News! News! News!

I have an announcement to make, well a couple actually.  Shh, I'm waiting for the drum rolls. 

Okay, first, I'm hoping to have the sequel to Finding My Escape finished by mid April.  I'm shooting for tax day, April 15.  I don't have a title, yet.  I'm thinking about My Way Out, but I'm not sure how that will work with the story line.  It might be Finding My Way Back, which actually fits better.  I'm looking for beta readers, so if you've read Finding My Escape and want to be one of the first to read the sequel, leave me a comment here.  I'm going to choose one person from the blog to be a beta.

Second, I now have my own web page.  It's a real hard one to remember.  Just http://franveal.com.  Check it out and leave a comment.

Well, I have to get back to writing.

Is It Real or Just a Dream, an Excerpt from Finding My Escape

I've posted the prologue, now here's another taste of Finding My Escape.  I want to give a shout out to Tammie Clark Gibbs for hosting today's excerpt page.  And fans of the book don't have long to wait for not one, but TWO sequels which I hope to have ready this year.  Look for My Way Out this summer.

My nose itched.  Well, it wasn’t exactly an itch, more of a tickle.

“Leave me alone Matt, I’m trying to sleep.”

I brushed my hand across my face.  If Matt didn’t leave me alone, I was going to clobber him.

The tickling continued.

“Matt, I’m warning you!”

I felt the tickle again, which had now become more than just a little irritating.

“That’s it!”  I sat up and looked around.

I was definitely not in my room any more.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the sun, but my other senses were exploding with sensation.  The combination of salt with something floral assaulted my nose.  Simultaneously, my ears were filled with a familiar roar.  The ocean?  My eyes finally caught up with the rest of me, and my breath came out in a rush.  Josh!

“Hello, beautiful.  About time you woke up.”  Josh leaned back against a rock, a white flower in his hand.

“Were you tickling me with that flower?”

“Guilty.”

“You’re lucky you stopped when you did.  I thought you were someone else.”

“Speaking of which,” he began, “should I be jealous of this ‘Matt’ guy?” His eyes sparkled as if he had some private joke.  He didn’t really seem jealous.

“For your information, Matt is a friend.  A good-but-annoying friend.  Tickling my nose while I try to sleep would be just like him.  You, however, are either just a dream or a figment of my imagination, anyway, so why should it matter?”  I shrugged and looked out at the ocean.  I plastered a pout on my face which I hoped screamed Hayden Panetierre.

“Ouch.  You really know how to hurt a guy.  And after I brought you to one of my favorite places, too," said Josh, holding the flower out as a peace offering.  I pretended to ignore it.

“Okay, so where are we, anyway?” I asked as I took in my surroundings.

Josh leaned over to brush a strand of hair off my face, his hand lingered on my cheek for a second.

“Hmm, so beautiful,” his eyes bore into mine, “but I digress.”  He spread his arms wide.  “This is paradise, or at least the nearest thing to it in this place.  It’s a replica of one of the smaller, less known of the Hawaiian Islands.  Welcome to my world.”

I looked around, and it was amazingly, achingly beautiful.  The water was the clearest blue I’d ever seen, not like some of the Gulf beaches I’d been to.  Part of the beach was shaded by draping palms.  To the left of the beach area was a steep cliff and to the right what appeared to be giant lava rocks.

How could a dream be this vivid?  Maybe there was something to this other world stuff after all.

Finding My Escape featured on Indie Publisher

Hey, friends!  I just wanted to let everyone know that Finding My Escape is the featured book on
Indie Publisher.  Check it out!

Another Attempt at Procrastination

Well, folks, I know that I've been MIA for the entire summer, but what can I say...things have been a bit crazy around here.  Summer is always a busy time for me, but I honestly can't tell you where the past two months have gone!  I can tell you what I've done, though.  Let's see, I went to my class reunion (never mind which year), picked up extra work from a client, added a new client, saw about 10 drive-in movies with my daughter and her friends (I really need to blog about that), and hired a cover artist.

That's right folks, I did it.  I hired a cover artist for my YA novel, Finding My Escape.  You can check out the cover here (once I remember how to add the graphic).  The book has actually been finished for several months, the editing (except for final proof-reading) done, but for some reason, I haven't been able to bring myself to take the final steps to get the book published.  So I hired a cover artist, hoping that the act of forking over some cash would push me to get in there and do the final polishing necessary to get the book ready for Kindle, Nook, and all the other e-readers out there.

I've had the cover for several weeks now, but for some crazy reason, I've been dragging my feet about the final steps.  The truth is, I like to write, and I'd like to leave the rest of this stuff, the technical stuff, the marketing, and the publishing to someone else.  I mean, I don't even know HTML really.  (Funny because as I write this, I'm looking at a little tab that says "Edit HTML", and I'm thinking maybe HTML should edit itself.)  *sigh*

In fact, writing this blog today is yet another one of my procrastination attempts.  There, I said it.  I'm procrastinating.  But I really can't do that any longer.  I told myself I wanted to get the book out before my late father's birthday, which is August 15.  So I guess I'd better get off here and get to work.

Finding My Escape - Prologue

I'm so excited about Finding My Escape, getting it finished.  So close. 
Here's an excerpt:

He looked down at the knife in his left hand, dripping in blood. Pausing from his task, he listened to the sound of labored breathing coming from the other room. The gasping became slower and heavier, then stopped. Charles Jordan was dead. The killer laughed.

Back to work.

He turned his handsome blond head toward the woman splayed on the kitchen floor in front of him. He’d hit her pretty hard, but this gal was tough. Grabbing her tangled hair, he jerked her into a sitting position and placed the bloody knife under her throat.

"Tell me where you hid the chip."

"No!" she gasped. The man watched as Liz Jordan’s dark eyes darted wildly at the clock.

"Where’s your daughter Liz?" he hissed in her ear, pulling the knife ever so slightly into her throat.

The woman’s eyes grew wide for a second, but quickly veiled again.

"She’s spending the night with a friend."

"You’re lying!" He dug the knife deeper. A drop of blood trickled down her neck and dripped on the white tile floor.

"Tell me where that chip is, or I’ll kill her, too."

"Okay, I’ll tell you, but pl..please," she sputtered, "I’m begging, don’t hurt her. Th..there's a key to a safety deposit box taped under the table. First Bank of Marietta. Main branch. Please," she gasped, "Hannah has nothing to do with this."

The man reached under the table with his free hand and found a key. Smirking, he slipped it into his pocket. He looked down at the woman. Her eyes were pleading.

"Thanks, Mrs. Jordan. Now, I just have one piece of unfinished business."

He paused, savoring the thought of slashing Liz Jordan’s beautiful white throat.

"Mom?" came a girl’s voice from the front door.

The broken woman below him stirred as she struggled now to raise her head. He could read the desperation in her eyes. The man tightened his grip and put his finger to his mouth to indicate silence, but the woman was already screaming.

"Don’t come in here honey, RUN!"

He covered the woman’s mouth to stifle one last cry before slashing her throat. Then he headed toward the sound of the girl's voice. Hannah Jordan was going to wish she'd missed her curfew.

I'm still polishing, so this part will probably get another shine, too!