Currently on my desk...

Currently on my writing desk (virtual and real) I have:

On my Jacqueline Paige side I have the final proofs of the second book in The Animal Senses series- Scent

Sometimes the answers you get aren’t what you asked.

The world can tilt a bit and throw you off balance, just enough that you have to stop and make some adjustments.

When Kelsey comes home, she finds out her entire life and everything she thought she knew is a lie.

When her world spins out of control and flips in more directions then she could ever count, she struggles to right it again.

To be released February 25^th.  Pre-order will be up this week.

I wrote this quite some time ago, then fell into the Alterealm series, so it was fun to revisit my shifters … and the good/bad news is I have MORE ideas for more books. The good is the ideas, the bad is my schedule is so full, I might have to bounce some of this to next year.

From the J. Risk side of my desk, I’m finalizing the story in book 7 in the Alterealm series. I wrote ¾ of this (or up to 50,000 words) for NANWRIMO in 2018… then went to finish it and discovered I hated the order of things. 
This series is already complex with events/characters and timelines, so I had to rip it apart and cut pieces, rearranging the whole thing.

(I had to do this to visual all the pieces I needed to re-order/change.. then put them IN order of where they should be!)

 NOW I’m filling in those areas and I’ve told myself this will be DONE by February 9^th. *fingers crossed*

I don’t have a blurb for this book yet. I ‘blurb’ after the book is finished. BUT I can share a piece of the start of it.  The full beginning of The Telepath excerpt can be found in the back of book 6 – The Warrior that was released on January 30^th.

To be released: April 2nd

Prologue

I held my breath and went back around the corner, there were too many of them. He was here and there were others with him. I couldn’t use myself as bait against eight men of that size. I also couldn’t be that close and not have all their thoughts churning inside my brain.  I looked around and spotted the fire escape, it had a few missing sections, but as long as I stayed below that missing section, I should be okay.  I’d watch from above and see how this played out.

Climbing was scary, it wasn’t in the best condition even on the way up to the parts that were hanging off the building.  To distract myself from thinking about plummeting to the ground, I ran through the past months in my head. What was going on? Had there been some sort of solar flare or meteorological event that had caused so many strange things to take place? I didn’t know, but things were getting really whack and I was ready to find some off the grid cave to live in. I hadn’t survived the epic bull crap I’d had the misfortune to live through only to be stuck in some insane place where weird things were happening, and women kept going missing, and no one—NO one noticed.

By the time I reached the halfway point, I decided this was a far enough.  Perching on a hidden corner of the fire escape platform, I looked out between the bars. There were four women, near my age, hanging out behind the old supermarket building.  Were they intellectually challenged? It was the only reason I could think of why someone would be that stupid to hang out in this neighborhood, without large friends to keep them company and safe.

Safe.  Why didn’t anyone think about safe anymore?

I looked back to where the guys had been, I couldn’t see them. I looked to the other end of the alley. Where did they go? I studied the darker areas trying to see if they were sneaking up on them.  Eight men against four women. It was disgusting. I could say that without a doubt, because their thoughts had almost made me scream when they’d popped into my head.

Standing up, I leaned over and looked further down into the forgotten space. I still didn’t see them. I was just about to climb down and go tell those girls to get their butts home and stay there until they grew a brain, when a guy came running out of the back of a building and headed toward them. 

Big and blond was all I could think. Where were his buddies though?  They had to be somewhere. Maybe they sent the pretty face in to distract the women.  I’d seen that happen way too often.  He was heading straight for them, holding his hand over his ear. Ugh. Just ugh. They were coordinating this abduction. What a slag.

Shaking my head, I’d had enough. I was so done with this city.  Pulling my bag off my shoulders, I set it by my feet.  As soon as I saved these clueless females, I was out of here. I’d rather live in a forest and take my chances with the wild creatures then with human beings.  They were disgusting.

Opening my bag, I pulled out the two pieces of my bow. Quickly, while keeping an eye on the blond slag below, I locked the socket together and secured the string onto the string nocks.  I tightened the riser, so I had good tension, and flipped the sight slide out.  Opening the quiver, I debated over which arrow to choose. Did I want to slow him down or stop him? I looked at him again as he moved closer, trying to appear like he wasn’t rushing toward them, he was looking all around, probably making sure no one was around.  I was glad he couldn’t see me. 

I decided I wanted to stop him. I pulled out one of my bodkin point arrows. It wasn’t a blunt point, but more of a nasty metal spike that stopped any target it hit very thoroughly. It also wasn’t one of my cheap arrows, but stopping yet another woman from being taken was worth it.

I nocked the arrow and stood up, making sure my arms and bow were clear of obstacles.  Drawing back, I got him in the sight and then moved it down, I didn’t want to kill anyone, that I couldn’t live with, but leaving a mark on his backside I could do.  Too bad it was a nice-looking backside, was my last thought before I released.

He went down, then mayhem followed.  Four other guys came out of nowhere, and a few women as well. These were not the pieces of dross I’d inadvertently heard in my head. The women went rushing toward those clueless females just ‘hanging out’, and a couple of the men went to my target.

Two dropped down beside where he lay—with my arrow sticking up in the air. One male with brown hair was looking at the arrow sticking out of that nice butt and shaking his head. I think he was smiling.

Then I noticed the other two men, looking quite unhappy, as they looked all around them. I squatted back down. Probably a good time to get gone. I quickly disassembled my bow and put it back in my bag. I was just about to get up and climb to the top of the building when a tiny woman jumped down onto the landing with me. 

She pulled the cable from her waist and turned to glare at me. “You shot my Rafael.”

At least twenty voices flooded into my head out of nowhere. I grimaced, I’d thought the building was abandoned. I focused to block them, then turned my attention back to her.

I was just about to defend my actions when a very large, very scary redheaded man dropped down behind her. His icy pale eyes moved over me, scorn and loathing clear in his expression.  He reached for me. I put my arm up to block his hand and then my head felt like it exploded into a thousand pieces.

I dropped to my knees and threw up. That’s when I noticed I was no longer on the fire escape. 

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