#SampleSunday: An Excerpt from Charmed Life, available November 17th

As an actress, Sondra understood that, above all else, women were rivals. No matter what the relationship – sister, mother, daughter, friend – in the end, the best that could be expected was competitiveness.

Claire was a different sort of a woman from those Sondra had spent her life around, and her differentness confused Sondra. Despite knowing that Sondra and Milo had enjoyed a brief fling, Claire seemed determined to befriend her.

That Friday morning, Sondra awakened to the delicious aroma of fresh-brewed coffee – a beverage that Milo avoided for the most part. In his opinion, Arizona was no place for hot beverages. Therefore, she knew before she even set foot outside of her bedroom that Claire was in the kitchen. Still, the aroma was too strong to resist. She pulled her short pink-satin robe around her and walked quietly toward the kitchen, hoping to get a cup and get out before Claire could catch her.

“Good morning!” sing-songed the relentlessly cheery Claire. “I was just pouring you a mug of coffee!”

The first time Sondra had met Claire, the woman had been dour in the extreme and more than a little careworn. When Milo’s and her affection blossomed, though, Claire developed a glow that made Sondra want very much to kick her. But, she reasoned, that would be like kicking a puppy – people frowned when one did things like that. “Thank you,” she said, smiling stiffly and taking the mug.

“There’s an amaretto-flavored creamer in the fridge.”

“I know. I put it there.”

“That was you? I thought it was Milo.”

“Milo doesn’t drink coffee.”

“I know. I thought he bought it for me.” She sipped from her mug. “I’m afraid I used some of it.”

Sondra seethed, grinding her teeth as she poured a bit of the creamer into her cup.

“I’ll stop and buy a replacement bottle today. Do you want more amaretto or would you like one of the other flavors instead? French vanilla maybe?”

The anger she had been fostering dissipated, just as it always did where Claire was concerned. She never did enough wrong in sequence to allow Sondra time to build up a good head of steam. She tried to look on the bright side: soon, Claire’s unfailing goodness would be enough to raise her blood pressure. It was like living with Glinda the Good Witch. “French vanilla sounds good,” she answered. “And feel free to use as much of the creamer as you like.”

*****

Charmed Life, the second book in the Brass Monkey series, will be released on Thursday. If you haven't read Wild Life, please take the opportunity to pick up a sample. Links to all of my books can be found here.

#SampleSunday: An Excerpt from Wild Life

Despite an essentially lifelong estrangement from Brian, Milo still expected that moving to Arizona would repair their relationship. Brian, however, seemed less than thrilled when Milo parked a U-Haul truck in his driveway. “How long are you staying?”

“Indefinitely,” Milo repeated. “It’s high time I got to know my grandchildren better, don’t you think?” He glanced toward the surprisingly pasty boy and girl and winked.

“Children, go to your rooms.” As if on cue, they rose and disappeared, leaving Milo alone with Brian and his sour-faced chestnut-haired wife who looked very much like dead Alice, in Milo’s opinion.

“What are my children’s names?” Brian queried.

“That’s just bad parenting, Brian. You ought to know your own children’s names.”

Brian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I do know their names. The question is: do you?”

“Oh.” Milo swallowed uncomfortably. “I know what this is about.”

“Do you?” Brian cocked an eyebrow at his father. His wife scooted closer to him, laying a calming hand on his knee.

“Of course. I’ve never forgotten that day. I’m normally so good with faces…”

“You couldn’t recognize me in a crowd of children.”

“To be fair, Brian, you were all wearing the same uniform.”

“I’m your son!”

“And Minnesota does have a large population of towheaded children.”

“Name my children.”

“Alice Marie and Eric Thomas.”

“You see, darling? Your father knows their names. He just wants to be part of the family.”

“Why thank you, Millie.”

She frowned. “Marla.”

They let him stay on the pullout sofa. He wasn’t allowed to sleep past seven o’clock in the morning, because Marla had OCD and couldn’t leave the house without the living room tidied. Brian worked long hours as a DEA agent and Marla spent her days volunteering for the children’s school. Unable to sit and watch television for hours on end, Milo wandered the new city, boredom always at his heels. He visited the museums, the botanical garden, and the zoos. When the civic amenities were exhausted, he took to the antique stores. Before long, he developed a passion for film cameras. He identified with them on a subconscious level – they, too, were obsolete.

He emptied the contents of the U-Haul truck into a storage locker, wondering the whole time why he had bothered to bring the forty-year-old furniture and decorations with him. When he accidentally dropped a box full of knick-knacks and heard them crash to pieces, he looked around guiltily for dead Alice. She wasn’t there. He sighed with relief and dumped the whole box in the garbage without even opening it to see if anything was salvageable.

To buy Wild Life, Book One of the Brass Monkey series in e-book format:

Amazon.com *** Smashwords.com *** Barnes & Noble

To buy Wild Life or any of my novels in print, visit Inknbeans.com.

#SampleSunday: An Excerpt from Wild Life (My Latest Novel)

For Sample Sunday, please enjoy a bit of my latest novel, Wild Life. In the scene below, Milo meets Sondra Lane, a former Hollywood actress, at his neighborhood bar. If you enjoy the sample, buy the book! It's only $2.99 at Smashwords or Amazon.

Buy Wild Life at Amazon: click here!

He had been so focused on the television that he hadn’t noticed the woman who took the stool next to him until she tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, handsome, slide that bowl of pretzels this way, will you?”

He glanced to his right and found a thin woman with brightly dyed red hair and cigarette lines around her mouth. Milo slid the bowl her way, noting that she used to be beautiful – he could see it in her bone structure if not in her actual face. Now, she was merely attractive. “Here you go.”

“Hey, Sax!”

“Yeah, Sondra?” the bartender answered.

“This gentleman wants to buy me a drink. Whiskey sour, sweetie.”

Sax raised his eyebrows at Milo, looking for confirmation.

Milo smiled and gave an affirming nod.

“I’m Sondra Lane,” she said, turning herself to offer her hand for him to shake.

“Milo.”

“You’re new here.”

“Yes.”

“You live in ‘sin city’?”

He recognized the unofficial moniker of his retirement community: Sun City had recently been outed as having a surprisingly large number of people carrying sexually transmitted diseases. “I take it you’re not?”

“Not yet.” She smiled seductively. “Where are you from?”

“Illinois by way of Minnesota. You?”

“California. I was an actress.”

He sipped his beer and nodded.

She gave him her most beguiling smile, seemingly unaware that the years had taken their toll on it. “You may have seen me in Siege of the Moon. That was my biggest role. I played Sunrise Aeon, the leader of the Martian battle forces.”

“I’m afraid not.”

She shrugged. “It’s a crapshoot. About one out of every ten guys I meet recognize me. Women usually remember me from my recurring role on this old soap opera back in the Seventies.”

He looked at her again and instantly knew who she was. “Carmella Savage!”

She drew back and gave him an appraising look. “You don’t look gay.”

He chuckled. “I’m not. My wife loved Scions of Beauty.”

“Apparently the audience was housewives and every gay man in America. I could sign an autograph for you to take to her…”

“She died a few years back.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Milo thought that, for an actress, her delivery of the line was a little too upbeat. Sax finally arrived with her drink. She inhaled it like a camel that had spent a week too long in the desert. He signaled Sax to bring her another, digging a twenty out of his wallet. “Why’d you move to Arizona?”

“I had to get out of L.A. The city was killing me. My daughter lives here and she asked me to come and stay with her for a while. You?”

“My son’s family.”

“Sometimes I wonder what the draw is,” she said. “I mean, what brings all these people to this God-forsaken dustbowl of a city?” She sucked a long ice cube slowly into her mouth, her eyes meeting his over the rim of the glass.

Discreetly readjusting himself, he answered, “People always think they’re going to love the heat.”

She released the poor, melted ice cube and it dropped, exhausted, to the bottom of the glass. “Do you?”

“I’m adjusting.” He hadn’t thought of sex in a very long time. He knew that for a man to so completely sublimate sexual urges was unusual, but, between his high-blood-pressure medicine and his lack of desire for dead Alice, he had taken all of his sexual energy and diverted it into his work. In fact, he was currently experiencing his first hard-on since 1987. He had forgotten just how much blood was required to maintain an erection and wasn’t exactly sure why he couldn’t seem to focus on anything other than the not-quite-lovely Sondra.

“I only come here because they keep their air conditioner set so low. My daughter doesn’t want the air in her house any cooler than eighty degrees. It’s so hot I just want to walk around in the nude!”

Milo reached up and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. His brain was no longer able to form complete sentences. “My house cool.”

Sax put another drink in front of Sondra and gave Milo a look that seemed to say you poor bastard.

#SampleSunday: Forsaking the Garden -- At Sunset Point

She stared silently forward. We came up to a rest stop and she pulled into it. “My father used to always stop at Sunset Point, whether we were headed up or down the hill.” She stepped out of the truck and walked to a nearby table, where she sat and looked out at the view. A few other people were around: a woman walking a small dog wearing a sweater, a man with a black-streaked shirt and a baseball cap, a young couple with markings all over their arms and wildly colored hair. I was amazed at the oddness of them, yet aware that I was perhaps the oddest person there.

After a few minutes, I followed her to the table and sat down next to her.

“Was Mamma Barbara sick before she had Timothy?”

I nodded. “She’d been getting weaker and weaker for weeks. She wouldn’t stop teaching though; she said she didn’t want to burden the others.”

“What was wrong with her?”

Shrugging, I said, “Mamma Wanda tried to help her, but no one knew exactly what was wrong. There were no doctors—”

Jennifer snorted derisively.

“At least, we didn’t know there were doctors.”

“How was Wanda treating her if she didn’t know what was wrong?”

“She made her herbal broths and stuff like that. Nothing seemed to help.”

“The day Timothy was born, what happened?”

I told Jennifer about Mamma Barbara passing out in the schoolhouse and the other mammas moving her to her bedroom. I recounted the terrible screaming and the more terrifying silence that eventually fell on the house. I didn’t mention Mamma Wanda’s satisfied smile the next morning.

Jennifer dropped her head in her hands and ran her fingers through her hair, rubbing her scalp as she went. Finally, she said, “We’d better go. I want to be down the hill before sunset.”

When we left, I saw the strange-haired couple leaning against a wall. He pressed against her and they kissed each other hungrily.

#SampleSunday: Circle City Blues

Circle City Blues has received several great reviews in the last few weeks. If you'd like to read them, I recommend visiting Smashwords or Amazon.com. As a sort of mini-celebration of this happy news, I'd like to share a 500-word excerpt so that you can get a taste of this funny novel. To set the scene, Mac -- our hero and narrator -- is a truck driver whose wife has recently abandoned him:



New Orleans is one of my least favorite cities. Even though it has recovered considerably since the hurricane that nearly destroyed it, it’s still a dirty place that seems perpetually on the verge of collapse, whether from outside forces or interior rot. In addition, it’s the murder capital of the country. Intellectually, I know that most murder victims are killed by people whom they know personally. Still, there are random acts of violence and I can’t help thinking that there are more of those incidents in New Orleans than anywhere else, simply because their overall murder rate is so high. Therefore, the only thing that made deadheading into Mardi Gras worthwhile was the ultimate destination of Amarillo.

Even though there were plenty of dockworkers at the warehouse, I jumped out of the cab and helped them. I was antsy and anxious to be on my way as soon as possible. Besides, I could use the exercise – my jeans felt a little tight that morning as I pulled them on. I’d been to that warehouse many times in the last couple years, and the manager, a muscular woman called Bess, greeted me by name. “Where’s the little woman?” she asked after peeking around the outside of the rig. “Watching TV?”

“No, I’m afraid not. She decided she liked Indianapolis a whole lot better than me.”

Bess frowned and she clapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry to hear that, man. Lonely on the road alone.”

“Don’t worry too much about me, Bess. I have a new partner – he’s just on his honeymoon. Next time I come through, you’ll probably meet him.”

“Good to hear. I’ve got the bill of lading ready in the office. Come see me when you’re loaded up.”

“You got it.” I helped the guys finish up and pulled the door closed, pad-locking it. Then I trotted over to the square glass cage Bess occupied and stuck my head around the corner of her door. “Knock knock.”

“Come on in. Have a seat. Would you like a bottle of water?”

“Wow. What’s with the cordiality?” I smiled lopsidedly at her.

“I’m trying to improve your opinion of my native city,” she said with a chuckle.

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” I answered honestly.

She took a deep breath, tensing and relaxing her hands. Bess was the shipping and receiving manager for the largest import company in New Orleans; I knew that had to be a stressful job. She’d been using Flo as her primary freight broker for fifteen years, long before I was out of college. “Mac,” she said; she sighed. “NOW is a huge company, did you know that?”

NOW was the acronym for New Orleans Worldwide. “Yes, I know.”

She cracked her knuckles in a distracted manner and sighed again.

“Spit it out, will you? I need to get on the road.”

She laughed and relaxed a bit. “I’m sorry. I can honestly say I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want this, and I have a terrible suspicion I’m not going to get it.”

#SampleSunday: Forsaking the Garden, Chapter 3

Forsaking the Garden officially launches on May 19th, though you may be able to find it earlier. Today I am posting the third chapter; if you are interested in starting at the beginning, see Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. 




And now, Chapter 3:



Mamma Sheena took over the classes a few days later. As I had expected, she didn’t want me to help her at all – she thought I was just a child, and the child of a rival at that.

I hadn’t really considered the mammas rivals before that terrible morning meal. Mamma Barbara had told me the other mammas were like sisters she’d never had, comparing them to the sisters in her favorite author’s novel, Pride and Prejudice. When I asked her which sister she was, she had laughed and asked me who I thought she was like. I didn’t know then. After she fell ill though, I decided she was most like Jane – the prettiest, sweetest, and most content of them all.

For the first few days, Mamma Sheena was able to stay awake and conduct the classes without too much trouble. As Mamma Barbara had predicted, though, Mamma Sheena soon found herself facedown on the desk more often than she stood in front of us. I always waited a few minutes before taking over the class, because Mamma Sheena sometimes woke up as soon as her forehead made contact with the cool wooden surface in front of her. When I heard her soft snoring start, I would stand up and continue the lecture, whatever the subject may have been. I had already learned the material anyway, after more than eight eager years under Mamma Barbara’s tutelage. My ability to soak up all of her lessons so completely was another reason why Mamma Barbara had made me her assistant – it kept me in the classroom despite the fact I didn’t actually need to be there. To keep me from getting bored, she would assign books for me to read when I wasn’t helping her with the other children. While the others went out to play, Mamma Barbara and I would discuss the books at length. My biggest questions always revolved around the structure of the families in the books. Over and over, I asked her why there was only one mamma, why they had so few children, and why their lives seemed so different from ours.

Her answers always centered on how much better our way of life was than the lives portrayed in the books. “If one of the mammas were to die, there would still be four more to take care of you and your brothers and sisters.” “Because their families have only one mamma, they can’t have as many children as we can. Those children are smothered by their mammas and they don’t have the strong ties to their brothers and sisters like you have.” “Life is harder for the families in the books. The parents are always busy with work and they have to leave their children in the care of others. Even though the mammas and your father are busy, they are all still around for you. Why, you could go out right this minute and find your father tilling the field!”

What she said made sense: I could usually spot father from the back window of the schoolhouse. All of the mammas were within crying distance; whenever one of us fell down, there was always a lap waiting to comfort us. I accepted her words as truth.

But the squabbling I witnessed in her absence shook my belief. I wondered if Mamma Barbara had ever fought with the others, or if she alone saw our family as perfect. I intended to ask her as soon as she was well.

In the meantime, I taught the younger children the lessons I had already learned. I loved spelling lessons; Mamma Barbara said I had a special gift for language. I held a spelling bee at least a couple times a week. Ulmer was always anxious for those, since he too had a talent for spelling. I could tell he was upset about Mamma Barbara; he had a close bond with her like the bond I had with Mamma Wanda.

History was another subject I enjoyed. The history books Father had gotten for us were discards from a public school and only went up to the 1950s or so, but Mamma Una said nothing really interesting had happened since World War II anyway. Just like Mamma Barbara, I would read the chapter aloud and then ask the study questions and call on the others to answer, making sure everyone answered at least once, starting with the younger children, since they hadn’t been through the book before.

I always hoped Mamma Sheena would at least make it through the math lessons. She was the best with numbers of all the mammas, having honed her skills in the garden. She could tell you exactly how much a particular plant – be it tomato, eggplant, or green bean – could be expected to yield. Using this knowledge, she always kept a garden that fed us well throughout the year. When she taught math, she created word problems using vegetables and animals right out of her head. It was the only subject for which she showed a real talent. Unfortunately, numbers weren’t my strongest subject. But when Mamma Sheena taught math, I felt like she untangled all the mysteries right there in front of me for the first time. When Mamma Barbara came back, I planned to ask her if Mamma Sheena could continue teaching math for us.

Of course, whenever Mamma Sheena woke up from her naps and found me in front of the class, she assumed I was misbehaving and reprimanded me for it. She rarely realized she had, in fact, been sleeping; instead, she imagined I had somehow snuck up in front of her in an attempt to make her look bad. If the other children tried to defend me, they too found themselves punished. After the first few times, I told the others not to worry about it – I could take her punishment. Of course, that didn’t stop me from going to Mamma Una with my complaints.

“Now, Irene, I don’t want to hear about this. Mamma Sheena is in charge and you can’t be going over her head to get the results you want.”

“But, Mamma Una! She keeps punishing me as if I were doing something wrong!”

“I know it doesn’t seem fair, but sometimes that’s just how life is.” She hugged me and said, “You just keep doing what you know is right. When Mamma Barbara comes back, I’m sure you’ll be rewarded for your faithfulness.”

#SampleSunday: Forsaking the Garden, Chapter 2

Being released on May 19, 2011

No one slept that night. Even if I had been able to ignore Mamma Barbara’s screams and drift off, my terrified younger brothers and sisters needed comforting. With no mammas to hug them, they came to me and huddled around my bed. Even my sister Nancy, who at nine had already decided she didn’t need any of the mammas or Father, wanted me to tell her everything would be fine. So that’s what I did: I gathered them together and played telephone and told stories until, finally, when the sun was just coloring the sky to the east, the screaming changed.

The scream of a newborn is one of irritation. Every time a new brother or sister joined the family, his or her scream sounded as if he or she were complaining about the brightness of the light and the chill in the air – as if the world were not adjusted to his or her liking. The new baby’s cry was no different. I sighed in relief, certain everything was fine now that he or she had joined us in this not-quite-what-we-expect world.

After tucking all the younger children in – even my sister Penny, who was only a year younger than me – I tiptoed down the stairs hoping to catch a glimpse of the new baby. Peeking around the banister, I spied Mamma Perdita crying at the door to Mamma Barbara’s room, the baby already in her arms. I knew something was wrong: the baby should, by all rights, still be with the mamma who had given birth. When Perdita spotted me, she held a finger to her lips as she indicated I should go back upstairs with a tilt of her head. I climbed back up the stairs and into bed as quietly as I could. Pulling my blanket up to my chin, I wondered what terrible thing had happened.

Penny, who had not fallen asleep yet, whispered, “Did you see the mammas?”

I shook my head.

She closed her eyes and I soon heard soft snores from her bed. I don’t know how long I lay there before I heard footsteps on the stairs. I padded across the floor and opened my bedroom door. Father was down the hall, quietly pulling the door to Ulmer and Elmer’s room shut. He saw me and waved me over, a sad smile on his grizzled face. I hugged him tightly.

“Sweet Irene,” he cooed. “You are a prize beyond measure. Was it you who took care of the others last night?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good girl.”

“Is Mamma Barbara okay?”

He shook his head sadly. “She’s very ill. We’re all worried about her. But don’t you worry too much. Mamma Una is taking good care of her, and if anyone can help her, she can.”

“What about the baby? I heard it crying earlier.”

He chuckled. “Healthy lungs on that one, eh? Yes, he’s fine.”

“What’s his name?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m hoping Mamma Barbara will wake up so we can discuss it.”

“She’s sleeping? That’s good right?”

He looked down at me with sad eyes. “I hope so.” He glanced at the clock on the wall between the rooms. “What time did you get them to sleep?”

“Not until the sun rose. Everyone was so scared.”

“Understandable. Go back to bed, Irene. No classes today, I’m afraid.”

“I can’t sleep, Father. May I go downstairs instead?”

He nodded and hugged me again. I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I found Mamma Wanda humming and stirring oatmeal for the breakfast meal.

“Good morning, my darling girl,” she said, smiling.

“Good morning, Mamma.” Her cheerful demeanor made me wonder if Father was too worried about Mamma Barbara. Mamma Wanda was a skilled herbalist, having studied the many books Father brought to her from his trips into town. If anyone could cure Mamma Barbara, I was certain my mammas would be able to. “Can I help you with anything?”

“You could set the tables for us.”

“The children just fell asleep a little while ago.”

Mamma Wanda frowned. “Why weren’t they asleep all night?”

“None of us could sleep for fright! Mamma Barbara’s screams—”

She looked surprised. “I wasn’t thinking! I didn’t realize you children could hear that ruckus, or I would have come up to check on you.”

“Weren’t you with Mamma Barbara?”

“No. There’s nothing I can do for a woman giving birth – nothing can remedy that kind of pain. I stuffed my ears with cotton and went to bed after dinner. I should have brought cotton up to you kids.”

“Have you seen Mamma Barbara this morning?”

She shook her head. “Mamma Una insists on caring for her herself. Besides, Una says she’s sleeping. I don’t want you to go bothering either of them, okay?”

“Yes, Mamma.”

“Well, since the children are sleeping, just set the table for” – she stopped and counted on her fingers – “six. You can eat with us this morning.”

A warm happiness flowed through me as I set the table. It was the first time I’d ever eaten at the adults’ table, and I was thrilled to be there – even under such unhappy circumstances.

Before long, Mamma Perdita wandered in and sat down, followed by Mamma Sheena, Mamma Una, and Father, who cleared his throat as he pulled out his chair. Mamma Wanda ladled the hot cereal into bowls that I carried in and served to the other mammas and Father. Mamma Wanda and I then carried our own bowls in and joined them. I spooned brown sugar into my oatmeal before adding a pat of butter, which quickly melted when it touched the bowl’s contents.

None of the adults spoke for several minutes. Everyone was intent on their meal and no one even looked up for quite some time. When I sneaked peeks at their faces, everyone looked somber, like when Mamma Barbara lost her babies. Even Mamma Wanda wasn’t smiling now.

Finally, Father cleared his throat again and asked, “How is the baby, Perdita? Were you able to feed him?”

“Yes,” she answered, her voice a little higher and squeakier than normal. I thought I could hear a warble as well. Mamma Perdita always seemed a little nervous around Father, but the nervousness was pronounced today. “He was a little slow to latch, but once he caught on, he ate plenty.” She giggled; Sheena patted her hand.

“Una, how is Barbara?”

“She’s still sleeping. Her fever hasn’t come down, and I’m having trouble stopping the bleeding completely.”

“Wanda, do you have anything that could help?”

“Nothing she can take while she’s sleeping. Can you wake her up?”

Una shook her head.

“That’s a shame.”

I glanced up at Mamma Wanda and realized she was glad Mamma Barbara was ill.

I watched as Mamma Sheena slowly fell asleep, her spoon full of oatmeal drifting back to the bowl before it reached her mouth.

“She really can’t afford to stay up like she did last night,” Mamma Una commented. “With her affliction, a lack of sleep cripples her even more.”

“I tried to get her to go to bed,” Perdita whined.

“No one blames you, dear.” Una smiled at the youngest of Father’s wives.

“Of course not,” Father agreed. “Sheena can be bullheaded – everyone knows that.” He pushed back from the table with both hands and walked around to where Sheena, her chin against her chest, sat. He put both hands on her shoulders and said her name by her ear.

Mamma Sheena’s eyes popped open and her head came up as if it were on a spring. “Did I nod off?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, my dear. Come,” Father said, helping her to her feet, “I’ll help you to your bed.”

“Thank you, Rex,” she answered. They disappeared toward the bedrooms.

“I think she fakes it,” Mamma Wanda said irritably.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mamma Una admonished. “Why would she do that?”

“To get attention from Rex, of course.”

“Rex is more than fair with the amount of time he spends with each of us.”

“She did say she wanted another baby,” Perdita mused, the quiver gone from her voice.

“I thought three were enough for her.” Wanda dropped her spoon in her bowl.

“Wanda, you know we want every child God will provide to us.” Una calmly stirred her coffee.

I had never seen my mammas like this. I remembered watching my sisters fight over a doll, each one jealous and convinced the other had played with the doll longer than she had. I knew right then I never wanted to share a husband with another wife.

“I’d love to have another baby, but he never wants—” Mamma Wanda stopped herself abruptly, focusing on me. “Irene. Are you done eating, dear?”

I wasn’t, but I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Yes, Mamma.”

“You’re excused then.”

“Thank you, Mamma.” I pushed away from the table, leaving half a bowl of oatmeal and the fascinating argument behind.

#SampleSunday: Forsaking the Garden, Chapter 1

Book Release scheduled
for May 19, 2011

When I was almost fourteen years old, Mamma Barbara fell into a fever. The leaves were just starting to change that week, and I was anticipating the crisp weather and the pleasures of Mamma Wanda’s stews, which she only made after the summer had passed. As the oldest student, Mamma Barbara had made me her teaching assistant, a role I relished because I got to spend more time with Mamma Barbara, a kind and beautiful woman who loved books more than anything else in the world. 

Mamma Barbara was far along in her pregnancy, having succeeded in carrying the baby well past the danger point. Though I knew only a little of how grownups lived, I understood she had lost four babies in the last four years. I imagined the small children letting go of her when she wasn’t paying attention and wandering off into the forest surrounding our home. Every time she lost one of her children, she would be so sad I feared she would wander off to look for them and never come back. I would try to cheer her up by hugging her or bringing her drawings, but if the other mammas caught me, they would tell me to leave her alone and stop being such a pest. Before long, she would be back to normal – at least on the outside. But if you looked in her eyes, you could see her hidden sadness.

Anyway, this time her baby wasn’t going to disappear into the forest; all of Mamma Barbara’s fear and sadness were replaced with a kind of exhausted happiness as each day passed and the baby grew inside her. Mamma Una, the oldest and wisest of the mammas, came to the schoolhouse to talk to Mamma Barbara one day while the younger children were at lunch.

“Sheena can take over classes until after the baby is born. Now that the harvest is over, the garden won’t take up much of her time.”

Mamma Barbara laughed. “Sheena’s hardly in any condition to do my job.”

“What do you mean?”

“Una, who will supervise the children when she nods off?”

“Irene will. Won’t you, my dear?”

I nodded reluctantly. It wasn’t that I disliked Mamma Sheena, but I couldn’t help being disturbed by her constant state of sleepiness.

“Why not just let Irene teach while I’m recuperating? It will be a good experience for her.”

I felt a blush of pride rise on my cheeks at Mamma Barbara’s words.

“She’s still a child,” Mamma Una said dismissively. “She’s too young to be left in charge.”

“You’re wrong. She’s very mature for her age.”

“And you know why that would be a problem.” Mamma Una raised her eyebrows and looked at Mamma Barbara meaningfully.

“Why would that be a problem?” I asked.

“Never you mind, young lady,” Mamma Una said. “Go inside and help Mamma Wanda with lunch.”

I frowned but left the two mammas alone. In the main house, Mamma Wanda greeted me with a brief hug. Despite my dislike of cooking and cleaning, I loved being with Mamma Wanda. 

My siblings were already eating their dessert – a cobbler Mamma Wanda had made from some of the peaches I had helped her can during the summer. Though I had claimed not to be hungry, my stomach rumbled loudly at the smell of the sweet dish.

“I thought you weren’t coming in,” Mamma Wanda said as she went back to washing the lunch plates.

“Mamma Una made me leave,” I pouted. 

“I’m sure she had a good reason.” The dishes clanked in the sink and the kitchen’s warm, moist air made me want to curl up and take a nap right there.

I mumbled my agreement.

“Are you hungry? Do you want a sandwich?” Mamma Wanda was the only one who knew why I didn’t like to eat lunch on Fridays: I didn’t like fish. Father always went fishing on Thursdays, and therefore, we always ate fish on Fridays. Sometimes, I got lucky and Father didn’t catch enough to feed all of us. Usually, though, there was plenty to go around and extra to salt-cure for the winter. Mamma Wanda caught on long ago that I was usually not hungry on Fridays. When she was able to do so, she always offered me a honey and butter sandwich to keep me from starving.

“No, thank you. I just want some of the cobbler, if that’s okay.”

Mamma Wanda wagged her head in exasperation, but dished me up a helping of the dessert. 

“Mamma Una wants Mamma Sheena to take over school when Mamma Barbara has her baby.” I hopped up on the corner cabinet behind her to enjoy my treat.

“Hmmph,” Mamma Wanda sounded.

“That’s what I think too. She won’t be able to stay awake – doesn’t matter how many screaming kids are around, she’ll just fall asleep.”

Mamma Wanda’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. She rarely laughed aloud; she said it wasn’t dignified. None of the mammas laughed easily except Perdita, who was the youngest of all of them. I made it my business to try to get them to laugh – a rewarding but scantly paid job. If my goal at that moment had been to make Mamma Wanda laugh aloud, I would merely have done my impression of Mamma Sheena. However, humor wasn’t my aim that afternoon. “I’m serious, Mamma. How is she going to supervise all of us when she’s facedown on the desk?”

“Now, Irene, don’t be dramatic. You know you’ll just take over for her.”

Setting my dessert down for emphasis, I said, “Mamma Sheena doesn’t like me very much. I doubt she’ll be happy when she finds out I’m more teacher than student.”

“Sheena loves you just as much as we all do, sweetheart. Why, just the other day—”

The kitchen door crashed open and Ulmer, one of my eight-year-old twin brothers raced in. “Mamma, come quickly! Something’s wrong with Mamma Barbara!”

“Oh, no!” I jumped from the counter and grabbed Mamma Wanda’s still-wet hand, dragging her along with me as I raced after Ulmer.

In the classroom, we found Mamma Barbara with her head in Mamma Una’s lap, her normal color drained and pain creasing her face.

“Try to relax, Barbara,” Mamma Una soothed. “We’ll take care of everything. Just let the pain go.”

A scream wrenched itself from Mamma Barbara’s body and she went limp, her eyes rolling back in her head.

When Mamma Una realized she wasn’t alone, she started issuing orders. “Irene, get Mamma Sheena. Ulmer, find Father. Wanda, help me lift her.”

I glimpsed Mamma Wanda as I ran from the room. I thought I saw her shoulders shaking.

If you have enjoyed this excerpt, I hope you will look for Forsaking the Garden on its May 19th release date. In the meantime, please check out The Prophet's Wives and The Thief of Todays and Tomorrows.

#SampleSunday: The Dead Man of Her Dreams

When Cynthia opened the door, Timothy Chase was on the other side. He stepped through the entryway and took her in his strong arms, saying, “You’re the one I’ve been waiting for. You are my muse, the love of my life, the greatest inspiration any man could ever want.”

“Oh, Tim,” she fluttered, relishing the manliness of him, the rugged American soul he embodied. She locked her lips on his and caressed his muscled back.

“Whoa,” he said, pushing her away.

“What? Wait a second…”

“Wow. My voice is really deep. Hello? Hello? Testing 1-2-3-4…”

Cynthia shook her head. “What’s going on here?”

“I might ask the same thing. Why are you kissing me?”

“Because I’m your muse, your one true love, and…and this isn’t my dream anymore, is it?”

“Not exactly. Why is my voice so deep?”

“It’s not as if I know what your real voice sounded like, is it? Are we really having a conversation here?”

“Yes. We are.”

“Is this what you’ve been doing in Nick’s head?”

“No. In his dreams, I’m more like an invisible director. I wasn’t expecting to have a starring role in yours.”

She blushed. “I’m kind of angry at Nick right now. I guess I just…conjured you up.”

“Yeah. Not bad, by the way. You realize, of course, that I was a writer, not a bodybuilder. I never had muscles like this.”

“Sorry. Can’t really tell that from the headshot on your book.”

“I did a couple radio interviews. Look me up. At least you could get the voice right.”

She sighed. “Why are you here? You need to be giving Nick the dreams again.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He cleared his throat. “This is really hard to get used to.”

She cocked an eyebrow and rolled her hands at him, indicating he should speed the conversation along. “While I’m sleeping, please.”

“Sorry. I can’t give Nick any more dreams.”

“Why not?”

“It’s bad for him.”

“Have you read the stuff he wrote without the dreams? Trust me, your dreams are not bad.”

“I didn’t say the dreams were bad. I said they were bad for him. As in, potentially dangerous.”

“Don’t be silly. Dreams can’t hurt anyone.”

“No, but…it’s just a bad idea. Hey, I’m sorry I even started it. I shouldn’t have.”

“Why didn’t you write the book yourself? I mean, you had the whole outline…” A couch appeared a few feet away. She walked over and sat down on it. “Look, I know you think you’re doing the right thing here, but your book – the one Nick was writing – was amazing. The best thing you’ve ever written…sort of. Please, you’ve got to go back to it.”

He followed her to the couch, sitting down comfortably for the first time in months. “Nice sofa.”

“Thanks. It’s just like the one I wanted to buy. Nick didn’t like it. He said it was too fluffy.”

“No such thing.” He leaned back against the pillows and sighed.

“So you’ll do it, right?”

“Do what?”

“Focus, please,” she said impatiently.

“Oh. That. No, I won’t. You just have to take my word on this, Cynthia. It’s not a good idea.”

She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead, thinking.

While Tim waited, he studied the room. The house she had constructed in her dream was slightly bigger than their real one, and the furniture was definitely more her style: the fluffy couch, overstuffed chairs, and the heavy wooden dining room set in the next room had a modern, big-house feel to them that their real furniture didn’t.

“I want you to read what he’s written before you make a final decision.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t turn the pages. I can only touch things that I touched before my unfortunate leap.” He held an imaginary noose over his head and crooked his neck.

She blinked silently, processing the information. “There are rules for being dead?”

“Yes. A lot of them. Which is why I can’t keep influencing Nick’s dreams.”

“I can turn the pages for you!”

“No…”

“Yes, I can. Starting tomorrow. Meet me in the dining room. The table and chairs were yours, so you can touch them, right?”

“Yes, but…”

“I’ll put the manuscript on the table in front of an empty chair. You sit in that chair and read. Knock three times on the table when you are ready for me to turn the page.”

“But…”

“No. You have to read it before you decide. Please.”

The life went out of Tim’s eyes and she realized she was sitting next to a corpse. Startled, she screamed and woke herself up.

“What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Feeling Nick’s hand on her shoulder and his breath against her neck, she relaxed. “Yeah. Sorry, just a bad dream. Go back to sleep, baby.”

He pulled her in close to him and spooned her.

Tim sat back against the wall and watched them fall into their dreams again.

Sample Sunday: The Ladies Who Lunch

Though my exterior was transformed, I felt like the same girl as I rang the doorbell at the Acardis’ home. Waiting for the door to open, I clasped my hands in front of me like a schoolgirl, then reminded myself to drop them to my side in a more relaxed pose.

The same girl – I remembered her name was Natalie – answered the door. She had to be one of the Acardis’ children; she looked surprisingly like her father, definitely more Italian than Polish. “Hello, Natalie,” I said. “Is your mother home?”

The girl raised an eyebrow and gave me the same appraising once-over her mother had given me. “Of course. You were invited, weren’t you?” She turned and walked down the long entryway toward the patio.

Feeling foolish, I followed her.

The house was just as dark as it had been on the day of the barbecue. Apparently, the luncheon was to be outside as well. I was glad I’d worn the sunglasses.

The patio appeared considerably changed from the last time I had seen it. The barbecue was covered and pushed against a far wall, the bar and the piano were nowhere in sight, and a rectangular table covered by an umbrella was just outside and to the left of the French doors that opened from the house. The table was already surrounded by four women; there were six chairs in total. I was apparently late.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Acardi, standing from her position at the head of the table, “Kathleen. So glad you were able to join us today.” She walked over and air-kissed me on both cheeks. She was wearing a pale pink chiffon dress that was very similar to the lavender one Jane had rejected the day before. As I glanced at the other women, a lump of cold misery congealed in my stomach. I was painfully overdressed for the occasion. I formed my lips into a smile and told myself not to bite them out of shape.

“Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Acardi,” I managed as Grace pulled me forward and introduced me to the other women.

“Please, call me Grace. Kathleen DeLucia, I’d like you to meet Lucinda Briggs, Dinah Marquette, and Alice Ford.”

Somehow, I kept my jaw from dropping to the floor. I recognized all of these women’s names from the society pages of the newspaper; Jane and I used to read the articles found there with our best hoity-toity voices. These women were married to some of the richest men in the state. “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

“Kathleen is the wife of a shrewd young businessman my husband knows.” Not only did she know my given name, but she also had deftly covered the fact that my husband was just a club manager. “Natalie, honey, bring Mrs. DeLucia a drink, will you?” To me, she said, “A Bloody Mary is fine, right?”

I nodded and sat down. With the exception of Alice Ford, all of the women were wearing sunglasses, so I left mine on. It was a relief not to have to worry about the others seeing the fear I knew my eyes would betray. A moment later, Natalie set a tall glass of what looked like tomato juice with a stick of celery in it in front of me.

“Your dress is lovely, Kathleen,” said Dinah Marquette. “Very chic.”

“Thank you,” I answered. Like the others, she was dressed in a summery pastel frock. “Yours is beautiful.”

“Oh, this old thing? It’s going to the charity tomorrow. I just wanted to wear it one last time. Time to make room for the winter clothes, isn’t it?”

The others nodded in agreement. I couldn’t imagine throwing out clothes to make room for more. I owned a grand total of ten dresses, including this one.

Grace rescued me, either by design or by coincidence. “Well, ladies,” she said, “I don’t know if Agnes will be joining us or not. She telephoned to let me know that she had a prior engagement for earlier today and wasn’t sure she’d be able to attend our meeting.”

“That’s a shame,” Lucinda said. “Agnes always has the best ideas.”

I was beginning to suspect this wasn’t just a luncheon; I had no idea why I’d been invited.

“As you are all aware, last year’s fundraiser didn’t quite meet the projected budget. As a result, we were forced to cut a few of the social programs that had been planned. Tony was particularly sad about the elimination of the ethnic nights. For him, they were some of the most memorable events of his childhood.”

“Honestly, Grace. My husband says we shouldn’t be encouraging people to retain their allegiance to the country they came from. They are in America now. We should encourage their homogenization into American culture instead. Cutting that program was the wisest decision we made last year.” Alice Ford spoke these words, but, clearly, Lucinda supported her. Dinah seemed to be leaning that way as well.

I took a sip of my drink and it burned my throat, causing me to cough.

“You disagree?” Alice asked, raising an eyebrow at me. Everyone turned to look at me.

“Um…no,” I said glancing at Grace, who knocked her sunglasses down so that I could see her eyes. “What I mean is…” I wondered what Tommy would say about this – I’d trusted his opinion on the news of the day for years. Francis never really said anything about world affairs. “Well…I think that…just because people come to America for a better life, that doesn’t mean they should have to forget where they came from.” I remembered Francis saying something about root beer when he came home – he hadn’t been able to get any root beer in Europe. “Just imagine – you arrive in a new country. No one speaks your language – you have to learn theirs. No one serves the foods you grew up eating – if you want them, you’d better learn how to cook them yourself. Even though you know you made the right choice to move here, you’d be homesick, wouldn’t you?”

Lucinda clucked and sighed. “If you’re prone to homesickness, shouldn’t you just stay home?” Alice and Dinah laughed politely.

I looked down at my drink and took another cautious sip.

Grace answered for me. “So, Lucinda, are you saying that your ancestors brought nothing with them when they fled religious persecution is England?”

“Just the clothes on their backs,” she said proudly.

“And of course they adopted the culture that was already here, right?”

Lucinda stared at Grace for a moment before saying, “I see your point, but our culture is considerably different from the Indian culture my ancestors encountered.”

“Yes,” Grace chuckled, “we’re more prejudiced and less accepting.”

Alice stopped the argument: “Shouldn’t we raise the money before we fight about the programs?”

“Point taken, Alice. So, let’s get down to business, as my husband would say.”

Sample Sunday: A Cure for Suicidal Thoughts

Mom and I waited in what the hospital called a “family room” – one hundred square feet furnished in nineteenth-century funeral home. I was pretty sure I’d sat on the same sofa at my Grandmother Gordon’s wake. The walls had walnut-stained paneling, and there were no windows. Apparently, they didn’t want to remind the patients that the world was passing them by.

A nurse led a stooped woman hiding behind stringy hair into the room and helped her into a chair. I knew this was my sister, but it seemed impossible.

“Heidi?” my mom asked.

She raised her head but wouldn’t look at either of us.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mom asked the nurse.

“This is within the normal range of results following the procedure.”

“What procedure?”

“Have you spoken with her doctor yet, Mrs. Gordon?”

My mother shook her head.

“I’ll arrange for you to see him following your visit,” she said, quickly leaving the room.

My mother leaned forward and grabbed my sister’s hands in her own, palms up. The scars from her attempted suicide stood out on her wrists like pink inchworms. “Heidi?” she asked again. “Honey, look at me.”

My sister’s eyes slid past my mom to the gilded lamp in the corner of the room and then back to the door, never focusing on any single point.

“They must have her on some kind of sedatives or something,” I said, more to calm myself than her.

“You’re probably right,” she agreed. “Heidi, I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you, baby. I haven’t been well.”

My sister didn’t pull away, but she didn’t grasp my mother’s hands either. She seemed indifferent to Mom’s touch.

“Tim joined the service. He and John are both off at war now.” Mom hadn’t acknowledged that John was MIA since she’d come out of her stupor, and I hadn’t pushed her on that point. “Julie moved to San Francisco. We’ll probably hear her on the radio someday soon.” She persisted in believing that Julie was not a pothead, but a folk singer. “Do you have a radio, honey? Are you allowed to have one?” She waited for an answer; when there was none, she pushed on: “Can you believe that Ava has already graduated from high school? Time passes so fast, doesn’t it, Heidi?”

We might as well have been visiting an empty box – there was nothing inside of her anymore. I suffered through another fifteen minutes of my mother’s ever-more-desperate attempts to wring some response out of her. Finally, the nurse returned.

“Mrs. Gordon? Dr. Chesterton has time to see you for a few moments. Come on, Heidi. It’s time to go back to your room.” The nurse prodded her gently on the back and my sister stood up. The nurse stood behind her with a hand on each shoulder and guided her from the room ahead of us. We followed as if she were the shepherd. When we reached an intersection in the hallway, the nurse said, “Turn left here. Dr. Chesterton’s office is the third one on the right side of the hall.”

My mom went around the nurse and hugged my sister tightly, saying, “I’ll be back soon, honey. Just hang on a little longer. We’ll figure this out.” I’d only seen one zombie movie in my life, but my sister was doing a better impression of one than the actors had done in that film.

I followed Mom down the hall to the doctor’s office. A short, balding man with a long, sharp nose invited us in. He shook my mother’s hand and smiled at me apologetically.

“Your daughter suffered from acute depression and unmanageable moods, as I’m sure you are aware,” he said as soon as we’d sat down.

“She was depressed,” my mother agreed.

“I’m sure you’re aware that she continued to attempt to inflict bodily harm to herself after her arrival here?”

“No,” Mom said. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“I was under the impression that your husband had kept you informed about Heidi’s condition.”

“I’ve been…unwell. My husband has been sheltering me from certain uncomfortable truths.”

His brow creased. “Then perhaps you should have this conversation with him.”

“Unfortunately, the end of our marriage was one of the things he didn’t want to mention to me,” my mother said, arching an ironic eyebrow.

“I see. Well, then…because of your daughter’s ongoing mental distress and our inability to control her moods with medication, your husband authorized a lobotomy to be performed on Heidi.”

I had read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; I knew immediately that nothing could be done to return Heidi to normal. What had been done was permanent – we should be glad she was even alive. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I started mourning for the sister I had lost.

My mother, though, had never even known that such things were done. “What does that mean? You removed something from her? What?”

“Her brain, Mom,” I said as the first tears fell. “They removed her brain.”

My mom’s jaw dropped open and her eyes grew wide. “That’s barbaric!”

“Now, now, Mrs. Gordon. It’s not like that. This operation helped your daughter. Can’t you see that? She’s no longer distressed, she no longer wants to hurt herself—”

“You’re a monster!” Mom exclaimed. “A Dr. Mengele! Frankenstein! How could you do such a thing?”

“She’s much better off, Mrs. Gordon.”

“She’s not even alive anymore!”

“In cases such as your daughter’s—”

“People should stay the hell away from places like this! Ava, take me home.”

Sample Sunday: Tim Learns to Fly

For Sample Sunday, I thought I'd share another excerpt from An Unassigned Life. With three five-star reviews at Amazon, this light-hearted ghost story could be just the thing to carry you into spring. In this scene, Tim (the ghost) learns how to fly:

He walked back to his house and found that the window he’d used to leave the house was now closed. He tried the front door, but Cynthia had locked it. The back door was locked, too. The garage, however, was open. He started to climb the ladder to the loft, but stopped. I can float, he thought. I should try it out.

He stepped back and tried to will himself to rise. Nothing. Up, he thought. I want to go up. Still nothing. He pulled out the El Pad and read: Initially, levitation can be difficult to manage. After a lifetime ruled by the laws of  gravity, the soul is usually resistant to the idea of rising without something to support it. If you have trouble levitating, try walking off of the edge of something: a stair, a chair, a roof, etc. Anything that would have caused your physical body to fall.

He climbed up the ladder, stepped into the loft, and turned around to face the empty space behind him. He had never liked heights. When he first bought the house, he and Tina had discussed turning this loft into his writing garret. He’d even come up here a few times with Tina’s laptop to try it out. Unfortunately, he’d found himself wondering how sturdy the second floor of the rickety barn actually was and whether he would die when it collapsed or just suffer broken bones. After a few attempts, he abandoned his plan and settled his desk in the living room, telling Tina that he needed to see the street while he was writing. She hadn’t been thrilled, but since his advance was what had made this house theirs, she adapted.

Now, as he stood looking down at the twelve-foot drop, he felt the familiar plunge of his stomach and a wave of fear rolled through him. I can’t die, he reasoned. There’s nothing here to be afraid of. He stepped off the floor and into the empty air before him. He dropped rapidly for a few feet before his soul realized that gravity wasn’t tugging on it. He took a few steps. The way the air seemed to buoy him up reminded him of swimming. He decided to try the breaststroke and found that it was very much like moving in water. He laughed and swam upward, touching the roof with his fingers. Then he swooped out of the barn and up to the roof, where he stood and surveyed the neighborhood. He spotted George, who was coming down the street on the opposite sidewalk. He plunged back into the air and swam toward him, landing just behind him. “Hi, George,” he said.

George jumped and turned. “Where did you come from?” 

“The garage roof."

Sample Sunday Excerpt: Circle City Blues

Mac stops by to drop off the things Kirsten forgot to take when she left him. In a moment of weakness, they tumble into bed.

Half an hour later, as I stared at the ceiling in a small bedroom, I had my doubts. “That seemed very…final,” I said after several minutes of silence.

She rested her hand lightly on my chest and said softly, “It was.”

She might as well have been doing a handstand on my pectorals – my heart was crushed beneath her words. I swallowed back the hurt and said angrily, “So this was what? Pity sex?”

“No, of course not,” she said soothingly. “This was goodbye sex.”

“Is that how you’re going to explain fucking your ex in his bed?”

She giggled. “Don’t be silly. This is the guest room.”

I rolled away and located my underwear on the floor beside the bed. “Great,” I muttered.

“Besides,” she continued, “Kent thought this” – she waggled her index finger back and forth between us – “might help me get past some of the guilt I’ve been feeling.”

“So this” – I mockingly used her same hand gesture – “is Sir Kent-sanctioned?”

“You know I hate it when you call him that.”

“Focus, please.”

“Yes. This is okay with him.”

“A one-time-only, use-it-or-lose-it fuck session.”

She contorted her face in disgust. “I wish you wouldn’t say it like that. You make it seem so…sordid.”

“God help me. How did I ever end up with a twisted bitch like you?”

“Okay. I am so totally over the guilt thing now. Get out.”

“Gladly. Be sure to let Sir Kent know I think you two deserve each other.”

A door rattled and slammed from somewhere in the house. “Kirsten? Where are you, baby?”

“Never mind,” I said, pulling my t-shirt on. “I’ll tell him myself.”

“Shit,” she muttered, hurriedly shoving herself into her clothes.

Slipping on my jeans, I watched her with disbelief. “I thought he knew,” I said.

“He does. But that’s no reason to rub his face in it.”

“We’re back here!” I called.

“You finally made it in, huh, Mac?” he said in a loud but genial tone.

“Yeah,” I said. “One last time.”

Kirsten glared as she threw the bedspread over the tangled sheets.

He finally came into view at the far end of the hall. “There you are!” He strode forward purposefully, not even stopping to evaluate the tableau. He stuck his hand out and I reached for it without even thinking about what might be on mine. I realized as soon as our flesh met that my hand was sticky. Sir Kent either didn’t notice or didn’t let me see him flinch. He smiled at me and then turned to Kirsten. “Is everything resolved then?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

“Good,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder with his free hand. “I’m glad you two were able to work things out.”

Work things out. If we had worked things out, Kirsten would be packing right now and this oddly geeky PhysEd teacher would be curled up in a corner crying. “Yeah. I need to go now.” I pulled my hand away from Sir Kent’s paw and spread my fingers. “Bathroom?”

“First door on the right,” Kirsten said.

When I left Sir Kent’s Pepto-Bismol-pink guest bathroom after thoroughly cleaning my hands with the pink sweet-pea-scented anti-bacterial liquid soap, I heard him asking her in a disturbingly aroused voice if she’d been a naughty girl, while she giggled nervously. I had to lock my knees to keep from actually running to the door.

When I was safely back in my truck, I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. Then I dialed Adam. “What’s Stage Three?”

Sample Sunday Excerpt: An Unassigned Life -- Never Kick a Gift Horse in the Head (Chapter 3)

The complete novel, An Unassigned Life, will be available on February 17, 2011, at Amazon and Smashwords. Today, I'm happy to present the third chapter here on my blog. If you'd like a look at the cover, visit Inknbeans Press. If you enjoy this excerpt, please tweet or post on Facebook. Thanks for reading!

“This is truly a diamond in the rough,” Helene said as she pushed open the door, which scraped loudly against the scarred wooden floor of the entryway.

Nick goosed Cynthia impatiently when she didn’t immediately follow the perky platinum blonde across the threshold.

“Hey!” she stage-whispered, slapping blindly at his hand, but stepped into the house.

“All it needs,” Helene was saying, “are the floors redone and the walls painted. The previous owner redid the kitchen and bathroom, so they are completely updated.”

“Why didn’t the owner do the rest of the house?” Cynthia asked. “I mean, kitchens and bathrooms take the most time…”

“Very shrewd of you, Mrs. Kenyon,” the agent said with a tight smile. “I guess he just hadn’t decided what he wanted to do. His loss is your gain, though!”

“Isn’t this amazing?” he enthused.

Cynthia knew this was exactly what Nick was looking for: a traditional bungalow in one of the older neighborhoods. Without uncrossing her arms, Cynthia said, “An amazing amount of work.”

“Come on, Cyn! This home is a piece of history! When was it built, Helene?”

“Oh, uh, just a sec.” She flipped through some papers on her clipboard and said, “Nineteen-fifteen.”

“Incredible! It’s nearly a hundred years old and still sturdy as a rock. Not like those modern crackerjack boxes they build now. This house will still be standing when those have disintegrated into dust.”

“That may be true, Nick, but new houses don’t need renovation.”

“This home is a virtual steal,” Helene interjected. “Plus, everything in the place comes with it.”

“You hear that? It’s a bargain, love. This may be the only chance we ever have to own a home in this part of town with this kind of history.”

Seeing the pleading in his eyes, Cynthia grimaced. “How are we going to finish the renovation? You’re working sixty hours a week—”

“I’ll spend every single day off working on the house. Even holidays.”

She took in the living room with its big front window and had to admit she could see the home’s charm. The arch from the living room to the dining room was a fantastic detail. She looked up and noticed the painted tin ceiling for the first time.

“This home really is an incredible deal, Mrs. Kenyon. This is the only house within a mile that is currently priced below a hundred and fifty thousand.”

Cynthia shrugged. “Show us the rest of the place.”

Helene led them through the three smallish bedrooms, the all-white bathroom, and the refurbished kitchen, which was directly behind the dining room. “It’s an excellent layout for dinner parties,” Helene pointed out.

“We’re not really very social,” Cynthia commented.

“We’d be more social if we had a space like this. Our flat is the main reason we don’t entertain.”

Cynthia would have argued, but didn’t want to make a fuss in front of the agent, who was leading them out into the backyard and toward the free-standing garage with a loft.

“Obviously, the backyard needs some TLC. The garage is a real gem, though. The loft is just waiting to be renovated. It would make a fantastic art studio, writer’s garret, or guest suite.”

“There’s plumbing?” Nick asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.”

“What’s the catch?” Cynthia asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Let’s see…a bungalow with three bedrooms, a garage with a loft, and a remodeled kitchen and bathroom for less than one-fifty? What aren’t we seeing here?”

“Don’t knock a gift horse in the head, Cynthia.”

Cynthia sighed. “It’s ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’”

“Why would you ever want to do that? Horses have bad breath.”

“Why would you knock…never mind. What’s the catch?” Cynthia asked again.

Helene glanced through the paperwork. “There’s no catch.”

“How long has the home been on the market?”

“Six weeks,” Helene read. Her brow furrowed. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a look at the garage? I’ll just…review the information a little more thoroughly.”

As Cynthia disappeared into the garage she heard Helene dialing the listing agent on her cell phone. “Hi, Vince? I’m at the home on Willow Street with some potential buyers…”

Nick was already ogling the two-story space. “I think this is a tandem garage. Does this look long enough for two cars?”

Cynthia agreed. She looked up at the rafters above her. A previous occupant had created a makeshift loft over half of the garage, leaving exposed beams over the other half. “This would be a great place for a Halloween party,” she commented. “Look, Nick – you could hang your decorations from those.”

Nick was already climbing the ladder that led to the loft. “Whoa! This is what I’m talking about!”

“What?”

“This is perfect for your art studio. Come on up!”

That’s what she loved about Nick: she hadn’t picked up a brush in more than two years, but he still thought of her as an artist. She followed him up the ladder. Light streamed in from the windows across the back wall of the room. Someone had left an old table and chairs up there, but otherwise the space was empty. She easily imagined her easel next to the table and the room completed to fill the entire top floor of the barn. “This is amazing,” she said, agreeing with Nick for the first time.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kenyon?” the real estate agent called from below.

Finally in agreement, they looked over the loft railing and said in unison, “We’ll take it.”




Nick and Cynthia met the seller briefly when they went to sign the papers at the title company a few weeks later. Helene introduced them to Vince, the listing agent, and Mrs. Strentham, the owner. Or rather, the inheritor. As Helene had told them after they’d decided to buy the home, the previous owner died on the property a few months before.

Mrs. Strentham had taken her lawyer’s advice and underpriced the home from the outset, but the Kenyons represented the only bid her agent had received on it after six weeks. Even though their offer was low, she had decided to accept it rather than wait for another one.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Mrs. Strentham said warmly. “I hope you’ll be very happy in your new home.”

“Thank you,” Cynthia responded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Mrs. Strentham waved the condolences away like a bothersome fly. “We weren’t very close, my brother and I. I’m sure if he’d realized I’d be inheriting his estate sans will, he would have taken the time to write one. Then again,” she laughed, “he hadn’t written much of anything recently.” When the couple appeared confused, she said, “My brother was a writer by trade. You may have heard of him – Timothy Chase.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“He wasn’t that good of a writer, unfortunately. He had one good idea and – pffft – he was as deflated as an old rubber balloon.”

They shook hands all around and Helene led the Kenyons away to sign the necessary paperwork.

Sample Sunday Excerpt: An Unassigned Life -- The Weakest Link (Chapter 2)

Below is the second chapter of my latest novel, An Unassigned Life. If you enjoy it, please take the time to tweet it or Facebook it so that your friends have a chance to find me too! Thank you in advance for your support.

(If you missed the beginning of the book, read the prologue here and the first chapter here.)

Melissa Strentham sighed heavily as she entered Tim’s empty home. Just what I need, she thought as she did a quick inventory of the run-down house. Then again, it’s no more than I should have expected from him. He always was inconsiderate of others. She ran a finger across the top of his desk, coming up with a finger full of dust. Some writer.

“Mrs. Strentham, we need you to identify the body.”

“Really?” She pulled a hard copy of one of Tim’s books out of her oversized purse and asked, “Can’t you just compare it to this picture?”

“No, ma’am, I’m afraid not. We really need you to confirm that the body is Mr. Chase’s.”

She pursed her lips and pushed her white-rimmed sunglasses up and into her perfectly coiffed and bleached hair. “Very well. Let’s get this over with.”

She followed the buff and burly fireman out to the garage, where they had laid Tim and covered him up. The young EMT pulled back the sheet and she saw the puffy, purple face that had once belonged to her brother. She held the book out and compared the two images: one of a marginally handsome young man, the other a decaying corpse. “I suppose I understand why you might have had trouble recognizing him from this photo,” she said. The fireman was looking at her oddly. “That’s him.” She pulled the shades back down over her eyes.

“Detective Ramirez has a few questions for you,” the fireman said, pointing toward a young Hispanic woman in a tan blazer.

“Thank you,” Melissa said, smiling flirtatiously. She made sure to wiggle her hips as she walked away from the men.

“Mrs. Strentham, I’m Detective Ramirez.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Detective. Would you like to come inside?”

The two women went into the sparsely furnished house and settled into the only chairs – Detective Ramirez in the desk chair and Melissa in the ancient recliner Tim had lugged with him since college.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Ramirez said as she pulled a small notebook from her back pants pocket.

“We weren’t close. In fact, this is only the second time I’ve been in the house.”

“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your brother?”

“As I’ve said, we weren’t close. The suicide note was the only communication we’ve had in more than a year.”

“Let’s talk about the note. Did you bring it with you?”

Melissa pulled off her sunglasses so that the detective could see her frustration. “He emailed it to me on Friday.”

“And you waited until today to check on him?”

“I was out of town. I don’t check my email when I’m out of town. Arthur doesn’t like it.”

“Arthur?”

“My husband, Arthur Strentham.”

Detective Ramirez’s eyes widened; Melissa smiled, knowing that the name was recognized. “Was the note sent to anyone else?”

“His agent’s name was on it – Ellen James.”

“I’ll need to speak with Ms. James as well. Do you have any contact information for her?”

Melissa gestured at the computer on the desk behind the detective. “She’s probably in his address book.”

The detective rotated the swivel chair to face the computer and noted that it was already on. “Mrs. Strentham, have you been using your brother’s computer today?”

“Of course not.”

Ramirez moved the mouse and the screen popped to life. A Word document was open. She scanned the screen quickly and said, “Your brother was a novelist, correct?”

“He thought so.”

“This document appears to be an outline for a new book.”

Melissa, curious, walked to the desk and looked over her shoulder. “That’s odd…he’d been blocked for a couple of years. That was his excuse, anyway.”

“It’s too bad he died. Judging by the outline, this would have been an amazing story.”

“I don’t understand it. Why now?” Melissa sighed. “He finally has a decent idea, and then he decides to end it all.” She felt a slight sting of oncoming tears and backed away from the computer, resuming her former position of unconcern. “He was like a petulant little boy. Something must have set him off. You should read his suicide note.”

Ramirez opened Outlook and found Tim’s last sent item. “Short and to the point.”

“Those are probably the two simplest sentences he’s written since he graduated from college.”

Ramirez spun around to face her and Melissa backed up again. “Do you believe your brother committed suicide?”

“Yes,” she answered simply. “I have no reason to think otherwise.”

The detective narrowed her eyes, and Melissa squirmed slightly under her gaze. “Fine. We’ll need to take the computer for evidence. When we’ve concluded our investigation, we’ll return it to you.”

“Don’t bother,” she sniffed. “It’s practically running on Stone Age technology. Send it to Goodwill when you’re through.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

“Bring it back here then. I’ll sell it with the house.”

Sample Sunday Excerpt: An Unassigned Life -- Failure to Contemplate (Chapter 1)

In honor of Sample Sunday, here is the first chapter of An Unassigned Life, being published by Inknbeans Press next month. If you're interested in the prologue of the book, click here.

Tim never gave much thought to what came after death. His experience with religion had been limited to a few sermons in his best friend’s church when he was a kid and a brief foray into the world of Buddhism, led by Tina’s search for fulfillment. Neither had provided Tim with more than a comforting, if inappropriate, nap. He used to watch the shows about hauntings and laugh at the foolishness of men trying to communicate with something that was most assuredly a figment of their imaginations. He had long since decided that nothing followed life besides a long sleep in a cold, dark box. All of which is why, when he landed with a thump on the ground next to his car, he thought the rope had broken.

“Damn it,” he muttered. He closed his eyes and lay back on the ground, his arms crossed behind his head. “Maybe I should have tried pills again.” The idea that struck him a moment later was so brilliant that he opened his eyes in surprise – and saw himself hanging from the rafter above.

Stunned, he hopped to his feet and backed away from his swinging corpse – that which he’d always believed to be the essence of his being. He nearly jumped – or maybe floated is more accurate – a foot off the ground when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. The scream that escaped him was both unmanly and potentially insane.

“Pardon me, Mr. Chase. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He turned to face the being behind him, recognizing immediately that it was an angel, despite its lack of requisite wings. “I get to go to Heaven?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t really surprised, but he was confused. “Why are you here?”

“Think of me as your concierge. I’m here to answer questions and give directions when necessary.” The angel smiled. “I’m a big fan, Mr. Chase. I was looking forward to your next book immensely. This,” he said, gesturing to Tim’s hanging corpse, “is quite a disappointment. Ah, well…c’est la vie.”

“You read books?”

“Of course. It’s one of the perks of the job.”

“What job?”

“Heavenly concierge, of course. I only work right after an unassigned soul dies or when one requires assistance.”

“Unassigned dead?”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. First of all, allow me to introduce myself: I’m Ezer. I’m here to help you to adjust to your new status.” He pulled a slim device from his suit pocket and handed it to Tim. “This will answer many of your questions.”

It had a flat screen similar to one of those e-readers everyone was using now. Along the edge of the device was an inscription: El Pad. There didn’t appear to be any buttons on it at all. What is this? Tim thought, and the answer appeared on the flat screen: The El Pad is an intuitive instrument provided to all unassigned dead for their use until such time as they are assigned or the world ends.

Okay, Tim thought. What are the “unassigned dead?”

The device answered. The unassigned dead are those people who, for whatever reason, failed to choose one of the five paths of enlightenment.

Paths of enlightenment?

The paths of enlightenment are the major religions of the world.

“Nifty, isn’t it?” Ezer asked. “We just got these in a few years ago. Before that, everyone got this huge volume called The Book of El. It wasn’t really portable for your average human. Even we angels had a heck of a time hauling one around. Anyway, after this came out, it really made my job an easy one.”

“Even with this, you’ve got to be busy. People die all the time.”

Ezer laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, you are a clumsy lot, aren’t you? Always crashing to your untimely deaths. The things I’ve seen…let’s just say this” – he gestured at the body again – “is clean and simple, comparatively speaking.” Tim grimaced and the angel resumed his professional demeanor. “I only work with unassigned souls, and I only serve the Northern half of the Western Hemisphere. Since I don’t sleep, I have plenty of time to read.”

“How do you do that?”

“Read? It’s simple enough, really. Except for Chinese. I still have trouble with that language.”

Tim shook his head and said, “No. Not sleep. How do you do that?”

“I don’t need sleep. And, now, neither do you. You’ll find you have a lot more time to think when you don’t have to waste so much of it sleeping.”

“But I like sleeping.”

Ezer shrugged. “I guess you should have thought of that a few minutes ago.”

Tim was tiring of this sarcastic creature. “If I’m unassigned, how do I get assigned? Do I just need to accept Jesus, or what?”

The angel chuckled. “Humans. You’re always so eager to find a path to enlightenment once you’re dead. If you’d only put a couple of days of thought into it before you were in this predicament…ah, well. Not much we can do about that now.” The angel looked at Tim’s body again. “How long do you suppose it will be before they find that? It’s going to start to draw flies, you know.”

“I sent a note to my sister and my agent before I came out here.”

The angel arched his eyebrows. “I guess you’ll be hanging around for the weekend, huh, Tim?”

“What? Why?”

Ezer pulled his own El Pad from his pocket and showed it to him. “This is your sister’s schedule for the weekend. As you can see, she’s on her way to California right now. She won’t be checking her email again until Tuesday morning.” The screen flickered for a second before showing Ellen’s schedule. “Ellen will be in London for the long weekend. She will see your message – but she won’t open it until your sister calls her with the bad news.” Ezer shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you irritated her a bit more than you should have.”

If he’d still had a body, he would have been sick to his stomach. “What do I do now?” he asked Ezer weakly.

“You wait. There are some really nice unassigned people in your neighborhood. You could visit them. Most of them are shut-ins, I’m afraid. They haven’t ventured far from their homes since their deaths, poor things. It’s the old Book of El, you see. It’s not very portable and you really need to stay near it in case of exorcism.”

“Exorcism? You mean that actually works?”

“Yes, sort of. The Book of El or an El Pad can protect you, but only if you are within ten feet of it. If not, an exorcism can force you into an assignment.”

“What’s wrong with that? Assignment is the goal, right?”

“There are five paths of enlightenment but six possible assignments. Trust me when I say you don’t want to get assigned to the sixth possibility. Dante gave a pretty clear picture of what that assignment looked like.”

“Hell? There’s really a Hell?”

Ezer frowned in distaste. “We prefer not to call it that. Let’s just say it’s outside of El’s jurisdiction.”

“So I just hang around here until the end of time?”

“You’ll have certain opportunities to earn your assignment. If you succeed, I’ll be around to escort you onward and upward, so to speak.” He glanced at his El Pad and said, “I’ve really got to fly. A woman in Pittsburgh just tripped over a tree root and stumbled into a broken branch. Death by tree – that’s gonna be a gory one. Good luck, Tim.” And Ezer disappeared.

Tim took one last look at his body. His face was turning a purplish shade. This may have been a mistake, he thought. The El Pad’s screen flashed and the words Ya think? appeared on it. He slipped the annoying gadget into the pocket of his old sweater and headed for the house.

He opened the back door and went inside. Then he stopped, turned around, and stared. How did I do that? he thought. He pulled the El Pad from his pocket and found the answer: As an unassigned and earthbound soul, you retain the ability to touch anything that you have touched during your lifetime.

“Huh,” he said aloud. “Maybe all those fools hunting ghosts aren’t so far off the mark.”

He returned to his desk and found that he could still use his computer. And, for the first time in years, he began to write.

I hope you've enjoyed the second excerpt from my latest novel, An Unassigned Life. If you have, be sure to "like" me on Facebook or follow my blog so that you will be notified when I post the next chapter. Also, be sure to check out my other books. Until next week...