Chapter Eight: To Prove Them Wrong
“Strangers were all around him now, giving him orders, trying to push him out of the room. Dimas paid them no mind.” (page 112)

The keys are in my hand. The door is firmly closed. All that’s left to be done is to turn the lock and walk away.

Hellesgate’s long goodbye is almost complete.

It’s been a long journey these men and their friends and family have been upon. I hope I leave them better off than I found them eighteen months ago. For despite all the trials and tribulations I have forced them to go through, they did find each other. I, for one, would be glad to face blizzards, wars, earthquakes and betrayals if it meant finding the one true mate to my soul.

And to you, their loyal fans, I hope my words have left you satisfied and glad to have known a New York real estate mogul by the name of Matthew and a wounded war hero by the name of Cane.

Before I turn the key one last time and lock away Hellesgate into our memories, I do have an announcement I hope excites you as much as it does me.

I have just sold my first f/m historical romance!

For longtime followers to this blog, you know that it has been a goal of mine to break into that market. I adore diving into history to pick out times and events seeded for romance. I find it a challenge to mold my modern day take on relationships to the customs and standards of a long vanished world. My latent art historical love is tickled at the prospects of what may be to come.

Fear not, however. I am hardly abandoning the m/m romance genre. As I announced in yesterday’s blog, I have just signed on to do a Christmas novel with Ravenous Romance. I plan on continuing in both lines for as long as the publishing gods allow.

I do hope you will follow me to this new step in my career; in fact, I am counting on it. Your support and your loyalty to my 13 (so far) novels I feel was a major part in my being offered a contract. My fan base is superb. With all my heart, I thank you for that.

And even if historical romance is not your “thing,” I hope you will send any wandering historical romance junkies my way.

To Steal the Sunrise, a novella set in ancient Sumer, should be released before the end of the year. I will, of course, keep you updated. Expect preview blogging for both the novella and Miracle on Lombard Street in the coming weeks.

The key now slips into the lock. I turn it and with a smile I walk away from Hellesgate.

Until next time…

Chloe Stowe

 
Chapter Nine: A Single Word Upon His Lips
““Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” his mind pleaded with him. But what has been seen cannot be unseen.” (page 119)

Chapter Six: The Religion of Mall Santas
“He toed the tile with his shoe. In slow, deliberate swipes he searched the floor for cracks, for hairline fractures slick with the remains of his last coherent thoughts.” (page 97)


The day after.

Wow.

I want to thank you all for making A Torch Kept’s release day a success! It was awesome. Thank you!

Whew.

Still got my mind.

That’s always a plus on the day after. Have you ever woke up with nothing but an echo of the alarm clock clanking around between your ears?

Yeah, not pleasant.

Especially when you don’t own an alarm clock.

*hums a little “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”*

On a day when the blog is entitled “The Religion of Mall Santas,” I thought it would be the perfect time to announce that my 14th novel for Ravenous Romance will be… a Christmas story!

Yes, Chloe does the guy in the big red suit… well, uh, you know what I mean.

*sighs*

Great. That’s one big check on the “naughty” side of the tote-board for me. I really don’t need any help on that side of things. My naughtiness is all fleshed out, thank you very much. Hello. Smut writer here.

*grins*

As it’s becoming readily apparent that I am still hung-over from yesterday’s festivities and delusional breaks, I’m going to end all our suffering by ending this blog a little early today.

For your patience, however, I will leave you with a small parting gift…

The title of my 14th novel will be Miracle on Lombard Street. Yep, I’m hitting the streets of Frisco with this one, babe. All new characters, all new storyline! What a merry rush it will be! The deadline for the manuscript is November 25, so expect a mid-December release, my friends.

Until tomorrow (when another HUGE announcement will be made), I wish you all a little early “Fa-la-la-la-la!”

Chloe

Chapter Seven: When All is Well
“Her footsteps were small, fragile against the hard hospital floors. There was no sense of certainty about her movements. From the way she held her elbows tight against her sides, to the hesitant downward tilt of her chin, (the woman) slipped through the long, solemn corridors with the presence of a banished wraith.” (page 105)

Chapter Four: A Woman Named Loring
“Buried? For some reason he cringed at that word. His bad feeling about all of this was just getting worse.” (page 53)


Release Day! The foreplay has come to its end. All the soft nuzzles of lips upon nipples, all those sweet kisses on the best of those unmentionables have now disappeared. What remains between us this day is the climax.

Let the thunderous waves of pleasure come, let ecstasy rock the boat you lay upon.

Lay all of your defenses down.

Give in to the hot rush that wants to devour you.

Scream as the orgasm takes hold of your soul and shatters it. Relish the devastation, suck it dry.

And know that tonight, tomorrow, for all time to come I am here to bring you more…

*coughs innocently*

Bet you never had a “Please buy my book” quite like that, huh?

*tosses her salesman’s hat to the floor and kicks it out of sight*

Now back to the blog…

Anybody want to take my shift in my brain today? Seriously. I am bone tired of being so… weird. And I can’t even be weird in a cute and snuggly way. No, I have to be weird in the “Jeez, I hope it’s not catching” way.

Take yesterday as an example.

I spent most of the morning and all the early afternoon literally revving myself up to go to the Fed Ex place (a place I’m very unfamiliar with). There was a very important contract I needed to mail to a new publishing house (details to follow in the next days). Well, by the time I got up the nerve to actually go I had wasted the majority of the day worrying about it. Yeah, dumb, I know. Believe me, I know.

Did I go to the Fed Ex place? Yes. Did I get it mailed? No. After a “comedy” of nervous errors, I was told (while holding on to 2 completed forms and a big envelope I had just bought) that they couldn’t mail the contract to a PO Box.

Yeah, I know this kind of stuff happens all the time to everybody. Fortunately though, for everybody’s sanity, everybody isn’t operating with my brain set.

So, I dragged my pitiful self back home, curled up on the couch and called my Mommy. September 19th was officially shot to h-e-double hockey sticks and I’d gotten zero accomplished… except, of course, for the knotted up stomach and the exhaustion-laced nausea.

Yep, sometimes I wish with all my soul that somebody else was Chloe Stowe and I was a woman named Loring.

Until tomorrow and the afterglow…

Chloe

P.S. *nudge, nudge* “A Woman Named Loring” is one of the title chapters of the day. Got it? Good. Even I get lost sometimes following my line of thinking.


Chapter Five: Home Away from Home
“His eyes popped open and a world of harsh, electric light swallowed him. Trapped in an ice cold fire he couldn’t understand, Cane began to struggle.” (page 65)

Chapter Two: The Postman Always Knocks

“Bloated and brown, the Mississippi River lay out before them like a giant, mud-covered slug too baked by the relentless sun to do much more than twitch in the thick September air.” (page 23)

Good morning, world!

Day Two of Hellesgate’s Long Goodbye arrives bookended with two chapter titles that are admittedly “blah.” I’m disappointed in them, now that I look back at the mundane phrases. Where was my imagination? Where was the zing? The melodrama? The gloating storm of yesterday?

*drums her fingers pensively on her chin*

Sometimes my creative juices are as elusive as toddlers in a heated game of hide and go seek. I corner them between the sofa and the book case only to have them scamper away between my legs… ok, whoever snuck a Freud into my head while I wasn’t looking please remove the  doctor immediately.

I might frighten dear Sigmund.

*chuckles*

Alright, where were we? Oh yes, the blahs. Every writer gets them. Every certifiable crazy person risks drowning in them. Literally. I’m talking the whole wet and cold world pushing and shoving to rush inside of you, wanting to flood you with its oceans and seas, its swimming pools and bathtubs holding only an inch of water. I’m talking long, dull moments where fighting and gasping for the air you so desperately need and want ironically becomes suicidal…

*stops, takes a deep, deep breath just for assurance, and then smiles cunningly*

Are the writing blahs that bad? Is losing that creative thread really so damning?

Of course not.

A person can drown in depression. A writer will never drown in a blah.

It’s all relative…

Ok, what joker put Einstein in my head?... Fair warning: No way in hell am I doing physics here, Albert. No freaking way.

Until tomorrow, when hopefully all PhD’s will have been thrown out with that inch of bathwater…

Chloe

Chapter Three: The Seventh Floor

“Matthew groaned and firmly removed the hand from his dick. “We get tagged for public gay sex in Memphis and we’re never going to hear the end of it from Bingham.”  (page 50)