Bestselling Author Delilah Devlin
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Now’s the Time…
Sunday, June 28th, 2020

Swear to God. I honestly thought I’d never make it to 21. I was that kind of kid. So, every year past that has been a gift. I’ve lived my life to the fullest, traveled, loved. In my 40s, I was fine with aging, because again, I didn’t expect to make it that far. Now, I’m 62. Today. I have come to a reckoning with my age and my expectations. I still have many things I want to accomplish. Now’s the time.

To, again, live my life to the fullest.

To do those things I’ve been promising myself I’d do.

Like learn to paint. Part of me has always wanted to, but my mother was a real artist. Her friends, too. I crafted because I can work my way through a stepped process and produce pretty things. Still, I held back.

This year, I decided to go for it. Learn. Practice. I may never be great at it, but that’s okay with me. Another check on the bucket list.

So, I’ve been experimenting with mediums: watercolor, pastels, and now acrylics. This is my third effort with acrylics, and I know I don’t know a thing about composition, still can’t draw anything that doesn’t look like a stick figure, but I can make something that makes me smile.

Here’s my challenge to you.
Go for it! Whatever it is.

Opening a can of worms… I’m talking about masks…
Saturday, June 27th, 2020

Okay, I’ll do it. Only because I’m soooooooooo frustrated. I’m 62 tomorrow. I have a compromised immune system. A double-whammy. So, I take extra care to make sure I’m safe when I’m out and about. I live in the South, so most of the folks around me watch and believe the news from a certain major news channel and don’t bother ever reading for themselves. (I’m trying not to be nasty, really!) The problem is that these folks believe that wearing a mask somehow infringes on their freedom, and they choose not to. Which means, I have to be extra cautious when I’m out and about, which is rare because I know they aren’t taking precautions to save my life.

They think masks are inconvenient, mess up their makeup, their hair, that they look stupid wearing them. They hear that masks aren’t effective keeping them from being infected but don’t seem to get that the masks do help prevent the droplets they breathe out from getting into the air and onto other surfaces. My wearing a mask means I’m doing my part to keep you safe. You not wearing a mask is telling me you don’t care about my life. That’s how I see it, and it angers me when I pass someone who smirks at me who isn’t wearing a mask. And anger is not too strong a word for what I feel, because I think my life is worth protecting just as much as yours is.

Am I wrong? Here’s your chance to vent, whether you’re with me or ag‘in me.

I may not comment on everyone’s post, but I will read your words. I have work to do today. I’m a writer and an editor. I work seven days a week.

Come Play the Puzzle-Contest!
Friday, June 26th, 2020

UPDATE: The winner is…Kelley!
*~*~*

Just a short post today. I have some catching up to do! The things I’d like to share? I finished the first chapter of my next book. Woot! And the 6-year-old came running to my room at midnight (my room is the farthest from hers) because she had a bad dream and didn’t want to sleep alone. I am loved. 🙂 And that is all.

Solve the puzzle then tell me a story about what you see for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

Vonna Harper: Where Inspiration Lives
Thursday, June 25th, 2020

Setting, for me, is where every book begins.

Yes, I love getting to know the characters that slip out of the shadows at the back of mind where they’ve been living, sometimes for decades without my being aware of them. I enjoy the plotting process which consists of waking up in the middle of the night to mull over possibilities, running down roads both promising and dead-end, and throwing possibilities into a Word program called “Notes”, but I have to have a strong picture in my mind of where everything happens before I can write the first word.

I love going for solitary drives accompanied by Neil Diamond going full blast while the world around me becomes part of me. I’m a mountain gal born and bred. I don’t understand cities. They don’t speak to me. But give me the wilderness and I come alive.

That’s true even when I’m writing erotica.

Case in point, I’m in the process of releasing two self-published books. Cry of the Wolves will hit the virtual shelves on the 29th. I haven’t set on a release date for the companion novella Call of the Wolves, sometime in July.

The two connected stories came to me unbidden. I had no idea that’s what would happen when I went for a hike near Crater Lake at a place known as The Gorge. The Rogue River of southern Oregon flows through The Gorge, or rather it fights to. As I explain in the forward for the two Wolves stories, an ancient volcanic eruption sent molten lava to the Rogue. At one spot, the river was squeezed into a narrow channel. Every spring during snow runoff, the river screams and boils as it struggles through the lava.

That’s where I found my characters. Each in their own way, they listened to and watched the ageless battle between rock and water. That wild place impacted them as deeply as it did me and gave rise to the ghost wolves. I’m including a couple of pictures I took. I just wish readers could feel the spray and sense the ground shivering.

A big part of the writing business consists of getting the word out, which is what I’m doing right now via a couple of projects designed to try to garner reviews.

In case you’re interested in getting your hands on some free ARC (advanced reader copies) in exchange for a voluntary review, I recommend becoming a member of Book Sirens, https://booksirens.com/advanced-reader-copies, and/or The Hidden Gems, https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/.

FIRST RESPONSE releases next Tuesday! Read an excerpt! (Many CONTESTS!)
Wednesday, June 24th, 2020

UPDATE: The winner is…bn100!
*~*~*

First Response: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology

Pre-order your copy here:
Kindle | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Well, the book is in the can! Film-speak for it’s loaded and ready for release day! I can’t be more excited! The stories are all soooo good, with a wide variety of themes and genres! Something for everyone!

My own story, “In the Wild” is related to my Montana Bounty Hunters series. In fact, the hunter in this story will appear in the spin-off series, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT! She’ll have her own full-length story, but you can meet her below in the excerpt. Yes, HER! 🙂

Have you checked out my Collections website where all my anthologies “live”? We’re running a ton of contests. If you haven’t already been on that site, here’s a list of contests that are still open. While you’re busy entering to win something, be sure to check out the authors who are part of this anthology. There are some very familiar names (Elle James, Reina Torres, N.J. Walters, Melanie Jayne) and some authors you might not be aware of just yet. You’re going to find new authors to stalk, promise!

Contests Still Open on the Collections Website

  1. Megan Ryder: Claiming Lyla (Contest–4 Winners!)Absolute last day to enter! (Okay, so this one’s right here! Still counts!) Win books or a gift card!
  2. January George: Blackout (Contest)Absolute last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
  3. Tray Ellis: Falling Off the Single Track (Contest)Absolute last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
  4. Melanie Jayne: Drive (Contest)Absolute last day to enter! Win the ENTIRE NOVUS SERIES!
  5. Megan Ryder: Claiming Lyla (Contest — 4 Winners)Absolute last day to enter! Win an anthology or an Amazon gift card!
  6. Reina Torres: Far From Over (Contest — 2 Winners!) — Win an anthology!
  7. Margay Leah Justice: Handcuffs and G-strings (Contest) — Win an anthology!
  8. Kimberly Dean: Thinking Time (Contest — 3 winners!) — Win an audiobook!
  9. Elle James: Sheltering Charlotte (Contest — 2 Winners!) — Win a FREE book!

So, yes! A ton of contests! Have you entered? Don’t miss the contest I’m running here, today. You’ll find it under the excerpt from my story!

Excerpt from Delilah’s story, “In the Wild”

If not for her GPS device, Martika Mills wouldn’t have had a clue where she was. All she knew was that she was soaked to the skin, mud sucked at her boots, and two days into this hunt, she was no closer to finding Marlon Oats.

Earlier that morning, after sliding a twenty to a gas station attendant on the Montana border, she’d thought she was getting close. She’d gotten a description of the car Marlon had “borrowed” on his flight into the wilderness and had found it parked in a narrow roadside viewing point, just inside Yellowstone National Park.

After that, she’d followed the narrow stream into a deep gully off the road, knowing Marlon considered himself quite the fisherman, or so his mother had said. No doubt he intended to live off the land until the heat died down after he’d failed to make his date with the judge in Helena, where he was due to be tried for robbing a pawn shop in Springdale at gunpoint. His mother had been very helpful, liking the fact that Marti seemed like “a nice girl” who might “ask” her son to let her put him in handcuffs rather than shooting him. His mother didn’t want Marlon hurt, even though his skip might cost her the home she’d lived in since she’d married Marlon’s no-account, long-dead father.

Marti was just about to call it a day, figuring she had just enough daylight left to get back to her SUV parked behind Marlon’s at the roadside park, when she spotted a puff of dark smoke rising over the gully. Noting its direction, she climbed up a steep embankment, seeking footholds in mud and rock and grabbing vines along the sides of the rocky face until she stood at the top and realized the land on this side of the stream was flatter and filled with tall spring grass—and a herd of buffalo that didn’t seem to pay her any mind as she bent over and dragged in deep breaths. She glanced at her hands braced on her knees and grimaced, because they were covered in mud, which she shouldn’t give a shit about because her jeans were streaked with dirt as well.

Marlon had a lot to answer for, but thoughts of the rich bounty she’d score kept her from throwing in the towel. Her mother liked to say that stubborn was her middle name, which was a quality that worked well in her line of work. She always got her man because she never, ever gave up. She’d been bounty hunting for nearly three years now, the last one going solo because she didn’t like sharing her bounty with a partner or an agency, although she was considering working for one again. Agencies often served as bail bondsmen, too, and therefore had the downlow first on the richer bounties. Fetch Winter from Montana Bounty Hunters had been working on recruiting her to join a new satellite office he was trying to get off the ground in Dead Horse, Montana, to service southwest Montana and into Wyoming. He needed hunters with experience, and he’d heard good things about her.

She’d heard good things about the agency, too, if a you discounted the cable TV show that followed his hunters out of Bear Lodge. Fetch gave his crews a higher percentage of the bounty than most agencies did, and he’d assured her that he wouldn’t be looking to do any spin-off series featuring his other offices, but he had admitted that the bonuses for the hunters who permitted the production crews to accompany them were very generous. The job was hers, if she wanted it.

But first, she had to find Marlon Oats.

Trying her best not to draw the herd’s attention, she walked along the edge of the ravine, keeping within the narrow line of trees standing along the edge of the ravine as she made her way toward the place she believed a campfire had been lit.

As she drew closer, she stayed hidden and peered into a clearing. A small tent had been pitched, one that had seen better days. One of the screen windows was torn, and one of the poles that held up the tarp over the door was missing. But she couldn’t make out whether anyone was presently occupying the campsite.

Just then, she heard movement coming from the stream below and a soft off-key whistling. Hunkering down, she waited patiently until the person climbed over the edge of the embankment and stood.

“Marlon, you sweet idiot,” she said under her breath. Her heartbeats quickened, and she drew slow breaths. She needed calm, not adrenaline, to get closer to her target.

Marlon strolled toward his campsite holding a string of four fish, which he lowered into a pot beside the fire. As he began taking them out, one at time, gutting and filleting them, and then tossing the pieces into a pan he’d filled with oil, she moved closer, choosing her footsteps carefully, grateful for the chorus of gargling grunts from the buffalo nearby that masked the sounds her feet made in the suctioning mud.

She studied Marlon to see what challenges he might present. A rifle leaned against the tent, and he held a knife in his hand. Slowly, she dropped her backpack to the ground and drew her own 10mm Remington from the holster on her thigh, and then began to work her way toward the edge of the tree line, knowing she’d eventually have to expose her position to prevent him from making a move toward the rifle.

Soft chuffing grunts sounded from the herd, but she ignored the animals, keeping her gaze fixed on the more dangerous game in front of her.

Then she stepped on a twig, and it snapped.

Marlon’s gaze swung toward her position, and his eyes widened. His gaze shot to the rifle, but she shook her head.

“I’m a Fugitive Recovery Agent, so you know why I’m here,” she said, keeping her tone low and hard.

Eyes still wide, his body tensed as though he was preparing to bolt upwards and make a run for it.

“Don’t even think about running,” she bit out.

He blinked, and his gaze went to something behind her. “Bitch, you might want to think about making a run for it.” Then a smile stretched across his face as he slowly stood and waved his arms.

What the fuck…?

Then she heard it. A deep, gargling grunt. With her handgun still held in both hands in front of her, she darted a glance behind her.

A large bison bull faced her from about twenty feet away, his head lowered toward the ground, his gaze fixed on her.

Marlon laughed then darted toward the tent.

No way was she letting him get anywhere near that rifle, even if he promised to shoot the bull. As big as the fucker was, Marlon’s peashooter wouldn’t do anything more than piss the animal off. “Marlon!” she rasped as loudly as she dared as she weighed her rapidly dwindling options. “Stay clear of that rifle, or buffalo or not, I’ll shoot your ass.”

“Your choice,” he said, raising a hand to his mouth and issuing an ear-piercing whistle. Then he turned and ran toward the gully.

Another grunt, this one louder and harsher, sounded, and she knew she couldn’t just stand there; she broke into a run, following Marlon as he ran parallel to the gully, keeping twenty yards ahead of her.

Behind her, she heard the heavy thud of hooves striking damp earth, coming closer and closer.

Any second now, she’d have to veer toward the gully and jump, and hope like hell that she didn’t break something on the way down.

Then another sound came from a distance. An engine. Something small. She dared to glance back and saw an ATV running parallel but slightly behind the bull. The person driving it wore a green Park Service uniform.

Oh, thank God! But was he too late to distract the angry animal from trampling or goring her to death?

Ahead of her, Marlon gave a gleeful laugh and ran toward the naked edge of the gully, took one last glance behind him, then slid down the side on his ass, disappearing from sight.

Time for her to do the same, although with the way her hiking boots were gliding in the muck, she thought she’d be a lot less graceful and likely pitch headfirst over the rocky ledge.

The ATV’s motor revved, bringing it closer by the sound behind her. But she didn’t dare glance backward. The bull’s hooves were shaking the ground beneath her feet.

With her lungs and legs burning, she veered right, just as the ATV pulled into the path of the bison.

She peeked behind her again. The buffalo slowed then gave a loud chuffing grunt, trotting now behind the ATV. The ranger slowed, too, coming alongside her and reaching out an arm.

No way could she swing onto the back. She wasn’t particularly graceful, would miss by a mile, and get trampled for her efforts. She waved him away and veered toward the ravine.

Glancing backward, she watched the idiot ranger stop his ATV and begin waving his arms high over his head as he walked backward towards her.

“Get on the ATV,” he said, his voice calm as the buffalo ran several steps forward then made a little circle, which left him a few feet farther away when he halted, still grunting his warnings.

How like a man.

“I’ll take my chances in the ravine,” she snapped. “Besides, that’s where my skip went.”

“Get on the goddamn ATV! I’m trying to rescue your ass.”

“They teach you how to talk like that at ranger school?”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.”

He walked toward her, giving her Remington a hard glare.

She holstered it quickly but backed away, holding out her hands. “We’re good. The bull’s more interested in your Tonka toy than me now.”

Just then, the bull proved her right when he ducked his head and butted against the ATV, flipping it onto its side.

Contest

For a chance to win a copy of one of our previous Boys Behaving Badly Anthologies, let me know whether you’ve already pre-ordered your copy of FIRST RESPONSE!

Another Rainy Day (Contest — 3 winners)
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020

UPDATE: The winners are…Colleen, Jennifer, bn100, ButtonsMom2003 & Debra Guyette!
*~*~*

It’s another rainy day here in Arkansas. I swear, this has to be one of the wettest years ever. Because of all the rain, pool time didn’t begin until mid-May (usually, we dare dipping our toes mid-April!). With quarantine ongoing here on the farm (that’s an exaggeration, we have 10 acres), we really love it when the kids can be outside. Instead, we have to be very creative to keep them from getting stir-crazy.

This is the last day of the current storm system, so we’re hoping the pool will warm right back up and we’ll be out there enjoying the sunshine, but in the meantime, the dogs, the cats, the kids, are all underfoot constantly. Gah. It wreaks havoc on my work schedule, but what can you do?

Any suggestions? Comment for a chance to win a copy of one of my short stories! I’ll choose 3 winners! 

Enter these contests while you still can!

  1. Reina Torres: I Confess! I love Reality Shows! (Contest) — Win a first in a series book!!
  2. Fun things to do in COVID-Times…? (Contest) — Win a download of your choice!
  3. Wishing happy thoughts for dads — and a Puzzle-Contest! — Win an Amazon gift card!

There are also several open contests, running right now, over at the Collections website! Be sure to check those out, too!

Michal Scott/Anna M. Taylor: Confronted and Encouraged by Norman Rockwell
Monday, June 22nd, 2020

The illustrator Norman Rockwell has been lauded and lambasted for projecting an image of America that was too mom and apple pie and White. If that’s your image of Rockwell, I’d like to give you a different one. One that confronted and encouraged through his works The Golden Rule (1961), The Problem We All Live With (1964), Murder in Mississippi (1965) and New Kids in the Neighborhood (1967). These works were created by a conscience rooted in the aspiration that “all men are created equal.”

Though never fully realized by the founding fathers, Rockwell imbued their aspirations in his Saturday Evening Post covers, especially in his illustrations of FDR’s Four Freedoms. I can’t look at that series and not hear the words to songs of equality like “The House I Live In” or “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” Innocent as those covers seem, Rockwell was saying here’s how the world should be for everybody. Ironically, the Post’s policy wouldn’t extend that equality and respect to black people. Blacks on their covers had to be depicted in subservient positions. Rockwell left the Post in 1963 and accepted commissions from Look magazine where he could portray the flipside of the Post’s America. But sometimes Look found his work too controversial to publish, too. Fortunately, that didn’t happen often.

Criticized for his choice of subject and called a hypocrite and a lying propagandist, Rockwell painted the truth being shown nightly on TV news and revealed daily in newspaper stories about the Civil Rights struggle. I was a kid in the 60’s watching Americans of all races and creeds and religions marching in the streets, being doused by fire hoses and having police dogs turned on them because they believed all people are created equal and deserved to be treated that way.

The Norman Rockwell Museum has a virtual exhibit of Rockwell’s 1960’s works. Check it out here: https://bit.ly/37H3TCr where you can also hear from Ruby Bridges, the little girl in The Problem We All Live With.

Rockwell’s 1960s work asked Americans, “Which side are you on?” in the same way Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and Gil Noble did in their network broadcasts. Sixty years later, these works are asking us the same question. Sixty years later, I hear us answering it in peaceful demonstrations being held all over the world, in paintings on the plywood of boarded-up Manhattan storefronts, in legislation passed to combat police brutality, in court decisions upholding LGBTQ rights. People are answering, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you must become the law of the land.” Despite authorities and administrations trying to divide us, people are answering and choosing to be on the right side of history because “the time is always right to do what is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In the 1960s, Rockwell used his work to confront and encourage. May we use our resources to do the same today.

Haunted Serenade

All the women in Anora Madison’s family have lived as “Poor Butterflies”: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, severing her ties with her mother Angela and with the man who broke her heart, Winston Emerson, the father of her child.

Six years later, she comes back to Harlem to make peace, but a malignant spirit manifests itself during the homecoming, targeting her mother, her aunt, Winston and their little girl. Determined to stop the evil now trying to destroy all she loves, Anora must finally turn to Winston for help. But will their efforts be too little too late?

Get your copy here!

Excerpt from Haunted Serenade…

“Internalized oppression?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Why not? Self-hate has bedeviled people of color all over the world for hundreds of years. Being looked down upon because you’re not White, accepting you’re incapable of self-determination because you’re dark and not light is being confronted everywhere. The independence movements in Africa. The Civil Rights movement here. Why wouldn’t it be challenged in your mother’s house?”

I’d listened to sermons about the devil, sung hymns and praise songs to put him in his place. But I’d intellectualized all that. Those were metaphors for the evil humans did. But what if that metaphor represented real energy, energy that had agency, agency that needed to be combatted?

“Come on.” Winston picked up a tray. “Let’s put the pumpkins in the windows. I need some physical activity to balance all this intellectual speculating.”

I took the other tray and followed him into the parlor. We placed a pumpkin on each sill of the bay window then lit the candle inside.

Cammie was right. They weren’t at all scary. Their grins glowed with welcome.

We ascended to the second floor and repeated our pumpkin placement and lighting ritual in each window.

“Winston, if Diana’s spirit is trying to help us, why did she attack you, Elizabeth and my mother?”

“When were they attacked?”

I shared with him my mother’s lame excuses for her broken wrist and the bandage on Elizabeth’s forehead.

He pursed his lips then firmed them. “I don’t think Diana’s spirit attacked them or me.”

“But you said the cold—”

“Is Diana shielding us from another presence, a presence that made the shutters close in her bedroom, that made the cabinet door hit me.” He tucked his empty tray beneath his arm. “What if the cold is Diana’s love, but the energy that attacks has its source in someone else?”

Website: www.annamtaylor.webs.com
Facebook: @annamtaylorAuthor