Happy New Year, upcoming, and an excerpt!

Happy New Year, darlins!

I hope that whatever comes at you in 2019, you manage to live your life with grace and joy and fire and fury, in whatever proportions you need at the time. I'll be working toward that myself.

So, what's up with me lately? Well, firstly, I'm sorry to report there's still no new Mutable. It's been a hectic week--my husband is one of the govermnent employees impacted by the shutdown, so in addition to the craziness of the holidays there's that fun to deal with/plan for. And by fun, I mean it's a pure and unadulterated shitshow. There are absolutely no guarantees with this president when it comes to things like backpay during times like this, so it's stressful. At any rate, new story next week, excerpt of a novel I'm working on down below.

As for upcoming stuff, I've got two novels in the works for Dreamspinner Press. One is already contracted and due at the beginning of April, and involves art thieves and intercontinental chases and firefights and two gentlemen with very different goals falling for each other. The other one is the sequel to Off The Beaten Path, and is about--you guessed it--werewolves. Mostly. That's the one that gets the excerpt down below.

Other stuff...I finished the rough draft of my bugbear at the beginning of December, so I'll start revising it in January with the goal of participating in Pitch Wars this August. I've got some freelance editing contracts to work on. I've got Mutable to finish, and then the third story in The Train/The Tower to start here on the blog. I've got a coauthored book with L.A. Witt to finish. If I can squeeze in anything else that isn't ghostwriting I'll be amazed.

As for the rest of my little world, I've got my baby and my man and my family close by, so things are pretty good. I'm so in love with the little ball of gorgeous, coquettish manipulation that is my child, I can't even tell you ;)

Anyway, here. Have a little excerpt from On The Right Track, and once again, Happy New Year!

***

On the Right Track

Chapter One

 Davis POV

It was loud in the cockpit of the Cessna 185 Skywagon, louder than I remembered a small aircraft like this being. Heavy crosswinds made the yoke buck in my hands, and as I steadied our course for what felt like the fiftieth time in as many minutes, I wondered yet again why I’d decided to spend half my vacation flying up to the middle of Nowhere, Alaska.

My companion heaved a sigh, and I smiled to myself. At least I wasn’t doing it alone. Not that it would do to let him know I was happy about that. “Can you breathe any louder? I don’t think they heard you down there.” The little city of Kotzebue curved like an apostrophe into the sound, glowing with street lights even though, this far north, it never really got dark at this time of year.

My companion looked over at me, unamused, took in a deep breath, and exhaled loud enough to make the microphones on the headsets crackle. I winced. “Better?”

“Do you give Ward this kind of shit?”

“Ward doesn’t drag me to the Arctic Circle right before our wedding, so no, he gets a pass.” Henry Dormer, alpha of the La Garita werewolf pack and fiancé to Ward Johannsen, my best friend, eyed me steadily. He was a big man, over six feet tall, with dark red hair and pale blue eyes that turned gold when he shifted into his wolf form. He was an intimidating guy, but only when he wanted to be. Right now, he wasn’t really trying…but then again, neither was I.

“I’m your commanding officer,” I reminded him.

“And we’re doing this op completely off the books, over your vacation, so you’re not Lieutenant Colonel Carlisle right now. You’re Davis, and I’m allowed to say that you kind of suck.”

He had a point, but still. “You agreed that this is worth checking out.”

“I know.” He sighed again. “I just wanted to be there to help with preparations for the wedding. With Sam so far along, Ward’s having to do a lot more than I’d like.”

“Ward taught freshmen college students physics for almost a decade, I think he knows a little about wrangling cats,” I said, checking my bearing. We were past Kotzebue now, and I adjusted to follow the coastline more carefully. Ten more miles and we’d hit Cape Krusenstein National Monument, and shortly thereafter, the coordinates of our white whale.

“Werewolves aren’t cats,” Henry muttered, but he didn’t follow it up, so I let myself fall back into thinking about what we might be getting ourselves into up here.