Your Cruel Fingers Close My Eyes.

Have I mentioned that I'm working on a prequel to Black Light? It's true. It's for anyone who ever wondered where Albrecht Christian came from.

In Black Light we meet him as a man who appears to be in his forties, haunted by his past. He chooses Trace to fill the void he feels. 

When I began Black Light I was Trace's age. Albrecht Christian was the oldest person I could imagine. I thought he was the villain of the book.

Albrecht politely, but firmly, declined.  In fact, he showed me that there was no villain. It was the combination of Albrecht and Trace that precipitates the events of Black Light. Yes, Albrecht is a a monster, but a reluctant one. 

In the frenetic world of rock and roll he is the one flash of elegance. It's as though he strayed away from an old black and white movie. And more than any other character in Black Light, he chose his own fate He twisted the scene, right under my pen. 

It was that moment, I think, that I fell in love with him. 

So, "Your Cruel Fingers Will Close My Eyes" began from my fascination with him. He tells Mica  his story, briefly in the Black Light. He says, "I was raised to be a Prince, but I'm the monster in this story."

Now I'm giving him the fairy tale he deserves. Where the monster can also be a prince.

Albrecht, being Albrecht,  he hasn't made this simple. I've sent much longer than I ever expected with this story, but I think we're nearing the end now. I hope to have it out and into your hands by early June. 

If you're curious, and you haven't read Black Light, there's a link to the left that leads you to Amazon. I also have signed copies for anyone who needs one, which I'm happy to send out. 

Grief

My Dad will have been gone four years this July. It was a long and hard death for him. He'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's nearly 20 years before. He outlived my Mom by five years, and struggled to the very end in a body that literally disintegrated around him. My sister and her son took care of him and I helped when I could. But in the end we could only wait until he gave up.

I don't remember everything that happened then, but this is what I do remember:

Reading saved my life. My oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads was finishing up her space opera trilogy, In The Wake of the Templars, which she had sold to Night Shade Books. The fact that my friend had made a sale to a major publisher was literally the best thing that happened in.... it seemed like years.

She was on the tightest deadline I could imagine--it was months, where I take years to finish anything. Loren was doing it.

In the midst of all of that, she started sending me the book in progress, chapter by chapter. Now I couldn't tell you if it was one a week or a day, but it seemed as though, I woke up every day to something new, something exciting. Something that wasn't me at work, carrying my phone around all day waiting for the CALL.

My last memory of my Dad was that last day, sitting by his bed, trying to get him to wake up and take some water. It's also of Raena and her adventures. No More Heroes was so much more than a distractaction. It was a story that I could hang on to, in spite of everything. As I read Loren's story, I even had hope that there would be a time I could write my own again. I don't think I ever thanked her properly for that. 

Find all of them here