Hadrian....out now...

Socia Black has a past she’s not proud of. She believes that only through pain can she find redemption. Hadrian, a warrior, who once was on the side of the Angels, knows he is fated to be with Socia. He just needs to break down the wall she hides behind.

But the confusion of love is not their only problem. A time lord, a gorgon and a two hundred year old dead man stand in their way.

  * * * * *

Socia landed with a thud on top of hard, male flesh. She gasped out loud as she tried to catch her breath. She felt like she had been spun around in a washing machine. Her head pounded and her heart raced.  When she had grabbed hold of Hadrian’s arm and followed him through the time portal, she hadn’t been thinking of anything else other than knowing she was meant to be at his side, at that moment.

“Bloody hell,” Hadrian flung his head back and groaned, one arm wrapping around Socia’s waist. “I feel like I’ve been kicked by elephants.”  

She rested against the solid, warm bulk of muscle beneath her for several minutes. There was only silence now. Before, as they whirled through time and space, the cacophony of sound which tore at her ears had made Socia scream. To hear the cries of terror coming from her own lips was frightening. She was not one who scared easily. But the rush through the time portal had slammed terror into her soul. Her eyes still ached from holding them closed against the violent flashes of neon yellow and vivid purple that had pounded at them. Socia sighed, her body sinking against his. His? What the— Her eyes snapped open. It was him. She wasn’t sure whether she should be alarmed or relieved.

“Let me go!” She slapped at his arm. It was so rigid with muscle, it felt like slapping side of beef.

“Hey, you landed on me, lady,” Hadrian pointed out, his arms dropping from around her body. 

Socia pushed her hands on his chest to lever herself off from him. She knew her arms were shaking and it wasn’t just because of wild trip down the cosmic rabbit hole they had taken. “A gentleman wouldn’t have grabbed.” She swung one leg over and rolled off from him, landing flat on her back beside him.

“I’m not a gentleman.” Hadrian stretched his hands over his head and groaned. “You weigh a ton.”

“I do not!” She would have slapped him if she had the strength to lift her hand. “And that was a rude thing to say that.” Surprisingly Socia felt more hurt by that than any blow that had ever landed on her.

“I’m not known for my manners.”

“Evidently.”

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What's behind the door?

 

Swerve stood looking at the red door. It was a door, but not a door. At first sight there was nothing remarkable about the Bungalow Post office in Cairns. It had the standard red mail box out the front and people were coming and going doing business. A normal person wouldn’t have stood and looked at the red door like Swerve did. But then few people considered Swerve normal. He didn’t care. Normality was for the boring and those who cared little about what went on around them. But Swerve cared. He cared a lot and the red door was a problem.

Outside a dozen rows of business mail boxes stood a prefabricated metal wall. It was there to protect the boxes from the elements. In the wall were two red doors. They were spaced ten feet apart. One door went from floor to ceiling and had a standard round metal knob. The other did not. It was a half door. It started at the top and stopped waist height for a man and the knob was rough, metal and battered as if great force had been applied to it. Anyone passing by, if they had cared to look and wonder at the difference between that two doors, may have pondered at the reasoning of the half door. Swerve wondered how many hands had touched that battered handle, turned the knob and were never seen again.

He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his dark red, shoulder length hair. He had forgotten how humid the tropical heat of Cairns could be. He reached into the back pocket of his red Billabong board shorts and pulled out a leather cord, trying it around his hair to get it off the back of his neck.  He contemplated his options. Turning the knob on the half door would answer a lot of questions. “But what would it release? And where would it take me?” Swerve was not one to fear the unknown. However the thought of getting sucked into what he suspected was a powerful vortex and not being to get back again was pointless to what he was trying to achieve.  

He placed his palm on the painted surface of the door. It was as he expected. Cold to the touch. Everything else in the tropics was hot and sticky yet this half door was not. “Bloody time lords.” Swerve loathed them. As far as he was concerned time lords were not at all like the charming and quirky Dr Who of television fame. Time lords were dangerous meddlers who travelled from world to world and cared little for others. Their lives were dedicated to the pursuit of adventure, uncaring what happened when their peccadilloes affected the rest of the world. Which they did. A lot. As for time lords trying to make him and others believe they did it all in the name of science? Bullshit. They did it for the treasures and the power they could amass. 

“What to do?” Swerve muttered to himself. A time portal was dangerous thing to be left out in the open in a public place like this. If it was a less than public place he would have set an explosive charge to it and blown it up like he had done to others. But this portal? That was not possible and he wasn’t about to cause fear or harm anyone in his need to rid his world of time lords.

He contemplated gluing the door shut. That would work as an interim measure until he could consult others of his kind into the best way to handle this. While it annoyed him not to be able to think of a quick, effective solution, he wasn’t arrogant enough to think he knew everything. He didn’t. There were things in the universe that defied even Swerve.

From the same back pocket Swerve pulled out his cell phone and dialed in a number. “Yeah, Jim, it’s a portal.”

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New Release....Swerve...

The Blurb...

Mary Dalton is an average woman, working in an average job. When her workplace is taken over by a large company, Mary knows her days of employment there are numbered. When she is called on to pick up the CEO of the company who has taken them over, she can’t find him. Simon Mayhew is a no show. However another man crosses her pass. His name is Swerve.  

Swerve is out to catch a Time Lord who is hell bent on greed and destruction.  As for Simon Mayhew? He knows all about Mary. It’s one of the reasons he’s in town. The lady is his soul mate. Mary doesn’t know it yet but her life is about to change forever.

The Excerpt...

“Jim, I’m going to—” Swerve stiffened suddenly and nearly dropped the phone.  It was like a bolt of lightning had charged up his spine and set his whole being alight. He closed his eyes and savored the rush. It was her. He could feel it. “I have to go. Yeah man, I’ll call you back when I’ve had more time to think about it.” He smiled. “Come on, Jim, me do something stupid?”  Swerve was not surprised by his colleague’s words. He had done some rash things in the past. But that was then. Now, he had the future to deal with and it was walking towards him on size eight Doc Martens. “Talk to the others and let me know what they think.” Swerve snapped off the phone and turned to face the woman he knew was walking towards him unaware that they were each going to change the other’s life.

He smiled as he watched Mary Dalton move with a purposefulness he saw in few people. He suspected if anyone got in her way she would have coolly told them to get out of it. He knew all about Mary and what he knew he liked. A lot. From the top of her mid brown hair to the non-office approved Doc Marten boots that stopped her boring blue plaid work shirt and navy pants from looking too frumpy, she was the woman he wanted. “I cannot wait to get to know her better.” His gaze roamed her face taking in the thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip and the clever brown eyes that he suspected saw everything but revealed little. He liked that in a woman. Unraveling a mystery was fun. And this one? If the keenness of her mind matched the enticing curves of her voluptuous body, Swerve knew he would never let this woman go. It would be beyond his will to do so.

He waited until she was level with him and smiled. Her eyes narrowed then opened wide as if she was remembering something, He felt her gaze on his hair and shoulders. Yeah. She remembers me.

“Hey, beautiful lady. I’m a wayward traveler on the crooked path of life and I’m looking for a woman to share my riches with me.” His airhead, dopey sounding alter-ego came naturally to his lips. He used that to disarm and confuse people. It was better than a cloak and it threw people off the real reason he was with them.   

She stopped and looked at him coolly. “Bollocks.”

Yeah, Socia was right. This one is mine.

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A character from characterville...

I wrote this secondary character called Swerve in my first Vampire book called Shades of Gray. The feedback from readers about Swerve was quite amazing. He is this guy who wanders in and out doing dumb stuff. He’s annoying and yet you can’t help but like him despite his irritating habits and inability to focus on anything.

Anyway, Swerve shows up in Run the Gantlet, again as a secondary character. Gantlet sort of roughly follows the other three vamp books but not really. I’m not into writing a deadset series. I like to link books so they can be read in any order but none are dependant on the other. What is Swerve doing with vampires? Who the bloody hell knows. But he’s there being Swerve – vague, irresponsible yet strangely wise in a drugged sort of way.

Swerve wanders in and out of Gantlet, really just as a side bar to other stuff that is happening. Why did I put him in there when he really has nothing to do with the story? I’m not sure. He just turned up so I continued writing him in. And again, the response to him has been amazing. So, due to that, as soon as I finish my werewolf book, I’m going to write a vampire book featuring Swerve. Who is Swerve? Why is he just wandering through vampire books and why do we want to know more about the Swerves of the world? In my mind I know who Swerve is. I’ll be interested to see if it matches what readers think. I believe there is a little Swerve in all of us.

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