Happy New Year! Let's start with a Sneak Peek of my upcoming release!

It's started!

2021 is in the works and I'm back to writing.

So far things are quiet and productive here. That's good, but I have to admit I've been over-indulging with the treats and that has to stop.

Maybe if I keep my fingers busy on the keyboards, I'll be less inclined to snack.

On the exercise front, I've been making strides with walks every day (pun intended--sorry!)

We got a new scale for Christmas--I'll let you know if that was a good thing or a bad thing!

I have a lot of pent up writing energy bursting forth and I hope the momentum lasts.

So for my NEW YEAR, it's more of the same--except MORE. (SECRET: The new thing I'm hoping and dying to announce this year is a grandchild--but I guess I should wait on that since there's no marriage or engagement announcement on the horizon--not even a steady girl for either one of my two sons! Guess I have a long way to go! Lol!)

How about you? Anything NEW in your New Year?

My Writing Progress

2021 so far:  4,933 words

2021 Goal:  605,000 words, 6 Novels, 2 Novellas

Here's an EXCLUSIVE Sneak Peek of

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS:

Chapter 1

Jack Hunter

The recurring sharp pain in my gut strikes mid-stride like an old friend saying fuck-you as I walk matter-of-factly toward the field house. The urge to run and hide fills me like a soldier on a battlefield caught in a bombardment of bullets. The idea that I need to be anywhere but here swarms me.

But I’m a brave soldier. I don’t break stride as I head to practice with two of my team mates.

In spite of the fact that I’m the Big Man on Campus at St. Paul U, that being QB on the football team is getting me in the conversation for the Heisman trophy this year, that the trophy talk can get me in the top ten NFL draft picks and a guaranteed million dollar deal and that I’m getting a dam decent education while I’m at it, in spite of all that, right now I wish I was on the dark side of the moon with Pink Floyd. Not in New Hampshire within reach of all my worst nightmares and fears, where my past and my heritage, or fucking shitty lack thereof, can track me down. Daily. Haunt me nightly.

Most of the time I can handle it, keep my head in the moment, talk to people, listen to my poli-sci prof go on about world domination by the Chinese, run gassers while my sadistic coach shrieks out a tune on his fucking whistle and most importantly keep my eye on the prize. It’s close. Looming. I'm in my senior year.

D-Day for me is Draft Day this spring. The day I can become independent from my past when I sign the big contract, earn the money and take my place as a pro baller in the NFL. Achieve the level of respect that will arm me against whatever ghost comes booing, whatever latent proclivities pop up to disarm my success. Whatever nuclear explosion of bad seeds cloud my achievements, by then, won’t matter. I’ll be free of it all. Or so that’s the spidery thread of hope I’m hanging from right now.

Draft day is the day I need to live until, to survive to, to keep pushing the stone, the boulder up that hill toward no matter what.

Concentrate on now, on how today is hot, as it should be. Though it’s too humid to be considered hellish. So why do I feel it?

The sun bombards its UV rays against my Tommy Bahama sunglasses, reminding me that I need to keep up my shield. Always. Today we have double sessions starting in one hour at three pm, ending in time to toss our guts before dinner, then picking up again at seven and continuing under the lights until nine.

The only concession to the first day of classes is a lack of morning practice. Coach Petrovski is riding us hard to get us up that mountain behind the boulder and pushing back on us every step of the way.

“I gotta get my monkey suit cleaned,” Cliff says to me. Clifford Pearson walks on my right, tight end and tight friend, main target of my passes last season and decent for a religious dude since he knows better than to preach to me by now. On my left, George Sylvester more than keeps up. He’s the team’s All-American running back and next to me, a cinch for the pros. Unfortunately, he’s not as decent a guy as Cliff and has not a cinder of religious fire in his belly, though he has a big enough mouth to make up for a lack of fire. The three of us stride in a semi-hurry, my usual quick pace.

“You’re wearing a tux?” I say, pretending to dismiss the idea because I don’t own a tux and no way am I renting one. That’s a month’s fucking electric bill and I need my lights. 

“Yeah. The invitation said black tie. It blows, but—”

“I’m not wearing one,” I say. Fuck. I don’t need trouble, but if Lassiter—Monsignor Raymond Edgar Lassiter, St. Paul U’s President--wants to give me shit about wearing a suit instead of a tux to his annual squeeze-the-wealthy-alumni-for-money-grub fest, he can go to hell and he can take all his rich trustee and donor friends with him.

“Of course you’re not.” George grins. “Leave it to the rebel to add a spark to an otherwise dull event.” He slaps my back. 

Even if I wanted to wear a tux to the event, there’s no time to get one. The event is on Saturday. Today is Wednesday, August twenty-eighth, the first day of my last year at St. Paul’s.

“Auspicious,” I say. “The event will be auspicious.”

“Hey, Jack. Lookie what we have walking our way,” George says, changing track—or going back to the main track dominating his pea sized brain—elbowing me in the bicep, hitting a particularly nasty bruise and jutting his chin in the direction of a group of girls coming straight at us. He acts as if we’re in a monastery where we don’t see girls every single fucking day. He drawls under his breath in his sickening Texas talk, “Eight-point-five, six-point-four and a couple of sevens.”

On our way to practice, the last thing we need is to get side-tracked by George’s easily excited dick or his dickhead attitude.

“Leave it alone.” I use my commander voice, the same one I use in the huddle to direct the team as if they’re troops. As if. It’s arrogant, stolen swagger, but it gets the job done. I keep walking, carrying George and Cliff in my wake, feeling every pound of the burden. Fuck. The season hasn’t even started yet. I re-focus on the moment, the here and now.

The fieldhouse, some twenty yards off, like the rest of the campus, is classic red brick, green ivy and lots of fucking green money built into the brick and mortar. Set in bucolic New Hampshire, seated in the comfort of privilege like an angel sleeping in the clouds, the picture is deceptive. Because I haven’t met any angels here and I have met more than a few devils masquerading as men of wealth and taste—as prophesized by the sympathetic Mick Jagger.  

The girls titter and I religiously keep my eyes on our destination. But in my periphery—because I have damn good peripheral vision, one of the gifts that makes me a fucking good QB—I can see there are four of them walking in a tight bunch. So tight that when they reach us and one of the girls—the one in front—stops, they all stumble to a stop. And one of them trips and falls to the ground.

Snapping out of my morose headspace, I move quick to help her up off the ground.

“Shit are you okay?” I push the sunglasses off my eyes to take a closer look, pulling her to a stand. She leans into me, or tries to, but I hold her at a minimal distance, hot to let go of her as if she’s the proverbial hand-burning potato. George snickers and I elbow him as he comes to stand at my side. The other girls are agog and talking all at once saying who knows what.

“I… I think so…” the girl says. I’m not convinced, so I look her over and she has a scrape on her knee.

“You may want to get that taken care of,” I point to the small trickle of blood.

Her friend dressed in yellow let’s out a screech.

“You’re so... so… Jack Hunter.” It’s not the first time my name has been used as an adjective and I almost want to stop and ask her what the fuck my name means to her, but neither of us needs the embarrassment and she doesn’t deserve it.

George nudges me back and I hold onto my patience. The girl is an innocent. Clearly. And I’m not. At all. Not even a little bit. This is the reason I keep my mouth zipped and in neutral position.

“Of course he is” Girl number three says, her hungry eyes on me. “You’re adorable up close,” She seems in possession of enough sense to take over, so I hand over her friend.

“Take care and watch where you’re going ladies,” I say with a tight salute and turn to move on. 

Cliff and George flank me as we walk away.

The girls groan their disappointment and fling good-byes, reciting phone numbers, but thank fuck they don’t follow us.

“Keep walking and don’t look back,” Cliff says. “Do not encourage them. Coach will make us run triple sprints if he catches girls following us to the field like last time.”

George laughs. “That was funny. Jack the pied piper.”

“Shut up. They’re harmless.”

“Until they’re not,” Cliff says, referring to my stalker from last semester.

“Don’t worry, man, stalker lady is no longer on campus,” I say.

“They booted her ass all because of you,” George says. “Doesn’t that make you feel guilty?”

“Kind of,” I admit, though I grin to take the edge off my sincerity. George punches me in the arm again and hoots anyway.

We’re about five yards from the walkway to the field house entrance when I spot another young lady heading our way, but this time it’s me who stops in my tracks.

It can’t be her. Planted in place, my mind freezes along with the rest of me, disbelief transforming me into the red-light statue of our childhood games.

When her eyes connect with mine, my heart starts up again, making up for lost beats at a stuttering pace.

Jesus fucking Christ, please don’t let it be her. The last-ditch prayer doesn’t work. No fucking kidding. I forgot I’m in league with the devil underneath it all.

The hammering of my heart is a true measure of reality, because the woman walking in my direction with a smile on her face, talking to a friend, is not a conjuring of my morose musing, not a hellish hallucination. 

She is none other than Joni Dowd. In the flesh

The one woman on the planet I wouldn’t mind never seeing again. Ever.

The reason for the premonition of my past catching up to me? The reason that only being off this planet is far enough away from home. Fucking home.

She’s the personification of everything I ever hated about my past and my home.

The spoiled little rich princess from high school who made me feel like gutter trash. The girl who has everything, every privilege. And the girl whose father blocked me from going to prep school, making my journey from the gutter all the more precarious. Here...

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Available: AMAZON Kindle Unlimited!

(available for pre-order now)

BEST MAN ON CAMPUS

Ben

I’m supposed to be the Best Man on Campus, so dubbed by Saint Paul University’s student news and confirmed by the Big Man on Campus himself, Jack. 

Why? Supposedly because I’m smart and decent and, oh yeah, I’m the leading scorer for the championship hockey team. 

It’s all  bullsh*t.

All the same, I don’t know why I’m wasting my time with the likes of Jasmine. She takes the devil in her devil-may-care attitude to dangerous lows. 

I’m not charmed by her other-side-of-the-tracks anti-charm and I’m especially annoyed by her dare.

A very public dare meant to insult me. 

She needs to be called on her nastiness. And she is hot, so I take her up on her foolish dare--to spend the night together.

What do I have to lose?

Besides my soul.

The thing I never expect is the devastating chemistry we have in bed, and worse, the vulnerable underbelly of the grittiest, toughest woman I’ve ever met.

The need to save Jazzy from her demons takes hold of me like I’m possessed by the she-devil, but her razor-sharp take-no-prisoners attitude runs true and deep. 

I could be too far out of my element.

In the end, I’m not sure who’s going to need saving after all…

Available for Pre-Order: AMAZON Kindle Unlimited

BAD MAN ON CAMPUS

Kace

How's the song go?

“I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.”

It's my anthem. 

How did I get into this bad rap?

Do you really have to ask? 

A woman.  A woman is always involved in the messiness of life.  Times a million in my life.

I should be on top of the world coming off St. Paul University’s Frozen Four hockey championship last season, but that was before the crash and burn. Literally.

And now… the thing is, I don't care. Because Layla's worth every bit of the destruction of my life's ambition for an NHL hockey career.

As long as I can prevent the blood-letting of my heart and soul. As long as I don't lose her. Again.

Available for Pre-Order: AMAZON Kindle Unlimited

Look for more sneak peeks at these books all month! 💜

More Uplifting New Year's Reading for YOU! 💞

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Wishing you had a wonderful New Year with lots of heart-melting romance reading in your future!

Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Warmest Regards,