Hey wonderful people!

It’s Monday! My new newsletter date. I’m anticipating that this may be a better time to disrupt your email inboxes than Fridays, so I chose this week to make the switch.

I hope life is being kind to you wherever you are in the world. I was lucky enough to get my second Covid-19 vaccine about a week ago. Though my day-to-day life hasn't changed much as a result, it’s been such an incredible relief. I hope that you get to experience the same feeling very soon if you haven’t already. ❤️

While I type this I’m being supervised by my two dogs. My big dog is some kind of catahoula cross, and he has one eye. My little dog is supposedly a chihuahua/poodle cross—but I think he most closely resembles a house elf—and he has three legs. I call them the minus ones. They’re experts in “come pet me” expressions and pillow usage.

Do you have some pets in your life? I really don’t know what I’d do without mine. I’d have to take up three hobbies to replace all the time I spend cleaning my furniture and deploying my lint roller...

This week I’ve been enjoying the rain and intermittent sunshine. Every day, the grass has grown a little taller and there have been a few more leaves on the trees. I adore this time of year.

And, in a final bit of very important news, birthday books went out this month to Elisabeth, Chris, and Tessa!

What I’m writing

I have decided to participate in Camp Nano, an offshoot of National Novel Writing Month, to help me get back some of my writing mojo. I set two goals for April: 1) finish writing Undertow, and 2) finish a short story for a giveaway upcoming in June.

My story’s working title is “Sweat, Leather, and Lipstick.” It’s set in the same universe as Long Winter and Signs of Spring, but in 1972. The main characters are a member of the Chase family (!) named Dylan, and a ranch hand named Bo. Here’s a quick teaser:

A mile east of Dallas at midnight, a distant engine split the silence. Bo watched the headlights pour a widening band of light on the pavement, and squinted at the flash of their too-close light as the car shot past. The sound and light quickly faded, leaving him with nothing but his footsteps and the occasional growl from overhead that suggested that he might get wet before he could walk the twelve miles to Mesquite.

He hadn’t had high hopes of hitching a ride tonight, but now that it looked like rain, he was wishing for one. Maybe by tomorrow there’d be a steadier stream of cars putting some wear on the two-year-old pavement of the new highway 635–rodeo fans, a commuter or two—but he had yet to see one tonight.

Bo paused to hitch his bag higher on his shoulder and glanced up at the spot where the moon would be if the clouds would get out of its way, then he took a deep breath and kept walking.

The next time an engine’s whine and the whir of tires stirred up the lonely quiet, the noise was coming from behind him. Bo turned and stretched out his arm, angling his face away from the headlights’ glare as the car got closer. But it never slowed. Bo felt the breeze of its passing on his face and caught the passing flash of a late-model sedan with ivory paint. 

Bo hadn’t gone another twenty steps when the sky started to spit rain. He sighed and ducked his head so his face would be sheltered by the brim of his hat. It was a warm April night in north Texas, at least. Even in the rain, he’d get where he was going without catching a chill. But as Charlie liked to say, just because cats could swim didn’t mean they liked water.

As the rain laid its first layer of wet on the pavement, a stink of oil and whatever was baked into the asphalt rose up in Bo’s nose, seasoned by the sage and juniper of the brush that clustered beyond the pavement’s edge.  

Another car appeared in the eastbound lane, going slowly—so slowly, Bo paid attention even though it was going the wrong way. As it drew even with Bo, the car swung into a u-turn and pulled up alongside him. It was a late-model Chevelle, ivory, glossy with rain… the same car that had just passed Bo a minute before. 

The passenger door swung open and Bo barely got a glimpse of a shirt sleeve before the driver pulled back the hand he’d reached across the seat. Bo ducked inside the car, pulling his bag into his lap and smiling across the dark interior at the driver. Only faintly illuminated by the glow of the gauges on the car’s dash, Bo’s good samaritan looked like a teenaged kid, freckled and sandy-haired. His unkempt waves fell past his chin, and he wore a polyester shirt with a sheen and oversized collar. A cowboy hat that looked like it had seen more than one hard day's work rested on the dash in front of the steering wheel, and the car's interior carried the familiar scent of sweat and leather.

It was 1972 and they were just outside Dallas, not some backwater small town. Bo wasn’t taken aback by the guy’s too-long hair and the close fit of his shirt, or that it was unbuttoned to the center of his chest. What did make Bo freeze, with the car door still open so the rain coursed down on his right shoulder, was the bright red lipstick on the young man's mouth.

What I’m reading

Last week I discovered the Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone, and I’m devouring it. I alternated between the ebook and audio for A Lesson in Thorns, and finished it in a day, even though it’s a pretty long book. Now I’m midway through book two. The best way I’ve come up with to describe the mood of the book is to imagine that The Secret History and The Secret Garden had a sexy, kinky, polyamorous baby. Have you read this series? I'm loving it.

Chapter 20 of Undertow

Just five chapters to go! And there’s a big reveal in this one. Or, I thought it was a big one... let me know if you saw it coming! You can read chapters 1-20 of Undertow on my website.

And last but not least... free books!

Love the One You’re With Prolific Works Giveaway