It’s the weekend, and begging freaking works!
Hope your weekend goes well! All chapters are with the beta crew and we hope to have KNEEL OR DIE out within 72 hours at the outside! Here are chapters 1-3 to help tied you over (or get you ready!)
Michael
UNDER MY HEEL, clip 02
Washington D.C. – USA
Mary woke up slowly, held in a woman’s arms. Her memory a little foggy, she opened her eyes to look up … to look up into a face of an angel, someone who shouldn’t be here, holding her right now.
“Bethany Anne?” Mary reached up to touch Bethany Anne’s face, a compassionate smile looking down at Mary. Tear streaks running down her face. She still looked beautiful.
“Yes, it’s me Mary. I’ve come to pay Martin the respect he was due. I didn’t want to speak to him until I had taken care of those responsible for his death.”
Mary looked around her, there were six new people on the other side of the gravesite. Four men, two other beautiful women. The two men she had seem before were still scanning the area, definitely protection. The other men and the two women were looking at her.
“Can you stand?” Bethany Anne asked her.
She nodded. She felt a little woozy, but with Bethany Anne’s help she got her feet back under her again. Bethany Anne kept her arm around her shoulders, enabling her to lean against Bethany Anne’s body.
Mary’s mind caught up to what Bethany Anne had said, “You took care of who? Who was responsible for Martin’s death?” read more…
And so we start UNDER MY HEEL…
Mary Brennan was silently suffering. Her husband, Martin had been killed many, many months before, in the basement parking garage of his office building.
It had been a gruesome and painful death. Oh, Martin’s second in command Brandin had tried to hide the truth from her, in the beginning to save her pain she was sure. However, you don’t stay the spouse of a government intelligence group member without learning a few tricks of your own. She had the autopsy report, she knew her husband had died in pain. More pain than she would allow herself to consider.
Martin had been her rock. The man she was going to live the rest of her life with. They had plans to retire, to a beach or at least, some place warm. She loved the coast, but it was still too cold and miserable too much of the year for her preference. Martin had promised her … he had promised her. Now, she had no way to track down who had killed him or why.
She finished putting on her makeup like she did three times each week. Every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday she would get ready to visit Martin. She would prepare the one rose she had picked out the night before from the corner market and get into her eight-year-old Mercedes Benz. Like Martin, the car was her rock, dutifully getting her from place to place.
She wiped a tear from her eye as she picked up the rose and left for her drive to the cemetery.
It took her twenty-two minutes exactly. She had timed every trip. She left at 8:15 AM every time and arrived at 8:37 AM. Occasionally she would be a couple of minutes late if she got behind someone slow but you could usually set your clock by her punctuality.
She parked in the same spot for every visit. If it had snowed, the parking spot would have been helpfully cleared by the caretakers. Those same caretakers had noticed her arrival every week, month after month.
Reaching over to the passenger’s seat, she picked up this morning’s rose.
The morning was crisp and cool, all of the sounds muted on this side of the cemetery. Rarely, if ever, did she meet anyone as she walked around the path between the bushes which separated different areas.
She came around the final turn and looked up the lonely little hill towards Martin’s gravestone and stopped in her tracks. Martin wasn’t alone. read more…
TOM Listens to an Audible Book 😉
AN EVENING OFF
** As a reviewer has mentioned, Bethany Anne has no issues with cursing, just uninspired cursing. **
Bethany Anne finally had a few hours to herself and was standing in front of her suite’s TV.
Why don’t you have a coven?
Excuse me?
I asked, why don’t you have a coven?
Bethany Anne was nonplussed. She had been looking through the DVD’s that Ecaterina had ordered for her. She had expected to watch a little more Star Trek, or maybe Star Wars (four through six, she didn’t want to ruin the story for TOM right off the bat).
What the hell are you talking about?
Well, and don’t get upset with the kitchen crew…
Stop right there.
Gott Verdammt! She had already decreed they weren’t supposed to watch bullshit TV up in the kitchen because TOM could hear it, and then he got ideas. Usually annoying ideas he would pull out and ask her about at the most fucked up inopportune times.
Like right now.
When did they do this thing which I’m not supposed to get upset with them for?
Possibly over the last few days…
Bethany Anne sighed. That meant she would have to throw every fucking one of the kitchen help off the Polarus… preferably while they were underway. Dammit, that wasn’t going to work. Bethany Anne didn’t require food, but she did enjoy it and tossing off the whole group was, perhaps, a little much. Well, depending on what TOM had to discuss.
What happened? What were they watching?
They weren’t watching anything, they were listening.
Ok, what were they listening to?
A book.
Bethany Anne was getting frustrated, not an unusual occurrence when trying to pull information out of TOM. She rubbed her face.
Does this book have a name?
Yes.
What is it?
Bill the Vampire.
Bethany Anne searched her memory, nope. She didn’t remember any vampire books with ‘Bill’ in the name.
Who is the author?
Rick Gualtieri.
Another nope. Anne Rice, check. Bram Stoker, of course. Hell, she had even heard of Stephanie Meyer and Jim Butcher but not a ‘Rick’ in the bunch.
And I take it this book had vampires who were in covens, correct?
Yes.
She was making headway.
Did the vampires sparkle?
Don’t be ridiculous, but they did go up in a big ball of flame if you staked them.
Damn, that would be un-fucking-believable if that only worked in real life. Maybe she should see if she could find the Blade Trilogy to watch with TOM.
Beautiful ladies, handsome men cavorting all around?
Ah, no. Bill is slightly overweight and is a closet nerd and swears as much as you do, perhaps not as creatively, but parental guidance is suggested.
So why didn’t you get permission from me to listen to the book? read more…
Status on Love Lost – The Kurtherian Gambit 03
The third book in The Kurtherian Gambit series is moving along and about a third complete for the first draft. At this pace, I hope to have the draft complete by the 27th (not sure what will happen around Thanksgiving for writing time).
Assuming no major business interactions etc. etc. (read this as If nothing in life causes a problem) I’ll be releasing the book by Dec 7th. Possibly as early as the end of November. That would be VERY cool as I would then have released the first three in one month. Once the third book hits, I’ll probably spend some time working on the marketing of the series as I start the fourth book. This will, of course, mean the fourth book gets written a little slower.
So far, the series is being read in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Australia (based on the currency of my income from the sales). I want to find a way to get the books translated but I feel pretty confident that the cost is too prohibitive at this time. I hope you are enjoying the series as much as I am enjoying writing them.
Check out the Facebook page (link in the books) for almost daily updates. Take care! Michael
Queen Bitch Released!
The latest release of The Kurtherian Gambit Series, Queen Bitch, has been released! It is available exclusively on Amazon for the next 90 days. I really appreciate the reviews for Death Becomes Her and I hope everyone likes the next installment.
In this book, Bethany Anne needs to finish up with Stephen, Petre’s maker and get back to America where the Forsaken have been killing agents too easily. Nathan comes back to help Gerry figure out how to quell some young Were’s who are chaffing under the Strictures Michael put in place.
Free for Kindle Unlimited and Lending library. Only $2.99 for those who purchase!
New Cover for Queen Bitch
Ok, the first cover was a dud. I had it up on the Facebook Fan page for maybe 5 minutes before taking it down. I don’t think there is a digital copy anywhere.
Here is the latest version of the cover for The Kurtherian Gambit 02 – Queen Bitch.
Update on Queen Bitch
Bethany Anne is back, and she has a lot to do! This new story follows Bethany Anne back to America where she gets to meet new people, create new alliances and take care of freaking business! If you aren’t a fan of cursing, this book will not be for you. Bethany Anne has a foul mouth and finds cursing to be hilarious. She uses it to get a couple of uptight agents to finally loosen up.
The second in The Kurtherian Gambit series, Queen BItch will be finished before the end of November, 2015. It took me 1 year to get the first book written (read the previous post). It took me one week to get the second book written. Now, I have to do the editing and that takes a while. I can’t tell you the respect I have for writers now. I swear I type one thing and when I go back, it has been changed.
It sometimes feels like instead of typing, I’m dictating to SIRI.
“SIRI, I…” You know what? I’d better not. This is a public forum.
Get the book, read the book. I hope you enjoy reading it and continuing the adventures of one Bad-Ass Lady and the friends she is starting to make.
Update on Death Becomes Her.
If you read all of the suggestions on how to become an overnight success on Amazon, you will be working to prepare the world for the birth of your book more than you will be writing your book.
I didn’t do any of that (I wasn’t even sure I was finishing the first book until the last two weeks). I was wholly unprepared for making ANYTHING happen. After reading the suggestions and how-to’s for becoming a successful writer I decided I would try to get out my first three books before making a hard push, certainly the second book for sure. I wasn’t sure how this KDP stuff worked and I wanted to figure it out.
Death Becomes Her took a year to write. Not because I spent a year, but rather because I wrote for a week and basically stuck it in the digital drawer for a few months. Took it out, read it and wrote a little. You get the picture.
Finally, I decided to really finish the book and downloaded Scrivener which was instrumental in helping me finish the book. It is amazing. It took less than two weeks to finish the book after getting Scrivener and ‘just getting it done’.
Now, less than one week after ‘just releasing it.’, I have 7 sales (US, Canada, Great Britain) and over 7,700 KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages). I have two stalwart individuals who have signed up for my email list. Check it out here: (http://kurtherianbooks.com/email-list/). A working Facebook page where I keep up with the status of the next book and plug the research I’m doing (I guarantee you won’t see too many Author pages with both Military Helicopters and the Top Women’s Shoes Designers). The Facebook page is here, check it out: (https://www.facebook.com/TheKurtherianGambitBooks/).
Personally? I’m enthusiastic! I believe we live in the time of the creatives. Long Live Creativity!