Special Guest on Schedule: Jacci DeVera and Queen of the Hollow

“Queen of the Hollow”

So what’s going on here?

To have taken so long to come to light, “Queen of the Hollow” is short. Really short. Too long to be flash fiction, not long enough for novella status. I wanted it to be longer, I truly did, but sometimes you just have to let the story make the decision. Actually - and please don't tell anyone - especially my publisher - but that’s what I always do. The stories and the characters make my decisions for me.

Plotter? Pantser? If forced into a corner, I’d have to go with Pantser, hands down. Excel spreadsheets and I have a hate-hate relationship. I looked into various and sundry approaches for story-telling like free form, balloon, spider webbing and even the snowflake method, but I finally had to come up with my own description I call Char-Lab (pronounced “care lab” for you obsessive articulators out there), and stands for “character collaboration.”

Which pretty well sums it up. I collaborate with my characters on what happens next. I will may have an idea or The Situation, and then I’ll find a character in my head who lends herself to this idea, and then I put the character and all her friends into The Situation. The characters either go and do things, or talk through things, and I generally just listen. I may have an idea of where a story needs to go, or how it needs to end, but the really good stories never end up where I thought they would when I started.

Whenever the end of the book looms, then I might have to tie aforementioned characters down so I can get to The End. Because they are normally not real happy about that. And really, who can blame them? The End usually means, well, the end for those characters. They continue living in an endless loop within the pages and never get to adventure beyond that single tale, or experience growing in other directions. So I promised them I would try to have “Queen of the Hollow” the first book in a series. We took a vote and decided we all really liked the name High Lonesome for the series. It also happens to be the (fictional) West Virginian town in which their stories take place.

Below is the blurb and a short Excerpt from it. (A short excerpt for a short story.) I hope you enjoy!

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Calla is a young shifter, the only female within miles of High Lonesome, her small town in southern West Virginia. Her mother has managed to keep her safe from the bounty of mountain lion males in their hills, but now Calla finds herself alone, without a protector, and the moon is full.

Haben hasn’t been able to get close to Calla since their meeting right around Valentine’s Day a year before. When he shows up at her house, he finds the wounded spit-fire determined for him to keep his distance - despite his instinct to keep her safe.

Calla has to trust an outsider in Haben or fight off every male mountain lion between here and Charleston with just her wits and a shotgun. With sheer numbers against her, the stakes are higher than she knows. And when the fight is over, she has to face the last cat standing as he succumbs to the raging Heat himself.

~*~

Excerpt

She wouldn’t lie down. She told him she had no idea if she’d be able to get back up or not. Which was true. But she wouldn't put herself in that position of submission with a tom here so close and her in her Heat cycle. That was just asking for trouble.

He kept his attention on her injuries, on wrapping them securely, on looking for her a crutch or a cane to help get up the stairs. She focused on his eyes and his lips. His eyes were the most beautiful she’d ever seen. They’d been dark brown in the store. Here they were the color of creamy caramel and it made her heart beat in her ears every time they met her gaze. His lips were dark and shaped with a stern current underneath, which looked positively suckable when he bit the bottom one in concentration. She wondered if maybe God had made them so dark so his teeth would shine all the more white when they flashed a quick smile. She bet his teeth were long and sharp when he shifted.

~*~

Video trailer bonus:

https://animoto.com/play/01RUpzJgluC1GRKazaQLeQ 

~*~

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Available on Dark Hollows Press

Amazon.com

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All Romance

October 29th, 2015

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Jacci DeVera 

www.jaccidevera.com

Western Paranormal Romance Writer

Release Day Blitz for Jacci DeVera and her debut story Heavy Handed

I'm pleased to welcome special guest and a dear friend of mine--Jacci DeVera. Jacci stopped by to tell us about Heavy Handed, her debut M/F paranormal short-story romance. 

Blurb:

Eighty acres in the middle of nowhere should give Jake Merritt exactly what he wants after his ugly break-up: Solitude.  But Alicia is bound to his land in ways she’s not even sure about, and can’t pick up and leave just because Jake’s the new owner. Once he decides to believe her story, things take an ominous turn, and by then Jake’s beginning to rethink sending Alicia away forever. Can he break the curse that holds her, and free himself to risk loving again?

Available via Amazon, Amazon UK, Decadent Publishing, ARe, Barnes & Noble and other eRetailers.

Excerpt:

"If this land is cursed," Jake's frowned deepened, "it's to make all its owners stark raving mad." He crossed his arms, the billy-club resting against his chest. "So, what? I'm supposed to believe the sheriff killed you? Buried you here?"

She looked down, her long black hair falling forward.

“That's what you said wasn't it?"

“I don’t know!” She looked at him, obviously frustrated and frightened. “I don't know what to believe either. The longer I'm here, the more I forget. I don’t know anymore! And maybe I did at one time!" Tears shone in her eyes. "I don't know, but I want – I just want –"

"What?" Jake's frown deepened. "Revenge?"

"No." She said it without reservation, her countenance reinforced. "I do know that much. It was hate and cruelty. That's what I found here when I came awake. That's what brought me to this. Malice and spite. So much despair and sadness and grief. I can't stand it. I can't stand thinking this is what I'll know for eternity. What I might become."

"You said ... you were what Josie might become."

"Did I?" She paced around him in a half circle. "Do you hate her enough that your bitterness corrupts everything you touch? Everything you think? Every memory you have? The poison, it's real. Just like evil is real. Where poison slowly takes the life, evil relishes in watching the pain it causes; watching the joy and life leeched out; watching a heart harden. The curse here is going to take more than sage."

He glanced at Dennis.

Her eyes remained on Jake. "It's going to take a cure."

About Jacci DeVera

Jacci DeVera lives in the southern Appalachians. She enjoys writing as much as she enjoys napping, cats, cookies, myths, and wolves. The only hard and fast rule she has when she writes is that the story must have a happy ending. Romance was the natural choice to settle in. She is thrilled with the direction writing, and particularly romance, has taken in recent years with genre lines blurring, so her love of fantasy, paranormal, and historicals can intermingle without fear of intolerance.

She cites Destiny Blaine as her mentor. 

She has two delightful, independent daughters who help keep the house from falling apart while she's working. And an encouraging husband who likes traveling to romance conventions. She believes in the importance of the journey as much as the destination itself. Stories are found everywhere if we pause long enough to listen.

Heavy Handed, via an online contest sponsored by 3 Rusted Spoons and Dark Hollows Press, is Jacci's debut as an author in the publishing realm.