Sequel to Treasured!

So, Pink Petal Books has contracted with me for the sequel to Treasured, to be titled Shadowed.  This is great news for me, since I'm completely in love with the main characters of this series, and great news for you because, um, you like my stuff.  Yeah?  Yeah!

The novella is about 22k words and takes our men to Venice, where they experience fascinating history, glorious architecture, running for their lives and kidnapping.  Variety, it's the spice of life.  PPB is a great place to publish and I'm sure by the time the novella comes out it will be vastly improved with editing and an awesome cover, but I'm going to give out a snippet now, since it's not going to be released until May or June.  Personal denial, thy name is not Cari.

The next part of Pandora is coming, never fear...and my big writing goal for the month is to have the fourth and final part of Shadows and Light finished by the end of March.  I got some help on certain sticking points with the plot, and I think it's coming together.  Anyway.  C'est la vie.

Here's the excerpt from Shadowed, taken from the beginning.


***

Reese Daveth could charm the scales off a snake. It was kind of disturbing to watch, actually.

I knew Reese was charming, I’d experienced the full weight his sparkling personality firsthand. When that much wicked charisma was suddenly leveled at you it could be hard to remember your own name, much less take the time to wonder who this gorgeous man actually was and how he had talked you into a date, or out of a speeding ticket, or in this case, into letting your only son spend his winter break traveling abroad with his significant other instead of spending it with his mother. Which was how my mom thought I should be spending it, obviously.

Mom and I lived a few hours apart, so it wasn’t really convenient for me to visit her as often as she thought I should. When the winter holidays rolled around she insisted, point blank, that I give her two weeks of my time, seeing as how she had given me nine months of undivided attention followed by eighteen years of loving care. I’d never understood why my mom insisted on bringing up her pregnancy every time we argued, but she wielded it like it was a verbal rapier. “I carried you for nine months, the least you can do for me is x.” Parry, riposte, point.

Usually I didn’t mind visiting my mom, even if it meant spending two weeks basically just watching television and eating bland food. I’d inherited all of my mother’s skill in the kitchen, which was precisely none, so together we made do on boxed mac and cheese and microwave dinners. This holiday, however, I had already made other plans. My…my what, boyfriend? Paramour? Shapeshifting doppelganger/unrepentant thief/occasional incredibly hot hookup? Reese was all of those things and I hoped a few others, and he had asked me to go to Venice with him over my break, his treat. I still wasn’t entirely sure why, but I wanted to go with him anyway.

Mom was understandably skeptical. I’d never even mentioned Reese to her, and all of a sudden I was going to Europe with him? This set off a scolding of epic proportions, finishing with an insistence that if I was going to abandon her during the holidays, the least I could do was introduce her to my oh-so-convenient man of mystery. I think she was half convinced that I’d made him up just to get out of coming to see her. Surprisingly, Reese had no problem with paying her a visit.

“I figured as much, Danny,” he told me over the phone. I didn’t have a number that worked consistently for Reese, but he called me about once a week. “She’s closer to New Orleans, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll just fly out of there afterwards. Gotta keep the mum happy, otherwise life will be hell.”

“It sounds like you’ve met her.”

Reese laughed. It was a low, warm chuckle that sent a thrill of heat through me even though I’d heard it dozens of times. “I know the type, pet. Don’t worry. I’ll work it out so that she’s begging me to take you away.”

At the time, I wasn’t so sure that he meant it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Reese was a talented guy, but my mom was implacable when she thought she was in the right, which was most of the time. I felt like we were headed towards the classic “unstoppable force versus immovable object” paradox. I had underestimated Reese, however.