Here's the first book of my prison/gangland drama, which will be classed as drama, romance, and possibly erotica. It's a spin off from Broken Lives, with Jenna Hamilton, Jasper Rakete, and Marko Čerin having points of view. Jenna is on the cover. Here's the Goodreads' link: Skins Goodreads Page It's almost finished, with June or July as a possible publication month.
Here's an unedited peekaboo at a scene with Jenna and Phelia talking about Jasper in the ladies' restroom at the pub (from Chapter 9). It's from Jenna's point of view. I'll pop in Phelia's name so you know the first line belongs to her, with Jenna following. Also, different characters have different speech patterns, hence the change between cos and 'cause/wuz and was. BTW, the book is practically ready to send out to my editor, but I'll wait a tick until I finish the second book, which is already well under way and won't take long to finish (a week or two). You'll have two books very close together. I'm doing it like this so you don't have to wait much. I might put them out two weeks apart. Just remember, they aren't episodes like My Masters' Nightmare, they are novels.
Enjoy!
P.S. If you don't already know, Jenna and Phelia are prison guards at a men's prison.
***
Phelia pressed her lips together.
“What is it?”
“You don’t want Marko, cos you want Jasper Rakete.”
“No, fucking way, he’s a prisoner.”
“You still want him.”
“If you’re talking ’bout my smile the other day, it wasn’t at him. I was thinking ’bout shit and he just happened to look up at the wrong time.”
“You don’t needa lie, he’s hot as fuck, totally drop dead gorgeous. Even Mackleby would hit that,” she smirked, “and not with his fist.”
My brow shot up. “He’s bi?”
“More like bi curious for Jasper. That hot fucker made him question his sexuality. Poor Macka got totally weirded out for a while until I calmed him down, telling him that some people can blur preferences, that they're basically gender hall passes. Not like he could act on it, cos Jasper would kill him if he even tried.”
“Plus, Jasper’s a prisoner,” I said, like that wasn’t her first thought as to why Mackleby wouldn’t try it on.
“Yeah, that too. So, chill, you hafta be blind not to find him hot. Just be careful with him, he got another...”
She snapped her mouth shut as the woman flushed the toilet, exiting the cubicle. Phelia turned to touch up her lips, then held out the lippy to me as the woman washed her hands next to us. Not opposed to sharing, I took it, noticing the woman looking at me.
“Your abs are hot,” she said, watching me do my lips.
“Thanks,” I replied, handing the lippy back to Phelia.
“Are you...” her heavily rimmed eyes flicked to Phelia, “a couple?”
“God, no,” Phelia answered. “Just workmates, I like men.”
The woman looked at me. “What about you?”
“Same, I love dick.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What a waste,” then walked out, the door swinging behind her.
Phelia laughed. “You just got hit on by a chick.”
I shrugged. “It’s happens a lot. I must give off some kind of vibe.”
“Nah, it’s this.” She slapped my sixpack. “It hooks ’em in.”
“I wanna hook a guy.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll happen, just make sure you don’t flash that to any of the prisoners. They’d come in a second.”
I laughed. “Not planning on it.”
Her face went serious again. “And especially not Jasper. He got another guard fired, hooked her right in, making her think he wuz in love with her. She totally fell for it, and who wouldn’t with his looks. Just be careful with him, he’ll make you think you’re the best thing since slice bread then drop you like you’re dirt.”
That's 17,047 words of SKINS written so far this week. It's turning into more than a prison drama, family drama and gangland drama now part of it. Yes, a major chunk is behind bars, but a lot is also at the Skins' headquarters. I've just finished Marko's chapter, while Phelia really is a piece of work, only getting worse since Broken Lives. While Jenna, bless her heart, is still a self-confessed dickhead, lol, but one who is genuinely trying her hardest to do good.
Anyway, I need to ask a question, since this story is flying across my computer. Are you willing to wait a week for the next chapter of Hungover so I can write more Skins while inspired? Or should I just finish editing the next chapter of Hungover, putting Skins on hold until next week?
Choices. Either way, I will have two books ready for publication within close proximity of each other.
What would you like?
I'm also willing to put up snippets of SKINS on here.
SKINS UPDATE
I ended up writing just under 12,000 words yesterday on SKINS, and probably would've written more if my husband didn't grumble, lol. I haven't written this much in a day since the time I wrote about 19,000 words for a My Masters' Nightmare episode years ago.
Anyway, this is what I have so far:
1) Jenna gets an undercover role as a prison guard. I have two scenes before she goes in, and a couple inside the prison so far, one where she meets Jasper. That scene is from his point of view.
2) She also meets the other prison guards, one that surprises her, as he wasn't in her dossier.
3) You will see Kelley in another scene with Jenna, as they are flatmates now, Jenna having made amends with Kelley. She never gave up on paying for her past sins, and remember, she was 15 and 16 in Crying Out Silent and Graffiti Heaven, so has grown up significantly. She is now 27.
4) Jasper's first prison scene O_O I won't say more.
5) The most interesting scene for me was at the Skins headquarters, a surprise connection popping up.
6) Marko is back and has a point of view for the first time. You will know him from Crying Out Silent and Graffiti Heaven. You will also be surprised at who he is related to.
7) Leila is also back, she is from Behind the Hood. She has a couple scenes with Marko so far. He has changed significantly, and is not happy with the way his life has gone.
8) I might be taking Killer out of the first Skins' headquarter's scene. I think Fabian might work better in that chapter. He's the vice prez of the Skins. Milan will also be in that scene.
9) It's turning out to be a SKINS story through and through. The feud with the Devil's Crew is still there, the DC having rebuilt themselves back up, and are once more causing issues for the Skins. The Sousa twins are at the helm this time, with Matheus as the new leader, and his brother in prison. Matheus hasn't shown yet, but you do see Rafael in a prison fight scene (the guy who had a thing for Killer). He's still a massive arsehole, Jenna making an enemy of him on day one of the job. Before Jenna became a cop, she worked as a prison guard in a woman's prison. And because of it, she thinks that putting someone in their place would work the same in the male prison. She will soon learn that isn't so, especially since Rafael holds grudges.
I'm so excited for this story!
Of course, the first paragraph is part of a rough initial draft, so could change, and will most definitely be edited. But I thought you'd like to know that I've started writing SKINS (I'll be doing it at the same time as editing Hungover).
SKINS is about a police officer going undercover as a prison guard, with the intent of busting a drug ring. That's Jenna. She was specifically chosen by her superiors since she has already worked in the field.
Anyway, SKINS is Jenna's and Jasper's love story. Jenna is from Graffiti Heaven, Crying Out Silent, and has a cameo in Love Drunk (Broken Lives #4). She was the blonde cop near the end, the one who was cheeky to Dante's and Ash's dad. She's got a smart-mouth and a wicked temper, one that she works hard at controlling. While Jasper is in the first three books of the Broken Lives series. He's Dante Rata's best friend. The reason he wasn't in the fourth book was because he was in prison. A lot of the Skins (his gang) got caught having a chop shop. But since a lot of my readers missed him, not too happy that he wasn't in the fourth book, I thought I'd make it up to you all by giving him his own series.
Let me know your thoughts!
SKINS
(A Prison Drama)
1
JENNA
I opened the door, hoping I wasn’t going to get told to bugger off. Because walking into the sergeant’s office felt exactly like walking into Principal Sao’s office for the very last time. Even after twelve years, I still couldn’t get over being expelled. But it wasn’t so much the expulsion itself but why I’d been kicked out of Wera High. I’d caused so much pain, so much suffering that I’d never forgiven myself for it, regardless of only being fifteen at the time. Which was why I was still making amends, and most of all, why I was a cop.
*More teasers to come...
1
JAGGER
I’d known the Black Russian was sick, but to have a child with his own twin was next level. But what floored me even more, was what he’d revealed back in his palace. It was something I couldn't even think about let alone verbalize without feeling physically ill. There were no words to describe it, other than the Black Russian was the most twisted person I’d ever meet. There was something inside of him that was truly evil, something that even the Black Russian himself was terrified of. I wondered whether it was a split personality or uncontrollable urges, or maybe he was possessed by the devil himself. Either way, I’d done what he’d asked, escorting his son to the Black Widow—Nikita’s mother. And a very angry mother after I’d told her what her son had been made to do, or more precisely, who to do.
Matteo Donatelli.
And in front of a crowd.
******
Let me know your thoughts below. I can only continue My Masters' Nightmare if I have the support of my readers, such as recommending the series to other readers, as well as suggesting it to reading groups, like on Goodreads. Anything to keep it going. It's all about readership numbers, which is the only way I can continue these stories since my writing doesn't pay enough to live off, if at all, due to publishing costs. That's why a number of my series are put on hold or discontinued. So, rally up your friends on book sites and help me keep My Masters' Nightmare going, because once I've published Hungover, I am open to writing some new episodes of My Masters' Nightmare while working on SKINS (Jasper's prison drama).
Thanks in advance!
Does anyone remember Kelley (O'Brian) from Graffiti Heaven and Crying Out Silent? I've been wracking my brains about who could be the main female lead in SKINS (the prison TV drama I want to write in the same format as My Masters' Nightmare). I really didn't want to create a new character, so was going through the female characters in my NZ books, wondering whether I could use Lavinia, since she was a prison guard in Australia (she came back to NZ after admitting to Dante that her 10 year old is his kid). But I don't like her, and wanted someone at least likeable. This morning, I just happened to finish re-reading Ashes to Ashes and was looking at Crying Out Silent's sample at the back, and guess who was in it? Kelley! Then I remembered that Jenna caused her to get run over, and she had some sort of spinal injury. So, I went and checked and saw that the doctors said that, because of her spinal injury, that Kelley will only have a remote chance of regaining feeling in her legs, let alone movement. But doctors have said that about others before, getting proven wrong, and in Kelley's case, she lives to run, so she had something to work for. But since her spinal injury was so bad, she's been in physiotherapy for years, taking a long time to walk as well as run again. She eventually does run again, just not competitively, though she wants to. But, that's in her spare time, not work time, and since she can't be a police officer, like she dreamt off at one point (she is angry when she finds out Jenna is one), she goes for a prison guard's job instead, getting assigned to the same prison as...
