Excerpt of Hit by Mallory Hart

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Your Midweek Update for 11/24/21

I refuse to admit that I’m getting old but my body is absolutely breaking down. Hips and back and knees – my fucking knees. I am still not at 100% since my kneecap decided to shatter into a million pieces. I’m still going to physio once a week and I have exercises to do at home, for which my husband rewards me every night. And sometimes, everything just hurts. I’m just sore and tired and it makes me worry about the future.

I don’t think there’s a day when I make the choice to retire and yet, I can’t safely continue killing the way I have as a grow older. What? Am I going to be an old lady in a retiring home secretly cutting people’s oxygen tanks?

Actually I can see myself doing that. James and I with our matching walkers, just strolling through the care centre being the cute couple that no one suspects. And yes: James is in every one of my visions for the future. That’s not up for debate.

What is up for debate is when I actually throw in the towel on this murder thing.

I don’t want to. And want to stay this way forever, just killing people, and having sex with my husband, and teaching my daughter to be just like me but better.

At killing people. Not having… grammar is hard!

The point is: I want things to stay the same but my body is a constant reminder that it can’t. And that sucks. Even as I sit and type, my back is killing me and my knee is throbbing. It’s becoming clearer to me more than ever, that I have to choose when to stop before my body stops me.

That doesn’t mean I stop killing – I don’t think I ever can – but it means I can’t keep going out at night, chasing down victims, killing without premeditation. It can’t just be for fun any more because there’s too many unknown variables. I can’t take that risk.

Fuck.

I can’t imagine not being able to do what I love anymore. Choosing to stop or choosing to change keeps me in control. That’s best I can do when I feel like my very being is breaking down.

I honestly don’t know what this change will look like but I know I can’t keep going like this forever. And I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself too much but I just…

I’m sad.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Author Sara Snow's 5 Favourite Movies

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Jo Visuri's Top 5 Book Recommendations

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THE UNDISCOVERED DESCENDANTS  by Jo Visuri Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

Your Midweek Update for 11/17/21

I was thinking about someone I killed the other day. That doesn’t happen very often. I know I used to write down their names – and I regret how long it took me to come to my senses and burn those books – but I rarely go back and reflect on them. They’re usually just numbers, faces. The thing I remember most is the kill.

The squish of their organs in my hand, the echo of their pleas for mercy, the taste of their blood on my lips when I kiss my husband good night. Those are the memories that stay with me. I don’t care about the people – I hope I’ve made that clear over the years – so why would I think about them?

Honestly, it wasn’t even about them, I’m just surprised that I was thinking of someone at all.

A few years ago, Charlotte Westburn blackmailed me into murdering a politician. I swore I would never be a murder for hire. I would never waste my talents working for someone else’s agenda. And yet…

That entire affair feels like an entire lifetime ago. I was a different person – at least I hope I was.

That woman felt like her entire life was out of control.

You know sometimes I get distracted? I’ll be in the middle of writing and my mind will just wander away. I was just trying to remember if I ever used female pronouns when talking about myself. I must have, right? In all these years of writing to you, I must have mentioned that I was a woman. I’m certain I have and yet, I couldn’t say for certain. Or maybe you all just assumed because I talked about my husband and about being a mother to my sister’s children (which is some heteronormative bullshit, let me just say… but I do it, too) but I am. A woman. I have a husband whom I love, and a child that I try to be a mother for. Not a good mother, even, just better. I deal with all the societal and health-related bullshit that comes with having tits and a vagina.

And on top of that, I kill people. And I take advantage of the fact that I am a woman and some people will naturally not see me as a threat in order to get close to them and end their lives.

I know I’ve talked about being a woman before because I have definitely talked about taking advantage of the system that is designed to oppress me. That is definitely a conversation we’ve had.

I felt that being an assassin was a way of taking away the power I struggle to hold on to in a male-dominant lifestyle. I wasn’t going to do it because after all the things I’ve been through to overcome my addictions and my helplessness, I wouldn’t willingly go back to that life – no matter how sexy it looks on TV.

And then Charlotte, a woman I thought was my friend, took that away from me. And it doesn’t matter that she’s dead now, it doesn’t erase the way I felt when this monster I’d unwittingly created came back to hurt me.

I’m sick of ghosts coming back to haunt me. I don’t want to remember the victims. I don’t want to remember the friends who have hurt me. I just want to forget.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe 

Your Midweek Update for 11/10/21

I could lie and say I had some incredibly dramatic reason why I didn’t update last week. Maybe I broke another limb (which at my age - fuck I hate that phrase - could be deadly). Maybe the police finally found that toe I left in the planter outside the local station as an April Fool’s joke. Maybe I finally did away with my mother after all the shit she pulled on me and my sister. Maybe I finally heard from my sister and had to make an emergency trip out of the country to bring her her favourite sweater. 

Truth is: I slept in and didn’t feel like writing the update. 

It’s hard some days. I know I’ve talked about this before. Sharing every part of my life on a regular basis can take its toll on anyone and I am far from anyone. And sometimes… I just don’t feel like writing.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to talk about. My fucking mother still takes no responsibility for calling Social Services on her daughter. I suppose that’s better than calling the police but she already did that and it gained her nothing. As far as I know, Sandra and Jason never forgave their grandparents. And now Casey won’t either. 

I don’t understand what she hopes to accomplish by punishing her family. We are meant to protect one another. There are so many horrible people in the world and children - my children especially because I am inherently selfish and cruel - deserve a safe haven. We are meant to be that safe place for them but this is just a stark reminder that I have failed yet again. 

Except this time, I will ensure that my daughter is protected from those who would hurt her. She will not become disillusioned to me or the life I lead. And she will not get buried in it. 

I’m including her in kills as much as I can. She’s proficient - she was good long before I met her but under my tutelage, she is great - and she understands the importance of controlling her impulses. Since those first months, she hasn’t gone out “hunting” without telling one of us first. Sometimes, James and I need our alone time so there’s never any guarantee that she’s not taking off and killing on her own but I choose to trust her. 

The more I trust and the more I include her, the better off we’ll both be. It’s hard to fight the instinct to hold on too tight sometimes but look who I had as a role model: the woman who wants to grip her family so tightly she crushes bone. 

And I’ve tried to crush bone with my bare hands. It’s fucking impossible.

I know we try to be the opposite of our parents and most of us will inevitably become just like them but I hope to god I never become my mother. I never want to hurt my daughter the way she’s hurt hers. 

See… 

Always something to talk about.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe

Book Playlist for They Stay by Claire Fraise

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Dream Cast for Luna Rising by Sara Snow

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Excerpt of Behind the Veil by E.J. Dawson

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