Monday with Dorien Grey

I'm pleased to bring you Calico, another outstanding Dorien Grey novel. Calico is a western/adventure/mystery/romance with a twist, and a strong YA appeal.

CALICO
Dorien Grey
ISBN
Print 978-1-934135-33-4
Electronic 1-934135-33-X
Zumaya Publications

BUY LINKS
Amazon Paperback
Barnes & Noble NOOK

Death, danger — and unexpected love.

BLURB:
Cowboy Calico Ramsay finds himself responsible for safely escorting Josh and Sarah, a pair of city-raised twins, through the many dangers of the 1880s' wild west. Along the way he must keep himself and his charges ahead of four mysterious men who are out to kill them for reasons he cannot imagine. And through it all, he must deal with the growing and mutual attraction to young Josh.

EXCERPT:
They set up camp in a small clearing between the town and the wagon train. After unsaddling the horses, Calico set up the campfire after urging Josh and Sarah to wander down to the train in search of young people their own age. Josh made it clear that he would just have soon have remained with Calico at the campsite. But Calico was well aware that, other than for himself, the twins had had no other company since leaving Hutchinson. Perhaps, he told himself, much of what he perceived to be going on between himself and Josh was largely his own imagination responding to Josh's natural need for male companionship.

Josh returned alone shortly before sunset.

"Where's Sarah?" Calico asked.

"She's at the wagon train, with one of the families," Josh replied. "They've got a son just a little older than us."

"What about girls?" Calico asked. "Wasn't there any girls there your age?"

"None that I saw, except one, and she was married and had a baby. But, then, I wasn't looking for girls," Josh said dismissively. Looking for a reaction from Calico and receiving none, Josh unkered down beside Calico at the fire. "Sarah wants to know if it’s okay if she stays to supper with that farmer and his folks."

Calico shrugged. "Sure, it's okay with me. Didn't they ask you to stay, too?"

Josh stared into the fire, picking up a stick to push a few unburned pieces of wood into the flames. "Yeah," he said without looking up, "but I said I had to get back. I'd rather be here with you.

Calico remained silent a moment, filled once again with the sense of a developing relationship in some ways like his own relationship with Uncle Dan, yet in other ways far, far different. He wasn't sure he was ready for it.

"Well," he said, reaching into the saddlebags for food, "we might as well have our supper right now. Then later on, you go back to the train an’ fetch Sarah. Close as it is, I don't want her walkin' back here alone."

While they ate, Josh pried Calico with questions about life on the range, about ranching, raising cattle, dangers commonly encountered, and a myriad of other subjects of interest to a city boy suddenly thrust into a new and, to him, adventure-filled lifestyle. Throughout their talk, though, Calico detected that Josh had something else on his mind.

Finally, after a slight pause in the conversation, Josh said "What do you think of me, Calico?"

Caught completely by surprise, Calico was at a loss for words. After a moment, he said "I’m not sure what you mean, boy?"

Josh was staring at him, and it made Calico once again both nervous and...he couldn't pin it down, but the sensation was warm, and good, and like he'd never felt before.

"That's just it: 'boy.' You think I'm still a boy, don't you?" Josh asked. Calico started to speak, not having any idea at all what he was going to say, and was grateful when Josh continued. "You think I'm a kid who isn't old enough to know what I want."

Calico felt, in his gut, that he knew exactly what Josh was getting at.

"I do know what I want, Calico. I've known what I wanted since I was six years old. It's not a something I'll grow out of. It's not something I've ever been ashamed of, or feel I have to be ashamed of. It's who I am―who I've always been and who I'll always be. I said I always knew what I wanted, but I never found it until…” he paused, staring at the fire, then raised his eyes up to look into Calico’s, who had been watching him at him intently, unable to take his eyes off the young man.

“Somehow,” Josh continued, forcing himself to keep eye contact with Calico, “I've felt since the day you met us at the train station that you understood that. Sarah thinks so too. If we didn't, I couldn't be talking to you now. You do know what I'm talking about, don't you, Calico?"

Calico felt almost dizzy; he was flooded with feelings that were both familiar to him and yet at the same time, alien. He realized they had been with him all his life, but which he had never fully acknowledged before. He nodded.

“Yeah, I think I know, Josh."

"Did you ever…do you...feel the same way, Calico?"

Calico sighed deeply, a little embarrassed at the thought that even Sarah had apparently seen something in him that he had not fully acknowledged himself. "Yeah, Josh," he said finally, "I guess just about everything you said's pretty much the same fer me, 'cept you're a lot more aware of it than I been. I always just figgered I was different'n most men. Not that it ever bothered me much, or that I ever thought there was anythingwrong with it, but feelin's are kind o' private out here―folks, ‘specially men, don't show 'em all that much. So 'til you come along, I just sort o' kept everythin' inside. I gotta tell ‘ya it feels kind o' funny puttin' words to things I never spoke out loud about before in my whole life."

They sat in silence a long minute, Calico staring at the fire, trying to sort out the flood of feelings washing through him.

Finally, Josh spoke again. "You think there might be a chance, Calico?"

Calico looked up from the fire, thinking but again not quite sure he knew exactly
what Josh meant. "A chance?"

"For...for you and me," Josh said quietly.

Calico ran one hand over his face and thought another long moment before replying. "You sure do know how to bowl a man over, bo...Josh," he said with a weak grin. "I'd be lyin’ if I didn’t say that a big a part o' me wants t' say 'yes' . But out here, the law means a lot to decent folks, and by the law, you’re still a kid.”

Josh nodded. “I know. And by the law I’ll be an adult in a little over a week and
nothing will have changed except that I’ll be at Aunt Rebecca’s and you’ll be somewhere between there and your ranch and we might never see each other again.”

The thought of never seeing Josh again had been in the back of Calico’s mind long before the conversation they were now having but, like so many things actually being spoken about for the first time in his life, the impact of the thought only now surfaced.

Calico said nothing for a moment, then sighed deeply. “We're talkin' about somethin' that’s mighty hard f’r me t’ find words for, Josh. I thought about it a lot, I guess, an’ I guess it’s somethin’ I wanted all my life, too. And what you say is true about your just about bein’ an adult in the eyes of the law. But we only knowed each other less than two weeks, an' much as an adult's you might be already, you still got a lot o' livin' t' do." He smiled and raised his hand to forestall Josh's objections. "If there's one thing I learned, it's that it's lots better t' grow int'a somethin' than t' jump int'a it."

"But we'll be at Aunt Rebecca’s soon, and you'll be leaving us there!" Josh said.

"True enough," Calico said "An' that'll give ya' time t' think. I got nine years on you, Josh. I never put words t’ it before, but I think I been waitin' all this time, too. So I reckon I can wait a while longer. I just want you t' have the time t' be sure you know that what ya' really want is what ya' think ya' want now. You understand me?"

Eyes downcast, Josh nodded.

“An’ one more thing…’bout me callin’ you ‘boy’ so much. My Uncle Dan called me ‘boy’ right up t’ the day he died, an’ I know he didn’t mean no disrespect by it. I think I know now it was his way a lettin’ me know that he cared about me.” Calico stirred the fire with a stick, then looked into Josh’s face. “You just keep that in mind if I should call you ‘boy’ again sometime.”

Watch the video trailer for Calico HERE. To read the entire first chapter on Dorien's website, please click HERE.

BUY LINKS
Amazon Paperback
Barnes & Noble NOOK

Dorien Grey is the author of two popular mystery series―the 14-book Dick Hardesty series and the 4-book Elliott Smith series.

Learn more about Dorien Grey on his website and blog.

I'll be back Wednesday with a new menu. Until then...

Happy Reading!

Sloane Taylor
Twitter
Amazon Author Page

THE ANGEL SINGERS

If it is possible to have a split personality without being schizophrenic, Dorien Grey qualifies. When long-time book and magazine editor Roger Margason chose the pseudonym “Dorien Grey” for his first book, it set off a chain of circumstances which has led to the comfortable division of labor and responsibility. Roger has charge of day-to-day existence, freeing Dorien—with the help of Roger’s fingers—to write. It has reached the point where Roger merely sits back and reads the stories Dorien brings forth on the computer screen.

One such intriguing book is The Angel Singers which you'll enjoy reading again and again.

THE ANGEL SINGERS
Book #12 of the Dick Hardesty Mystery Series
Dorien Grey
ISBN 978-1-934841-06-8
Zumaya Boundless



All Dorien Grey's novels are available in or on order from any bookstore or on-line from AMAZON.

BLURB:
Take a group of men who love to sing, a devoted director, a wealthy backer, a lot of individual talent, clashing egos, and an upcoming concert. Throw in the backer's "protege," a five-year-old boy, a harried private detective, and a car bomb and...welcome to the maze.

EXCERPT:
Over the course of the weeks, I got to know not only something of how a chorus was made up, but a few through-Jonathan’s-eyes glimpses into what went on behind the scenes.

The night of Jonathan’s first rehearsal Roger Rothenberger, the chorus’s director, had, as he did with all new members, assigned him a “Buddy,” to help ease his way into the organization; introduce him around, show him the ropes, and explain and answer questions on procedures. Jonathan’s Buddy was a kid named Eric Speers, and the two of them hit it off immediately. So when Jonathan suggested inviting Eric over for dinner, I readily agreed. I was curious to meet him, and figured it would give me a little better insight into this new part of Jonathan’s life. He had indicated that Eric had been with the chorus since it had begun five years previously, and was deeply devoted to and involved in it. He was also the peacemaker of the group, which was apparently, as are most groups, both tight-knit and contentious.

It was inevitable that whenever you get 50 or so artistic gay men together, the road was not without its bumpy stretches. There were the inevitable cliques, feuds, and rivalries that afflict any group of humans, and Jonathan always brought home a doggie bag of the latest bits of gossip he’d heard at rehearsals. I’ve never gone in much for gossip, but Jonathan got such a kick out of observing all the various behind-the-risers intrigues and took such delight in sharing them with me that I couldn’t complain. It was rather like watching one of those guilty-pleasure soap operas on TV, although the cast members of the chorus dramas were not all as drop-dead gorgeous as their on-screen counterparts. There were even a few hush-hush allusions to a conflict between Rothenberger and Crandall Booth, and to Booth’s alleged financial ties to some rather shady types. I didn’t give any weight to the latter, since I knew that Glen O’Banyon, the city’s preeminent gay lawyer, for whom I frequently did work, was also a member of the chorus’s board, and if there were any solid basis to the allegations, Glen would not be associated with Booth in any way.

Rothenberger, Jonathan had told me, had been born and raised here, then moved to New York and started singing with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and became an assistant director. He’d then gone on to direct one or two other groups before moving back here. In addition to the Gay Men’s Chorus, he also directed the choir at the M.C.C. I’d seen him at the chorus’s last concert—the one that had prompted Jonathan to want to join. Rothenberger had reminded me of an opera star; portly to the point of being rotund, full beard, somewhat imperious manner; in absolute control when it came to leading the chorus. Jonathan reported that Rothenberger’s mantra at every rehearsal and before every concert was: “Remember; when you talk, you’re human. When you sing, you’re angels,” and everyone in the chorus apparently thought the world of him.

The most recent tempest in the choral teapot was created by a member who joined not too long before Jonathan, and who happened to be Crandall Booth’s nephew. There’s nothing like a little nepotism to get things heated up, and the controversy was compounded by the nephew, Grant Jefferson, apparently being something of a pain in the ass. Jonathan, of course, always prefers to see the good in everyone, but even he found it a little difficult to find much positive to say about Grant. “He’s really good looking,” he conceded, “and he does have a nice voice,” which, coming from Jonathan, I took to be something of a case of damning with faint praise.

Possibly another reason why I allowed myself to be vicariously caught up on the goings on of the chorus was that my work, while fairly steady, had lately tended to be far less than the stuff of which detective novels are made. For the past two weeks or so I had been caught up in a “case”…if it could even be called that…so stupifyingly dull I’d have much preferred to watch paint dry. Suffice it to say it involved a client with more money than intelligence who was on a vendetta against a former business partner and wasn’t going to let a little thing like his case not having a leg to stand on get in his way. I finally gave up trying to convince him that he was wasting his money, and resigned myself to the conclusion that if he was going to throw his money away, he might as well throw some of it at me. So I spent an inordinate amount of time running off in whatever new direction he pointed me. I could and should have quit; however, my mantra was: “It isn’t the principle of the thing, it’s the money.”

All Dorien Grey's novels are available in or on order from any bookstore or on-line from AMAZON.

Learn more about Dorien Grey and his excellent books on his website and his blog. For further insight into this remarkable author, check out his photolife.

I'll be back tomorrow to announce the winners from my newsletter contest. Until then...

Happy Reading!

Sloane Taylor
Sweet as Honey...Hotter than Hell
www.sloanetaylor.com

IN THE MAINSTREAM

is where you'll find Dorien Grey and his stellar novels. A masterful writer, Dorien created P.I. Dick Hardesty and a series was born. The book we featured today, THE NINTH MAN is another excellent addition to the long line of critically acclaimed and best-selling novels by Dorien Grey.

THE NINTH MAN
Dorien Grey
ISBN 1-879194-88-0
GLB Publishing



THE NINTH MAN is available in or on-order from any bookstore. You can also purchase from GLB Publishing or Amazon.

BLURB:
Hired to get find the truth behind the mysterious death of a gay man the homophobic police force has declared a suicide, P.I. Dick Hardesty uncovers a series of similar, seemingly unrelated deaths and sets off to find the common link between them which will lead him to the murderer.

EXCERPT:
“Cigarette?” he asked, leaning across me for an ashtray on the night stand.

“Gave ’em up,” I said, smugly.

“You? Liggett & Myers’ best friend?” He paused to light up. “I’m proud of you. Really. It’s a filthy habit.” And he blew a long stream of smoke into my face.

“You little…” I said, lunging out to tickle him under the arm, which always drove him up the wall. He shrieked and rolled away from me, almost falling off the bed in the process.

“Don’t! Please! I’ll be good! Honest!” he gasped between arias of laughter and frantic flailing trying to fend off my insistent tickling. Finally, fearful that the neighbors might be considering calling the police, I stopped.

Tim lay limp, catching his breath. He took a long drag from his cigarette, which had somehow come through the struggle unscathed, and carefully blew the smoke away from me. After a minute, he plumped up his pillow and scooted himself up on the bed, his back against the headboard.

“Okay, so let’s talk,” he said.

“About what?” I asked.

“About whatever it was you called me about,” he said with a grin.

I duplicated his pillow-plumping and hoisted myself up beside him. “You know I hate to mix business with pleasure, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. So ‘but’ what?”

“Your office had a case recently—you probably don’t remember it with all those stiffs you have coming and going. Mostly going. But this one was kind of different. Young guy named Bobby McDermott; 27.”

Tim muttered something under his breath—it sounded like “Fuck!” —and stared into the ashtray balanced on his stomach.

“What?” I asked.

Tim turned his head and looked at me, strangely, his eyes searching my face. He said nothing.

I felt a twinge of guilt. “Hey, Tim, I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I don’t have any right to butt into your business….”

Tim shrugged and relaxed a little. “It’s okay,” he said, finally. “Yeah, I remember Bobby McDermott. What about him?”

“The police apparently indicated to his lover that he killed himself. Probably poison. His lover swears he was murdered.”

Tim stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray, staring at it and continuing to tamp it long after it was out. “What makes him think that?”

Patience was never one of my greater virtues, and obviously Tim knew something he wasn’t too eager to share with me.

“Come on, Tim! The guy’s 27. Healthy as a horse—hung like one, too, I understand. No apparent problems—unless you count the lover, but that’s another story. Apparently the only thing he was addicted to is sex, and I’ve never heard of anyone fucking themselves to death, have you?” Tim shrugged, avoiding my eyes. “And then the cops ask the lover what he knows about poisons. That strikes me as more than a little strange; they don’t ask about drugs, but poisons.”

Tim pursed his lips, thought a moment, then turned to me with a deep sigh. “Well,” he said, shaking his head, “somebody was bound to catch on, sooner or later.”

“Catch on to what?” I asked, with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“First of all, he didn’t die of drugs; it was poison. Cyanide, to be exact. Apparently inhaled. Secondly, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t suicide.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Apart from the fact that cyanide is a pretty esoteric way for anybody to commit suicide, how would someone like McDermott manage to get hold of it? It’s not impossible to come by, but it’s not exactly a household product. But what really blows a hole in the suicide theory—and a little detail that the cops apparently chose to overlook—is that from what I understand, there was absolutely nothing in the room to indicate how he managed to inhale cyanide. No bottles, vials, inhalers, rags, nothing.”

“Weird,” I said, the butterflies still there.

“It gets weirder when you consider that Bobby McDermott wasn’t the first case we’ve had like it in the past couple weeks. He’s the sixth one.”

BUY LINKS:
GLB Publishing
Amazon

For a greater insight into the "real person" behind Dorien Grey, the curious are invited to check out his website and his various blogs: Dorien Grey and Me and A Life in Photos among them.

There is nothing Dorien loves more than hearing from a reader. If you'd like to contact him, just drop him a note. Replies are guaranteed. Dorien answers all his emails.


I'll be back Friday. Until then...

Happy Writing!

Sloane Taylor
Sweet as Honey...Hotter than Hell
www.sloanetaylor.com

DORIEN GREY - MAN OR MYTH

It is with great pleasure we feature Dorien Grey, an author who weaves a mystery with such cunning you become a major player in his stories.

Here's a little about how Dorien arrived on the publishing scene:

If it is possible to have a split personality without being schizophrenic, Dorien Grey qualifies. When long-time book and magazine editor Roger Margason chose the pseudonym “Dorien Grey” for his first book, it set off a chain of circumstances which has led to the comfortable division of labor and responsibility. Roger has charge of day-to-day existence, freeing Dorien—with the help of Roger’s fingers—to write. It has reached the point where Roger merely sits back and reads the stories Dorien brings forth on the computer screen.

It’s not as though Roger has not had an uninteresting life of his own. Two years into college, he left to join the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Washing out after a year, he spent the rest of his brief military career on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean at the height of the cold war. The journal he kept of his time in the military, in the form of letters home, honed his writing skills and provided him with a wealth of experiences to draw from in his future writing. These letters will be appearing in book form shortly.

Returning to Northern Illinois University after service, he graduated with a B.A. in English, and embarked on a series of jobs which worked him into the editing field. While working for a Los Angeles publishing house, he was instrumental in establishing a division exclusively for the publication of gay paperbacks and magazines, of which he became editor. He moved on to edit a leading L.A. based international gay men's magazine.

Tiring of earthquakes, brush fires, mud slides, and riots, he returned to the Midwest, where Dorien emerged, full-blown, like Venus from the sea. They’ve been inseparable (and interchangeable) ever since.

He, and Dorien of course, moved back to Chicago in 2006, where they now devote full time to writing. After having published thirteen books in the popular Dick Hardesty Mystery series, the western/romance/adventure novel, Calico, and the imminent publication of the third book in his new Elliott Smith Mystery series, he is busily at work on yet another Dick Hardesty mystery.

For a greater insight into the "real person" behind Dorien Grey, the curious are invited to check out his website and his various blogs: Dorien Grey and Me and A Life in Photos among them. You can also catch up with Dorien at the Author's Den.

Now, "The Butcher's Son", a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award:

THE BUTCHER'S SON
Book 1 of the Dick Hardesty Mystery Series
DORIEN GREY
ISBN 978-1-879194-86-1
GLB Publishing

Buy Link: Available, as are all of Dorien's books, at any bookstore or on-line bookseller.



BLURB:
It's not bad enough that Dick Hardesty has a job he hates and a boss from hell. He's suddenly put in the untenable position of helping the wildly homophobic chief of police in a run for governor. Throw the chief's twin sons--one of whom may or may not be dead--, a series of bar fires, and a crumbling 5-year relationship, and you have the ingredients for the tale of The Butcher's Son.

EXCERPT:
It had turned rather cool by the time we reached the street. We made a circle around to the car to drop off the plastic grapes and then turned toward the Dog Collar. I didn’t much care for the place. It was a big, cavernous dump that boasted 4 pool tables and a downstairs “dungeon” for those into group sex. Like a lot of older buildings, it had very high ceilings, which the management had recently tried to make appear lower by stretching some sort of black mesh fabric from wall to wall.

The clientele, as the bar’s name might indicate, was supposedly ultra-butch. I’ve got nothing at all against being butch, mind you—if it’s authentic. But the Dog Collar crowd was plastic grapes butch. Still, it always drew a good crowd, and was obviously packed tonight.

We were about two doors from the entrance, when we heard a muffled “Whoomp”which sounded like it came from the alley behind the bar, and a moment or two later, the double front doors burst open and a tidal wave of men washed out into the street, running. Shouts of…“Fire!” could be heard from inside and from those in the river of men gushing through the door. Chris and I stood frozen in mid step, then moved away from the buildings with the crowd and into the street. A wide, flat ribbon of smoke unfurled slowly out the top of the door, over the heads of those scrambling to get out.

No dictionary could ever have described the word “chaos” more vividly. Men were running, pushing, tripping over one another as they emerged, turning around to shout for friends still inside. Two or three guys fought against the tide, trying to go back in, but they couldn’t buck the crowd coming out, and the smoke was getting heavy now.

The single fact of that outward-opening, double-door entrance was all that prevented a human logjam forming there, and blessedly anyone who made it as far as the door was able to escape.

In the far distance, the sound of sirens could already be heard. The street was a milling mass of men; leathermen, pseudo leathermen, male strippers in g-strings and loincloths, college types, hunks, average Joes, older, younger; a cross section of the male gay community. Ironically, music still blared from inside the bar.

Small clusters of guys gathered together, some holding each other, some holding others back. Others pushed their way back and forth through the crowd, trying to locate friends. There were obviously many people hurt—most were coughing uncontrollably as they ran out, and others collapsed just outside the door and were dragged away from the entrance and carried across the street to be laid out on the sidewalk, where others huddled over them, doing what they could to help. Some just stood staring wide-eyed at the door as a few snake-tongues of orange fire began to lick out over the top of the doorway, as if tasting the air. The cacophony of sounds, however, could not hide what were too obviously screams from inside. The music had stopped.

Chris and I were totally walled in by the crowd, many still coughing and smelling of smoke, on one side of the semi-circle of onlookers. We weren’t close enough to the front to be able to do anything, and we were sick with the feeling of helplessness. Still they kept coming out—guys at the front of the crowd, which was being driven back by the increasing heat and billowing smoke, would rush forward to grab anyone who made it through the doors and lead or drag them to safety, or run interference to prevent others from trying to reenter the building to save friends or lovers.

We stood there, pressed against those crowded around us, and looked around to see if there was anyone we knew. Chris stood on tip-toe, trying to see over the heads of those directly around us. Fewer were coming out, now. One guy—probably one of the strippers—stumbled through the doorway, totally naked, obviously badly burned, his hair smoldering. He appeared slowly, back-lit by an angry pulsating orange, and leaned against the door frame as though it were a part of his number. Then he pushed himself forward, made it just outside the door, and toppled like a fallen tree onto the sidewalk before those dashing in to help him could reach him. They picked him up and carried across the street, the crowd parting to allow them through. And an instant later, a form appeared, from the other side of the doorway, crawling on all fours, his shirt on fire. He was grabbed and pulled forward by several guys who slapped at his shirt with their hands to put out the fire. They got him to his feet, but he looked frantically around at the crowd, then broke away and ran back toward the door, from which no one else was emerging. Two of those who’d helped him ran after him and grabbed him just before he reached the door, which was by this time engulfed in flame. They dragged him backward as he fought to break free, straining forward and yelling something we could not make out over the incredible din. There were no more screams coming from inside the bar; just crashing sounds and the triumphant roar of the flames.

The first squad car came racing down the street, siren wailing, lights flashing, horn blasting, followed by no fewer than three fire trucks, with the lights of others closing in from both directions. The crowd scattered before them.

And over all the sirens, and the yells, and the dull thrum of the fire, which was now pouring out of the door and had broken through the roof, I heard a voice:

“Dick! Dick!” I looked around and Chris pointed to the guy whose shirt had been on fire, still being held by his rescuers. It was Bob Allen.

Ambulances were beginning to arrive as the firemen rolled out their hoses and the police…several squads of them by this time, began moving the crowd back to allow the arriving ambulances to get through.

We shouldered our way through the mass of guys to Bob. He had blood running down his left temple from a gash somewhere just above the hairline. But his face! I hope I never see another expression on anyone’s face like I saw on Bob’s. The two guys holding him, seeing that we knew him, reluctantly released him. He grabbed us both, one with each hand, and his knees started to buckle. We grabbed him and held him up between us.

He tightened his grip on our arms. “You’ve got to help me go back in!” he pleaded, and suddenly my head jerked up to meet Chris’s eyes, which mirrored my own shock in realizing why.

“Ramón!” Bob said, pointing to the inferno. “Ramón’s still in there!”

There is nothing Dorien loves more than hearing from a reader. Feel free to drop him a note.

I'll be back Friday. Until then...

Happy Writing!

Sloane Taylor
Sweet as Honey...Hotter than Hell
www.sloanetaylor.com