Your Mid-Week Update for 04/20/16

I killed Kyle's second cousin. The trick is to get someone familial but not someone so close to them it would destroy their spirit permanently. Distant cousins are always a good bet. Your victim gets leave for the day of the funeral but that's it, so they have to come back to the office and deal with wave after wave of emails and visits featuring empty condolences. It's an exhausting process that tends to calm the unruliest of subjects.

So far the death of his cousin has sobered the intern. As sober as a man can be who has lost a family member in such a gruesome manner. I may have gone overboard. You see, I got my hands on some farming equipment this weekend. Do you know what a haulm topper is? Look it up. It’s sharp. And swirly. It cuts through flesh and muscle so easily. I noticed it got a little tied up on the ribcage but I thought that was better. It kept the news from posting too many images – they may love scaring their viewers but they can’t show graphic content like exposed bones that look gnawed on. They’re calling it a freak farming accident and they’re blaming a faulty machine. It makes my job easier. The cleanup was a bitch though. Blood was everywhere.

I thought about Sandra the other day.

Jesus Christ, that was a horrible segue. I just meant that…I thought about her. I don’t forget about her – my daughter – but every once in a while, something will make me think of her and I’ll stop breathing. It hurts my heart to think of Sandra. She didn’t deserve to die like that.

To be fair, most people I kill don’t deserve to die like that. But she…she was so beautiful.

Anyways, I just thought I would tell you.

There’ll be no new update next week, I leave for Miami on Friday and I don’t anticipate being anywhere near a computer all week. It’s going to be glorious.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Secret Project Cover Reveal

Title: Paper Planes and Other Things We Lost

By: Mindy Hayes and Michele G. Miller

Genre: Clean Teen/YA Romance

Release date: June 6th (Tentative Date)

ABOUT THE BOOK

On June 18, 1993, Flight 397 crashed off the coast of Long Island.

But this story isn’t about the crash. Not completely.

This is a story about two high school seniors living very different lives, who share one connection: they both lost parents on that fateful flight.

Slowly, letters bridge the gap between California and Pennsylvania as Ruby Kaminski and Brett Pratt find a way to remember the past while looking toward the future.

This is a story about hope, paper planes, and the other things they lost.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

FACEBOOK ~ WEBSITE ~  TWITTER

INSTAGRAM ~ PINTEREST 

Michele writes novels with fairytale love for everyday life. Romance is always central to her plots where the genres range from Coming of Age Fantasy and Drama to New Adult Romantic Suspense.

Having grown up in both the cold, quiet town of Topsham, Maine and the steamy, southern hospitality of Mobile, Alabama, Michele is something of an enigma. She is an avid Yankees fan, loves New England, being outdoors and misses snow. However she thinks southern boys are hotter, Alabama football is the only REAL football out there and sweet tea is the best thing this side of heaven and her children's laughter! 

Her family, an amazing husband and three awesome kids, have planted their roots in the middle of Michele's two childhood homes in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

FACBOOK ~ WEBSITE ~ TWITTER 

INSTAGRAM ~ PINTEREST

Mindy is the author of the YA Fantasy, The Faylinn Novels and Contemporary Romance, The Willowhaven Series. Currently, she's working on the Coming of Age Romance, The Day That Saved Us.

She is the youngest of six children and grew up in San Diego, California. After attending Brigham Young University-Idaho, Mindy discovered her passion for reading and writing. Mindy and her husband have been married for eight years and live in Summerville, South Carolina.

Your Mid-Week Update for 04/13/16

Spatial awareness, Heather, it’s not that difficult. I know from experience that you have mastered the art of walking and talking, and eating, ad chewing gum; why are you having so much trouble this week?

She’s been clumsy and distant for the last two days.

Monday morning, she came in late to work and spouted some excuse about getting tied up on the phone. And on six separate occasions, she missed a phone call coming in from a client which meant I was in deep shit because everything Heather does is my responsibility ever since we both got promoted and she became my personal assistant. And then yesterday, she spilled coffee on herself, she spilled hot tea on another co-worker who had to be treated for minor first degree burns – we’re having a chat with the provider of the scalding tea, that one’s not entirely her fault. And at the end of tax season, my personal assistant nearly shredded all the employee expense reports because she “zoned out”.  I sent her home after that.

I swear I don’t know where her head is this week.

Heather has a lot of faults, most of them involving her personality, but I’ve come to know her very well. I would almost call her a friend, when I’m not calling her a gossiping bitch. But through it all Heather is a hard worker and she’s good at her job. If she’s making mistakes like this, something is wrong.

I can’t imagine her being this inept and unruly of her own volition.

Though she’s not the only who’s been having this problem at work lately.

Fucking Kyle.

He’s a new intern who doesn’t know how to stand still. Every time I look out, he is standing over someone’s desk, trying to strike up a conversation while everyone else is working. I understand that he’s trying to get to know the lay of the land and meet his co-workers but he is very distracting and very spacey. I usually think it’s fine; but seriously, I am pushing a loud, metal cart around the office – because I pull my own weight at work, Rick – and you get mad at me when you run into my cart? That’s not how that works. He actually gave me a dirty look and scolded me when he took a tight left turn and I stopped before I ran over his foot. First of all, I’m your superior by far, and second of all, you don’t get to walk around with that entitled attitude; that’s what we keep Heather around for.

I’ve been jumping between voices today, that’s really weird. I don’t usually do it this much. I suppose I’m feeling especially confrontational today.

Anyways, snot-nosed interns are particularly annoying this week because I’m so worried about Heather.

Honestly, though, you must hear me coming around the corner. My cart is loud, and the floors are cracked – because nothing in this building has been updated since the 80s, it’s always freezing – and yet you blame me because you weren’t paying attention.

It’s the same problem I have with pedestrians: You had to know I was coming; this is not my fault.

That boy is going to get what’s coming to him.

I know better than to kill where I work – I learned my lesson the hard way – but you can bet I took my frustrations out on an unsuspecting pedestrian on my way home. It was…temporary relief.

I don’t know if I’ve talked about my conflicting feelings over vehicular homicide. On the one hand, I hate the anonymity, but on the other hand, I love keeping my hands clean. But this week, I’m craving blood. I admit, I love the sound of bones crunching under my tires but today, I want the squelch of blood between my fingers. If Kyle does one more thing to get on my nerves this week, there will be a blood bath.

I wonder if it would calm him down to see a relative die. I’ll let you know next week, whether or not this little experiment worked.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Your Mid-Week Update for 04/06/16

Eight years. James and I have been married for eight glorious years and I am so happy that I remembered. It is just so refreshing to be on even ground with my husband on a momentous occasion like a holiday or anniversary. Last night was the first normal holiday we’ve had in recent memory and I just loved it. He booked the night off work and I made sure Jason was out for as long as possible so we had our privacy.

We ordered in Chinese, and watched some procedural rerun while we laughed at the inaccuracies – one of these days I’ll have to do a tutorial on proper crime scene processing. It is nothing like what you see on TV. I understand why writers and networks like to sensationalize the most mundane of tasks but I think it takes away for the people who actually know what’s going on. It certainly weeds out the people who watch a few episodes of Dexter and think they can do what I do.

Fucking Dexter. No! I won’t talk about it again – you all remember my rant.

Anyways, dinner with my husband was lovely, we had a nice relaxing evening. We cuddled on the couch like we were teenagers, pretending like we were trying really hard to hide our crush. I’ve always really enjoyed the quiet moments with James. I’ve discovered over the years that he and I have a very strong effect on each other – as if that weren’t already obvious. When we fight, we fight; when we love, we love. In a strange way I think we can calm each other. He can be impulsive, sometimes more than me, and his temper is a sight to behold. It’s not crazy or violent, it’s just loud. And opinionated. When he decides something, there is no changing his mind. In a similar way he keeps me in check. I don’t always think with my head and he has this ability to think of the big picture and keep calm in emotional situations – even if his opinion is the only thing you hear. When we find a moment where we are both calm and quiet, it is a thing of beauty; at least to me.

I was enjoying a nice relaxing evening at home when my husband suddenly leaned over and whispered that he had a surprise for me. He tied a scarf around my eyes and we got into the kitchen before he got tired of leading me and let me squint the rest of the way. I do not like to be blindfolded, even by the person I trust most in the world. It’s this thing I have with control. If you’re going to surprise me, at least let me use all my senses. He led me into the garage where I was treated to a gorgeous anniversary present. Actually it was a two-part gift.

It started with him presenting a beautiful bronze-handled letter opener that he wanted me to keep in my purse – I just thought that was so sweet. And then, tied to a chair in the middle of the room, was a woman I had wanted to kill, it must have been, three years ago. She came to the door wanting to sell me something or spread the good word or some shit and I was having none of it. I wasn’t in the mood and she was pissing me off so I tried to lure her inside but she got away. I remember being so pissed off that I ranted for an hour over the phone while James was working late. I just needed someone to talk to; I didn’t think he’d been listening.

But he tracked her down and invited me to release any tension I needed to. He wanted me to do it slowly so he could watch. I’m getting shivers just remembering it – although it may also be a chill, I haven’t slept today. It was a long night.

I started with her fingernails, softening and pulling them one by one. It doesn’t create much mess but it involves quite a bit of pain. I also love pulling fingernails because it creates a very specific motive for the police to follow. It looks like I was torturing her for revenge or information when really I was doing it for the pleasure it brings me in life. Once she was down to her one pinkie nail, I went on to bigger areas. I grabbed a hammer from the tool shelf – the most popular hammer at Home Depot, difficult to trace because of its sales records – and I started swinging. It took me an hour to smash both her ankles and wrists as well as her right elbow because I kept stealing kisses from James.

Then I turned the tables on him and told him to take a turn. That man is a natural. Not as creative as I am but still so handy with a blade. I think he may have been premature in slicing through her stomach so her intestines spilled out; but I am jittery just thinking of him and that blade, tearing through flesh with the same curious light in his eyes that I had when I first started. James does his fair share of grunt work around crime scenes but the majority of it happens when the body’s gone and all that’s left is to interview witnesses and guard the yellow tape. He doesn’t deal with death as often as even I assumed. This is his second time killing with me and that’s it. I think, for a lot of people, that is too many dead bodies but I am actually astounded that the body count it so low. Nine years with me and that’s all he has to show for it.

He isn’t-

I’m not-

I don’t want him to become a killer but I just hadn’t thought of the numbers. I’m speechless.

Cleanup took longer than expected and by the time we were completely finished, it was 5am. I figured I would write this update and then take a nap before getting ready for work but the less sleep I get, the more blurry my vision gets while staring at this bright, white screen.

But we made it!

It was a fantastic anniversary and I can’t wait until I do something other than a slightly-kinky sex act as a gift for the occasion. I really need to get more creative; my husband is showing me up.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Review of Negative Space

I was very eager to pick up Negative Space by Mike Robinson as the first book in this series (Green Eyed Monster) was the very first book I ever reviewed on this blog. That also means I haven’t been in this world since 2012 which would be disconcerting but there is something so wonderful about a nonlinear series like this. You get to see hints and moments of the other books without feeling lost if you haven’t read them.

Max Higgins, a provocative Los Angeles painter is on the verge of local fame. The secret to his work’s haunting allure? He collects photos of missing persons and incorporates them into his paintings, giving the often melancholy faces, as he puts it, a “home in his work.”

This fascination stems from the bizarre disappearances of people he knew growing up, including his father. Then, one day, someone recognizes a face in one of his paintings, and he is suddenly thrust into a journey as surreal as anything given life by his brush, a journey that will take Max into his past and will irrevocably set his future.

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