Sample Saturday

It's that time again, this awesome Virtual eBook Fair is a wonderful way to find some new reads! This week I'm featuring a snipped from WHISKEY, MYSTICS, AND MEN, the only novella/accompaniment to the EMERALD SEER SERIES to date but it showcases a bit of what I LOVE about Dorian with some clues to his past in preparation for IMMORTAL MACHINATIONS due out 2014.

 “Is he awake, Watson?” Angeline stepped into the foyer and set her bag on the antique side table. She tossed her keys and phone on top and gave the small man a quick hug.

 “Yes, Miss Angeline. He is in the lab. I will bring the food and drinks to you there.” Watson lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “I think you will find him much changed. Please be kind.”

“Always, Watson.” Angeline assured Dorian’s most loyal familiar. Contented, he nodded and gestured toward the back of the loft. She made her way down the back stairs to Dorian’s lab.

“Dammit!” Dorian’s voice carried down the hall with a pungent odor of burnt plastic. Angeline could hear the strain in his voice and for a moment considered walking back out the way she came. “Angeline? Is that you?”

Too late. Damn vampires and their heightened senses. “Yes, I desperately needed a break and thought maybe we could watch an old movie. You still owe me a showing of Casablanca.” Angeline entered the room, mentally preparing for whatever she may find. Dorian stood at the far side of the lab hunched over a microscope. A few burners were lit under bubbling beakers and a pair of white boards covered with scribblings blocked the genus maps along the back wall. Watson could not have prepared her for the change in Dorian. Sporting a filthy lab coat over stained lounge pants and a faded white t-shirt he barely resembled the vampire she remembered. His hair hung limp and greasy and dark purple circles beneath his eyes emphasized the pallor of his skin. If a vampire could look tired Dorian would be the poster child for exhaustion. Angeline had to force a smile to disguise her shock.

“Don’t look at me like that, fairy girl. Do not lie to me either. You are lousy at it.” Dorian turned back to his microscope. “I am not in the mood for company. Please see yourself out.”

“Like hell, Dorian.” Okay, so sweet and flirtatious would not work. Angeline crossed the room with purpose and grabbed his arm, in hindsight not the best idea but it got his attention. Dorian wheeled to face her, his face etched with fury. Angeline gritted her teeth and held his gaze. “We are not going to fight now. You are going to stop this madness and join me for a meal. I need my friend and you clearly need me so get over yourself already.”

“How dare you talk to me like that?” Dorian’s voice rose, his pinhole pupils disappeared completely and his fangs elongated.

She’d seen that before but in a much different context. “How dare I? How dare you? When is the last time you have fed? Look at you! How can you help anybody like this? I thought you were tougher than this, Dorian. Snap out of it!” Angeline grasped Dorian at the shoulders, ignoring how thin they felt. “I am not going to pity you; we cannot afford pity right now. You know what is coming and you are useless like this.” She stood there, glaring at him with all the resolve she could muster and waited. Time seemed to stop but for Dorian’s face changing expression – fury, fear, confusion – and finally his pupils returned, fangs retracted, and he focused on her.

“Angeline?”

“Yes. Now, are you quite through your hysterics?” Sliding a hand to the side of his face, Angeline forced him to keep eye contact. “Watson called me. He said Gregoire left.”

Dorian cringed as if slapped. “Yes. He did.”

“Okay, so he left. You have lived how many centuries? Fought how many times with each other?” Angeline knew there was more to Dorian and Gregoire but she would deal with their issues later. “Dorian, let’s go upstairs. Let me help you clean up, we can watch a movie and you can tell me whatever you want or we can sit in silence. But this has to stop.”

“Will you stay tonight, Angeline?” Dorian seemed himself again, or closer to himself than he’d been in a while. Wrapping her up in his arms, Dorian held her close for a long moment.

“Will you stop this crazy mission of yours?” Angeline stepped back and arched an eyebrow quizzically.

“It is not crazy. It could be crucial. It could –“ Silencing him with her fingers on his lips, Angeline gave a warning look. The vampire nodded in agreement. “Perhaps a break would give me some clarity."

“Or, perhaps I could fill in one of the blanks for you over dinner?” Angeline knew part of the hybrid mystery but did not realize Dorian’s level of obsession and admittedly had been rather caught up with other things. She took Dorian’s hand and gently guiding him upstairs to his elaborate bathroom. He silently allowed her to start the shower and lay out clean clothes. “I will be waiting downstairs to tell you what I know but only if you are clean, groomed, and dressed like the Dorian I know. Deal?”

“Agreed, fairy girl. Well played.”

“Learned from the best, vampire.”

Sample Saturday

This week I'm featuring a delightful little snippet on PacMan, I just love him!
Pac Man snorted and sneezed. He lumbered over, plopped on her foot and rolled to his back exposing his pink underbelly. Some faint scars littered his left side, a reminder of the abuse he’d sustained as a pup. "You are such a big baby. I am not rubbing your belly now. Let’s go up to my room so I can shower before the guys get here." Storm looked up the massive double staircase, modeled after the one used in Gone with the Wind. Cherry wood railings usually wound with seasonal lights were now bare, odd in and of itself; Aunt Trin had always liked the twinkling lights year round. The carpet that ran the middle of the stairs seemed worn, threadbare in a few places where they had been tread one too many times. She would need to replace the lot of it.
Twenty steps to the landing and she found herself gazing out into the back yard, the orchard where she hid as a child, the storage shed where she received her first kiss, the white washed cottage where Aunt Trin kept an herb garden for potions. All looked a bit worse for the wear but essentially unchanged. Storm relished the picturesque quality of the blooming trees; she’d painted the orchard several dozen times and actually won an award for a photography study of the trees. It seemed like an eternity ago. She found herself wondering about the harvest this year. Storm wondered who had handled it last season. Perhaps there were receipts in the study, though she doubted Trin kept much by way of books. Dammit. Stop procrastinating.
Storm’s large boho purse weighed on her shoulder and the duffel bag straps dug into her palm as she climbed the next twenty steps. The room at the top of the stairs had belonged to her mother. Through the open door Storm could tell that Trin had not touched anything since Sophie’s passing. The four poster bed still covered by an heirloom quilt and pictures of Storm on the bedside table, all antique pieces of course, exactly as they had been ten years ago. She forced her feet forward remembering the need for a shower when the stench of sweat and body odor overwhelmed her reverie.
The next two doors opened into guest suites with private baths where Dan and Shane would most likely pass the night. Storm had the room at the end of the hall, opposite her old studio. Storm sighed and pushed open the door to her past. It did not escape her notice that it was the only closed door she’d come across.
Her bedroom looked exactly as she’d left it. The heavy violet velvet curtains were parted and hung over wrought iron tie backs. Sheers of various shades of purple still draped the matching wrought iron bed, the lilac satin bedspread half turned down to reveal silky silver sheets. Yes, she had been in a romantic Goth phase before she’d left. The walls were still plastered with her favorite posters, a shirtless Jim Morrison, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, several John Hughes movie posters, and a tour poster for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Her bookshelf still overflowed with Stephen King, Jane Austen, and Tolkien. A well-worn copy of Catcher in the Rye lay half open on her nightstand.

Massive writer's block, too many story lines and way too many characters

*SIGH* Life has been ever so chaotic secondary to the move, but it's calming down now as I settle in.  Now, if only my mind would cooperate.  I keep seeing glimpses of Immortal Machinations but they don't fit linearly and I'm still researching some things though the stack of books I checked out sit on my desk tauntingly more often than not.  Then there are the other stories and characters popping up at random times just begging for my attention though the words come out awkward and sometimes nonsensical.  I am working to remedy this situation because Dorian's story MUST be told and IMMORTAL MACHINATIONS is so thrillingly amazingly fun for me.  I just hope I can do him justice in the near future.

 To help work out the mental block I decided to work on casting Dorian because he is one of my very favorite characters and I do so love casting.  That said, these are some of the candidates:

Kit Harrington of GAME OF THRONES fame.  I love him as Jon Snow and I think he could really do Dorian justice.

Alex Pettyfer - more than just a pretty face as he demonstrated in BEAST, I think he could rock Dorian's look and master the cool collected vamp of Emerald Seer fame.

Perhaps my favorite of the three simply because I pictured him when I was writing Dorian for the Emerald Seer Series.  As I write Immortal Machinations I feel a bit differently but initially, I pictured Orlando Bloom.

Well, that was MUCH fun but I still have a huge block and now I am just thinking about these incredibly attractive men.  *sigh* Perhaps tomorrow will bring some clarity.