposing and he's not going to sweep the heroine off her feet and carry her fifteen miles in the snow uphill both ways, but he's got his strengths and talents nonetheless. Let's take a look at one of them.

Stephen knew he was starting to ramble nervously, and he didn’t want to bore his companion. “I thought moving out of the city would help me find the inspiration I needed. It didn’t.” The familiar flush of color rose to his cheeks, and he continued on regardless, knowing he had nothing to lose. “Until now. I…uh…I’ve been painting you,” he confessed.
 
She sat up straight and stared at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes. He shrunk away beneath the intensity of her gaze and looked down. “I’m sorry. That’s kind of weird, I know.”
 
She shook her head vigorously, and tilted his face back to meet hers with a finger on his chin. He thought he saw the beginnings of another smile appear at the corners of her mouth, yet he didn’t have much time to observe it before she leaned closer to him. Her lips brushed against his, and she slid her hand down to his chest, letting it rest right above his pounding heart. His mouth opened and her tongue slipped inside, playfully entangling with his own.

I don't know about you, but if a handsome artist confessed that I was his muse, I'd get some warm tingly feelings. If you'd like to read more, enter the rafflecopter for the chance to win The Edge of the Sphere in e-book form! Don't forget to leave a comment on the post as well (here and at all the other stops!) so you can be eligible for the hop's grand prize, an Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card! 
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Hump Day Hook!

Okay, fine, you all win. I'll give you a tiny bit of resolution for The Edge of the Sphere for this week's Hump Day Hook. This is from the "interlude" between Parts Two and Three. (You might notice a trend with each section ending similarly.) Happy reading, and don't forget to check out all the other authors and their hooks!

While he contemplated his situation, the benevolent angel that had saved him from himself beamed at him, an affectionate glow filling her eyes. With his mind firmly made up, he draped his arms around her shoulders, holding her tightly, and kissed her forehead. “Anything for you.”
 
She leaned her head against his chest and hugged him with the same fervor. They stood together for a silent moment on the windswept rock in an indistinguishable tangle of limbs as the clouds overhead grew darker and darker. He knew she was right. They couldn’t stay there for much longer, and he released her so she could lead them onwards. She took his hand and raised it to her lips, squeezing it as she did so. “Let’s go,” she said.
 
Her fingers laced through his, Liora led him to the precipice. There was nothing visible through the mists below them, save for a few streaks of intermittent light. Stephen felt his palms grow moist and his throat become dry. He turned his head to the side and saw her looking up at him, the shifting expressions in her eyes still able to convey so much. Gradually he inched closer to the edge, his trust in her implicit, and he flashed her what he hoped would look like a confident smile. Pushing his fears aside, he gripped her hand as they stepped into the flickering abyss.

Hump Day Hook!

Happy Hump Day! Last week I posted an excerpt from The Edge of the Sphere, the conclusion of Part One. The book isn't totally linear, and there's a lot going on simultaneously. This week, I'll post the last couple bits of Part Two. Enjoy, and don't forget to check out the other hooks this week!

Liora, by Oviot

She stood in front of the sphere, almost close enough for the entire length of her to be pressed against it. Closing her eyes, she thought of nothing but Stephen. She remembered his soothing voice, his fond caresses, and the way she had broken through to him to allow him to unleash his passion on her willing body. It was all so vivid and realistic in her mind, and she hoped it would be enough to reach him.
 
The surface gave way to her first cautious prodding. Inside, the waves of a soft summer’s breeze teased her hands, skimming over the cuffs on her wrists. They beckoned her to enter. She withdrew the quivering extremities, and cast one last look around the basement of her home. Before she could change her mind, Liora stood on her toes and spread her arms out wide. In a daring freefall, she tipped forward into the depths of the sphere.

Hump Day Hook!

It's time for everyone's favorite day of the week! I realized in flipping through past Hump Day Hooks and my labels/tags, I'd never dropped any hooks for The Edge of the Sphere in this weekly feature. Shame on me! Let me get on that right away! ;)

As always, don't forget to read all the other fantastic hooks this week!

The surface of the water had been transformed into something unlike anything he had ever seen. Its clear depths had been replaced by a silvery blue fog that twisted and churned below him. He climbed on top of the rock to take a better look and was struck by a cold gust of wind. Staring into the mystical haze, he sought to see down to the bottom, and came up empty.

He stood up and cast a final look around. Nothing had been explained, and there were still far more questions than answers. He didn’t know if he was risking his safety, or even his life, with what he was about to do. His instincts to shy away from potential danger were not easily silenced. Still, his mind was completely absorbed by thoughts of Liora, and he knew he had to take his chance. Without even the briefest farewell to the world and life he knew, Stephen took a deep breath and stepped off the rock into the darkness.