It's finally here: an official release date for RESURRECTION: CHILD OF DARKNESS. I am so thrilled to finally have a launch date on this project. This next installment of Cassidy Hart's story is taking her in crazy new directions, and I feel that it will also be a book that satisfies many of my readers' emotions and questions. Although not the finale in Cassidy's story, it is getting pretty darn close, as I have not yet decided if her tale will end with the 6th installment (decisions, decisions!).
I will be able to share the full story synopsis and official cover in December 2019. Only one month away!
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SIDE NOTE: My annual Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale will be happening again, beginning November 27 and running until December 3rd. All of my digital titles will be available for 99 cents, including my digital collections of the Collapse Series novels!
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NOVEL NEWS! I have been promising more information on my current second project for months now, a science-fiction novel. It will be my first foray into space, with an entirely new cast of characters. The title of the novel is EXPEDITION 99. Without giving away too much information, this novel follows the story of a futuristic fighter pilot who is tapped to be part of an elite space mission to save mankind from nuclear destruction.
For the first time EVER, I am sharing an excerpt from the novel before it has been finished, and I am so excited about it! This novel is a pet project of mine, a story idea that my husband and I jointly created.
I definitely do not have a release date on this yet, as I am currently focused on getting Cassidy's stories published first. I will update you as I have more information to share.
Meanwhile, please enjoy this snippet of Erin Colt's adventure.
Special Sneak Peek
EXPEDITION 99
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An Excerpt
Florida. Swampland. Green canopies of trees, humidity frizzing up your hair and alligators floating slowly through the marshes. The ocean. On one side, the blue Gulf of Mexico. On the other, the cobalt navy of the Atlantic. The crowds. The tourists. Disneyworld.
It was the water that Erin remembered the most. The sea and the salt in the air and the utter vastness of the sky. She remembered how the grains of sand on the beach squished between her toes, how the salt in the water stung the tiny cuts on her legs. How her mother leaned against her father’s shoulder under a purple umbrella, sipping on pina coladas and waving at Erin with big smiles. “Build a bigger sand castle, love!” Mom always said. “You can do it!”
Those were the memories Erin loved more than anything. Before the bombings.
Before the Great Loss, before being orphaned, before her parents ended up dead - like so many others. Before all of this.
It was both light and sound that woke Erin from a deep, exhausted sleep. She lay sideways on her cot, hovering on the edges of a dream, when the lights to the barracks flipped on. The room was flooded with searing, white-hot light. Crashing - metallic crashing and clanking exploded through the silence of the slumbering barracks. The cadets leapt out of bed, some genuinely terrified - others, simply surprised.
Erin’s eyes watered with the influx of light, swinging her feet out of bed. She had slept with her boots on, laced. Her flight suit folded down to the waist only. Her head swam as she stood, still halfway asleep.
A man stood in the doorway. Tall. Erin recognized him as the man who had initially greeted the cadets on the bus - the hard eyes, the squat face, the broad shoulders. His flat-brimmed hat was pulled low over his forehead. He surveyed the room, accompanied by three lower-ranking officers, and walked into the room, shouting.
“Get your asses out of your sweet slumbering cots and put your boots on the ---damn floor!” he yelled. “LET’S GO!”
Again, Erin noticed the roughness of his voice. The result of years of yelling, of beating cadets into submission through sheer audible abuse.
Erin, like the others, stood in a quick lineup at the foot of her bed, standing at attention, eyes fixed at the far wall. Chest out. Hands at her sides.
The officer walked between the cots, studying both sides of the room.
Why are we being drilled by a man? Erin though absently. Shouldn’t our drill instructor be female or -
He stopped. Up close, Erin could see that one of his eyes was bloodshot, damaged. His right hand was missing a finger. He walked with a slight limp, as if in pain. His namepatch was stitched in bright red, the sign of a drill sergeant: Sergeant Vasquez.
“Sloppy,” he said, eyes darting from cadet to cadet. “Sloppy and slow. If you pansy-ass infants can’t move faster than that in the morning, you will be heading back to Fort Brooks! Are we clear, cadets?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
The response was thunderous, cadets projecting their voices into the phrase with as much gusto as possible. Erin stared at the wall, avoiding eye contact with sergeant. Her face was calm, but her fingers were balled. She could feel her heart in her throat. She’d been through a lot of training to get to Yanez, but this was a whole different level of training. She’d heard stories about how Flight Corps Cadets had been abused, even beaten, by the officers. Maybe it was nothing but rumors...or maybe not. Desperate times called for desperate measures. The country needed an elite and tough-as-nails fighting force of men and women to get out of the global stalemate they’d found themselves in. Hellish training conditions separated the weakest from the strongest very quickly, which is what the military wanted. Needed.
Desperately, desperately needed.
She thought back to her time in the Orphan Quadrants, after the bombings in Florida, where thousands of homeless children like herself were adopted into a foster system from the United States Government.
“You have two choices,” a round, squeaky-voiced woman had told Erin. She was older, sitting behind a desk and a computer monitor, nails manicured ruby-red. Smelled like stale perfume. She peered over her glasses to observe Erin then, six-years-old, dressed in threadbare, standard-issue joggers and a white shirt.
“Two choices,” Erin had echoed, biting her lip. She was missing a tooth, her second one. She’d put it under her pillow in the barracks, but the tooth fairy didn't come. It appeared to Erin that the fairy had died along with her mother…
“Yes,” the woman said, taking her glasses off. “You can stay here and become permanent staffing at this Quadrant. We will educate you and train you to have a career and a life helping the government survive this war.”
Big words: Staffing. Educate. Career. Erin was only six. She understood some of it, but not all. She remained quiet, listening.
“The second choice,” the woman went on, “is to join the Military Academy. You will begin training to be a soldier, and you will grow up in the military, learning to defend this country from our enemies - the very same enemies who killed your family, Erin. You would be training to grow up and stop them, destroy them.” She leaned forward. “It would be your revenge.”
Erin stared at the woman, tears prickling her eyes.
Revenge. Another big word.
“I become a soldier,” she whispered. “That’s choice two?”
“Yes.” The woman paused. “You have until the end of the week to decide. Think about it.”
“What if I don’t like your choices?” Erin asked.
“Well…” the woman put her glasses back on. “That would just be unlucky, because there are no other options for you. You’re here in the Orphan Quadrant, and you are the property of the United States Government. You have two choices available to you. That’s it. Choose wisely.”
That had been so long ago. Many things had changed since then.
Erin had changed. The war had changed.
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