Book 3 in the Creatures of Sin series

Available from Amber Quill Press August 3, 2010

Lucas McAndrews is handsome, charming and smart, all of which make his job as a sought after gigolo that much easier.  But when he and a friend are assaulted out of nowhere, Lucas calls the one man he has no reason to expect help from.

Carver Eliot.

Two years ago, Lucas almost destroyed Carver’s career, but Carver has a hard time holding a grudge.  Lucas had been a great lay, and in the end had brought him to David Logan, his lover and partner.  So when Lucas calls, Carver’s only hesitation is in telling David.  To his surprise, it’s David who invites Lucas into their home, challenging Carver’s restraint and the fundamentals of their relationship.

But Carver isn’t the only one tempted, as David must face the limits of his experience and the needs of his body and heart. Ghosts of the past and threats of the present are soon the least of Carver and David’s worries as Lucas wins his way into their bed.

In the end, the only question is who will end up with whom, and who ends up dead.

So very much done with summer.  I used to love heat.  Hell, I’m still not a fan of being cold.  But, man, this summer is ridiculous.  Tomorrow’s supposed to be near a hundred with the heat index well over.  Thank goodness for AC, much as I loathe it.

But on to better things.  Like, say, writing.

Yesterday, Grey and I finished the fifth Creatures book.  Needs some padding, but it’s a good little story.  And, boy howdy, did it not end up where we thought.  In a good way.  But, yeah.

To keep myself out of trouble when work hasn’t been worky, I’ve been readying a few shorts that Grey and I wrote for submission.  They were in her court, but she got all productive and they’re back in mine.  Such is life.  And we’ve started back up one of our stalled WIPs, and also figured out how to turn around the other major stalled WIP.  So, hopefully…

In other news, we got our cover for the Sins of Affection, the third Creatures of Sin book.  GORGEOUS!  And that’s set for release on August 2nd, I believe.  If I don’t melt this weekend, I’ll play website update and get all that info up and ready for viewing.

So, not too shabby writing-wise this week.  My cracky solo idea is still germinating and I’m going roadtripping with Grey next weekend as she switches kids at Grammy Camp–roadtrips are where we do our best plotting and tend to come up with new ideas.

Stay tuned.

Ooh, I didn’t expect to write THAT. I love it when I manage not to spoiler myself.  –Steven Moffat

Emery and I write by email.  We have two threads going at any given time:  The chapter we’re working on, and what we call the back chat email.  We use back chat to ask questions about something going on in the current scene, discuss future developments or just natter on about the project.  A recent set of conversations went like this:

Emery:  I know we were just going to do David and Chris’ POVs.  And even though this is their story, Carver and Kieran have major roles in their lives.  Or not.  I dunno.

Grey:  I agree, Carver and Kieran do have major roles in this.  But for the most part, they are passive actors.  They aren’t the ones having conflict in this, and if we use their point of view, aside from being too cluttered, I think it will take out some of the suspense, because they’ll both be pretty fine with it.  We can get their POVs across through their interactions with Chris and David, or have something overheard if we really need more.

And then later:

Grey:  And I can’t wait for Carver and Kieran to talk about this.  They’re already going at it in my head.  Not literally.  Well, sort of.

Later still:

Emery:  On another note, too bad we never really set up Carver/Kieran…because having both sneaking around on their respective partners with the other…

Grey:  I have this whole scene where either Kieran goes after him or they run into each other in a bar where Carver is totally blitzed.  Carver figures turn about is fair play and hits on Kieran who goes along with it, getting him all worked up until dropping him with a promise of getting better revenge.

And then:

Grey:  CRAP!!!!!  I just realized, we can’t do Kieran and Carver’s conversation!

Emery:  I realized that the other day.  We could always add POVs earlier–do Car sex from Carver’s, maybe this from Kieran’s?

Grey:  We’re writing the scene no matter what.  We can figure out the POV issue later, or use the C&K scene as a free read.

And THEN:

They did something neither one of us had even considered, making the whole issue moot and giving us a much better scene than what we had planned!

Writing is an organic, living thing.  You can try to make it static with outlines and character blogs and all those writing gimmicks they tell you about in books and creative writing classes, but if you’re in it, writing away, trusting the characters and the plot and just letting it happen, they’ll take you places you never expected.  Our characters do that to us all the time, so that even though we’re writing the book, in many ways it feels like we’re reading it for the first time as we write it.  I can never wait for the next tag to see what’s going to happen next!

Why is it that the short weeks are always so incredibly long feeling?  Holidays are great, particularly when you don’t do anything, but, man, do you pay for it after the fact.  Of course, the hellish heat of this summer doesn’t help matters any.  I hate air conditioning with an undying passion, but I so would not be without it this year.  Ugh.

Now that the whining is out of the way, on to better things.  Such as the fact that Grey and I are probably about halfway through our fifth Creatures book.  I know, seems like we were just working on book four.  Go us!

Solo-wise, nada for me.  Tried resurrecting my zombie story (ha ha), but it’s just not grabbing me (ha ha, take two) and the old stuff I wrote on it ain’t that great upon re-read.  Boo.  There’s always my newest sequel of doom to poke at, but…meh.  Solo-wise, I’m feeling the need to try something new and completely different.  Unfortunately, I haven’t got the foggiest what that might be.  *grumble*  But at least some writing is getting done, right?