Do You Really Want To Wear Those Shoes?

Okay, so finally after months of concentrating on my novels, I've got a Friday Flash.  I hope you like it

***

“You aren’t seriously going to wear those things, are you?” Mimi’s brows contracted with distaste and doubt. The skin between her eyes wrinkled ever so slightly.  Sometimes I suspected she’d indulged in secret rounds of Botox because she never seemed to age.  We’d been best friends since freshman year in college and we were now way closer to forty than thirty, but she could still pass for a college co-ed.  At least to my jealous eyes. 

She’d seemed to put the aging process in a holding pattern around the time she took that night job and began sleeping during the day. 

I couldn’t fathom the reason for a single woman who had just turned thirty to voluntarily cut short her available night life hours.  I guess her biological clock did not tick as loudly as mine.

I’d turned thirty and panicked and ended up marrying the first available jerk that I met. I wanted a baby in the worst way.  It turned out that I hadn’t counted on how much I didn’t want a husband.  Or at least the one I’d married. 

Three years of hell and he’d walked out on me.  No baby either so it was a total waste of valuable time.  Now at thirty-six, I was panicking again.

This costume party tonight would be bound to attract lots of single guys or even unhappily married ones that I might attract. 

I wasn’t as co-ed gorgeous as Mimi with her raven black hair and mysterious blue eyes, but I wasn’t chopped liver either.  So my red hair tended to corkscrew curl unless tamed with a flat iron and maybe I could stand to lose a few inches around my hips, but what the hell, I wanted to be a mom not a super model.

“I wish you’d wear something else,” said Mimi.  She was going to the party as Cleopatra and the gold painted vulture and cobra diadem she wore made her look twice as mysterious as ever.  Her short white toga and gold belt didn’t hurt either.

Mimi could pull off costumes like Egyptian temptress queens, but I knew better than to try.  I probably could have managed the first Queen Elizabeth, but those high ruffed collars did nothing to show off my greatest asset – my tits. Plus going as the Virgin Queen would really be delivering the wrong message in my case.

So I’d gone prosaic and predictable with the vampire costume.  I loved my slinky black spandex dress that did marvelous things for my figure, low cut enough that I’d have to be careful not to get too drunk and break out my spastic dance moves for fear of a costume malfunction along the lines of Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl.

But the original shoes I’d chosen, a basic pair of black gladiator sandals, had been too close to what Mimi had chosen.  Hers were gold and flat, mine were black with four inch heels, but still, gladiator sandals are gladiator sandals and we were best friends.  It just wouldn’t work.

So I’d scrounged around in her massive walk-in closet at her apartment.  We wore the same size shoes if not dresses, and I’d been confident I’d find something sexy.  Mimi might work the night shift, but when she did get out, she knew how do it right.

After ten minutes of trying on and taking off, I’d found the perfect pair.  They’d been hidden in a box beneath an avalanche of winter sweaters.  Mimi had tried to steer me away from that end of her closet, but I’d ignored her. I‘d seen messy closets before.  Hell, I had two of them in my own apartment two floors down.

The shoes were wild. Not Mimi’s style at all. They were gaudy, overstated and ridiculous. Six inch platform sandals, silver metallic spikes alternated with red plastic dots. The platform part had been hollowed to resemble a life-like mouth complete with curled pink tongue and teeth, including long white fangs.  Vampire shoes.  So perfect for my costume it wasn’t even funny.

“How come you didn’t suggest these first, Mimi?” She was unbelievable.  You’d think she didn’t want me to know she had them, for Christ’s sake.  “You know they’re perfect for my costume.”

“I wish you wouldn’t wear them, Nicole.” Mimi tried to give me her patented “Listen to me and do what I say” stare but I knew how to avoid those x-ray eyes of hers.  I slid my gaze away from her face and turned my head as I marched past her out of the closet, the vamp shoes dangling from my fingers.

They were surprisingly light for shoes with spikes and fangs. Nearly weightless.  Maybe they were made of some sort of plastic. The leather covering them was soft and supple.

I sat on the edge of Mimi’s bed.  An irresistible urge to touch one of the fangs on the left shoe overcame me.  I reached out a curious fingertip – were they plastic too?  Before I could connect, Mimi knocked the shoe out of my hand.  She had a pair of sexy red pumps in her free hand and waved them beneath my nose.

“I think these would be better. I really do.” Her voice sounded almost frantic and I frowned at her.  What the hell was her problem?  She’d never been territorial before.

“I know they’re a little wild and certainly unique. What’s the issue?  You think that if I wear them tonight you’ll never be able to?  I’ll tell everyone they’re yours.”

“No!” Her luscious red lips curled back in an almost snarl and I drew back in shock. 

“You are being weird tonight,” I stated huffily. 

“Wear the red shoes. Please,” she begged.

“No.” I didn’t know why she had to be such a pain in the ass.  I was going as a vampire and they were the perfect shoes so what the hell was her damn problem?  I was getting seriously pissed off. “Look, don’t we have a standing pact to share everything?”

“It’s not a question of sharing, Nicole. Please.” Mimi tried to push the red shoes into my hands and I took them and threw them across the damn room.  She was being childish and completely unfair.

I picked up the left vamp shoe and, once again, the glittering fang beckoned me to touch it.  I just had to know.  Was it plastic or not?

“I’m warning you,” said Mimi.  “For the last time.  Nicole, you do not want to wear those shoes.”

“Bullshit,” I said and touched the fang.  “Ow!  Sonofabitch!”  Something red appeared at the tip of my finger. Blood.  That fang was sharp. 

Mimi licked her lips.  “You’re an idiot, Nicole.”

“Gross.” I regarded my bleeding finger and looked around for something to wipe it on.  Mimi’s purple and white batik bedspread was handy but that wouldn’t be nice.  I didn’t want blood on my dress, so I popped my fingertip into my mouth and sucked.  Blood usually tasted horrible to me, but wow, tonight it had a strangely erotic tang. 

I looked at Mimi and for the first time ever wondered what it would be like to kiss a woman. 

“Balls,” I muttered and put on the vamp shoes. 

“Now do you understand?” Mimi’s voice sounded like silvery bells. The whole world was bright and surreal.  The night pulsed in my blood like a lover. 

“Guess I’ll need to find a night shift job now,” I said as I rose to my feet.  Strength, vitality and lust flowed in and out of me.  I looked in the mirror and damned if I couldn’t have passed for a college co-ed.  Those extra inches around my hips had melted away too, just like the years. 

“I never really wanted to be a mom anyway come to think of it,” I said. 

Mimi laughed and arm in arm we ventured out into the night. Screw costume parties, we were the real thing now. 

And The Winner Is...

Sonya Clark!  You won a copy of Hidden in Plain Sight.  Congratulations!   Thank you to everyone who entered the contest.  You all had the right answer - Murphy's Irish of course!

I pay such attention to detail I drew the names out of a pewter mug with a wolf-shaped handle.  Now that's apropos for a wolf shifter novel contest, isn't it?

Since I'm so happy it's release day, I'll give you two links to reviews I've gotten already!

Here's one:  http://www.darkissreads.com/2012/06/hidden-in-plain-sight-by-amy-lee.html

Here's another:  http://www.romancewritersreviews.com/index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=12&sobi2Id=286&Itemid=30

Stanzie Faces a Serial Killer On Monday!

Okay, people, guess what?  Monday, July 9th, is right around the corner and with it comes the release of the third novel in The Wolf Within series - Hidden in Plain Sight. 

Here's the synopsis: 

Where is Bethany Dillon? The seventeen-year-old girl is missing from the Maplefair pack and Constance Newcastle--Stanzie--and Liam Murphy must find her. Fast. A serial killer still has not been caught. Bethany could have run away, or killed herself. But no one in her pack seems to know the truth. Or, they’re just not telling.

Constance’s knack for uncovering secrets leads her into peril, and to save Bethany, she must break every rule. She risks losing everything, including Liam...and her life

 
Whoa!  Melodramatic, huh?  But it is true.  Stanzie does risk everything.  You'll have to read it to find out how.  And maybe this is your lucky day!  Does anybody want a free copy?  Here's how you could get one. 

Read the excerpt from the novel below and then answer this question in the comments section. Names of everyone with the right answer will go into a hat and I'll make a random drawing. I'll announce the winner Monday.

Here is the question:  What nationality is Liam Murphy? (Could the question BE more easy?)

***

By the time Murphy caught up to me I was soaked. My dress was plastered to my thighs. My hair hung in damp strings around my cheeks. I walked steadily around a small apple orchard. Apple branches, thick and stunted, twisted up toward the rain as if to beg for release. A drift of white blossoms littered the ground. I was barefoot and the petals were soft against my toes and soles.

Maplefair operated a small year-round produce stand. Mostly the pack grew corn, tomatoes, strawberries and apples. This orchard was one of theirs. In the fall they’d handpick the apples, sell some in bushel bags and bring others to a cider mill to be made into cider.

The last time I’d seen Jossie had been the autumn before Grey and Elena had died. The three of us had

taken a foliage tour to see the eye-popping beauty of the turning leaves. We’d driven through Easton on our way to Burlington and Lake Champlain and had stopped to buy cider and apples. Jossie had been minding the stand that afternoon and, while it had been tense for a moment, Jossie and I had hugged before we’d parted and I’d planned to keep in better touch but somehow never had.

Today the white blossoms gave promise of the apple harvest to come. I doubted I’d taste any of the fruit. By fall I should be in Dublin.

As if the thought of Dublin had summoned him, Murphy fell into step beside me, and waited for me to talk first as he usually did. Ilooked down at my bare feet and saw that the knuckles of his right hand were raw and bloody.

“What happened to your hand?”

He gave me a slanted smile through the raindrops. “Well, I thought I would give that little bastard with the big damn mouth something real to complain about to Allerton if he wanted to talk about how to choose Advisors.”

“Murphy.” I heaved a tired sigh and brushed some wet hair out of my eyes. “You know Allerton doesn’t want you going around punching people. Remember last time.”

“You make it sound like all I do is haul off and hit people.” Murphy snorted. “I’m Irish, woman, I’ve got a temper and that little shite had it coming.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You mad at me, Stanzie?”

“For hitting Gary?”

“No, for convincing you to shift when you didn’t want to.”

The words hung there between us, wet and heavy with the rain so that I could almost see their shapes, their individual letters. My wolf’s reaction to all the things he’d tried to teach her spelled the same inevitable thing in the end. She was not the same as everyone else’s.

“No, Murphy. I’m not mad. I told you what would happen, you said that was all right, and everything I told you would happen did. You said you’d stay with me and you did. Why would I be mad?”

“Well, you’re something,” he said. “You’re out here wandering in the rain for one thing. You’ve got that look on your face I don’t like for another.”

“What look?”

“The look as if somebody kicked you in the stomach and you don’t want anyone to know how much it hurts.”

I looked down at the mud and apple blossoms again. Something struggled inside of me, something dark and desperate I did not want to acknowledge but was powerless to hold back.

“I really thought until today that she might have a chance at being normal, don’t you see?” I tried to explain myself to him, but I knew by the confusion that spread across his face he didn’t understand.

 “My wolf, Murphy, is never going to catch up. I failed to take into consideration the fact that while I might be evolving my wolf, everybody else was too and most of them have years and years on me. Why, I’ll bet that grandmothers and grandfathers can barely tell the difference between themselves as human and themselves as wolves. Maybe that’s why they don’t shift all that often. What’s the point except you can run on four legs and old wolves aren’t that fast. Isn’t that true, Murphy? That your wolf is still evolving? That every year you get one step closer to yourself in wolf form?”

A pulse beat thickly in his throat. “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean...”

I held up a hand and he stopped talking. Soft spring rain dripped through the cracks of my fingers and down my bare arm.

“My wolf wants the names for everything. Everything, Murphy, and she won’t move on until she has the names. Only she’s never going to get them all. There are so many goddamn things in the world with names that she will never know, not if she shifted twenty times a day for the next hundred years. All she’s ever going to do is discover things she doesn’t know the names for and then sit there until she finds them. Not only is she never going to catch up, she’ll never be halfway normal. She never has been.”

There. It was out. I’d said it. Not normal.

“Stanzie,” said Murphy, helpless against my onslaught of logical insight. “Don’t do this to yourself, please.”

“People have been calling my wolf a joke for years. I didn’t even hear it half the time. I tried not to let it matter because I thought I was the lucky one. I thought they missed it all--the beauty and the fun and the sheer weightlessness of not having to think about anything, of not having to be anything but a creature alive and full of joy. She was blissfully asleep and I let her be that way. But then I woke her up and now she’s a broken, defective thing and there’s no joy in shifting anymore. She doesn’t feel alive and connected anymore. She feels trapped and disconnected, shut out from all the names of things. She thinks if she finds the names, she’ll be safe again and full of joy. But she won’t ever find all the names.”

Murphy bowed his head and the rain ran in rivulets down his cheeks in a parody of tears.

“I did this to you. Me and my vain confidence that I could show you something better, something

different.”

“You didn’t do it,” I said gently. “I did it. I agreed to it. I knew what I was doing and knew it would change everything. I thought it was time to grow up.”

“You did it to please me. You wanted to please me. I know you did. You’re always wanting to please me as if just the fact you’re alive and with me isn’t enough. You’re always trying so hard, Stanzie. And your wolf’s the same damn way. It’s not good enough to learn words as they come, one or two at a time, no, yours has got to know them all before she can go to the next step. As if anyone could know everything. They can’t. They don’t. Your wolf’s not defective, Stanzie, she’s stubborn. She’s become self aware, don’t you see that? She’ll come around, you watch. Just let her get her feet underneath her. If she wants more words, let her find them. We have time. It’s not a race.”

“I feel so out of my league with you.” I stumbled over a tree root and he caught my arm and saved me from a fall. I turned toward him, shivered in the rain and took hold of both his arms. “I am trying to run with you and with Councilor Manning and Councilor Allerton, and I can’t keep up. What the hell am I doing? I’m trying to be somebody I’m not. Christ, I couldn’t even keep my place in a pack of misfits with the lowest status in all of New England. And half the reason the damn pack was so low in status was because of me--because of my wolf. Now you’ve got me running with Mac Tire and the Councils, and I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”

I shook him as if that would make him see my point but he just stared at me. “Your wolf is evolving. I’m proud of you for what your wolf did today, believe it or not.”

“Proud of me?” I couldn’t take it in. “But I disgraced us. I was the Council’s representative and I disgraced us.”

“Why? Because your wolf sat in the yard and tried to find the word?"

He looked over my shoulder and stiffened a little, my first indication that someone approached. I heard squelching footsteps in the mud and turned to see Vaughn huddled up against the rain in his leather jacket, hands shoved into pockets.

“Christ, what filthy weather,” he remarked to me and Murphy as he drew close.

I wanted to ask him why he was out in it then, but Murphy spoke first. “I’m glad you’re here, mate. I’m at my wits’ end with this woman. Can you say something to make her see reason?”

Vaughn looked straight at me and said, “Gary Planchett is a giant asshole.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help myself. Murphy and Vaughn did too.

At some point my laughter began to ease the terrible pressure that had built up inside my chest ever since I’d shifted back.

“Oh, by the way, that little rat bastard’s got a black eye to go with his fat lip.” Vaughn took one hand out of his pocket and displayed his bruised knuckles.

Murphy grinned and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. We started back to the farmhouse, the rain cold on our faces.

***

Now leave me a comment with the answer to the question above and see what happens!

Inkarna! Author Nerine Dorman Guest Blogs

The End is the Beginning

Inkarna came into being through death. 2010 was not a good year for me. Not only did a musician whose work meant a lot to me pass away, but a close friend and mentor passed a few months later. The first death was more symbolic—part of my past turned to dust. I never knew the man but during the months after his passing, I grieved for an aspect of my young adulthood that was gone. The second death hit me hard. I carried residual guilt for not having had the courage to go see my friend in hospital when he was ill. I felt like I was the one who had been the bad friend. I’d been editing a book of his, about mapping out parts of the psyche. This will now never see print.

I had two dreams that year. Both were vivid, lucid. Both were assurances from these men that I don’t feel regret; that I approach life on my own terms and frame my experiences in my own words. The words of another are anathema. Dreams are open to subjective interpretation, but I still drew comfort from the experiences.

I wrote Inkarna in a fugue state over a period of two months. After that I still had to pass through my own Black Gate as I battled depression, but I pulled through. It’s not always easy seeing the forest for the trees but being able to put words down helped… and still helps. I can’t afford the psychiatrist bills, so writing steps into the breach.

What you see when you hold Inkarna in your hands is the result of my grieving process, of finding that kernel of hope within the emotional devastation. We will all die one day. Death is inescapable. But it’s what we do with our time here and now that matters. Every day might be our last, and that is how I try to live each day: as if it were my last.

In setting down Ash’s story in Inkarna, I wanted to illustrate a theme that had been haunting me for a while. What if death is not the end? What if the Egyptians had the right of it? What if there was a race of beings that were functionally immortal—body snatchers who hand-picked which bodies they would return in?

The idea of possession has always frightened me, and I wanted to break away from the standard tropes of vampires, angels and werewolves that are so popular in the media at present. This is how the Inkarna as a type of supernatural being coalesced. I’ll admit to being influenced in part by the Highlander mythos, as well as the old White Wolf Mummy gaming supplement, which went with Vampire: The Masquerade. I’d always thought that a character that kept returning—albeit in a different body each time—was a very cool concept to run with. This was especially since killing the physical body wouldn’t work in the long run—and a problem for a vampire faced with an eternal and implacable enemy.

I’m well pleased with my Inkarna. They’ve got their own magical system and the milieu as a whole dovetails nicely with my existing stories concerning my black magician and other supernaturals—so there is a fairly good chance I might write a crossover at some point. In fact, there’s already a crossover out there for those who’re interested, written in collaboration with Carrie Clevenger (http://www.amazon.com/Blood-and-Fire-ebook/dp/B006SD3F2S/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333356333&sr=1-3). It was a bit of a challenge to write so that I didn’t give any spoilers, but Blood and Fire has been well received.

So, the question is, will there be more of the same? Definitely. There’s more than enough scope for intrigue at the end of Inkarna to suggest follow-ups. I’m tickled enough with the milieu to consider setting several novels in the world of my ancient Egyptian reincarnation cult!

Follow me on Twitter @nerinedorman or see my website at http://www.nerinedorman.weebly.com

Buy Inkarna in print here: http://www.amazon.com/Inkarna-Nerine-Dorman/dp/0983160392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340049918&sr=8-1&keywords=inkarna

Author Interview - DC Petterson

Today I welcome fellow Lyrical Press author, DC Petterson.  He very graciously granted me an interview about writing and his latest novel, A Melancholy Humour.  A book about werewolves, it had me up late one night frantically turning the pages.

Q. How long have you been writing?

I started writing soon after I learned to read.  I think it’s a genetic disorder. I’m one of those pitiable souls who can’t not-write. It’s rather like trying not to blink your eyes -- the effort can only last so long.

I tried getting a few short stories published when I was a teenager. Once out of high school, I got a good job, and started making decent money. That’s a bit of a trap -- it removed any economic incentive to publish. I couldn’t stop writing, though, so I wound up with stacks of unseen manuscripts. The more recent ones are all on computer, with hard disks stuffed so full that bytes keep falling out the side. But I do still have an amazing amount of ancient and yellowing paper in various closets.

Q.  Who are some authors who have influenced your writing and why?

As a kid, my favorite authors were Arthur Conan Doyle and a handful of Golden-Age SF writers -- Clarke, Asimov, Bradbury, Wells, Verne. I discovered Tolkien while in the sixth grade. This was back when it was still hard to find his books. I also read a lot of Lovecraft and Edgar Rice Burroughs. These guys all taught me that the world is far bigger and stranger than anyone can imagine, and if you can imagine it, a story can be woven out of it.

All that is old stuff. More recently, I caught on to Anne Rice with her very first books. I loved Randall Garrett’s “Lord Darcy” series. From them, I learned how to integrate fantasy into a modern setting, though I confess some of my writing still bears a Lovecraftian darkness.

A nonfiction writer who had a profound influence on me is Joseph Campbell. No one is better at explaining the meaning and uses of myth. Creating fiction is an act of mythmaking. I urge all aspiring writers to read everything of his you can get your hands on.

Q. Do you have any authorly quirks you’d like to share? (Like you only write by candlelight or something unusual like that?)

Candlelight? What a great idea! I love writing at night. I’ll turn off the lights and work by the glow of the computer screen and my backlit keyboard. A handy glass of good scotch is always a plus. Finding music that evokes the mood of what I’m writing is almost essential. (Try reading “A Melancholy Humour” with Linkin Park’s “Somewhere I Belong” in your headphones.)

But I suppose my most useful quirk is that I find myself having long conversations with the people I’m writing about. Stories are about people, and it’s my job as a writer to act as a go-between. My readers can’t possibly get to meet these folks if I don’t know them well.

Q. In your novel, Melancholy Humour, you have a man in his late 40s falling in love with a girl of 18. Can you explain your choice to make the age difference so vast?

Well, first, the plot demanded it. A great deal of the story deals with Vincent’s struggles in handling issues of childhood abuse. He has to separate his own past from the realities in front of him. Stories about ethical and moral dilemmas are far more interesting than clear black and white choices.

It’s also about renewal and a recovery of youthful enthusiasm. Vincent has given up on life. Celia offers a kind of rescue. There’s a contrast too of time and eternity -- the ancient and preternatural realities they both have to deal with stand in stark silhouette against her youth. It gives me a chance to explore the interplay of violent death and vibrant life, truly ancient fears and springtime vigor. I like extremes.

Q. You have one of the best werewolf “hooks” I’ve ever read. Can you explain the legare in more detail without giving spoilers to those who haven’t read the novel yet?

“Legare” is the Italian for a tie or a knot. In the Middle Ages, “legare” was a word for a love spell.

I use it to describe a link between a human and a wolf.

Even between a dog and a human, a very special bond can form, something deeper than friendship but very different from romantic love. As one of the people in my story says, “a dog is just a wolf you feed.” Wolves were domesticated tens of thousands of years go. The legare between humans and wolves has been around a very long time. We have hunted together for as long as we’ve been human.

In the world of my stories, wolves were bred to form these ties, to need them almost like food. Some humans are particularly open to them. It makes for a symbiotic relationship, one that neither can deny, a loyalty that transcends death, but something that has been ignored and pushed aside for so long that none now clearly remember.

There are dark aspects of it too, things that can be misused. It’s something I’m going to explore many different ways in future stories.

  

Q. Was your journey to publication an easy or difficult one? How did you find Lyrical Press?

As I said, I started submitting stories as a teenager in high school. I’ve got a collection of professional rejections slips of which I’m very proud. A few years back, I stumbled upon a publisher who was just starting out, and was looking for new talent. I submitted a short science fiction novel I’d been particularly pleased with (“Still Life”). They bought it, giving me bragging rights to being a published novelist.

As for Lyrical, I met my editor, Nerine Dorman, though an email list we both had joined. She announced that Lyrical was looking into publishing some darker fantasy. I had just completed “A Melancholy Humour,” so I sent it her way. It apparently fit with what they wanted to do.

I guess the moral of that story is twofold. First, never stop trying. Second, keep your eyes and ears open, and actively look for openings in the areas you want to write.

Q. Any advice to aspiring writers out there? What are a few tips and tools you use in your writing?

There’s the usual advice -- learn how to spell, use proper grammar, learn punctuation. Boring but necessary. Beyond that, here’s what I have to say to beginning writers. Once you’re established, you’re on your own.

Know your audience, which is only secondarily the readers. When you’re just starting out, your audience is the publishers whom you want to buy your stories. Get familiar with what they like to see, in subject matter, tone, and style. If you don’t like the kinds of things they publish, don’t submit your stuff to them -- they won’t like your books any more than you like theirs.

Be unique. Follow a publisher’s offerings as a guideline, but do something original and remarkable with the plot or the characters or the situations. Do something that stands out.

Write what you love. That’s different from the usual advice to write what you know. Writing what you love means writing with passion and conviction. Readers love passion. Besides, if you love it, you’ll have learned about it, and writing what you know will come as a natural side-effect.

  

Q. Where can we find your book to buy it?

You can get it from the publisher, Lyrical Press

http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=81&products_id=502

Or from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/A-Melancholy-Humour-ebook/dp/B007VQQSJ8

or Barnes & Nobel

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-melancholy-humor-d-c-petterson/1107971632?ean=9781616503536

9.) Where can we contact you?

I can be emailed at dcpetterson@rocketmail.com

I occasionally tweet @dcpetterson but my life is boring enough that I seldom have anything interesting to say. I play guitar and keyboards -- but doesn’t everyone? I’m deeply in love, but being incredibly happy doesn’t make good publicity copy. No one wants to hear about my kids or my dogs or my day job writing software or the gnomes and faeries who live in my basement.

Hidden in Plain Sight Cover Art

I'm fantastically excited to share the cover art for the third The Wolf Within series novel, Hidden in Plain Sight. 

The series takes a darker turn in this one - Stanzie and Murphy are sent to Maplefair, a Vermont pack, to help them discover what has happened to one of their own - a missing teen named Bethany. Was she secretly pregnant? Did she run away? What does her boyfriend, Cody, know? Does Bethany's disappearance tie in with a series of Other missing teen girls?  Has she become a victim of a serial killer?

These are just some of the questions the Advisors have to answer.  As usual, Stanzie's knack for uncovering the truth leads her into very dangerous waters. 

You can read more here:  http://www.lyricalpress.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=97_139&products_id=532

Let me know what you think!  This title releases July 9, 2012.

Review of Nerine Dorman's Inkarna

What if you belonged to a secret cult that knew how to transfer the soul from one body to another?

This is the fascinating premise upon which Nerine Dorman’s Inkarna is based.  Who hasn’t wondered what happens after death and if it’s possible to come back?

For Lizzie Perry, a member of House Adamastor of the Inkarna, eternal life in a succession of different bodies is all but assured. If her heart is pure enough and if she has attained the necessary power while an initiate on earth, she will cross over to Per Ankh where she shall await her time on earth again. She will be reunited with her husband, also a member of Inkarna, and others of her particular house.

The problem is – one day she opens her eyes and finds herself in the body of Ashton Kennedy, a young man who has been in a coma.  This is wrong on many levels. For one thing, Inkarna come back in the bodies of children so as to grow into their powers and because it is easier to integrate.  For another, Ash is very definitely a man and Lizzie has always envisioned herself as being eternally female.

The biggest problem is that she cannot remember why she was sent into Ash’s body and it becomes very clear in no time that there was a reason.  Places and people she needs are no longer there. She can’t seem to control the powers she’d developed as Lizzie – they are erratic and scary in the Ash body.  And why is there a plot to destroy her? Is it Inkarna-related or is it the fact that before the coma Ash Kennedy was a real bastard?

As if Lizzie hasn’t got enough to do to figure out why she’s been abruptly stuffed into Ash’s body, she has to relearn the geography and culture of Cape Town – it’s changed quite a bit in the fifty years she’s spent in Per Ankh. There’s also Ash’s clingy girlfriend, Marlise.  And Ash’s ghost – who very much wants his damn body back. Yesterday.

I loved this story for many reasons. First and foremost, Ms. Dorman has written a novel based on Egyptian magic that is both credible and impeccably researched.  Her love for the Red Land is very apparent. I have a passion for Egyptology too and found myself in awe of her grasp of both the metaphysical and mythological aspects.

The juxtaposition of a female soul in a male body was another of my favorite things. Lizzie as Ash is both humorous and moving. As she navigates deeper into the psyche of Ash and becomes more at ease, the reader is taken on a fascinating psychological ride.

For most of the book I thought of Lizzie trapped in Ash’s body, but slowly, believably, I began to think of her as Ash.  Lizzie become more male, but never lost her essential self. 

The more Lizzie discovers about Ash Kennedy and his life before the accident that put him a coma, the more she despises him. The bar scene when Ash is confronted by an ex-lover is especially well done and memorable. I found myself sympathizing with Lizzie as more and more of Ash’s despicable character was revealed. Could she take over and change the world’s perceptions of this flawed man?  Well, possibly, if she didn’t get killed by the rival House Montu of the Inkarna or Ash’s own enemies first.

Ms. Dorman has a wonderful hand with description.  I felt as if I were familiar with Cape Town when, in actuality, I’ve never set foot there. Ms. Dorman’s love of South Africa is evident on each page.

At just under 300 pages, this novel is rich and complex, dark and intriguing and well worth the time it takes to read it. It is not a fast read because attention must be paid to the details, the Egyptian terms and concepts and all the twists and turns of the never predictable plot.

I eagerly look forward to devouring each of Ms. Dorman’s novels as they are bound to appear.

Here is a handy link where you can find the book:  http://www.amazon.com/Inkarna-Nerine-Dorman/dp/0983160392/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1336767973&sr=1-1-catcorr