I is for If Two of Them Are Dead. It’s my steampunk mystery novella. This is one of my favorite stories. I originally wrote it for Dreamspinner’s Steampunk anthology. It wasn’t accepted but the editors asked me to expand it to a novella. I was over the moon. It was the first time I had ever been asked that. I felt like ‘wow they really believe in me!’
In full honesty, I think that a short story format was a disservice to this story. Mysteries deserve longer stories. I have NO idea how the Ellery Queen authors did it. Unlike a lot of steampunks which are set in London, I set mine in the Hyde Park area of New York’s Hudson Valley. For one reason, I wanted something different than London (and if I’m remembering correctly, the anthology had asked for that). The second reason is, I lived nearby for a year during my residency and its rich history made for a great setting. The title is from a Ben Franklin quote: “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
Mysteries are my first love. The first adult books I read were mysteries, moving up from Nancy, Trixie and the Hardy Boys to Agatha Christi and Ngio Marsh. Mysteries are devilishly hard to write, especially in a shorter format. Still, I wanted to pair up my first genre with one of my newer ones, steampunk. This novella was that (with a strong romantic subplot of course). It is, however, more mystery than steampunk.
Victor and Abraham were so much fun to work with. I would love to revisit them someday. There is a trickiness to their relationship of course. They can’t exactly live openly in the 1800s but they could pull of an eccentric friendship no doubt.
I’ll let the blurb speak for itself.
Blurb Called to Hyde Park, New York, ex-Air Corpsman turned detective Victor Van Voorhis comes to only three conclusions about his newest case: the gulf between his status and the wealthy Westbrook family is no trifling matter; someone brutally killed a young mother; and the victim’s brother-in-law is one of the most intriguing men Victor has ever met.
Inventor Abraham Westbrook lost his wife five years ago and is worried about the effect another death in the family will have on his children. He spends most of his time tinkering with steamships, but even his inventions can’t distract him from wishing Victor was in his life for any reason other than a murder investigation—one where Abraham himself is a suspect. He’s hidden his desires all his life, but no longer. Somehow, he’ll catch the detective’s eye.
With murder standing between them and a killer stalking the Westbrooks, Abraham and Victor’s chance at happiness could go up in steam.
If you’re interested in this novella you can find it here.
And check out Paul Richmond’s beautiful cover for it!
H is for haunted. I am a huge fan of haunted houses, the Halloween kind and the real kind. I’ve been a haunted house actress and I’ve been an actual ghost hunter for decades, long before TAPS and company. It’s only natural that some of my stories feature hauntings.
I had a short story, Haunted in Dreamspinner’s anthology, Two Tickets to Paradise where the set of lovers are ghost hunters on a working vacation in Victoria, British Columbia. They spent the story chasing down the same ghosts I had when I was there. I admit it, I ghost tour almost any place I go.
It’s heavily the theme of my latest WIP novel, These Haunted Hills, set in the Hocking Hills near where I live. Joshua is an ecologist teaching in the area (probably at the university I do but I don’t think I’m ever going to mention it. Could just as easily be OU). He is an uber geek who ghost hunts and has a ghost website. I.e. he’s pretty much a combination of me and my friends. In fact, his web site IS one of steampunk buddy’s, Haunted Hocking. You can check out a ton of haunted sites and see his books there too.
The potential love interest in this novel is Brendan, sort of a J.K. Rowling type (i.e. wealthy author), who has lost his son. He’s giving up YA writing and wants to write a ghost story channeling Stephen King and Joe Hill. He is also looking for a psychic to contact his son.
Together they’re going to explore the haunted hills, including a hotel I based sort of on Holmes’s Chicago ‘murder house.’ But ghosts aren’t the only thing haunting this novel. Brendan is very obviously haunted by his son’s early death at the hands of cancer. He hasn’t been living, merely existing, for the last three years. His wife, while remaining his close friend, has divorced him and moved on. Brendan, who identifies as bisexual, finds himself coming alive again in the hills with Josh at his side.
So far in the Rainbow Snippets community on FB (scroll back in my blog to find posts), it’s being well received which is great. It’s my camp nano, also great. What’s not great, no time to write and no ability to concentrate. Here’s hoping something kicks free soon.
G is for Gareth. In this case Gareth Evans who is the druid professor in A Light in Winter. There is usually a little bit of the author in a character. There’s a healthy dose of me in Gareth. My current day job is one I share with Gareth, though being a professor in the states is a bit different than it would be in Wales. Like Gareth I’m a geek and I identify strongly with the old ways. I’m more of a pantheist interested in all belief systems to be honest but I’ve spent considerable time studying the druidic path. One of my favorite things about the druidic movement at the moment is the druid podcast with Damh the Bard (go check out his music!)
I had fun with him really. I lived vicariously through his romantic getaway (I did get to go to some of these sites when I was in Wales). Gareth and his significant other, Warun, are having a rough patch more related to work and having no time than anything else. Gareth decides to take Warun to Ynys Mon in the north of Wales to share a sacred site (to the druids) with him for the winter Solstice. In the meantime he plans a romantic trip working in a lot of their favorite things.
Before they even take off, Gareth visits Ianto Jones’s memorial in Cardiff (where his dad lives) because he’s that sort of geek. They visit castles and holy wells. They stay in a historic hotel and otherwise get a vacation I’d consider very romantic.
That’s when I was struck by the reality that what’s romantic to one person isn’t to another. One of the reviews I received on the story was ‘where’s the romance?’ Snort. I’m not upset by it. Romance really IS a subjective thing. To me it’s one of the most romantic of all my stories. It reminded me of why I don’t go on vacation with my brother and sister in law when they ask because their idea of what’s fun to do and mine are miles apart.
Gareth’s story is a non-traditional holiday story and that’s part of what I really like about him. If you’re interested in Gareth and his story, you can find it here.
Still continuing with These Haunted Hills which I’ve not been having as much time for in Camp Nano as I would like (both camp and nano end up in the all-time worst months for professors). It picks up where we left off last week where Josh outs himself to Brendan (almost immediately and much to his chagrin. Well he IS nervous about meeting one of his idols).
“Glossing over my runaway mouth, back to Ash cave which got its name for all the mounds of ash found here, we think it was from the long term use by the Native Americans, probably the Shawnee or Wyandotte. But it was used by White settlers, too and even as a pulpit. So there is some interesting history here.”
“Is the haunting one of the Shawnee?”
“There have been a few evps that might suggest that but the ghost most commonly seen here is a woman who looks like she’s from the 1920s.”
‘Really? A lady in twenties garb?”
And here, Ash cave from the far rim.
If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!
Say hello to Layla. And I want to apologize for not having time to pretty up the links. My internet is hanging on by a thread and I didn’t want to take the time only to find out it’s dead again. So without further delay, let’s hear from Layla!
Thank you for inviting me to your blog and helping to celebrate the release of Serpent’s Kiss, my fifth full length novel release. I must say, the journey into authorship has been an interesting one. I’ve talked in the past about how I got started, playing online roleplaying games and building a storyline and longtime characters into what became Guitars and Cages and the upcoming sequel Guitars and Choices, but I have to say that nothing could have ever prepared me for what being an author truly entailed. Let me say I was in for a bit of a shock that I’m still recovering from in some ways. So without further ado, here’s my list of the 5 things I didn’t know about becoming a published author but wish I had.
1. That I’d spend as much time learning to promote and build a brand as I would getting to write new stories.
2. That people will write reviews on a novel based only on the cover and sample chapter, and you can’t say a word, you just have to sit back and ignore it, or better still, learn not to read them.
3. That it isn’t what you write but how you write it, telling a story isn’t the same as creating a world and inviting readers to live in it for a few hours.
4. That your editor is your friend, you’re beta readers can become your biggest support group, and more than just getting words in the document goes into polishing something. There are many parts and people involved in getting a work out there and each and every one of them should be celebrated.
5. That there would be days when actual writing would have to be set aside for social media. I didn’t even have a twitter account when I wrote the first book, in fact, I wasn’t entirely certain what twitter was, or tumblr or pinterest, and I certainly didn’t have a website. I’ve learned so much about social meeting since my first release, and it’s been truly humbling to have to go to my daughter for assistance more often than not.
Serpent’s Kiss Excerpt
He caught sight of his mismatched eyes in the mirror as he headed to the living room, desperate to put the day behind him. As always, seeing those eyes reminded him of how defective he really was, and not just on the outside, but the inside too. His green eye was blind, save for those moments when it decided to peer into the soul of another and bring their future or past roaring like a waterfall of images through his mind.
The twisted part of him, the cold, sick, sadistic nature that set him apart as much as his stare, loved when those images spelled out pain, misfortune, and death, death was a high that left him without the need for drugs or the bottle gods. What kind of monster fed off the hurt of others the way vampires fed off blood, hell, he was worse than any bloodsucker, at least they spared their victims pain when they could, left them with pleasant, sometimes even erotic memories and licked the wound closed to hide where it had been. Him, he just busted lives open wide, sucking in all that delicious fear, doubt, paranoia, oh god but he loved when he got the paranoid ones, he’d fuck with them for days before allowing the visions to play out the way they were supposed to. Drop them a little hint here, a little clue there, let them know disaster was breathing down their necks and watch as they scrambled to do everything in their power to avoid it. Only there was never anything that they could do.
He was caught between self-loathing and longing for just the right kind of paranoid son of a bitch that might help him forget this day when his eyes landed on his couch. Sitting where he’d planned to drop his ass and rest was a woman with blood diamond scales running down her arms and the brightest ruby eyes he’d ever seen. Crimson lips parted to reveal a pair of brilliant white fangs and her hair was the color of sunsets, all red and orange hues spilling down her back. A pattern of scales ran up her forehead like a widow’s peak, and covered her cheekbones. Her ears were mere slits set against the silver and red prismatic colors and when she turned, he was sure he heard rattling and looked down to see a snake’s tail coiled on his plush leather cushions.
“What. The. Fuck,” he stammered, wishing he hadn’t taken off his gun.
She hissed, like lips peeled back, forked tongue darting out and flickering in his direction kind of hiss and he shrank back, ‘cause however messed up he was, she was way on the other side of normal.
“Your crass words are offensive to my ears,” she seethed, coils uncoiling and snaking toward him.
He took another step back, ‘til the backs of his legs hit the front of a chair and he dropped his ass in the lumpy thing.
“Apologize,” she ordered.
He opened his mouth to tell her to go to hell, but all that came out was a choked wheeze as something squeezed his throat so hard he was seeing red spots and haze.
“You were told to apologize,” a deeper, harsher voice ordered, and Darrell forced himself to focus, to grasp the coils around his neck and pull at the thick weight of them enough to catch a gasp of air.
Serpent’s Kiss Blurb
While searching for their missing sibling, Zaiden and his sister, Kaandhal come across the last pure blooded psy-clairvoyant of their kind. Unfortunately for them, Darian has no idea what he truly is and isn’t much interested in learning, or in helping them locate their brother, Zxex.
A bounty hunter by trade, who’s been all but banished from his family due to his visions, Darian’s a bit cynical about his ability to be of any assistance to them. Never-the-less, Zaiden brings him back to their home Rhumba, where Darian discovers that very little is what it seems.
With plots unfolding all around them and discoveries about his own heritage leaving Darian reeling, he is left with the choice of whether to embrace who and what he is, or spend every moment with them a prisoner on the fringes of their society.
Add in a pesky little bond that only seems to grow the more time he and Zaiden spend together, and several factions looking to gain possession of him and Darian is left wondering if his visions just might be the least of his troubles.
LAYLA DORINE lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.
Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
Jana Denardo 