Zoe York's Blog, page 4

This came up in my reader group today, because it turns out, a lot of readers have an old version of Fall Dark that still has a promise at the end for a follow-up short story to come about Larken and Vince’s first mission.

I wrote that ages ago! And I re-distributed the ebook file to all the retailers. I’m going to follow up with them tomorrow to find out why it wasn’t pushed out to readers who already had it, but if you are one of those readers, here’s that epilogue!!!

I’ll bury it a bit further down the page so you don’t see spoilers if you haven’t yet read Fall Dark.

It’s quite good! It was my second visit to Camo Cay (the first is in Fall Out, book #1 in the SEALs Undone series).

And while I’m trying to burn a bit of blog space, did you know that Fall Quiet, the last book in the series, is coming out at the end of August? August 29, specifically.

OKAY. I think I’ve tabbed down enough, yes?

OH! One quick way to know which book you have — the new epilogue is under this cover:

If you don’t have this cover on your copy of Fall Dark, ask the retailer where you bought it to push the most recent version out to you. That will have the epilogue in it.

Or you can read it here:

Epilogue 

“Next time we’ll just shoot for fun,” Vince glowered, his dark eyebrows pulling tight over even darker eyes. Larken couldn’t help but notice how he got super hot when he got mad. He waved his finger at her. “Watermelons and soda bottles.”

This was their third re-match in as many weeks, and she’d out-shot him again.

She gave him her most innocent-not-innocent look. “What? You’ve won once.”

“And you’ve won twice. You lord it over me!”

Before she could point out that was because she was the better shot, Jackson interrupted their version of a loving date with a shout. They turned together, rifles at their sides, and watched as the ex-Navy SEAL ran toward at full speed.

Larken shoved her giddy excitement down, hiding it below her professional readiness. “What’s up?”

“We got a mission. Helo’s arriving for us in thirty minutes.”

He could have radioed up, and he didn’t. Larken frowned. “Why’d you sprint out here to tell us that instead of using comms?”

Jackson grinned. “I won rock-paper-scissors. Trent wanted to be the one to tell you, but sucks to be him.”

“Tell me what?”

“It’s Omar Bin Farooq. That’s our mission.”

Her heart picked up. She’d never been blood thirsty, but part of being a sniper meant taking kill shots. And this was one kill shot any American soldier would be proud of. Bin Farooq was an American-born convert to radical Islam and a complete psychopath. Responsible for multiple suicide bombs at American and British bases around the world, he was on everyone’s hit list. “How did we get tapped…?”

“I don’t know. We’ll brief on the way. Rik just said it has to be a sniper shot.”

— —

Vince mentally went through his gear as they flew low over the ocean in their third helicopter of the day, heading toward the Turkish coast. Knives, two pistols, and a couple of communication devices in addition to his burner phone.

They’d been briefed in the jet from Grand Bahama to their first touchdown in Greece, where they’d landed with their American passports.

Then they’d left those identities in a small villa on a private island. Larken had assembled her rifle, zeroed the scope, and now they were ready to do this thing. Ghosts, traveling without legit papers or a safety net.

Fuck, he loved his job. He’d loved it when he worked for Uncle Sam and he loved this, too—same goals, different process.

And he loved the woman across from him, too.

The radio squawked in his ear and Rik’s calm voice gave them a five minute warning. They were about to pop into radar space, then touchdown and disembark before company arrived. They’d complete the mission, hide in plain sight, and get on a lunch cruise the next day. Jump off the side, get on a waiting speedboat, and be back in Greece before the next sunset.

If the country wasn’t locked down once they assassinated a man.

Big if.

If it was locked down, they had identities. Since they weren’t actually government agents, Vince had no idea how well those identities would hold up, but he’d do whatever he had to do to keep Larken safe.

A car would be waiting to take them to Istanbul—and a separate delivery van for Trent and Jackson, who would get Larken’s weapon in place.

The password was a series of two questions, both in Turkish. Larken had warned him that Rik was a Monty Python fan, and sure enough, during the briefing, everyone groaned when he told them what their contacts would say.

Vince didn’t care. He’d heard all sorts of batshit crazy passwords. When checkpoints had to change the code every twenty-four hours, that kind of thing happened more often than you’d think.

He glanced back at Larken. She was dressed in an elegant gown, long and layered enough to disguise her thigh holsters, but not so long or tight it would interfere with her sprinting if needed. She wore gloves, like he did, although hers were long satin opera gloves, and his were leather driving ones.

The entire package was…disorienting. Gone was the natural island girl he’d made love to so many times over the last month. In her place was a sophisticated goddess, from the perfect makeup to the polished hair. But the most startling change was the look in her eye. He recognized it, of course. From a decade earlier, and from every time he looked in the mirror after a mission.

Get it done. That was all that mattered. That was the only reason for the change, and as soon as the mission was completed, she’d be back in a bikini, her hair a tangle of waves flying behind her as she sprinted down the beach.

The landing and transfer into the city went as smoothly as possible. The helicopter landed on a deserted concrete pad just as two vehicles pulled up.

The driver approached Jackson, and if Vince wasn’t mistaken, they knew each other. “Selam. İngilizce biliyor musunuz?”

Jackson nodded. “Bir dil asla yeterli değildir.” One language is never enough.

“Evet. Nerelisin?”

“Milwaukee.” This part was key, because the answer had to be a city other than New York or Los Angeles.

And then they were off, their drivers remaining anonymous but clearly as briefed as they needed to be. Jackson gave Vince a discreet thumbs up before getting in the delivery van, Larken’s rifle carefully disguised inside a box of carpets they had a purchase order for. Jackson and Trent would ride together, Vince and Larken following.

They were a couple on holidays.

Every cell in his body had slammed into high-alert as they landed, and he stayed like that as they drove into the city, following streets Vince had memorized. Streets he’d been on before, in an entirely different capacity.

They changed routes into the heart of the business district at the last minute, which made Vince nervous, but they were deposited at the main entrance to the Bolte Hotel without incident, and their driver disappeared into the night.

His phone vibrated. A text message from Jackson, confirming they were inside, and Trent had room keys programmed for them.

He slid his palm against the small of Larken’s back and leaned in, brushing his lips against her neck as he murmured, “Good to go, mi corazon.”

She gave him a blinding smile before nodding demurely at the doorman. They headed straight for the elevators, no need to check in. The red-headed Scott had taken care of that in a sideways manner.

Vince pressed the button for the tenth floor, and they shot straight up. When they got there, they walked silently down the corridor to the room Jackson had told them to use. Out of the corner of his eye, Vince noticed the security camera pointing away from the room. A blind spot. Good job, guys.

As soon as they’d double-tapped on the door, Jackson let them in, then left. He had work still to do.

Trent waved toward the carpet roll on the bed, and Larken got to work. The room had a terrace-style balcony, which would be more exciting for guests if the view wasn’t of a newly constructed parking garage. Thank you, urban sprawl.

Because tonight, that parking garage was exactly the view Larken wanted—because through her scope, she could hit her target when he arrived at the office suite on the far side of the garage.

At five hundred metres, it wasn’t the longest shot Larken would ever taken. But the urban setting, the lack of options for zeroing her sight on the actual target space, and only getting one chance…that made it enough of a challenge for her.

Add in the stakes if she missed—because Omar Bin Farooq rarely went anywhere they could reach him like this. Without taking out dozens of other people, including women and children.

Yes, they were assassinating a man tonight. But they were doing it for the greater good, and once they were done, Vince knew Larken would sleep like a baby. So would he.

Trent’s phone flashed, and he gave a nod to Vince, who murmured to Larken that Jackson was in place down on the street. They had an estimated arrival time, but Jackson would be able to start an eighty-second countdown.

That’s how long it would take the subject to get from the street level up to the office suite.

But first there was the wait. They had seven minutes before their target should arrive.

Seven minutes of stillness for Larken, in case the convoy was early. She wouldn’t miss.

Seven minutes of watching for Vince, listening, waiting for it all to go sideways. He wouldn’t let her down.

Trent came up beside him and quietly handed over a plastic room key. “Room 716,” he said. “You’ve been there since yesterday.”

— —

Larken heard them talking behind her, but all of that faded. She was leaning against the wall. She’d take this shot standing up. Prone was a popular position for snipers in films, but it required being at the top of a rise—here, that would be out on the terrace, and that brought with it a risk of someone noticing the muzzle flash. No, she’d rather be back, inside the room, sheltered. Against the wall and staring down her scope, through the parking garage and right into the office suite where one of the most dangerous ISIL backers, a puppet-master, would be making a rare appearance.

His last.

She didn’t have a lot of time to futz outside with taking wind measurements, but she watched the flags fluttering gently on a nearby building. At this distance, she might need to anticipate a two-centimeter drift. Three if she wasn’t lucky. Center-of-mass would be the safer shot to take, but she wanted to hit him in the T-zone. Turn out the lights, zero chance of being saved.

She’d only have a split second to pick the target and fire.

Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. Don’t think about it, she told herself. Just let it happen. She’d take the shot she could make in the moment, and it would be the right one.

Inhale, exhale. Wait.

Vince moved closer, but not too close. He was a good body man. It wasn’t his preferred role in a mission—he’d probably rather to be down on the ground, providing the visual intel that Jackson was feeding to Trent. But she was glad to have him here with her.

“Three minutes,” he said quietly. “You—” He cut himself off. “Correction. Target’s arriving.”

“Understood.” She stood up straighter, away from the wall, and settled into her stance. The slice of a clear shot through the parking garage didn’t allow her to see any other part of the office building, and the seconds ticked by.

What if he went into another suite. What if his security people kept him too far from the windows…

But then the light came on in the window she was watching, and two bodies stepped into view. Too big. Security. And then there was another, wearing long robes, and she wasn’t sure if it was him. She needed to see his face, needed to make that visual confirmation. Get out of the way, she mentally urged the bodyguards.

The meeting could take a while, or be over pretty quickly. The sooner she got a chance the—

The bodies parted and there he was. Omar Bin Farooq.

Her crosshairs swept to his forehead and she exhaled quickly, turning to stone. The sharp pop of the shot, the heavy crack of the rifle butt into her shoulder, and the drop of the human body five-hundred-meters away all happened at the same time. Another kill.

Her job was seriously whack sometimes.

Hands shaking ever so slightly from the adrenaline rush, she swung the rifle down, swiping her gloved hand over the sides where it may have touched her skin. “Done.”

“Good.” Trent gestured to the carpet roll. “If I may be of service…”

She laughed. A weird reaction, but that was how it went sometimes. “Thank you.”

It was a pretty clean crime scene, but they still did a quick sweep. Collected the casing and locked the balcony door, then Trent was gone and it was just her and Vince, alone in the hallway.

“And now comes the hard part.” He straightened his bow tie. God, he looked good. And way out of her league, all intense Latin playboy.

“Oh shit,” Larken said with another nervous laugh. “You’re going to make me pretend to be rich, aren’t you?”

He winked at her. “I know it’s cruel, but someone’s gotta do it.”

— —

Larken gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. “I forgive you, baby.”

They hit the stairwell at a run. Ten floors below, they heard a door slam open and heavy footsteps start to climb toward them.

Not running. Vince risked a quick glance over the railing. Security, but maybe doing their regular rounds.

He held up his hand and gestured to Larken, reminding her they’d go down two more flights. No more running for them, either. They walked lightly, matching their steps to the security guard’s so he wouldn’t hear them. If they met him before they reached their floor, he’d knock the guy out and go with Plan B. But from the sound of it, he was still five flights below them, maybe six, and they only had twelve more steps to go. Eight. Six. Two.

The heavy metal door squeaked on its hinges as Vince pulled at the handle.

He grabbed Larken’s hand and sprinted as soon as their feet hit the plush carpet. Their room was at the far end of the hall. He sped up, churning over the distance, Larken keeping pace.

He jammed the keycard into the slot on the door. Flash, flash, flash…green. A quick glance over his shoulder told him they were still alone in the hallway.

He shoved the door open and locked it behind them as Larken stripped down. If anyone knocked on the door doing a room-to-room search, they’d be naked, wrapped only in hastily grabbed hotel towels.

Lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. A convenient cover story.

Larken winked at him as she shimmied out of her gown, then sauntered toward the bed wearing nothing but a pair of white panties and her thigh holsters.

That shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did…but wasn’t that how they found each other again?

He was a lucky man.

THE END

Love in a Sandstorm comes out on July 25, but you can read the first chapter here!

Pre-order it at iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo today.

Chapter One

May

Pine Harbour

The directions from the diner on the edge of Pine Harbour had been clear. Back onto the highway, head just north of town, take the first left.

Such a mundane instruction for a potentially life-altering drive, Jenna Kowalczyk thought.

Five minutes, tops, the waitress had said. Sean would definitely be there. She’d leaned in and with a sympathetic sigh confided that he hadn’t left his older brother’s house since Dean brought him home four weeks earlier.

Of course he was at Dean’s place. Those Foster brothers always had each other’s backs.

Jenna had heard all about Sean’s family in the two weeks they spent together in the south of Spain. When she’d fallen in love with a soldier and let him promise her the moon.

It had only been three and a half months since they’d clung to each other and said goodbye in the Urfa airport. Eight weeks since she’d last heard from him. Six weeks, give or take a few days, since he’d been injured in a mortar attack on a convoy.

An attack she hadn’t known about.

She took the turns mechanically. Instead of the overwhelming emotions she’d expected to feel, there was just a stiff numbness.

The final turn, onto a gravel lane, was marked by a pair of weeping willows. Past those trees she found a sweeping lawn leading to a well-kept sprawling home with a wide porch and a three-car garage to the side, the house Jenna knew Sean’s oldest brother had recently bought and added a recording studio at the back for his fiancée.

She knew all about these people, but she feared they had no clue she existed.

She slowed to a stop in front of the house. Her heart hammered in her chest and she took a full minute to compose herself before she pushed herself out of the car.

The Bruce Peninsula was overcast and rainy, and the unseasonable cool felt even colder given where she’d just come from. She grabbed her jacket.

When she knocked on the door, it wasn’t Sean that answered. She recognized Dean from the photos Sean had shown her.

He didn’t recognize her in the least, though. He gave her a tight, blank up-and-down glance before speaking. “Can I help you?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m looking for Sean Foster.”

“I’m his brother, Dean.”

She gave him another nod as she tried to make sense of this moment. Her brain was spinning hard, but there was no sense to be made. Only one thing to do—rip off the bandage. “Is he here?”

Dean crossed his arms and lifted his chin. “What do you want with him?”

She swallowed hard. “I asked at Mac’s. The diner?”

“I’m familiar with it.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Of course. They said he was staying here.”

“He’s asleep right now.”

In the middle of the day? She instinctively looked past her husband’s brother’s shoulder, seeking out the man who occupied her heart.

“Maybe it would be best for you to come back another time.”

“Right.” That wasn’t happening, though. She was here now and she needed to see Sean. But first…if Dean didn’t know who she was, there was only one explanation. And that was step number one. “Maybe we should talk, anyway.”

“Us?”

She gestured for him to join her on his own porch.

He glanced behind him before stepping outside and closing the door. “What do we need to talk about? If you’re looking for Sean, you should know he’s not in great shape right now.”

Something in the way he said that turned her stomach. She’d known that was a possibility, maybe even a likelihood, but anger—at being left behind, at being ignored—had fuelled her to this point. She’d needed to think she’d been wronged, somehow, in order to keep her wits about her. To keep working when she wanted to curl up in a ball and let her heart just be broken. Of course when she’d realized he’d been injured, she’d feared the worst—but the media reports had made it sound…

Well, whatever it was, better to deal in facts. She squared her shoulders and tightened her mouth. “Then it’s all the better that I’m here.”

“And why is that?”

She shoved her fingers through her hair, ignoring the way they shook, and glanced to the side. “I guess he didn’t tell you.”

“Tell us what?”

Spit it out. She sighed and held out her hand. “I’m Jenna. Sean’s wife.”

It took agonizing seconds for Dean to glance down at her extended fingers, then back up at her face. Process her words and weigh them.

He didn’t take her hand, though.

She left it stuck in the space between them. She had nothing to apologize for. She had a ring and two weeks’ worth of stories and photos that proved she wasn’t insane, even though right now, in this moment, she felt totally crazy.

Slowly, he extended his arm and shook her hand. It wasn’t the warmest handshake she’d ever experienced, but it wasn’t booting her off his porch, either. Small miracles. “Say that again?” he said carefully after he released her hand.

“We met in January at a transit camp in Turkey. Just before he went to Spain on his long leave. We traveled together. I was in the room when he called home.” She’d been curled up against his naked chest, but that wasn’t a detail that needed to be shared with his brother. “And then, at the end of our holiday together, we got married.”

She swung her bag off her shoulder and dug into it for her phone. Sean’s brother didn’t say anything as she tapped in her password and clicked into her saved photographs. She didn’t have many since Spain. A couple of selfies she’d sent Sean, nothing indecent, and the group photos she took with her Doctors Without Borders colleagues the night her replacement arrived, and she left the camp.

When she said an abrupt goodbye to her life’s plans and her planned out future.

All to chase the missing pieces of her broken heart.

She found the end of their trip. The twenty-four hours in Gibraltar. Their wedding pictures, as simple and unassuming as they were.

Fingers still shaking, she handed over the phone.

Dean flipped back and forth, then swore under his breath before glancing up at her and swearing again, this time louder. “Well, I’m sorry for being suspicious. You’re right, he didn’t tell us.”

She’d known that from his initial who-the-heck-are-you expression, but the confirmation still hurt. And when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.

“He’s not himself.” Dean likely provided this as some sort of justification, and she got it.

She wanted that explanation, too. Needed to cling to it because if he were, this would be extra awful. The man who’d seduced her, thrilled her, loved her couldn’t do this. Couldn’t go cold and silent just like that.

“Can you tell me what happened? The news reports were sparse, to say the least.”

He shook his head. “Not my story to tell. But you should come in. We’ll give you some space to speak to him on your own.”

***

Sean heard voices downstairs and hauled another pillow over his head. He could handle the ringing, or the spinning, or the nausea. Any one of those things were manageable. But all three together filled him with the worst kind of impotent rage, because there was nothing to be done. Even the medications he’d been prescribed didn’t work. They didn’t touch the dizziness or the tinnitus. Sure, they helped with nausea, but so did being unconscious.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to fall back into the broken sleep he’d been riding when the noise had started again.

But instead of quiet, he got a knock at the bedroom door.

“Go away,” he growled in the cold, hard voice he still didn’t recognize as his own.

His oldest brother didn’t listen, because that wasn’t his way. Instead he pushed the door open. Creak.

Sean moved the pillow that was in front of his face out of the way and found Dean looming in the doorway. “You’ve got a visitor.”

“Not up for it.”

“Not an option for this visitor.”

“Someone from the unit?” Definitely not up for that, then. He was no fucking hero. He’d been dodging visitors the entire month he’d been home, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. “If it’s the padre, tell him to fuck off.”

“It’s your wife.”

For two weeks in the military hospital in Germany, he’d imagined those words. At first, he’d wanted, needed to hear them. Tried to ask the nurses to get in touch with Jenna, but his words had been all fucked up, and they’d ignored his badly written notes.

He’d dreamed of her. Futile, frustrating dreams, of falling asleep in her arms, only to wake up and she was gone.

He’d dreamed of his late mother, too. Hadn’t done that in years.

Then the doctors started to talk about his rehab and transitioning out of the army. He’d been reminded at every turn about the ever-present threat of another stroke. Of disability and accommodation. Faces grew sympathetic and voices softened.

Did he want to go to a rehab hospital far from home?

No.

Would he have adequate support if he was discharged? It wasn’t a lie to say yes. His brothers would do anything for him. Of course he hadn’t allowed them to. He’d hissed and growled and snarled until they gave him space.

And as he struggled with the transition back in Pine Harbour—as he realized just how well and truly fucked he was, not for a short time, but maybe forever—he couldn’t stomach the thought of having one of them reach out to her. Couldn’t bear the thought of her pitying him, too.

Better for her to be angry and righteous. To move on and leave him behind.

He’d resolved himself to that plan, deciding it would be better for her that he be nothing but a memory.

But she was here.

Now.

His stomach heaved.

He lurched to his feet, ignoring the way the room twisted obscenely around him, and shoved past Dean. There was no way for him to keep the floor from coming up to meet his face. It was only absurdity that drove some part of him to keep trying, like on the three-hundredth try, mind-over-matter might finally work.

It didn’t.

Dean hauled him up and half-carried him into the bathroom, where he lost his lunch in the toilet.

Silently, his brother handed him a damp towel.

His whole life, Dean had been taking care of him. Ten years older and endlessly wiser, he’d been shoved into a parent role before he was ready, but he’d stepped up anyway.

And now he was doing it again, his new life with Liana on hold because Sean was a mess.

Sean swiped angrily at his face. He didn’t look in the mirror. He hated what he would see if he did. Gaunt cheeks, scruffy beard. Too long hair, sunken eyes. He didn’t need to see himself today to know Jenna couldn’t, ever. “Make her go away.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then what the fuck good are you?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Dean growled under his breath. “You got married?”

That was before.

It hurt so much, a bright, sharp regret in his chest.

“We had a fling.” The words turned sour in his mouth. A lie. It had been so much more than that. He’d been the luckiest man in the world.

Had been.

Past tense.

Like everything else in his life, the idea of having a wife was now done. Broken. Impossible and shoved deep down lest it destroy him to think about it.

“She’s downstairs.” Dean kept pushing that fact in front of him, like he wasn’t covered in a cold sweat already.

“I can’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.” His brother opened the bathroom door. “Liana and I are going out for an hour to give you some space. I’m telling Jenna you’re up here.”

No. It was a wounded, pathetic cry, and he swallowed hard not to let it out.

He wouldn’t beg.

If he needed to do this, he’d do it. He’d find a way to tell her this was a mistake. Her coming here, them getting married, the whole thing.

He stood there, in front of the sink, and listened to Dean’s heavy steps descend the stairs. Murmurs, then silence, followed by noisier murmurs. Dean had gone to get Liana from her studio—interrupting her work—so they could get out of the way.

His chest tightened. It was too late to move—not that he could on his own. Too late to try and look good for her—not that he deserved to preen.

As the front door clicked shut, his pulse pounded loud inside his head. It added to the disorienting cacophony of sound in there that made it so hard for him to think.

Fitting.

All of his fucked-up brain stuff should make it hard to hear things, but if anything, it heightened his sense of sound. He heard her downstairs. Shifting on the spot. Restless, worrying.

If she’d stood there any longer, that knowledge would have twisted tight enough inside him that he’d have tried to move. Tried and failed, like all the other times, but he was close to lurching forward when she took her first step up the stairs.

Tentative.

Creak. Another two steps, and a pause. Then a sigh and a resolute return to climbing, step by dooming step, until she appeared in the doorway, wearing jeans and a jacket, her Chucks still on her feet, like she knew he wouldn’t let her stay very long.

Her eyes widened and her perfect mouth, sweet and soft, pulled into a surprised O. “Sean?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice rough. His knuckles hurt from how hard he gripped the sink to keep himself steady, but what was another layer of pain?

Her eyes flicked down, then dragged up his body, her gaze searching. He stood there and let her hunt for any answer that would satisfy her curiosity. Any answer that would reassure her he was nothing like the man she’d married.

Nothing like the man who’d loved her for too brief a time.

She took a shuddering breath as her eyes met his again, and his chest cracked open in a hard, wrenching twist. “And yet I am,” she whispered.

***

Keep reading on the 25th! Pre-order at iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo today.

This past weekend, I had the privilege of speaking at the NECRWA conference. If you are in the New England area, or you might like the idea of a weekend in the Boston area full of craft talk and smart workshops, I highly recommend this regional RWA conference. Next year’s speakers have already been announced, and I’m probably going to attend again. (Mostly for the conference; a little bit so I can go back to Neptune Oyster Bar).

By request, here is the text of my luncheon talk. You don’t get the effect of me tearing up at the start or rambling off script toward the end, though. For that, you had to be there in person.

***

Three things I want you to know right off the top.

I’m nervous, and that’s okay. Joanna Bourne reminded me that this is a good thing—it’s my body preparing me for the hordes to advance with pitchforks.
Should that happen, I’ll just turn it into my next Vikings in Space adventure, so that’s all good, too.
Everything I know, I learned from those that came before me. I would be lost without this community. And when I remind myself of that, I’m not nervous any more.

It’s an honour to be asked to give this lunch talk, and I was thrilled to be asked. The committee has truly done an outstanding job organizing this conference. The quality of the workshops has blown me away. So like, no pressure, Zoe. But this is my first keynote-type address! And I want to get it right.

Just like when you sit down to start a new writing project, the possibilities are endless but also overwhelming—do I share something poignant? Go for the funny? Be motivational?

The thing is, when you’re handed a microphone, and you’re a bit of a maverick like I am, you start to think… is this the only time I’ll ever get to do this? I have to say all the things!

I still feel like my eight-year-old self, that eager little girl who has discovered a love of novels. I was raised by a single mom, and we didn’t have a lot of money. I got to buy two new books at the Scholastic Book Fair each year, and the rest of the time we bought books by the bag-full at yard sales. I went to the library every week and signed out ten books at a time, and when I returned them, I stood at the counter and talked the librarian’s ear off about my favourites. That is still who I am in so many ways.

My mother taught me a lot—about readers and publishing, about money and running a small business. She was a journalist, and wrote about parenting and family life for newspapers and magazines. And after she had her third child, my brother, she struck out on her own, and started an independent parenting magazine, because she kept writing articles no editor wanted to print. Radical articles about attachment parenting and breastfeeding. In the early 1980s, that just didn’t sell.

But deep down, my mom knew there was a market for that. She wanted to read that kind of magazine, and even though it was scary, she was willing to bet there were others who did, too.

She didn’t have the internet. She had trade shows and word of mouth. Her newsletter sign-up form was a clipboard and instead of MailChimp or Aweber, she used child labour, and had me and my sister collate the magazines into bins for the post office. Most five-year-olds don’t know that Canadian postal codes go from A on the east coast to V on the west coast, but I did.

That was my first lesson learned in publishing.

My second was that mailing lists and fanbases grow one name at a time. That there’s no real short cut, and the most valuable names are the ones that are scratched onto a clipboard list after a real conversation.

Today we’ve got the internet. And we have online forms instead of clipboards. But it is still authentic interactions that build a true fanbase—reading an amazing book or meeting an author online or at an event like last night’s book signing, and something just clicks.

And when I finished my first romance novel, thirty years after watching my mother forge her own path, deep down I knew I would find readers with it, for it, directly. I knew indie publishing was for me.

When I started to write this speech, I racked my brain—what is the nugget of truth that I want you to take away? What can I dig out of my experiences in the wild west of indie publishing and share with you that’s both actionable and easy to digest? How can I inspire you to take that brave step to do something new and exciting, that might make all the difference?

And I came up with a few ideas. But the problem is, the ideas I came up with seem to contradict each other.

That’s often how it is in publishing.

We are told it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but then when an opportunity drops in our lap, we need to write like the wind for two weeks flat-out on the off-chance that this might be our big break.

We’re told they want unique voices, something fresh, but also familiar and recognizable.

We’re told write the story of your heart. And write to market. [Bree Bridges, one of the two writers behind the Kit Rocha duo, has solved this one for us. She says, “write the most commercial story of your heart”, and that’s exactly right. That’s what we should do. Figuring out how is a whole other thing.]

We’re told to take chances and invest in ourselves, but the money should always flow towards the author.

We’re told not to give up, but also to consider starting over.

The truth is, writing is hard, and publishing is a brutal business—and not always a meritocracy. To survive, and thrive, you need to be tough. You need to believe in yourself and trust your gut. You need to see through smoke and mirrors. You need to shut out all the noise, and find your own path.

But it’s just not that simple, because that takes resources and support. You need a solid platform in life in order to get a really good leap. I know that.

I struggle with the reality that there are a lot of asterisks on good advice. Mental health, physical health, financial stability, access to opportunities—they all factor into our ability to do what someone else has done. Publishing is a weird formula nobody has ever quite figured out, and privilege weighs heavy.

Success takes a lot of hard work. But it also has something to do with the position you start from. And privilege is often called luck.

I grew up poor. That’s a disadvantage. But my mother was a trailblazer in indie publishing, long before the internet. That was major advantage for me. I learned some lessons as a child that made me look at traditional publishing through a very different lens.

It is tempting for me to tell people, this is what you should do. But the reality is, I don’t know if it is.

So now, with some asterisks firmly in place, let’s get to some possibly good advice.

We come to conferences like NECRWA because we recognize that this entire enterprise is hard, and we want to be professionals. We want to get it right. Writing, publishing, networking…there is a lot to what we do. Of course it starts and ends on the page, with characters who become real to us and stories we’re desperate to tell. But we know that the business of publishing is bigger than just creating compelling stories, and we know that a lot of it will feel like walking a tightrope.

We all struggle with balance. If you’re one of those people who find it a challenge to switch between wearing your author hat and your marketing hat and your publishing hat or your contract-negotiating hat. Maybe even your mom or wife or roommate or daughter hat. Figuring out how to keep writing when we’re pulled in all different directions…or how to look up from the page long enough to stake a claim in the ever-growing romance market…it’s hard.

When I first agreed to speak to you, I thought, I want to talk about stepping outside of your comfort zone.

I know that the lessons I’ve learned definitely point me in that direction – stepping outside my own comfort zone has been when my career has leapt forward.

But after the high of a new release that’s done well, there’s an inevitable crash that follows. Not enough people talk about this—all books become backlist.

All sales slide. And riding that rollercoaster can be disorienting.

The real lesson I’ve learned is that balance is the key, and I don’t mean that like some kind of Zen thing. Real balance is a wobbly, dangerous gymnastics feat that requires fearlessness and a laser-like focus locked on an unmoving point in the distance.

Another contradiction: you need to take risks, and you need to play it safe.  

What I’ve learned is that publishing is a zig-zagging kind of industry. Opportunities here and there, left and right, sometimes zinging past so quickly we miss them. Don’t worry about that. There will be another opportunity. But if you are too rigid, you will miss more than the flexible person over there who’s just hooked a new deal. And if you are too flexible, you’ll lag behind your goal-oriented friend over here who’s writing book eight in a solid-but-slow-earning series.

The most common question I get asked by other authors is, “How do I brand my book? How do I brand this new series? I have this great idea, how do I make it a hit?”

And the honest answer is, “I have no idea.”

Truthfully? I don’t know how to make my next series a hit.

And if you’re thinking, whoa, Zoe, this is not the way to give a keynote address, you might be right.

But I’ll tell you how I weather that unknown.

My biggest advantage when I started publishing was that I knew it would be hard. That I knew the path would be bumpy and there would be failures and missteps along the way, and I just needed to keep my eyes on the prize, in the distance.

I was lucky to find a professional community just this chapter, full of women with diverse experiences and an eagerness to share the lessons they’d learned. [Shout out to Romance Divas!]

When someone shares their journey, pay attention. There’s so much there for us to learn from each other.

The three most useful conversations I had before I published my first book were:

1. A wide-ranging comparison of debut book sales in the first month. Wide-ranging is really important here because some people will have amazing launches—and there are some good lessons there, too—I’ll get to that in the second point. But the biggest takeaway I learned before I published anything was that most likely, my first book would sell somewhere between twenty and a hundred copies in it’s release month. I sold forty.

2. How series can make all the difference when marketing genre fiction. Again, there are exceptions to this, standalone books that soar. But the consensus among the experienced authors I talked to, who had the careers I wanted, was that their bread and butter sales came from an extended series. Five or more books in a common world, each one about a different couple. And for most of them, those series came later in their career, after they’d have some trial and error of launching and pitching and promoting their books. Some people nail all of that on their first go, and have a debut success. These people almost always have paid attention to the lessons that others have learned through trial and error. (I paid attention, but still didn’t have success out of the gate. That’s okay, I was expecting that).

3. The best book you’ll write is way down the road. I remember this conversation really clearly. The question was, “What’s the best book you’ve written?” – and while a lot of the authors I looked to as mentors did have answers along the lines of, “I really liked this book, it’s my favourite to date,” almost all of them shared the mindset that their BEST book was yet to come. That kind of thinking is really conducive to forward momentum. And in genre fiction, where a successful author will write ten, twenty, thirty or more novels in their career, it’s almost essential.

The corollary of all three of those points, while not necessarily spoken out loud, became cautionary tales I internalized.

Don’t expect success out of the gate; just write the book and move forward.
Don’t give up on a series because of weak sales; the series will eventually drive better sales.
Don’t get caught up in how awesome your first book is; the next ones will be even better.

I don’t believe in trying to write hits. I believe in writing about the characters that clamour loud in my head, the stories that make me zing with excitement on the inside. I believe in writing them as well as I can, and bleeding blood onto the page in the process.

In front of you today are some of my books. I chose these novels because they are representative of the path I took to success. It was bumpy and it was uneven. But it was also, at all times, quite clear to me.

What I want to talk to you about today is a couple of things, and they all loop back to this question of how do I do this? How do I figure out my path to success?

The answer really is two-fold:

  First, you push yourself out of your comfort zone, and you find something that sizzles in your bloodstream.

Second, you come up with a five year plan that allows for some flexibility, and you stick to it. Commit to yourself and commit to that project that makes your heart leap.

And when I say a five-year plan, I mean this in a rolling, revising general kind of way. When I was practicing this talk, my assistant asked me where I’m at in my five-year plan. I stopped and looked at her, and said, “Day one. Always, day one.”

Now, if I’ve done this correctly, right about now, I’m tweeting about this talk. If you’re on Twitter, check me out, I’m @zoeyorkwrites. I tweeted a picture of a chalkboard, and there’s a small circle in one corner of it, with an arrow pointing to it. That’s your comfort zone.

And way on the other side is a big circle. Where the magic happens, reads the caption.

Your comfort zone over here.

Where the magic happens way over there.

What exactly that means for you is going to be different than what it means for the author sitting next to you. Everyone’s path is different; when to hit publish, when to start a new series, when to start over… nobody can tell you what the right next step for you might be, except for you. And right now, I hope you’re starting to get a kernel of an idea. It might scare you.

Hopefully it scares you! That’ll tell you that you’re on the right track. Trust that idea. Let it drag you out of your comfort zone and magic will happen.

I know this is easier said than done. Trust me when I say, I’ve been there.

Like a lot of authors, the first book that I started writing is in a trunk somewhere. Mine is a digital trunk called Google Drive, and there it shall languish forever. It’s terrible. It was followed by many more failed first chapters, first acts, standalone scenes. I spent a lot of time and energy writing a story I knew deep down inside, one that was near and dear to my heart.

I want you to think about your own first stories. The ones in the trunk, and the ones you’ve finished. For me, those books were reflection pieces, in a way. The first one I actually finished, What Once Was Perfect, is one of the books I shared with you today.

I love that book. It’s the book of my heart in so many ways. It is also completely inside my comfort zone.

A Viking’s Peace is another passion project, that’s really my happy place as a writer. Totally inside my comfort zone.

It took me four books to first write something that was a little outside my comfort zone. That book, Fall Out, is also at some your spots. That was my first Navy SEAL romance. I wrote it for the SEALs of Summer military romance superbundle. For those of you that take that copy home, I encourage you to read it—and notice how, at points, the story could be stronger. I’m the first to admit that book isn’t perfect. It was written on a deadline, with very high stakes. I had to make it into that boxed set; I knew in my heart it was a huge opportunity to reach new readers.

But I was definitely out of my comfort zone, and the writing was hard.

I was literally dragged through that book by Anne Marsh and Kimberly Troitte. I sent it to them in pieces when it was about three quarters done. I wasn’t in a good head space with my day job, and I thought the book was awful.

They told me they loved Drew and Annie.

For all its imperfectness, that book, written far outside my comfort zone, created two very memorable main characters, and their passion for one another was much stronger than what I’d previously written.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and magic happened. This is definitely true for a lot of writers, and I think there are a lot of reasons for it. We have to get creative in order to cope with stress and disorder, so when we step outside of what we know, what we’ve always done, we…try harder. We apply our craft more vigorously. We are more comfortable with the idea that we don’t know what we’re doing, really, so we’re way more open to feedback and instruction.

I wasn’t aware of any of this happening. I was scared and full of doubt.

When the SEALS of Summer bundle released, it soared to the top of the charts. That boxed set hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. And I got a huge injection of new readers who had fallen in love with Drew and Annie.

I desperately wanted to retreat to my comfort zone. The last thing I wanted to do was write another SEAL book.

I think that’s probably the pattern that most writers take. Write some safe projects, that appeal to our hearts and our loyal readers, and then take a risk. We can’t constantly be writing on that edge, because sometimes risks don’t pay off. Sometime we leap out of our comfort zone and land in muck.

But the day after SEALs of Summer hit the NYT list, I was laid-off from my job.

And let me tell you, there’s no bigger reality check about what you write and how you write than suddenly having writing shoved from a part-time passion to a full-time responsibility.

I gave myself six months to turn writing into a job that could replace my previous career.

I looked at my long-term plan for my series, and I looked at my brand.

I asked myself, what do I need to do here to appeal to my existing readers (some of them having been my readers for all of one week at this point)., and what can I write that won’t feel like tearing out my finger nails.

That’s how I came up with the idea for Pine Harbour. Small town romance, but with military heroes. The first novel I finished in that series is another one that I brought for some of you. Love in a Small Town was the first book I wrote with both commerciality and longevity in mind.

It was the first book I wrote with a piece of my heart and a lot of my brain.

Writing it was a joy, but also a job.

Every book I’ve written since has been written in a fundamentally different way, because I am now a fundamentally different writer. I am a commercial genre fiction writer in a way that I was not when I started. When I strictly wrote the books of my heart, that were safe inside my comfort zone…there is nothing wrong with those books. I love those books. But they’re commercially weaker. The best books you write might not be the most sale-able.

And that’s the real lesson I’ve learned. That balance thing is so important. But it’s easy to say, and not so easy to do.

Writing and publishing often feels like we’re walking a balance beam. If we worry too much about where we are right now, if we let ourselves drop our gaze and stare at our toes, we’ll stumble.

Keep your eyes on the future. Think about where you want to be a year from now. Five years from now. What books do you want to have written? What series do you want to be known for? Set that plan in motion today.

Know that it will take you some time. Know that it will be scary, and there will be bumps in the road. That doesn’t matter. Because you are committed to that future you. You aren’t worried about your next step, you’ve got your gaze glued on the horizon. You’re already thinking about a five-year plan full of brave new steps.

And look around you. This is your tribe. We can support each other with our experiences, our missteps and our successes. And we can remind each other that this is a long journey, and we are not alone.

I have a new Navy SEAL romance out today, and it’s got a sister book, too!

Kat Cantrell and I wrote two stories — they can each be read on their own, but they’re about two brothers, two Navy SEALs, who both find love in a most unexpected week at a resort at Barefoot Bay on Mimosa Key. Does Barefoot Bay sound familiar? I hope it does! It’s a world created by the incomparable Roxanne St. Claire. She’s written more than dozen books set on the Florida small town paradise island, and now she’s opened her world up to other authors to write happy ever after endings in her setting.

I was like a kid in a candy store! I love the Casa Blanca Resort & Spa, so this was a lot of fun to write.

My story is about a Navy SEAL named Dylan Van Doren and a graphic novel illustrator named Astrid Hughes. Opposites attract? It seems so at the start, but this flirty hero and the shy nerd have more in common than you might think…

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TWO BOOKS

Here’s an excerpt from Seduced by the Best Man:

“Astrid?” Jesus, even the way he said her name was intense.

“Yeah?”

“What else do I need to know?”

“Nothing?” Damn it, why had her voice lifted like that? “Nothing.”

There, that was better. That was definitive.

He gave her a disbelieving look, but instead of pushing her further, he finished rolling up his second sleeve and turned toward the minibar.

She took the opportunity to edge toward the door, but she didn’t get that far before he ducked down, made a surprised grunting sound, and turned around.

Why did his gaze freeze her in place more effectively than a Star Trek tractor beam?

Maybe because he was a real life warrior and she was a geek who thought in pop culture nerd references.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, even though she had a pretty good guess. His face had where is my damn tequila written all over it.

“This morning my brother and I had planned to have a toast to his impending nuptials,” he said slowly, prowling toward her. “That didn’t happen, of course, but I’d put something in here for that event. And only one other person has been in this room…”

She took a step back.

He took two steps forward.

One back.

Two forward.

One back— she slammed into the wall.

“I thought you said you didn’t take anything that wasn’t yours?”

“I think technically speaking, the contents of the minibar could be assumed to belong to both people registered to this room—”

“The tequila wasn’t provided by the resort,” he said, cutting her off. His voice was hard and pointed, and it made her want to shove him in the chest.

So she did just that.

He didn’t move.

“Hey, buster. You need to turn your misplaced outrage toward someone else. Because yeah, I took your tequila, but it was for the bride and it was in her fridge. Easy mistake, and you should cut me some slack.”

Instead of backing up, he leaned into her palms, setting his own hands on the wall on either side of her.

Up close, his chiseled face and hard eyes were less menacing than they were from afar. Still impressive. But she didn’t feel any fear from his nearness.

Nope. Fear was not at all what she was feeling.

~

And if you’re interested in learning more about the entire Barefoot Bay Kindle World, click here to read more about it on Roxanne St. Claire’s website!

If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’ll recognize this story!

Over Christmas 2014, I wrote a little story. It was a one-night stand between a Navy SEAL and a flight attendant, both stranded at O’Hare Airport due to a snow storm.

That story was first published in a short story anthology. And immediately people started asking for the rest of it. Of course Nathan and Emme had more than one night, right? So then I started writing what came next, and the sweetest, most romantic story spilled out of my fingers.

I really feel like I can’t take much credit for Fall Fast. It’s one of those stories that existed separately from me, and I just brought it to life like an auto-scribe.

Nathan and Emme are real to me, like all my characters, but even more so with this couple. When I finished the book, I asked The Viking to write me the notes that Nathan leaves Emme at the end of their one night together.

 

I keep these notes in a box on my desk. When I flew to Seattle for a writer’s conference, and went through O’Hare, I went on an odyssey through the airport, looking for the nook where they sat during the blizzard. When I went to San Diego for another conference, I spent three days on Coronado, and it was surreal and amazing to see their world exactly as I’d written it.

This book is special. And for a limited time, it’s free for everyone to read.

Get it now at:

Amazon |  Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Snowed in at O’Hare Airport with a sexy flight attendant–Navy SEAL Nathan Meyers isn’t complaining. But one night with his mystery woman isn’t going to be enough…

Save

This week, two of my SEALs Undone books are on sale. Fall Deep is free, and Fall Fast is 99 cents. This is a series that has been a fan favourite since I started it, and neither of these books have been discounted to these prices before, so I was pretty stoked.

And I should say before I derail into a complaint, that both books are having a fantastic sales week, and I love my readers.

BUT. 

Oh, Amazon, you bunch of crazy prudes.

No, I’m done being polite and professional about this, because you see, I tried that. And the customer service I got back from Kindle Direct Publishing was appalling, and totally dismissive. Let me be clear on this point: I totally get that not everyone who works in a call centre is familiar with all the nuances of genre fiction. Even though romance is the biggest, most popular genre of all. Even thought this is their entire job, to support authors who publish books on the Amazon platform. I understand that there will be some dialogue back and forth while we straighten out a problem.

This is not my first kick at that particular can.

But it is the first time that I’ve been told flat out, from the get-go, “sorry, nope, can’t help you.”

And that’s pretty appalling, because I play by all the rules. I don’t write anything that violates the Amazon KDP TOS. I don’t write anything that comes close to being inappropriate.

I write romance.

And apparently, it’s too dirty for Amazon. [It’s not too dirty for iBooks, Kobo, Barnes & Noble or Google Play, though, so please go and buy a copy there while it’s still 99 cents!]

Except it’s NOT that dirty. This is the most ridiculous book to decide to stick in the so-called erotica dungeon, because it’s actually very sweet. As I try to explain to the customer support reps, this book is about a Navy SEAL who meets a flight attendant and they have a spark. Then there’s a snow storm, so they act on that spark.

Newsflash to Amazon: The vast majority of romance novels sold on your platform have a similar heat level to this book. 

To get specific, while this book has a decent number of dirty words in it (although I counted them, and they aren’t out of line from my average), there isn’t any sex act that in itself would push a book into erotica. (For example, anal sex, a threesome, fetish sex…if you want any of those, though, my Ainsley Booth books might be right up your alley, and BY THE WAY, those are shelves as romances!)

Is it kind of dirty? Yes, enough that it could be shelved in romance -> erotica, maybe if you squint, and enough that I put the erotic romance subtitle on it, just to be clear that the hero uses the F-word while he’s making love to the heroine. But this book is about two people who fall in love. Not two people who have a wild sexcapade.

Okay, so let’s back up to the start of this week, when I go to change the price on Fall Fast. I see that it’s changed on Amazon.com, Amazon.com.au, and Amazon.co.uk, but not Amazon.ca, so I send KDP an email about that.

And this is when I notice that it’s not in the right category, so I send them an immediate follow-up email.

I’m going to leave out the back and forth here where they didn’t know what book I was talking about, because maybe their emails don’t stay connected the same way mine do. The next day, I get this email back from them.

To remove your book from its current categorization [“erotic fiction”, and move it back to “romance”], you will need to remove the erotic or sexually explicit content and resubmit as a new ASIN.

That’s Amazon’s resolution suggestion to me. In order for this book to be shelved as a romance, I need to remove the sex from it.

Man, I wouldn’t want to date Amazon. Not enough cold showers in the world.

 

So I reply, because surely they’re mistaken. It’s happened before, many, many times. Pierre just copied and pasted a form response, right? Because it’s a romance novel. It’s going to have sexual content in it, even explicit sexual content. 

 

And again I have another thought, and I tag it on as a second email, because really, something’s gone weird here, right? So I just need to speak to a supervisor and get it straightened out.

This is what I got back.

 

I can’t properly explain how ragey this response makes me, because they’ve just lied to me, and I tell them as much. This email I copied Jeff Bezos on. I’ve never done that before. I’m not that girl. I don’t believe in jumping the chain of command. But seriously????

 

Crazy prudes.

SMH.

 

EDITED TO ADD: This was eventually resolved with the help of the Executive Response team who replied to my email to Jeff Bezos. It was a metadata problem, and once I removed the word erotic from the keywords, the book was put back into the Romance categories I wanted (Military Romance specifically).

It’s a shame it takes that much drama to take care of a very small fix.

I’ve long adored Molly O’Keefe, and this month she gave me the great honour of being featured in her newsletter “The Author Is” profile. You can read the full interview here. I talk about writing, and my next book (an Ainsley Booth book called Prime Minister).

Also in her newsletter she mentions that her historical romance, Seduced, is on sale for 99 cents. I loved this book so much, it was on my top ten list for 2014. What I wrote then:

This is one of two books on this list that I read because of Amy Jo Cousins recommending books on Facebook. It’s a genre I don’t usually read, American historical romance (post-Civil War), but the story has stuck with me and I’m glad I picked it up–I was hooked from the first few pages. Molly O’Keefe is a wonderful writer, as most contemporary romance readers know, but in this historical story she takes some brave turns that both surprised and impressed me. I believe this is a series, but she’s publishing them around her other commitments. I can’t wait for more.

Me, last year

And now she has written more! The second book in the series is out now, and the third is coming in a new anthology next week. The anthology also has books by Rose Lerner, whose Lively St. Lemeston series I gobbled up like candy while on vacation in February, and Isabel Cooper, Jeannie Lin, and the incomparable Joanna Bourne.

[image error]See this guy? He’s my inspiration for Dean Foster, the hero in Pine Harbour #5, a book I’ve now written (and re-written) three times. Right now, this smiling GIF is really the only thing getting me through this book.

Send wine! And cheese. Man, do I want cheese right now.

I’ll blog about the whole process of writing this book once I finally get it right.

But for now, know that writing is damn hard sometimes, even on book #32.

I’ve long adored Molly O’Keefe, and this month she gave me the great honour of being featured in her newsletter “The Author Is” profile. You can read the full interview here. I talk about writing, and my next book (an Ainsley Booth book called Prime Minister).

Also in her newsletter she mentions that her historical romance, Seduced, is on sale for 99 cents. I loved this book so much, it was on my top ten list for 2014. What I wrote then:

This is one of two books on this list that I read because of Amy Jo Cousins recommending books on Facebook. It’s a genre I don’t usually read, American historical romance (post-Civil War), but the story has stuck with me and I’m glad I picked it up–I was hooked from the first few pages. Molly O’Keefe is a wonderful writer, as most contemporary romance readers know, but in this historical story she takes some brave turns that both surprised and impressed me. I believe this is a series, but she’s publishing them around her other commitments. I can’t wait for more.

And now she has written more! The second book in the series is out now, and the third is coming in a new anthology next week. The anthology also has books by Rose Lerner, whose Lively St. Lemeston series I gobbled up like candy while on vacation in February, and Isabel Cooper, Jeannie Lin, and the incomparable Joanna Bourne.

Do you read historical romance? Give me some book recommendations if you do. And if you don’t, let me know if you’d like to try it. I’ll gift a copy of Gambled Away to one commenter on release day (next week! May 31!).

I’m wrapping up the first draft of Love on the Run, which should (knock on wood) be out at the end of May. It’s up on pre-order at iBooks, and once I get the edits back on it and know how much revision is needed, I’ll put it up for pre-order everywhere else. (iBooks is really good about shifting the dates a few week if needed, that’s why they get it first)

But I’m in love with this first chapter, and I thought I’d share it, warts and all. It might not stay the first chapter — for one thing, Dean and Liana don’t meet until the second chapter as it stands right now. I don’t know if that’s smart. But on the other hand, sometimes love starts long before you meet the right one. Sometimes it starts at the moment when you reclaim your life. And that’s what happens here. I love Liana Hansen, and I hope you will, too.

~ Zoe

P.S. Did you know that Pine Harbour #1 is out in audio format now? I’ve got a widget on the side of my blog with a link to a free offer if you’ve never tried the audiobook thing before.

EXCERT FROM

LOVE ON THE RUN

(PINE HARBOUR #5)

— CHAPTER ONE —

LIANA Hansen tugged her signature black t-shirt over her head and settled the snug, soft cotton over her curves. The v-neck showed just enough cleavage to be sexy, but the cut stayed on the conservative side, guaranteeing there would be no wardrobe malfunction while she was on stage.

“Ten minutes, Ms. Hansen!” the tour manager called out after knocking on her dressing room door.

She reached for her water bottle and took a small sip, careful not to mess up her makeup.

When he knocked again, she frowned at the door. He knew she wouldn’t holler back. Top of her short list of concert day requests was not talking too much before the show. Limes instead of lemons with her water and cucumbers on the veggie tray—she really wasn’t that demanding.

So seriously, W.T.F.?

She pulled the door open, about to snap at Brad that she’d heard him the first time, and the smart remark died on her lips.

It had been a few days since Track Gantley had stopped by her dressing room to play his little mindfuck games before the show. She should have known she was due. A chill rippled through her body and she struggled not to show the tour headliner—and her long-ago ex-fiancé—her fear.

It was entirely ridiculous, because he wasn’t going to say anything that bad.

She stepped aside, letting him into her dressing room. He left the door open, and she could just imagine how that would be spun in the gossip blogs.

Track is well known for mentoring other performers on his tour. This summer, that’s a little awkward because one of them is Liana Hansen, the hussy who broke his heart and selfishly put her career ahead of the family he wanted. Of course, Track still selflessly reaches out to her, but he’s careful not to let her get her claws into him. Even when she invites him into her dressing room, he leaves the door open…

Or maybe that was just her own fear of how it would look.

“I saw that you shifted the set list around a bit,” he said, sitting on the edge of the counter that ran along one wall. He stretched his long, denim-clad legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. He was wearing his brown cowboy boots tonight, the ones with the extra half-inch heel.

Someone feeling small, Track? Need to bully me to make yourself feel like more of a man? But she didn’t say that. She just smiled coolly and nodded. “I’m starting with River Bed Lullaby tonight.”

His lips tightened. “That’s not what I’m concerned about and you know it.”

Yeah, she did. But if he wanted to say something, he had to come out and say it.

“You took ‘Forget Me Not’ off the the list.”

“I’ve decided to close with ‘Cravings’. You’d mentioned that you wanted me to play another song from the latest album.”

“I wanted you to play a single.” He meant “Build a Bridge,” the only song on Catch Me if You Can that she didn’t have a writing credit on. The weakest single of the three she’d managed from that album, the last single before it was decided not to push any more songs.

She hated that fucking song, and wouldn’t be playing it, no matter what. “‘Cravings’ could have been a single.” She licked her lips. “I want to put it on an EP for Christmas. Second chance for it.”

He sighed and pushed himself upright, sliding his thumbs into his pockets. Pretending he was casual about this conversation.

Neither of them were ever casual about a conversation between them. Ever. Eight years of tension and anger and resentment still simmered hard beneath the surface.

“It’s not the right tone for you, Liana.” He gave her a look that anyone else would read as concerned.

She saw the judging sneer. Heard the censure in his voice. Don’t be slutty, he meant.

“I have to get out there,” she said instead of all the things she wanted to say.

“Have a good show.” He smiled, and the coldness of it hurt so much she wanted to cry.

Good thing she was starting with a sad song. All the feels, delivered straight to the Savannah fans courtesy of Track Fucking Gantley.

America’s favourite singer.

Liana’s private enemy—and her boss for at least one more album.

At least as the second act she didn’t have any meet and greets before the shows on this tour. Track might be able to turn his feelings on and off like a deranged robot, but she couldn’t do it.

She grabbed her gargle bottle and swept out into the hall before Track could say anything else. Her band members were already milling around, and she gave them all a quick smile.

Let’s do this.

Jackie Billings, her lead guitar, narrowed her eyes as she glanced over Liana’s shoulder. Shit. She didn’t need her worrying. She gave Jackie a wink to say, it’s all good. It wasn’t. This tour had been a terrible idea. They were six weeks into it and each night she was getting progressively wound tighter.

She was pretty sure Jackie was the only who noticed or cared. The older woman didn’t have a lot of love for Track, either, but Liana’s drummer and bass player both did, so the women kept their opinions on the down low.

The only thing worse that Liana being miserable on tour would be tensions flaring in other directions as well.

Jackie might think that Track was a pig, but she was a professional. And it wasn’t like the rest of their industry was made up of sensitive feminists, either. Nashville was a hard town to be a woman in, which was ironic, because it was a town that celebrate female singers in a way that rock never had.

But the hoops those vaunted stars needed to jump through…

Liana had learned the hard way that sometimes it just wasn’t possible to please the kingmakers.

Didn’t mean she didn’t have a career.

Didn’t mean she wasn’t still blessed.

Speaking of which… She set her gargle bottle down on a ledge and wiggled her fingers. Jackie took one hand, West Jackson took the other, and her bass player, Andrew Yoast stood across from her, completing the circle between Jackie and West.

Liana let Andrew lead the prayer. He was most devout. It was enough that she pulled them together.

With a whispered amen at the end, they broke apart, and as the lights fell, Andrew and West took their spots on stage.

Liana swished her mouth rinse, vocalizing a bit in the back of her mouth as she did the secret, super gross routine that nobody wanted to see. Jackie snickered at her as she spit it out, and that little secret laugh pushed away the darkness Liana had been feeling.

Fucking Track.

But this? She loved performing. Loved connecting with a crowd, watching them sway back and forth as she brought tears to their eyes, or have them jumping for joy as she sang to the rafters about living in the moment, no matter what the cost.

She’d belt that particular song out no problem today.

But first she had to tear some hearts out.

Jackie plugged in her electric guitar, and while they still stood in the dark of the side stage, she played the first three, slow notes of ‘River Bed Lullaby’.

The crowd went wild, and warm, welcome relief poured into Liana’s heart.

It would be a good show.

Jackie walked onto stage, the spotlight following her all the way across to the far side, then split into two, the second light tracking back to pick up Liana as she walked into view.

The song, her first hit, when she was only eighteen, was about a young woman knowing that she was losing her mother to the bottle. A fearful prophesy that her mother might one day kill herself. A plea not to hurt them both. Begging her to let her daughter help.

It was Liana’s favourite song, still, and Jackie played the part of the wounded mother well, pouring soulful agony into her guitar as Liana sang to her from the other end of the stage.

They usually did this  song at the mid-point of the show, but Savannah brought up a lot of ugly feelings for Liana.

It was where Track had proposed.

Where she caught him cheating on her a year later.

America’s golden boy. Ha.

No, every time she played here, she took the crowd to the dark, ugly parts of her soul first. It gave decent cover to the raw edge of her voice when she finally hit centre stage and held out her hands, offering the crowd a figurative circle of connection just like the one she’d shared with her band before they came on stage.

“Hello, Savannah!” she called out. “You are looking beautiful tonight, I gotta say. Yes, you. Stunning.”

She grinned, then pressed her hand to her chest. “Anyone feeling a little sad right now? I know. Me too. But there’s joy to be found in music, right?”

That was West’s cue, and behind her, he started into the next song.

And on they rolled, through some of her favourites, and all of her hits—and the two columns didn’t always match up, but there was enough to make her and the crowd and the band all happy, so by the time they hit the last song, “Craving”, she was flying.

Until she glanced over at Jackie, whose head was bowed over the guitar, riffing hard, and behind her stood Track.

The mocking look on his face was a punch to Liana’s guts, like he was laughing at her. She stumbled over the bridge, missing the beat where she should have started singing. Her band just looped a few lines again, and this time her voice took flight where it should.

I’ve got cravings that

Would shock you

Desires I can’t

Speak of

She tore her gaze away from the wings because fuck him, but the damage was done. The heart of the song, her heart, had been squished like a bug, and when her voice dropped low and slow at the end, she knew she didn’t have the crowd with her.

They applauded when the lights went down, but it wasn’t deafening.

She hated that she needed that roar to drown out her doubts.

Jackie took one look at her face and made sure she was between Liana and Track as they exited the stage.

“Liana!” he called out to her, but she was into the hallway that led to the dressing rooms, and Andrew and West were making enough noise behind her that she could pretend she didn’t hear.

Jackie was talking to her, but her friend’s voice was coming from a distance. A dull roar thundered inside her head as she yanked out her in-ear monitor and handed it to one of the roadies.

She shook her head. She just needed a minute alone.

Somehow she made it to her dressing room and shut the door, sliding down it as the tears started to fall.

What the hell was going on?

When did she start losing her mind?

She scrubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes, cursing at herself under her breath. Her palms were covered in eye makeup and her face was almost definitely a mess.

She shoved to her feet and found her makeup bag, fixing as much as she could as her heart rate sped up.

It was time to go.

She shoved a few things in a bag, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.

The hallway was full of people, but she made noises about heading to the tour bus, then kept on walking, finding a cab on the app on her phone.

The last thing she did before she told the driver to take her to the airport was send a text message to Jackie. I’m taking off for a couple of days. Going to see Hope. Don’t tell anyone where I am.