Liar, Liar, Heart's Desire snippet

Wednesday is release day for Liar, Liar, Heart's Desire, (the conclusion to Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer) so I thought it would be a good time to give you a snippet.




A tiny bit of background and setting... Cleo and Alec are fixing themselves grilled cheese and tomato soup. Earlier Alec stated that perfect crimes were a rare occurrence.

  “If you wanted to murder someone, how would you do it?” Cleo asked.
  Alec smiled. Good. Her mind was working again. He topped half the bread slices with cheese. “I’d take them hunting.”
  She twisted to look at him. “Do you hunt?”
  He set the microwave for ten seconds to soften up the butter then plugged in the grill, so it would preheat. “Not since I was a kid, but I’d take it up again.”
  “So you’d take them hunting and then what? Just shoot them?”
  “Sure. Hunters shoot each other all the time.”
  “Not that often.”
  “Often enough.”
  She turned back to the stove but not before he caught the beginning of a smile. “Yes, your honor. I shot him. But it was an accident. All eight times.”
  Alec laughed. “Yeah, you gotta make sure the first one is fatal, or it kinda falls apart.” The microwave dinged. He got out the butter and went to work spreading it evenly on the bread.
She shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. If you hated someone bad enough to want them dead, they’d never agree to go hunting with you.”
  “I didn’t say there weren’t logistical problems to work out."


Hope you enjoyed it, and there's still time to get Liar, Liar, Heart's Desire for the pre-release price of 99 cents. 

If you're interested, here's the blurb:
Cleo Morgan is a liar.

And they’re not little, white liars but big, black whoppers. She’s lying to everyone in her hometown, letting them believe she still works for a reputable paper when, in reality, she’s sold her soul to The Inside Word, a tell-all supermarket tabloid no one wants to admit they read.

She’s lying to Alec Ramirez, the tabloid’s star reporter, who is training her to write their kind of story their way. He doesn’t know the woman who’s been arrested for murder in the story they’re covering is her mother. Or that Cleo is conspiring with her old boyfriend to steal that story out from under him and using it to buy her way back into her old life.

And she may be lying to herself that leaving Alec behind when she goes will be easy. Because she absolutely, unequivocally, beyond the shadow of any doubt does not want him in her life on a permanent basis.

Eight Sentence Sunday ~ LLTW ~ Suicide Watch

TODAY IS THE DAY!

Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer is live on Amazon. To celebrate the occasion, here's eight sentences from Cleo's first day on the job.



  “Contemplating suicide already?”
   Startled, Cleo jumped upright, nearly tipping her chair over backwards. She grabbed the desktop with both hands to keep herself from going ass over teakettle. When she was sure she was no longer in danger of showing the world the color of her underwear, she discovered that, sitting in her chair, her eyes were level with Alec’s crotch.
   He apparently found uncoordinated women a turn on, because he either had a hard-on that would choke a giraffe or he stuffed his pants with rolled up socks. Given their environment, her money was on the socks.
She forced her gaze up and found herself staring into his dark eyes. He looked as if he halfway expected her to reach into her handbag, pull out a gun, and shoot herself in the head. “No, I’m not suicidal. Not yet anyway.”

Here's the blurb for Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer:
Investigative journalist Cleo Morgan’s stories have created Pulitzer buzz, but circumstance push her into a lucrative but career-destroying job writing for a tabloid.

Alejandro Ramirez is blown away by the new star reporter. There's definitely chemistry. Except she thinks she's better than everyone at the tabloid where they work. That grates on him since she's going to be writing stories about aliens and Elvis sightings just like the rest of them.

In spite of the chemistry, she doesn't want to have anything to do with the smug news whore she thinks he is. Except she's already having fantasies about this hot Cuban ex-pat who's showing her the ropes at her new job. Before they have a chance to make this attraction work, Cleo's mother, an ex-Vegas showgirl, is charged with the murder of a Las Vegas casino owner. To clear her mother, Cleo will have to see that Alejandro hasn't sold out, and he will learn that she really is as good as she thinks she is.

You can also read the opening scene.

And don't forget, Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer is currently available for the introductory price of 99 cents. Get yours before the price goes up.



To see other eight sentence sample for other writers visit:

Release Day Minus Seven

In just a week, Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer, the first book of the Liar, Liar duology, will be released. To celebrate, I thought I'd share the opening scene from the book. Hope you enjoy it.


   “So that’s her. The great Cleo Morgan.” Alec had to admit she was a looker. Light brown hair tumbled down her back in soft waves, and the skirt of her red power suit ended at mid-thigh, accentuating tanned legs a mile long.
   As if that wasn’t enough, her full, lower lip made him—and every other guy there, he was sure—want to suck it into his mouth as he rolled her back on her heels.
   Half a dozen of the staff—mostly men—were hanging out in the open area at one end of the bullpen that served as a break area-slash-kitchenette, getting coffee or shooting the shit, as Nigel Delaney, the tabloid’s managing editor, led Cleo Morgan on an introductory lap around the office.
   “The Old Man’s lost his mind for sure,” Alec’s buddy Jackson said. Not loud enough to draw anyone else’s attention, of course, since, presumably, he liked his job. “So she can write good copy”—Jackson made a face that said big deal—“and she can get down and dirty doing investigative journalism. Doesn’t mean she can write an Elvis story worth crap. But I heard the boss is paying her a small fortune. She even got a signing bonus like she’s some sort of first-round draft pick.”
   “Oh? And where did you hear that?”
   “Lisa told me on the down-low.”
   Even as he shifted his attention to Jackson, Alec kept Cleo in his peripheral vision. “Lisa in accounting with all the baby pictures or Lisa in legal with her nose in the air?”
   “Lisa in legal.” Jackson’s smile spoke volumes about where else Lisa’s nose might have been lately.
   Damn. “You took her to bed.” Alec didn’t know why he was surprised. Women tended to fall all over Jackson when he decided to break out the charm. He’d thought Lisa was different and had been enjoying himself immensely as he watched Jackson work hard—and fruitlessly—to overcome her uncanny resistance.
   “Well, no. I didn’t take her to bed.” Jackson looked crestfallen at the admission, but it only lasted a moment. A gleam appeared in his eye. “I took her to the back file room. Have you ever done it where your boss could walk in on you any minute? Let me tell you, mi amigo, that is some of the hottest sex you’ll ever have.”
   “I don’t believe it. You didn’t―”
   Jackson made a discreet slicing motion, and Alec cut off his comment. Introducing Cleo to the other staff, Nigel had worked his way almost to them. Shelving Jackson’s sex life wasn’t too difficult when Alec had Cleo to look at. Which brought him back to the question of why she was there.
   It was most likely the money. Tabloids paid exceptionally well, since any reporter who worked for them was committing professional suicide as far as “respectable” media was concerned. So it made sense they were paying more than the proverbial penny, bright and shiny as it might be, to get a reporter with Cleo Morgan’s credentials. It had been her story in The Tucson Sun that had blown open the corruption on the country’s southern border two years ago. Her investigation had exposed a string of misconduct that netted not only dozens of Border Patrol agents and the head of Homeland Security, but had brought down a sitting Arizona senator.
   And earned The Sun consideration for a Pulitzer.
   Nigel and Cleo moved to the guy next to Jackson. Alec took the opportunity to check her out at closer range. She had a nice rack. Full and firm, just the way he liked them. He wanted to nudge Jackson and ask if he thought they were real, but she and Nigel were too close.
   “And this is Jackson Palmaroy.” Nigel’s high-tone accent made Jackson sound like he was someone who should have gone to Oxford instead of the University of Florida. “His speciality”—pronounced with five crisp British syllables—“is alien abduction stories.”
   “Yeah, this week the president is being controlled by a receiver put in his brain by little green men,” Jackson said without a trace of irony as he shook her manicured hand.
   “We’ve already run that story, Jackson,” Nigel said.
   “We did?”
   “Last administration. You should know that. You wrote it.”
   “Well, hell. Guess I’ll have to get more creative. Wanna help me out, Cleo? Care to have an alien baby?” Jackson tugged on his belt with both hands, a gesture that tightened his pants over his bulging crotch.
   Yeah, charming. But only when he wanted to be. Exactly how much were they paying her? Whatever it was, it hadn’t endeared her to Jackson.
   Cleo didn’t even look down. “Can I get back to you on that? I’d like to settle in a bit before I make a commitment that serious.”
   Jackson was unfazed, but Alec had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Damn. He didn’t want to like her, but he couldn’t help appreciating her coolness under fire.
   “And this is Alec Ramirez,” Nigel said, moving things right along. Cleo stepped left as though she was moving through a receiving line, her gaze shifting to acknowledge the introduction. Her lips stretched into a stiff, obligatory smile, but from the look of her flat, cold baby blues, Cleo Morgan would happily be hung, drawn, and quartered if it could only happen somewhere—anywhere—other than The Inside Word’s office.
   Bitch. The thought was there in an instant. She thinks she’s better than we are.
   “Alec is our Jack of all Trades,” Nigel continued as though unaware of the sudden crackle in the air. “Writes a bit of everything.”
   Maybe everyone was reacting this way to her. That would explain why she and Nigel seemed oblivious to the hostility Alec felt pouring off him.
   Like an automaton, she held her hand out for him to shake. His mind was working itself into a fever pitch of resentment toward the woman in front of him, but his body responded the way it was conditioned to when face to face with a body like hers. He didn’t even realize he’d clasped her hand until her eyes widened and a spark drove away the emptiness that had been there a second before.
   In the same moment, a charge shot up his arm and blew out all his circuits except one.
   Fuck me. Please.
   Like every other man in the room, he’d been semi-hard the moment she came into view. Now, touching her hand, looking into eyes that had come to life with intelligence, natural curiosity, and more than a modicum of sexual awareness, he graduated to an oversized railroad spike trapped in too-tight denim. And he wanted to nail her with that spike in the worst way.
   The desire to step forward, to thrust his fingers through her hair until he bent her head back as far as it would go, was almost overpowering. He’d suck on that pouty lower lip, teasing it with his teeth before taking possession of her mouth; he just knew she’d taste like sex. Then he’d push that short, tight skirt of hers up and ride her on his thigh until she begged for more.
   He was almost up to the pounding-his-chest-like-Tarzan part when Jackson dug an elbow into his side. Alec forced himself to shake off the fantasy.
   Nigel was looking at him with narrowed eyes as though he had some kind of idea what had just happened. If he did, Alec wished like hell Nigel would explain it to him because he felt like he’d been hit by a semi truck speeding through Nevada on the driver’s eager way to the Mustang Ranch.
   “Writes a bit of everything,” Nigel repeated as though the words contained a slowly dawning revelation. His gaze shifted to Cleo. A smile Alec didn’t like spread across his face. In as hearty a voice as Alec had ever heard from the ever-efficient Brit, Nigel said, “So he’s the perfect one to show you the ropes. He can teach you our style and demonstrate how to take a seed and grow it into our kind of story.”
   Nigel’s words were like a dash of cold water in Alec’s face. Sexual attraction was one thing, but he’d be damned if he was going to be saddled with this too-good-for-everyone, I-almost-got-a-Pulitzer bitch. Unh-uh.
   “Nigel―” Alec tried to interrupt, but his boss was on a roll.
   “We can restructure the cubicles, so you two have a place to work together.”
   I won’t be just saddled, I’ll be shackled! “Nigel―” Alec said in a louder voice.
   “And I think we’ll put you out in the middle, so you absorb the atmosphere better and other staff can help you along as well.”
   In the middle of the room? Hell, no! He’d fought too hard for the corner farthest from the coffee machine for a reason. He had to stop Nigel before it got worse. Alec wasn’t sure how it could, but he’d worked at The Word long enough not to underestimate his boss; Nigel was a master at thinking of ways to make it worse.
   “Nigel!” Alec yelled.
   Nigel was also a master at ignoring his staff when he chose to, so when he turned his attention to Alec and, in a far too reasonable voice, said, “Yes, Alec?” Alec found his mouth opening and closing like a broken trapdoor.
   Jackson unexpectedly came to his rescue. “Are you sure Alec is the best one to shepherd our prize reporter, Nigel?”
   Good old Jackson. Alec mentally promised his buddy a six-pack for coming in swinging on his behalf.
   Jackson slid half a step closer to Nigel. His voice dropped as though speaking confidentially, but not enough to actually exclude anyone in the immediate vicinity. “I mean, with her background, she’s gonna wanna see his green card, and then she’ll be calling the INS―”
   “Hey!” Alec protested. “I was born here!”
   “Yeah, but your folks were illegals―”
   “They were political refugees from Cuba, you asshole.”
   Scratch that six-pack.
   “Yes, quite so.” The light in Nigel’s eyes might have been amusement; it was hell working for someone with that dry British humor Alec didn’t always get. “Sorry, Jackson, but I think we’ll see how Cleo works with Alec. If she kills him the first week, well then, we’ll let her have a go at you.”
   Nigel glanced at his watch. “I’ll take you down to HR to fill out your paperwork. After that, our editor-in-chief, Mr. Phillips, will welcome you to our happy little family.”
   Slack jawed at how quickly his opportunity to head off this babysitting assignment had vanished, Alec watched them depart for Human Resources. Nigel certainly knew him better than to think it was a done deal he’d give up his corner spot.
   “You okay?” Jackson asked.
   “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” Alec said, distracted once again, this time by the swing in Cleo’s backside as she walked away.
   “The way you were staring at her when you shook her hand, I started thinking you’d had a stroke. Not that she couldn’t give you one”—Jackson’s gaze flickered toward the disappearing Cleo—“but I figured it would take more than a handshake.”
   “Of course, it would,” Alec agreed, though who knew what went through your mind when you had a stroke? It was a not-unreasonable explanation. But he didn’t want to talk about any fantasies starring Ms. Hoity-Toity, so he changed the subject. “I can’t believe you got in Lisa’s pants. I really thought she was immune to you.”
   “It turns out she has a bigshot boyfriend.”
   Alec shot him a questioning look.
   “Who cheats,” Jackson said with a grin.
   “Ah. Revenge sex. I thought you were better than that.”
   Jackson added a shrug to his grin. “Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.”

So there it is. And you still have a week to get it for the pre-release price price of 99 cents.

Eight Sentence Sunday ~ LLTW ~ Jackson

I thought I'd share a snippet from my upcoming release Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer.

In this scene, Alec's boss Nigel has just assigned him to show the tabloid's new reporter the ropes. It's not an assignment he wants. Jackson, Alec's friend and coworker, wouldn't mind the assignment because he thinks Cleo is hot.

  “Are you sure Alec is the best one to shepherd our prize reporter, Nigel?” Jackson asked.

  Good old Jackson. Alec mentally promised his buddy a six pack for coming in swinging on his behalf.

  Jackson slid half a step closer to Nigel. His voice dropped as though speaking confidentially, but not enough to actually exclude anyone in the immediate vicinity. “I mean, with her background, she’s gonna wanna see his green card, and then she’ll be calling the INS—”

  “Hey!” Alec protested. “I was born here!”

  “Yeah, but your folks were illegals—”

  “They were refugees from Cuba, you asshole.”

And here's the blurb:
Investigative journalist Cleo Morgan’s stories have created Pulitzer buzz, but circumstance push her into a lucrative but career-destroying job writing for a tabloid.

Alejandro Ramirez is blown away by the new star reporter. There's definitely chemistry. Except she thinks she's better than everyone at the tabloid where they work. That grates on him since she's going to be writing stories about aliens and Elvis sightings just like the rest of them.

In spite of the chemistry, she doesn't want to have anything to do with the smug news whore she thinks he is. Except she's already having fantasies about this hot Cuban ex-pat who's showing her the ropes at her new job. Before they have a chance to make this attraction work, Cleo's mother, an ex-Vegas showgirl, is charged with the murder of a Las Vegas casino owner. To clear her mother, Cleo will have to see that Alejandro hasn't sold out, and he will learn that she really is as good as she thinks she is.

Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer is available for pre-order now for the introductory price of 99 cents.

Links to other Eight Sentence Sunday snippets by other authors.are available.

Letting your Characters Talk

My characters always surprise me. That's one of the things that keeps me writing--that joy of discovery.

One of the most productive methods of getting my characters to talk to me has always been letting them talk to each other. It always surprises me what they'll confide to others that they won't tell me directly.

As an example, my heroine Cleo was having a conversation recently with Willa, a woman who had once been a good friend of her mother's. I needed a reason for Willa to have blocked the name of another character (Steve) from her memory, and this is what came out of her mouth:

     “I was engaged once to a guy named Steve. A real rat bastard. Jealous and controlling when he was sober, abusive when he was drunk, which was most of the time.” She looked down, picked up a piece of fish and absently dredged it through the tartar sauce. “Just like my dad, really. I was only nineteen, you know. Too dumb to realize I was on the road to being one of those abused women.”

     Cleo hadn’t known that about Willa. “But you wised up apparently and didn’t marry him.”

    “No, I didn’t marry him, but not because I got smart. He was coming back from a ski trip with his brother. It was late, you know, and the mountain road was slick. His car went over the edge.” She gave them a sardonic smile. “I thought I loved him, but when he died, all I felt was relief. Him dying was the nicest thing he ever did for me.”

     Her attitude struck Cleo as a little hard hearted, but then she’d never been abused. Maybe she didn’t get to judge. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

    “It’s okay. It taught me to really look at people, you know. Before I let them too close. Now I look for kindness and a good heart.”

So what tricks do you use to get your characters talking?

8 Sentence Sunday ~ Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writier ~ Suicide Watch

Still plugging away on Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer, but I'm so close to the finish line I can actually see it. Of course, there are still rewrites to be done, but that's the fun part. You can see other excerpts of this story here.

This takes place on Cleo's first day at her new job as a writer for a tabloid. In the first line, she's just been busted with her head on her desk, having a pity party that circumstances have derailed her once bright and shiny career and brought her to this.

EXCERPT:
   “Contemplating suicide already?”
   Cleo jumped upright so hard that her chair nearly tipped over backwards. She grabbed the desktop with both hands to keep herself from going ass over teakettle. When she was sure she was no longer in danger of showing the world the color of her thong underwear, she discovered that, sitting in her chair, her eyes were level with Alec’s crotch.
   He apparently found uncoordinated women a turn on, because he either had a hard-on that would choke a giraffe or he stuffed his pants with rolled up socks. Given their environment, her money was on the socks.
   She forced her gaze up and found herself staring into his dark eyes. He looked as if he expected her to reach into her handbag, pull out a gun, and shoot herself in the head. “No, I’m not suicidal. Not yet anyway.”

 Intrigued at all?

And as a special treat, this is how I see Alec:

To read more 8 Sentence Sunday samples from talented writers, go here.

Eight Sentence Sunday ~ Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer ~ Meeting Jackson

I haven't done an 8 Sentence Sunday in some time, but I'm closing in on finishing the first draft of my WIP Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer, and I have the cover (at the right. Isn't it pretty?) so I think it's time. This bit is near the beginning of the story. Our heroine, Cleo, is being given the introductory tour by Nigel, her editor, at the tabloid where she is now (unhappily) employed.

   “And this is Jackson Palmaroy.” Nigel’s high-tone British accent made Jackson sound like he was someone who should have gone to Oxford instead of University of Florida. “His speciality”—pronounced with five very British syllables—“is alien abduction stories.”
“Yeah, this week the President is being controlled by a receiver put in his brain by little green men,” Jackson said with no trace of sarcasm as he shook her manicured hand.
  “We’ve already run that story, Jackson,” Nigel said.
  “We did?”
  “Last administration. You should know that; you wrote it.”

Not to worry. Jackson isn't our hero. Just the hero's best buddy. But I thought this was a fun snippet. I hope you agree.

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