A Price to be Paid

With the need to inspire myself for the book I need to finish, here's a snippet. It's paranormal, and third in the Hemstreet Witches Series. The problem has not been that I don't like the characters. The issue the hero will be facing is a huge one, and I have not been sure how to handle it. 

The story is about reincarnation and the question of redemption. Can a soul who has done bad things find a way to redeem itself in a future lifetime? If so, what is the price? In the newspapers, we read about human monsters, are shocked at what they have done, and some say they go to hell for eternal punishment. What if that's not what happens after they die? 

He's a complicated character as a rancher, multimillionaire, father, lawyer and considering a run for major political office in Arizona.  What he has to deal with in terms of his soul, that's not even on his radar as he is a very practical minded person. The life he was living when he was killed in 1901 is someone he's heard very little about. He's about to learn more, and it won't make him happy.

The political aspect is probably what stopped me in September. I needed time to really think about it. I've had the time and still not sure of how to proceed but proceed I will this week.

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    He had barely gotten in from working, taken a quick shower, and opened a beer when he heard a car driving in. Out on the porch, he watched as Jason got out of his low-slung sports car.

    “Hot for March,” he said as his friend stepped onto the porch. “Maybe be an early summer. Want a Nimbus or a Lager?”

    “Make it light. I have work yet to do.”

    A few minutes later, they were sprawled on the porch lawn chairs and sipping from their beers.    “You said you needed to talk,” Asa said.

    “Your mother in town?”

    Asa shook his head. “On her way back to Flag.”

    “All right. Well, for one, we need to go over your meetings for next week. You will need some endorsements.” He handed Asa a sheet of names. “These would be a good start.”

    Scanning down them, Asa looked up. “This could all have been covered in an email.”

    Jason handed him another sheet. “These are issues likely to come up where you need to have positions.”

    “Again—why not an email?”

    “For what I want to discuss, emails are less than safe if you are being hacked."

    "Am I?" 

    "You could be and besides, I wanted this conversation face to face.”

    Asa nodded. “So spit it out.”

About 'To Speak of Things Unseen'

Where usually I post a snippet here, I thought I'd post what I created for another of my blogs, Romances with an Edge, where I use an alternative cover, with a couple of lines from its book. 

For those not into metaphysics or who don't read paranormal, a shapeshifter is not the same as a werewolf. This is about an ability some mystical humans have to change their shapes when they wish. 

This book, To Speak of Things Unseen, will be out in early August but with a pre-order option (link alongside can put you on the list to be notified) for probably the end of July with a sale during the pre-release.

from 'To Speak of Things Unseen'

Working on the new book, I am definitely proving (at least to myself) that I don't write for the dollars. The first book in this series has not caught on at all. I suspect it's only had previous fans buying it with no attraction from paranormal or for that matter the average romance readers. 

Anyway I said I'd write five, and I will. Possibly having more will be a benefit-- someday lol. 

So here's a randomly chosen snippet from the next one (where I am only a bit over half finished). Since this is a rough draft, the excerpt might change some from the actual book, due out in late July-- I think. The heroine is trying to convince a small theater director and his potential cast, that she's got the perfect play for them to produce.

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    She looked back at David thinking if Chuck got out of line, he might be learning a few lessons he hadn’t counted on. She wouldn’t even need a plasma bolt to do it. She was well trained in the martial arts.

    “Vislogus is about those who use magic to combat evil. The hero is a loner for the most part and almost a sacrificial figure, who finds most don’t understand him.”

    “Magic?” David said with some skepticism in his voice. “How would that work into small theater? Sounds more like a movie.”

    “It’s the dialogue that would work. It would not require the whole book, but several of the chapters are heated with the conflict between the hero and the woman he wishes loved him, but she doesn’t. I suppose there is a little of Superman in it, but the dialogue is witty, fast moving and delves into the meaning of life.”

    “And it’s a bestseller?” David asked with even more skepticism. “That’s not the usual for Americans.”

    “Well I suppose the rest of it, the action is why it’s found such favor. The thing though is part of it could be a very thoughtful play with the way it pulls the reader or in the viewer into the questions of life. When Adolph is threatened, it’s mostly for those who don’t understand what he stands for.”

    “Avengers style?” Chuck asked slurring the words a little. “I could get into this.”

    Debbie glared at him. Elke wondered if the two had something going or more the case, Debbie wanted there to be.

    “Do you have a copy of the play?” David asked sounding a little more interested.

    “Not yet. That is the problem at this point. I could get the play written rapidly because it would practically write itself. I need though to get the writer’s permission.”

David let out a breath. “Who is it?”

    “Mitchell Ford. Do you know him?”

     “I have heard the name. I am trying to think of why.”

from Bound for the Hills

 no images yet for Nate; so this will have to do-- roses do represent love, don't they?

When I decided to write a contemporary series based in Barrio Viejo, I found the characters' ancestors to be those from my earlier books-- primarily the Cordovas and Hemstreets. The Hemstreets first showed up in Bound for the Hills. I plan to write an historical romance around Nate after I get the five Hemstreet Witches written. How the family ended up in Tucson and from where came those witches will be in that eighth Arizona historical.

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San Francisco September 10, 1905

    Nate Hemstreet watched as his mother’s irritation grew when ringing the bell wasn’t enough to get her the service she desired. He could have said something, but he was studying her. She seemed to have forgotten he was sitting at the other end of the library.

    Terrence Cooke came through the door looking only at Eleanor Hemstreet. Nate had become the invisible man. Fine, he liked that idea.

    “You rang, madam?” Terrence asked with his usual polished manners.

   “Where is Mr. Hamilton?” His mother smoothed down the rich purple brocade of her dress.

    “I have not seen him since early this morning, madam.” Nate saw her purse her lips together and suppress whatever she wanted to say.   

    “Thank you.”

    When he had left, she rang the bell again. When he returned, she said, “Pour me a brandy.” Terrence looked at her for a moment, perhaps thinking ten in the morning was too early for liquor, or wondering why she would not have gotten it herself from the sideboard only ten feet from her, but he was too well trained. His face was expressionless as he handed it to her. Again, he didn’t look at Nate. Terrence probably did know he was there. Not much got by him. Nate wondered how much he had observed of the goings on in the Hemstreet mansion.

    “May I do anything else for you, madam?”

   “No, nothing.” She sighed. “Just leave me alone.” She waited until he closed the door, took a sip of the brandy, and then walked to the window to look out at the city. Although his mother was not quite sixty, her face looked older. He felt it was her dissatisfaction with anything or anyone. She had one of the finest homes on Nob Hill. Ten bedrooms, modern bathrooms with the finest fixtures, a parlor large enough to hold a ball, a table that seated fifty in the dining room, a staff that… but it never was enough. She wanted more. He saw the fury on her face and debated what would ever take that away. Perhaps only death. Sad.

For the first time, she looked over at him. So, she had known he was there all along. “Ah Nathan, and what have you been doing today?” she asked sipping the brandy again.

    He knew his riding outfit and the boot he had crossed over his knee would have told her where he’d been, but she liked to control. She wanted to force responses.

    “Golden Gate Park,” he said.

    “Was it nice there?” she asked, boredom in her voice.

    “Very.”

   As she stared at him, he wondered what she saw. Her dissatisfaction with everything extended to him. As her only son, he never was all she wanted him to be. He had quit minding years earlier.

    “Did you ride with Miranda?”

    “No, by myself.” Miranda Compton was his mother’s idea of the ideal mate for her son. Her family’s wealth doubtless figured into that as much as her comely figure. The problem was Miranda was an incredibly shallow young woman, whose greatest interest involved finding a new ball gown. Nate would sooner mate with a trained monkey.

    He had not realized before but his mother clearly was dying her hair to keep it the same gold it had been when she’d been girl. It didn’t somehow work. Doubtlessly, her aging was bothering her, but it was one thing she could not control even if she could attempt to hide it.

    “She’s a lovely girl,” she said narrowing her eyes as she moved to sit on the chair across from him “You and she would make beautiful blonde babies. They’d probably be tall like you and your father, rest his soul.”

    “I am not interested in her or in marriage, Mother.”

    She gave him a disbelieving look. “Not marriage to anyone?”

    “I didn’t say that—just not now.”

   “Are you interested then in the businesses? You know I had hoped you would be, that you would be my right hand man, and then someday take it over.”

    “I know what you hoped.”

    “You aren’t still moping over that girl are you?”

   He knew whom she meant and smiled. She didn’t like to use her name. “What girl?” he asked feeling a little mean himself.

   “You know who I mean? That worthless accountant’s daughter.”

   “You didn’t see him so worthless when he worked for you.”

   “I didn’t know… didn’t realize until he killed himself that he had been cheating us.”

    “There is no proof of that.”

    She looked away. “I wish…”

    The tap at the door interrupted what she might have said. When it opened before she could say enter, he knew who it would be. Only Thomas Hamilton, his mother’s majordomo had that kind of arrogant confidence. He wondered what the man held over his mother. While he was in the room with them, he’d never learn. Hamilton went to the sideboard and poured himself a whiskey before he turned back to her. “I heard you had asked for me, madam,” he said with a rather snide smile. He was portly but muscular, not nearly as tall as Nate, but with his broad shoulders, he had a demeanor that caused men to back off, his mother also.

     “Nathan,” she said, turning to him, “would you mind giving Thomas and me a moment of privacy?”

     “No problem.” He rose and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. He walked down the hall letting his boots make enough noise to make them confident he had left, then he quietly returned to the door. Whatever as going on, he wanted to know.