Tomorrow is the big day! Can you feel the excitement building? Is your heart warming up to a skip? Is the tension in your loins growing?... Now, anybody who thinks I’m referring to the Iowa Caucuses here needs a lot more mental assistance than I do. *smirks*

Shafts of Torchlight releases tomorrow and this much ballyhooed (by me, at least) blogging event will come to an end. Laughter and tears would be appropriate here. I’ll leave it to you which emotion to attach to which event. Any celebratory confetti at the ending of this blog I will bravely ignore and will go merrily on my delusional way.

So before giddiness erupts tomorrow, I figure we’ve got time for one more peek into my skewed mind and its accompanying screwed up life.

Disconnect.

It’s a word that describes a lot of what happens when mental illness worms its way into your life. It eats its way through the strings that connect you to friends, until they become frayed, tattered and finally broken. You’re left feeling isolated, completely cut off from the life you once had. Some of these relationships, the strongest ones, can be salvaged. New strings can be formed, better ones that will weather any storm of nature or mind.

Other relationships are lost. It’s a slow, damning process that leaves an aching spot in your heart. A disconnect happens. Their lives go on, more or less, as planned. Weddings are had. Children are born. Career goals are met and exceeded… while your life stutters to a belly crawl. Yes, you still have goals and dreams but they are no longer the ones you shared with those friends. Your goals and dreams become inconceivable to them, while theirs become literally unattainable to you.

Disconnect: An irreparable shift in the foundations that the friendship was built upon. It’s a sad, painful ending to something that had one time been beautiful and strong.

Rat’s teeth on string… It’s mental illness in all its jaundiced glory.

Ok, enough of my fussing and definitely enough of the vermin. Today I choose to celebrate the accomplishment of my new goals and my new dreams. My ninth novel will be published tomorrow. I am so proud of that that I’m actually bursting at the seams. And while I can’t share that with certain lost friends, I can share it with you. I thank you for that.

Now, for the promised reveal of Book #5 of the Hellesgate Series which should be released in early September, 2012…

A Torch Kept by Chloe Stowe

There’s a lot of action, angst and some severe romance awaiting Matthew and Cane in this series. I sincerely hope you will follow along with their continuing story tomorrow. It’s going to be a bumpy but glorious ride, folks, but what else would you expect with Chloe Stowe at the wheel?

Until tomorrow, when this current blogging adventure rolls to its conclusion…

Chloe Stowe