Uncaged: You are releasing the 2nd book in the Emmett Hardy Mystery series, called Butcherville. Can you tell readers more about this series? How many books are you planning for the series?

The Hardy series is set primarily in the fictional small rural town of Burr, Oklahoma, located in the also fictional Tilghman County in the western part of the state. The first book in the series, Where the Hurt Is, is placed in 1965. The events in the second book occur about a year-and-a-half later; the action moves a couple of miles north to an even smaller town, Butcherville, which is the title of the book.

Emmett Hardy is Burr’s chief of police. He’s Oklahoman to the core, a Burr native who feels a strong attachment to his hometown, but is also a bit of a misfit. His mother, an accomplished pianist, passed down to him her love of jazz and literature, which—in a place where football and country & western are kings—make Emmett a kind of an oddball. One thing he does have in common with the local male population is his fondness for strong drink, which becomes an issue over time.

The ‘60s were a time of cultural and political transition everywhere in the U.S., and the kinds of crimes Emmett confronts reflect those changes.

I’ve planned the first three books as a kind of narrative arc lasting from 1965 through 1967, but I intend to take Emmett at least into the ‘70s and beyond.

Uncaged: You are also a professional musician along with being an author. How do the two professions help/hinder each other?

The only hindrance is that when I’m doing one, I can’t do the other. I also teach music. It’s very structured; there are specific hours every day when that’s what I do. The rest of my time (outside of spending time with my family, which is my number one priority), I split between writing and making music. Maybe if I only did one or the other, I’d write more books or make more records. On the other hand, doing both is a great hedge against burn-out. If I get tired of doing one, I do the other. It’s a net positive, overall. The varied experiences feed my creativity.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’m about fifty pages into the third book in the series. The working title is A Very Bad Thing, but I expect that to change. It picks up where Butcherville leaves off by resolving—or maybe I should say addressing—an issue that’s left hanging at the end of that book. I can’t tell you what that is, but you’ll know after you read Butcherville.

The third book features many of the same characters from the first two, although some of their circumstances have changed, not least Emmett’s. It deals with a cold case—a very cold case—and how its effects are felt many years later. Hardy family secrets play a significant role. I don’t see it as an ending, but it will tie up some things, and hopefully provide insight on what made Emmett into the kind of man he is.

Read the rest of the interview in the issue below

Chris Kelsey was born in Maine and raised in Oklahoma, the son of a jazz saxophonist and school librarian. He was educated in public schools, received his Bachelor Degree in Music Education from the University of Central Oklahoma and his Masters in Music from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He moved to New York City in his mid 20s and embarked on a career in jazz. He’s played in many of the city’s top jazz venues and performed at major jazz festivals. He’s recorded approximately 20 albums as a leader, including 2013’s Chris Kelsey and What I Say: The Electric Miles Project, which won an Independent Music Award for Best Tribute Album.

Kelsey began his writing career as a music critic, working for most of the major jazz publications in the US, including Jazz Times, Jazziz, Cadence, The All Music Guide, and many other magazines and Web sites. His first novel, Where the Hurt Is, was published in 2018 by Black Rose Writing and won that year’s Pencraft Award for Best Fiction Book. His second novel, Butcherville, was published in January, 2020 by Black Rose Writing.

Kelsey currently lives in Dutchess County, NY, with his wife Lisa. In addition to writing and playing music, he’s Director of Instrumental Music at the Trinity-Pawling School.

chriskelsey.com

Butcherville
Chris Kelsey
Historical Thriller/Crime

The residents of tiny Butcherville, Oklahoma love their God-given freedoms so much, they refuse to hire their own police force. When they need a cop, they just call Emmett Hardy, police chief of Burr, the closest neighboring town.

Whether it’s to break up a fight, dissuade an angry good ol’ boy from hunting rabbits with an M-16, or eject an unruly patron from Butcherville’s combination strip joint/bookstore, Emmett’s always glad to oblige … that is, until a local business owner’s lust for money and power results in a deadly shootout and multiple kidnappings. Suddenly, Emmett’s good intentions are fraught with dangerous consequences. Besieged by friend and foe alike, and sabotaged by a fondness for drink that’s starting to affect his work, Emmett is the last man standing between a community of honest people trying to do their best with what little they have, and an evil that threatens not only their jobs and homes, but their very lives.

Excerpt

Prologue

If I had to cite one quality that defines where I live (that would be Burr, Oklahoma, population 1,276—down from 1,280 after we sent two father & son pairs of miscreants to the state penitentiary in McAlester last year), it would be the natural inclination of my fellow citizens to do the direct opposite of anything a person in authority says, regardless of whether or not it’s in their best interests. President Lyndon Baines Johnson himself could drop a hint to one of our farmers that it would be a good idea to water his crops. More likely than not, the farmer’d flip LBJ the bird and piss all over his own soybeans or sorghum or whatever it is he grows just to be contrary. He might even invite over the neighbors and let them join in.
Anyone who pretends to understand anything about us Oklahomans knows we can be mulish and self-reliant, sometimes ridiculously so. Nobody—and I mean nobody—tells an Okie what to do.

I reckon to an outsider, our nature might seem a little hypocritical, since, after all, if our ancestors hadn’t been willing to accept a government handout (or two or three), the state we know as Oklahoma might instead be called Sequoyah, and a majority of its citizens would comprise descendants of men named Geronimo and Standing Bear and Black Kettle.

That wouldn’t do at all.

Nah, this wonderful land of black gold and waving wheat and championship football teams was gifted to us on the cheap by the boys in Washington D.C. on behalf of the much-tread-upon and lied-to American Indian, and it cannot be convincingly argued otherwise.

Indeed, our representatives’ generosity didn’t end with the gift of pilfered real estate.

Back in the Dirty ‘30s, a good number of farmers swallowed their pride and accepted a share of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal money, or what was left of it after the sitting governor got his cut. I don’t mean to suggest they weren’t right to take the cash. It hardly rained a drop for almost a decade and the wind didn’t stop blowing just because the ground was parched and turned to dust. Most of what few crops managed to poke through got eaten by grasshoppers and jackrabbits. Nah, those fellas accepted help because they had no choice. They had mouths to feed.

Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below

Uncaged: Can you tell readers more about Arresting Mason? Is this planned on being a part of a series?

I originally wrote this book for a bad boy anthology call, but by the time I was done, I had exceeded the max word count and still wanted to add more scenes. So I forgot all about the anthology and kept revising this story until I was finally happy with it. It’s now book one in the Arresting Onyx series.

For how I came up with the plot, I must thank my subconscious since I dreamed about it. For days after, I kept thinking about the hero, the heroine, and her brother, and the characters wouldn’t leave me in peace until I wrote out a rough plotline. Though I changed quite a bit as I put the dream down on paper (or rather computer), the main premise remained the same.

Uncaged: You’ve also written in a few other genres including western romance and time travel. What inspires you to write in the different genres?

I love writing in subgenres that I enjoy reading. Most of my story ideas and plots come from my dreams, and those dreams are pretty wild and imaginative, taking place in various settings and time periods. In order to gear up for writing something a little different from my norm, which is romantic suspense, I read any book I can get my hands on that is in the subgenre I’m planning to write.

Uncaged: What are you working on now that you can tell us about?

The second installment in the Arresting Onyx series should hopefully be out in late 2020. Arresting Jeremiah follows hardnosed parole officer Jim Borden and his obsession Calista Barlow as they stick their noses where they don’t belong and fall deep into the trouble with the criminal organization known as Onyx.

I’m currently revising book three, Arresting Benjamin, which should hopefully be released in 2021 or later.
This sexy, dirty-talking romantic suspense series spans five books with a standalone HEA for each rough-and-tumble hero and their spunky heroines. The first book, Arresting Mason, is already published.

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

Jane Austen. I would love to know her thoughts about feminism (how things have and have not changed from her time) and the differences between writing styles and grammar from her time and now.

I definitely admire her. A woman writing and becoming a published author back in the early 1800s was scandalous and almost unheard of.

Read the rest of the interview in the issue below

Amber Daulton is the author of the romantic-suspense series Arresting Onyx and several standalone novellas. Her books are published through The Wild Rose Press and Books to Go Now, and are available in ebook, print on demand, audio, and foreign language formats.

Amber lives in North Carolina with her husband and four demanding cats.

amberdaultonauthor.blogspot.com

Arresting Mason
Amber Daulton
Romantic Suspense/Mafia

Once you’re in a prison gang, you’re in it for life. That’s what Mason Harding thought until the boss accepted his resignation. After the State releases him on parole, a sexy divorcée behind the wheel of a car almost ends his life quicker than a shank. His chance encounter with Mia Eddison results in a night of passion, but her brother—his parole officer—catches them together and doesn’t approve.

Mia falls hard for the cocky ex-con, but not because of his chiseled body. She vows to break through his walls and discover his secrets, but never expects those secrets to threaten her life.
When members of an organized crime ring kidnap Mia to force Mason’s return to the gang, he goes up against an old friend to save the woman he loves. Will his sacrifice be enough or will everything fall apart in a blaze of gunfire?

Excerpt

Mia scowled at her brother as he headed up the stairwell, and she used her body to block his entrance into her home.

Jim didn’t seem to notice her tense body language and pushed her aside to enter. “Good morning.” He hugged her with one arm and frowned at the hardwoods. “There’s something sticky on the floor.” He scraped his shoes over it a few times and headed toward the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Why are you here?” Mia shut the door, grabbed the towel she’d left on the sofa, and used it to cover the evidence of her desire on the floor. The last thing she needed was for her brother to realize what that sticky substance was. Her gaze darted toward the telephone and answering machine combo in the living room and back to Jim as he picked up the pancake mix. The U-shaped kitchen occupied one half of the loft’s airy floor plan, and she could see into the kitchen through a gap between the upper and lower cabinets. “You know to call first. I don’t have any messages on the machine, and I doubt you called my cell phone.”

“I’m in the neighborhood to see a parolee for an unexpected visit—well, unexpected for him—but I thought I’d stop by to see you first.” Jim sat the box aside and opened the fridge door. “You have any more blueberry muffins?”

“No, you cleaned me out the last time you showed up unannounced.” She crossed her arms and glanced at the closed bedroom door. “Jim, you need to leave.” She’d rather shave her legs without aloe-infused shaving cream or live a whole month without a hairdryer than introduce her parole officer brother to her parolee—boyfriend, perhaps?—the day after the best sex of her life. Talk about awkward.

“What’s the rush? I haven’t seen you in a few days.” He grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter and rubbed it on his polo shirt to shine the fruit before he sank his teeth in. “Why are you so uppity?”

“I’m in a bathrobe, Jim, and you’re irritating the crap out of me. I have plans today and need to get going.”

“I bought you that robe for Christmas last year. It’s nice to know you use it.” He glanced at the food on the marble countertop. “Looks to me like you were about to fix breakfast. Pancakes are fine since you’re out of muffins.”

Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below

Uncaged: Can you tell readers more about your Rise series?

The Rise series has been in my head for a long, long time in one form or another. I wrote as a teenager, completing my first ‘novel’ at around twelve or thirteen. Predictably, it was horrible. However, the seeds of my heroine, Sydney, are in that book. Like Syd, my first heroine was psychic and asked to take on way more responsibility than she’s ready for. If I’ve done my job right (write?) the Rise series is quick-paced, dark and gritty, sexy and keeps the reader guessing.

Uncaged: The third book in the series releases in 2020, how many books are planned for the series? Do people need to read them in order?

For myself, I’m a bit militaristic about reading a series in order, even if the books are standalone. So I’m going to say the best opportunity for maximum enjoyment comes from reading the books in order. There is a sequence of events in the series, building up as the story goes along. There are some bits of information that have been written into book one that haven’t fully come to fruition yet. But if you happened to pick up Curse of Ashes (book two) before Pledge of Ashes, it wouldn’t be the end of the world and you should be able to understand what’s happening.

As far as how many books are planned, I do have an idea how the series ends, but I’m not 100% on how many books it will take to get there.

Uncaged: What are you working on now that you can tell us about?

I’m editing Fallen From Ashes right now, book three in the Rise series. And if things go according to my master plan, I’ll be editing a fantasy romance which will go out on submission through my agency later in the year. I’d also love to draft book four of the Rise series this year. But the creative process can be less than linear sometimes, so we’ll see!

Uncaged: Past or present, which authors would you love to sit and have lunch with and why?

I love J.R. Ward. I’ve gone to several of her signings and she’d be a riot to talk with and learn from. I’m a big advocate for women and what we’re capable of, so I’d like to have time with some of the first and most significant women authors like Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austin, or Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Amy Sevan has been writing about angels, demons and other super natural stuff for a very long time. In the meantime, she’s bartended, taught piano lessons, earned her stockbroker’s license, and built a dog training business. The spirit of Detroit holds a certain forbidden magic she’s drawn to, so, she usually writes about those two things. Magic and Detroit.

She’s a member of Detroit Working Writers and Greater Detroit Romance Writers. Sarah Younger of the Nancy Yost Literary Agency represents her.

Amy has a supportive husband and a home with enough creatures shedding at any given moment to knit a blanket. If she knitted. Which she doesn’t.

Amysevan.com

Pledge of Ashes
Amy Sevan
Urban Fantasy

There’s no twelve-step program for recovering psychics, but Detroit mechanic Sydney Hoven has been working hard on her supernatural sobriety.
Too bad Hell didn’t get the memo.
When Syd meets Devon on her first night back out, she doesn’t have to be psychic to see ‘really bad idea’ written all over his stunningly gorgeous face. He says an Archangel wants her protected. But why?

When one of Lucifer’s lieutenants is sent to kill Sydney, the demon might be too strong for even Devon and the angelic forces he represents. With no true allies, Syd must stand on her own, destroy the demon, and claim her power. Otherwise, staying supernaturally sober might just kill her.

~~
Pledge of Ashes is the first book in the Rise romantic urban fantasy series that features angels and demons, men who have no business looking that good, and a heroine who is learning to wield incredible power.

Excerpt

Detroit came alive under the cover of darkness. Noisy clubbers laughed raucously, ear-deadening bass pounded from cars with twenty-four-inch rims, and thick steam billowed from the sewer grates.

Syd slammed the door of her cab and glanced around. Damn straight she took someone else’s ride. Like she’d risk door dings on the GTO? That’s a firm no. The Dive, looking exactly as the name would imply, leered at her with its crumbling concrete and prison-style windows, the electronic music reverbing through her chest even as she stood outside. Her booted feet seemed content to plant themselves on the broken pavement, but she couldn’t stay out here forever. In seconds, the October chill had already worked through her cropped leather jacket.

Feeling the buzz in her back pocket, Syd pulled out her phone. Nina’s text was pleading. Still coming, right? I’m @ the bar. Syd stared a moment more and put the phone away.

So here she was. Attempting the friend thing. Syd rolled her shoulders.
She closed her eyes and drew her mental wall around her, thick like a shield. If she were the praying type, now would be the time. Instead, she shook out her hands and willed her feet forward. The club’s scarred oak door was cold in her grip. She pulled and was assaulted by the beating sounds, alcoholic vapor, and the sensual movement of sex-about-to-happen on the dance floor.

Syd pushed forward, jostling as little as possible, but making slow progress nonetheless. A waitress with a skimpy outfit and bored expression split the crowd, and Syd made use of the trail she left.

A shiver of apprehension traveled through her, and she stalled, losing her path. People brushed at her from all sides, and her breath hitched.
She double-checked the lock on her mind, defied the warning bells in her head. Syd wouldn’t stand up Nina for some weird psychic social anxiety. She’d said she’d go out, and she would. Step by step, inch by inch, her intuition, the part of herself she understood least, fought her.

She glanced down at her deep-red polished nails with a bit of grease around the edges that wouldn’t come out for anything. Man, she wished she had stayed in the garage with her GTO. The car was a puzzle. Parts had specific places, and when you put them back just right, wonderful things happened. You went fast. Sometimes fast enough to forget.

Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below

Uncaged: You have a new book releasing on February 18, called The Lady is Trouble. Can you tell readers more about this book? This is the first in a series, how many books are planned for the series?

The Lady is Trouble is a book I had in my mind for YEARS! There’s a scene I don’t actually show in the book (though it is mentioned) that I can still see that was the start of the book for me. (The hero and heroine meeting as children.) The Lady is Trouble is a bit of a departure for me because so far I’ve only published historical romances set in the south. Trouble is set in England AND features magical realism (think supernatural activities that were actually very popular in the Victorian era). It tells the story of Julian Alexander, Viscount Beauchamp, and Lady Piper Scott — soulmates who find a second chance at love, mostly due to Piper’s stubborn conviction that they are destined to be together. Julian has the gift of sight and Piper is a healer. He has sworn to protect her but not love her–and the love story rolls from there. My books are fairly high heat (steamy) and aside from the mystical slant, it’s a true Victorian romance.

Trouble is the first in the League of Lords series, which will run five books (maybe one of those being a holiday novella) unless I’m loving the characters and it runs more! I’m already hard at work on the next in the series, Finn Alexander’s love story. Supposedly the most gorgeous man in England, so there is that. 😉

Uncaged: What inspired you to write in the historical romance genre?

Oh, boy. I started reading romance in college and the first I picked up was a historical. I called them the Lords & Ladies books. I just loved them and still do (I’m a huge reader of the genre — check out my Bookbub, that’s only from like the last 1.5 years!) So, when I decided to write (I was a journalism major, so writing no far off from what I wanted to do), I started a historical. But I’m southern, even though at that time I lived in New York City, so I set them there. I love the deep south settings. Small town, etc!

Uncaged: Several of your books are already in audio format. Is that a long process to turn the book into audio? Has it been well received by readers/listeners?

Yes, audiobooks are just booming! I’ve released three so far (The Garrett Brothers series) with three more coming up by March (including The Lady is Trouble). All can be found on Audible or my website www.tracy-sumner.com. I’ve worked with two narrators — and reviews are great so far. I’m just happy to reach readers in any way. It’s a love of the genre thing for me. And…it’s a new world out there for writers.

Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

I’m working on the second book in the League of Lords series. Still percolating about the title. He’s gorgeous, intelligent, sensitive (but alpha when he needs to be) and a mindreader. 😉 Yes, really. Of course he falls for the only person whose mind he can’t read. And…he’s the bastard of a viscount, so life is complicated. I love him already!

Read the rest of this interview in the issue below

Tracy’s story telling career began when she picked up a copy of LaVyrle Spencer’s Vows on a college beach trip. A couple of degrees (BA, Journalism-MA, Media Arts) and a thousand romance novels later, she decided to try her hand at writing a southern version of the perfect love story. With a great deal of luck and more than a bit of perseverance, she sold her first novel to Kensington Publishing.

Tracy has been awarded the National Reader’s Choice, HOLT Medallion, the Write Touch and the Beacon – with finalist nominations in the HOLT Medallion, Heart of Romance, Rising Stars and Reader’s Choice. Her books have been translated into German, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish.

She lives in the south, but after spending a few years in NYC, considers herself a New Yorker at heart. She loves hearing from readers about why she tends to pit her hero and heroine against each other or that great novel she simply must read.

FUN FACT

Tracy wrote part of To Seduce a Rogue in a hostel in Taipei, Taiwan and Tides of Love while living in Paris, in a building George Sand occupied on Rue de Seine.

tracy-sumner.com

The Lady is Trouble
Tracy Sumner
Historical Regency

In the first in Tracy Sumner’s captivating League of Lord series, mysticism in Victorian England is the setting for a captivating love affair . . .

What’s a rebellious woman to do when the man she’s meant for doesn’t believe in love?

After three years of waiting for Julian Alexander to realize they are destined to be together, Lady Piper Scott takes matters into her own hands. Because her gift as a healer has never done anything but distance her from the most principled man in England. A meaningless diversion as a medium, all done to gain a certain wandering viscount’s attention, backfires. As most endeavors have for a woman known in the ton as Scandalous Scott.

What’s a reluctant viscount to do when the woman he can’t have becomes the woman he can’t live without?

Julian Alexander, Lord Beauchamp, battled his way from the lowliest slum to assume his title. He carries not only a turbulent past, but a mystical gift that separates him from society. Honorable to his core, he is committed to protecting a community of outcasts with abilities like his own. He has no time, no place, for love. Or repeatedly rescuing the most outrageous, beguiling woman he’s ever known. Even if she needs his protection most—and he desires her above all others.

Seduction, intrigue and desire lead to an explosive passion…
Julian vowed to shield Piper from the deadly foes seeking to possess her powerful gift. Although he needs her help in controlling his own, the mix could be deadly. Soon what was once a simple agreement to work together becomes enchantingly complex as they surrender to a timeless love…

Excerpt

There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music.
John Keats

Chapter One
London, 1865

Allowing the lady to lure him into her carriage had been a brilliant idea.

Julian Alexander stared at a spider crack in the ceiling of his Mayfair townhome and wondered when he might start to believe it. He could presume encountering a former lover outside Hatchards on an otherwise lonely evening was a fortuitous event if there weren’t the niggling—familiar—pinch of regret the moment his cock settled.

A faint sense of having erred, gone off the path and into a twilight woodland where one could be easily lost.

As lost as he’d felt stepping into her dimly lit carriage.

Julian watched Marianne wrap herself in his silk dressing gown, her chatter lulling him into a state of satiated distraction. Only the first and third word of each sentence filtering through, he found the conversation definitively complete. Earl, garden, tryst, scandal. Titles and the men who held them occupied her undivided interest. Each day spent investigating a riddle that had no solution.

Was not, in fact, worth the attention she devoted to it.

In all fairness, Julian could not judge.

His mystical gift separated him from a normal existence and made the world he’d been born into at times unrecognizable. Out of a sense of duty, he played the part of the gentleman for the solitary purpose of propping up the viscountcy, adhering to society’s rules while struggling to preserve his secrets and the secrets of those he protected. Of course, he tendered his title when it benefited himself or the League. But a barony would have profited as well and knocked him down a notch, perhaps enough to slip beneath the waves and be carried from view.

He closed his eyes and let the waves crash over him.

Then Marianne mucked it up by kicking the door to the past wide open.

He rose to his elbow, knocking the counterpane aside. Dragging his hand through his hair, he asked, “Repeat that, will you?” Alarm vibrated through his belly, like swimming in the sea and realizing a massive wave crested behind you. No, it couldn’t be. “Come again?”
Marianne’s gaze settled where the sheet hung low on his hips. “So, you were listening.” She reached to touch, a stroke on air. Licked her lips in the event he didn’t register her appreciation. “Jules, with you, I never know.”

He slid high in the bed, suppressing his annoyance. Jules. He’d asked her to refrain from calling him that. Too. Many. Memories. “Marianne, the clairvoyant?”

Her smile grew luminous, her delight underscoring the scant attention he offered. Without trying to be a disdainful cad, it seemed he was precisely that. “Oh, darling, it was the most farcical evening! Ashcroft arranged for a fortune teller to entertain, and you know him. For a duke, he pushes the boundaries of propriety while always staying within the limit.” She leaned in, clutching the lapels of his dressing gown to her bosom. “I heard there was absinthe served to the men. Why, the festivities were enough to make a stuffed bird laugh!”

Julian hummed low in his throat and rose from the bed. He didn’t know but could imagine. Hell’s teeth, he thought and reached for his clothes, which lay in a tidy pile next to the chiffonier. Taken off without haste, neatly folded.

Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below