Monthly Archives: October 2016

I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am today to give you the exclusive cover reveal for my upcoming novel DREAMFALL.

Although I have written horror before, I have never published it, and this is not just horror…it’s YA HORROR! It’s kind of a mix of Flatliners, the Matrix, and Nightmare on Elm Street.

As for how it compares to my other books, I end the acknowledgements with this: “And above all, thank you to my readers…. I handed out virtual tissues for the DIE FOR ME series and virtual crossbows for AFTER THE END. After DREAMFALL, you all deserve a nightlight.

Here is the premise for DREAMFALL:

A radical experiment to cure chronic insomnia goes wrong, and its seven teenage test subjects are plunged into a shared coma populated by one another’s nightmares; those who die in the dream will also die in real life.

Want to know more? Okay!

Sleep comes easily for most people—but it is an unattainable dream for Cata Cordova, Fergus Willson and the five other teens who volunteered to take part in a radical new treatment. They suffer from devastating insomnia and are desperate for help. So desperate that they’re willing to undergo an experimental procedure, which has only ever been tested on one other patient. They’re supposed to be the beta group. But this time, nothing goes as planned….

Soon after the seven of them are put under, catastrophe strikes and they find themselves thrown together in a shared dreamworld with no memory of the experiment or any idea of how they got there. As Cata, Fergus and the others try to figure out what’s happened to them, they come to the terrifying realization that they are trapped inside a world where their worst nightmares come to life. Hunted by creatures from their deepest, darkest imaginations and tormented by terrible secrets they’d rather keep buried, the teens are forced to band together to face their biggest fears. And if these dreamers can’t find a way to defeat them, they won’t have a hope of ever waking up.

So…knowing all that, are you ready to see the cover?

Here it is!

What do you think? Scary much? I am absolutely over the moon about it, and you should see it side-by-side with the proposed cover of Book 2!!! (Oh yes, this is a duology.)

As the weeks tick by until the release of the book, I will be revealing the characters of the story to you one by one. I asked the same artist who drew Juneau and Miles for me (the incredibly talented Len-Yan) to draw each of the characters of DREAMFALL, and as usual, the result is EPIC.

So…dear reader, I am pleased to introduce you to Fergus Willson. He is Beta Subject Two in the experiment. And here are his vitals:

Fergus Willson (Subject 2):
Age: 18
Diagnosed as having narcolepsy with cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, excessive daytime sleepiness, and night terrors.

Because of his medical condition, he has to live with his parents. He is a Freshman at a local Connecticut community college. He can’t drive, play sports, or do anything that would endanger him or others if he were to have a cataplexic attack.

Cata’s description of him:
“To my right there’s a boy about my age, maybe a little older. His skin is light brown, and the woman sitting next to him looks like she’s from India. From the way she touches his arm—lightly but protectively—it’s clear that she’s his mother. The boy’s got black wavy hair and is cute in a skater-boy way—if you ignore the dark circles under his eyes and the bruise on his chin.”

INTRODUCING….Fergus:

Isn’t he amazing. I can’t wait for you to meet him in the story. He will give you the feels in so many different ways.

And THANK YOU in advance for helping me spread the news about this book that I am SO excited for you to read!

Are you ready for the DREAMFALL cover reveal? TOMORROW is the big day! Check back here to see it in all of it’s beautiousness. I’ll be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card, answering questions AND introducing you to the very first character: Fergus. Check back tomorrow!

This is from a blog post I wrote on April 5, 2012. I feel like it’s an appropriate subject to re-visit this week. Yes, you are allowed to imagine Donald Trump as the p***y-grabbing skater in Take 2.

Take 1 of the Crotch-Grabbing Skater vs. Amy

I was in Paris, walking back late at night from a friend’s birthday party. There were a couple of girls walking in front of me as well as a guy in his early twenties wearing a hoodie and short cropped hair who skated past in the other direction. I took a left down a dark deserted road, at the end of which was my hotel.

And then it happened.

A large hand firmly grabbed my crotch from behind (no, not my butt – my crotch)—by reaching between my legs and almost scooping me up off the ground mid-step. It lasted a second, and then it was over. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched the same guy on roller skates who I had seen minutes before move at top speed away from me. He had obviously targeted me and then come back to grab me.

“Oh my [*insert string of curse words*]!” The expletives poured automatically from my mouth. My French disappeared as I began yelling at him, “Stop! Stop!” and then seeing a woman my age turn onto the street, I switched to French. “Stop that man! He groped me!” Frightened, she stared at the ground and speed-walked past me.

I began running towards the receding figure of my aggressor. He turned left onto another road. I realized that I would never catch him, and that the handful of people now walking up the street towards me probably hadn’t even seen the lightening-fast crotch-grabber pass them. I was defenseless. Except for my words. An ear-melting string of curse words flew like stones from my mouth towards the man’s back. As the foreign words reached him I saw his figure stiffen in surprise, but then he hunched back over and skated faster.

I got back to my hotel room and cried. And couldn’t stop crying. I told myself that it wasn’t that bad—it’s not like I had been raped. But something had happened to me that was violent and that was against my will, and it shook me badly.

It was the loss of power—the loss of control over my own body—that was most disturbing. As far as I’m concerned, my crotch is sacred. Only a select few people have been granted access to that part of my anatomy, and I had certainly not selected the skating groper to be one of the chosen few. He had taken something that was mine alone to bestow.

Feeling violated and powerless, I wrote down what happened. And then I decided to re-write it in an alternate “Heeled Avenger” version, where the crotch-grabbing offender didn’t win – I did. And this is what I wrote:

Take 2 of Crotch-Grabbing Skater vs. Amy

Cue the music: something with a pounding beat…I’m thinking in particular of a late ’90s Prodigy song. Spotlights are strategically placed along rue de la Folie Regnault.

And….roll.

Here comes Amy rounding the corner of the street, long strides matching the beat of the music. Her heels have metamorphosed from 3-inch Liz Claiborne block-heels to 4-inch Prada stilettos. The light flashes off their dangerous-looking points.

The music gets louder, and the beat raises the viewer’s anticipation that something bad is going to happen.

This time Amy senses someone coming up behind her, and slides her compact out of her purse, flicking it open and lifting it up to her eyes as if to powder her nose. In its mirror, she sees the man speeding up behind her, getting ready to pass her on the right. He lowers his left hand in a cupping position and, as he nears her, begins to bend over. At the last second, she steps adroitly to the left, making a graceful kicking motion with her right foot as she does.

The man flies through the air and lands on his chin with a crash. He sprawls helplessly on the sidewalk as Amy walks up to him. The music pauses as she approaches, looks down at him, and says, “Ooh. That looks like it hurt.”

As she effortlessly steps over his splayed body, we see a close-up of his left hand, which is still in its cupped-and-ready position. In slow-motion we see Amy’s stiletto heel coming down heavily upon it, and hear the sickening crunch of bone. As the man screams in pain, the music picks back up at the beat it left off on.

Amy, our  hero, continues striding towards the hotel, and the camera smoothly zooms in to her mouth, which slowly spreads into a confidently sardonic smile.”

Believe it or not, writing this scene made me feel better. Changing my role in the story from victim to victor made me feel more in control. And that made me realize the power the written word actually has – that sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword.

Six months later, I created Kate, the kick-ass heroine of Die For Me.