Category: Sample Chapter

Connecting the Dots in Valentine Apart

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June is nearly upon us, and I’m working on a few different projects. One of them, is a new addition to the Valentine Apart series.  This series will trace John Rafferty’s origins, the rise of The Syndicate, and the person who trained Allan and Mac Avery. The working title is Lucia and The Saints. I’m planning to release this series in the form of short ebooks, between 25 and 50 pages per book, for 99 cents each. It’s not ready yet, but in the meantime, here’s a tiny snippet of what I’m working on. Enjoy!

          Jacob sat at the end of the bar on the last stool, his glass in his hand. Every few seconds, he glanced at the two people, a man and a woman, talking at the opposite end, who were busy whispering about, what he could only assume, was him. Whenever one of them looked over at him, he would quickly turn away and find some random object inside the bar to stare at: the booths and tables in the dining area, the bartender or the waitresses, the endless wall of framed photos behind the bar. This was his job interview, and so far, it didn’t seem to be going too well.

          “He’s too young,” the woman said. “I have to tell you John, I’m completely against this.”

          “I think he has potential,” John said. “You said so yourself, Lucia: we need fresh blood.”

          “Fresh blood,” Lucia said. “Not young blood. This kid is way too young.” She looked over at Jacob, who had raised his glass to take a sip of his beverage. “Look at him!”

          “What’s wrong with him?” John asked.

          Lucia nodded towards the glass in Jacob’s hand. “He’s drinking chocolate milk, for Christ’s sake!” She spoke in a loud whisper, which got Jacob’s attention. He set his glass down, climbed off of his bar stool, and approached them. 

          “You know, you’ve really got a pair, kid,” John said. Lucia folded her arms. “But I like that.”

         “Thanks,” Jacob said. He used fingers to rake through his sandy-brown hair. “So, am I in, or out?”

         He’s drinking chocolate milk, for Christ’s sake!

          Lucia shook her head. “I don’t like this,” she said. “I don’t like this one bit.”

          “Let’s give him a chance,” John said. He reached up and scratched the back of his head full of jet black hair. “Let’s see how it goes. Lucia?”

          Lucia looked at John in surprise. “Oh, you better not say what I think you’re about to say,” she snapped.

          “There’s no one better for the job,” John said, shrugging his shoulders. “Show him the ropes. It’ll be good for him…and you.”

          Lucia turned to Jacob in disgust. She sighed heavily. “I put bullets in people for a living,” she muttered. “Now I’m a goddamned babysitter.”

 

 

June is Valentine Apart Month on woolastonentertainment.com. Stay tuned for more of Lucia and The Saints!

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Sample of “Jo Fuentes: Project Sleep”

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Here’s a sample of one of my upcoming books, Jo Fuentes: Project Sleep,coming later this year. 🙂

 

 

Jo stood to the side of the boxing ring, watching the two young women sparring. Only one of them was wearing a pair of gloves. The other was wearing focus pads on her hands, while coaching the other woman on how and where to hit. They moved about in a circle, in the center of the ring. The trainer kept encouraging the woman to hit the focus pads harder and harder. Finally, they stopped, and took deep breaths.

“You did much better today,” the trainer said. She was a  petite Black woman with short brown hair, dressed in a pair of tights and a cut-off t-shirt, with the Pittsburgh Steelers logo on it. “Okay girl, take a break. Get some water.” The other woman nodded, and climbed out of the ring.

Jo lifted her head. “Hey, Ruthless.”

The trainer looked over at her in wide-eyed surprise. She approached Jo’s side of the ring, and cocked her head to one side. “Fuentes?” she said. She removed the focus pads and let them drop onto the floor of the ring. “Jo Fuentes. Well, I’ll be damned. What are you doing here?”

“Ruthless Ruthie Henshaw,” Jo said. “I’m here to see you.”

Ruthie climbed down from the ring. When she stood in front of Jo, Jo was suddenly reminded of just how short she was, compared to herself. “Damn, you’re short.”

Ruthie smirked at her. “Everybody’s short next to you, you freak’n Amazon,” she said. “So, what are you doing here? I get the feeling this isn’t a social call.”

Jo shrugged. “You always had good instincts,” she said. “I came to check on you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Ruthie said. “I’ve been working at this gym for about two years now. The Corps let me go, and I needed to do something, so I came here.”

“Yeah, they let me go, too,” Jo said.

“So, what are you doing now?” Ruthie asked.

I guess you can say, I’m doing what they trained me to do,” Jo said.

Ruthie stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean?”

Jo looked around before she answered her. The other people in the gym seemed occupied with their own activities: jumping rope, sparring with one another, lifting weights, etc. Jo leaned forward slightly, and said, “You know. Our training?”

Ruthie shook her head curiously. “Our Marine training?”

Jo sighed softly and shook her head. “The other training.”

Ruthie’s shoulders seemed to stiffen. “I try not to think about that,” she said, in a low voice.

“But you do remember?” Jo whispered.

Ruthie looked around, then gestured for Jo o follow her. They walked off of the floor down a hallway, and into a cramped office on the right. Once inside, Ruthie closed the door. “I don’t think about any of that,” she said. “I don’t talk about it, either. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Ruthie, they did something to us,” Jo said. “They trained us to be assassins, then must have tried to erase our memories. But I remembered some of it. In fact, I used what I learned to kill eight men in under sixty seconds in Iraq.”

Ruthie took a step back. “After the training?”

“After they tried to erase my memory,” Jo said. “But they didn’t get rid of everything. I can still remember being in a classroom with you and other soldiers. I can remember being trained to do some pretty horrible things.”

“What brought you here, Jo?” Ruthie asked. 

“I need answers,” Jo said. “And someone doesn’t want me or anyone else from our class to remember anything.”

“I’ve been trying to keep things quiet,” Ruthie said. “But the truth is, I remember all of it. I woke up one morning, and came in here to work. While I was training this guy in the ring, I started having flashbacks. Hand to hand combat training. I had to stop, and step out of the ring, because I suddenly realized, I could have killed the guy I was training. I mean, I knew how to.I could have killed him with my bare hands, and that scared me.”

Jo sighed heavily. “You’ve got to watch your back,” she said. “If they’re keeping an eye on me, they’re gonna keep one on you, too.”

 

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First Impressions and First Lines

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“Call me Ishmael,”. Do I even need to tell you, this is the first line of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick ? I feel like literally EVERYONE who has ever read a book knows this line. There’s something about it that grabs your attention. Maybe it’s because this opening line is dialogue. Maybe it’s because its a little unexpected. Whatever the reason, it stays with you.

I read Jack London’s Call of the Wild years ago, when I was in high school. I’m not sure why, but the opening line of the first chapter has always stayed with me: Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. That’s the magic of opening lines of books. They are the all important first impression, that will help the reader decide, if this book is a journey they want to go on, or if it may not be worth their time.  As a writer, I try to come up with great first lines for my books. I suppose its hit or miss, but I still try.

FW1

Was it a dream or was it reality?

I wrote the first line to Fortune’s Wing sixteen years ago. It was the first thing about the book, that popped into my head. More than the characters, or the story, I came up with this line. I feel like this line invokes the mystery surrounding The Prophecy of the Wings, which is the heart of the story. Fortune has been plagued by dreams of the end of the world for several years, and he doesn’t understand why, until he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger who seems to know a lot about him.

VAL1CS
New cover of Valentine

It was early; around six in the morning. It was a good time to hit the road. 

I’m going to cheat here, and include the second line as well. The opening line of Valentine doesn’t waist any time. It’s early, and a road trip is about to take place. Val Entienne, aka Valentine, is on a mission. The first book in the Valentine series concerns Val going to California to find her father, Vincent. She meets (and helps) many different people along the way, including fourteen-year-old orphan Melinda St. James, who becomes an important part of Val’s life.

When I was twelve years old, I fell in love with rock n roll.

Amy’s statement is the opening line of Our Lady of Righteous Rage/Our Lady of Righteous Rage: Extended and Uncensored is the first step into what is going to be a journey through childhood, love, friendships, and rock n’ roll. Amy and her friends grow up and experience the ups and downs of adolescence and adulthood, including marriage and divorce, all while starting a business and a band. Friends become lovers and lovers become enemies. After reading that first line, you may find yourself wondering: what made a twelve year old fall in love with rock n’ roll?

 

 

AMCS

The dark blue Dodge Challenger pulled over and parked in front of an abandoned lot, covered with overgrown shrubs and bushes. 

When I went back an re-read this line, the first word that popped into my head, was seclusion. When you continue to read the opening paragraph from Allan and Mac, you may find yourself thinking, the driver of the car, must have pulled over because the car broke down. When you read the first sentence of the second paragraph, you realize, she didn’t pull over because she was having car trouble; she pulled over for an entirely different reason…

Allan and Mac is the first book in what turned into a spin-off from the Valentine series. A brother and sister duo work as hitmen, and both have interesting ways of carrying out the hits they are paid to do. For instance, Mac would like to drown an alcoholic in a bathtub filled with beer. This story is as dark as it is amusing, with Allan and Mac having conversations about the most mundane things, in between acting as killers for hire. I sort of struggled with the first line. I wanted readers to be interested, without giving away the aesthetic of the book. You don’t really know how twisted this ride is going to be, until that second paragraph. 

For anyone interested, previews for my books are available on my website:

 http://www.woolastonentertainment.com/previews.html

 

Sample from “Jo Fuentes: Project Sleep”

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I‘m currently working on three new books. One of them is Jo Fuentes: Project Sleep. This is the fourth book in my Valentine Apart series, and it a sequel to Jo Fuentes: The Black Queen. Yes, my ass-kicking Marine turned hitwoman is back, and I’d like to share a small sample from the first chapter. Enjoy! 

            Remember why you are here. You are here to serve your country…

            It was the inside of a white classroom. Six of them stood in a row, guns drawn and pointed at the mannequins at the other end of the room. The idea was to shoot the mannequins, at center mass. The six of them fired at once. When they were finished, they lowered their guns, and awaited further instructions. This had been a simple task, with no real challenge. Using a handgun was easy enough. The real training would begin, when they learned how to use inanimate objects. There was a rumor going around, they would be trained to kill using something as common as a number two pencil…

            So you can shoot a handgun. Big deal! What would you do if a gun wasn’t available? What else would you use? It was always the same voice, barking from behind them. No matter how good you are, you can always be better! Let’s start with Fuentes!

            Jo’s eyes suddenly shot open. She stared up at her ceiling, furrowing her brow and trying to get a grasp on where she was. She slowly turned to her left, and recognized her alarm clock, sitting on her nightstand. She took a deep breath, and released it. Her room, in the same apartment she’d grown up in. The white classroom from her dream had faded into memory. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed, and scratched the back of her head. It was Saturday morning. There wasn’t any place she needed to be today, so the day was all hers. She stood up, and stretched all five feet and eleven inches of her, and yawned. “First order of business,” she said out loud, “A shower.”

 

Preview for “Biologicals”

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I recently released my 21st published book, Righteous, which is the fourth book in the Our Lady of Righteous Rage series. This book follows the band on their tour across America, as they go from city to city, state to state, playing shows and meeting new fans…and narrowly avoiding fights with Mick, David, and the rest of the band, Stereotype. When I wrote the final few chapters, I developed an idea for yet another book.  This time, I decided to focus on Jon, Amy’s son. During the story in Righteous, Jon’s birth parents contact him, much to his alarm. He doesn’t want anything to do with, but he decides to be diplomatic and try to spend time with them. My next book, Biologicals, will focus on Jon’s attempt to reestablish a relationship with his birth parents, aka his “biologicals”. Here’s a sneak peak from the first chapter:

  1. The Delivery Room, The Couch, and Onward

            “It’s a boy!”

            I imagine that’s what the doctor said in the delivery room, on the day I entered the world. I can picture myself, tiny and naked, and silent, until that first smack on the ass, which caused my lungs to open up, giving me the opportunity to take my first breath. I’m sure I must have started crying. Then I guess the doctor or the nurse handed me to my mother, so she could count my fingers and toes, and give me a once-over, just to make sure she hadn’t given birth to some freak show kid.

            But, like I said, I can only imagine all of this. I don’t remember any of it, because I was just too young. The memories I do have of my birth parents, aren’t the most pleasant memories I have. To put it frankly, my birth parents—or biologicals, as I prefer to call them—are assholes.

            Yep. I just did that. I called my biologicals assholes. That’s what they are. You’re probably wondering why I feel that way. Sure: most teenagers hate their parents. Most of their reasons for hating their parents are completely unfounded: not being allowed to go to parties, drink, stay out past curfew, etc. My reasons for feeling the way I do, are totally legitimate.

            When I lived with my biologicals, I didn’t have my own room. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters to compete with; I just didn’t have a room. My room was the living room, and my bed was the couch. I lived with Michael and Leora, my biologicals, in a one bedroom apartment. So, naturally, the one room went to them. This was interesting, especially when they had company. They would quickly clean up the area known as “Jon’s space”, and pretend we were a normal family. Bullshit artists.

            They managed to pull this off, until my uncle told them, he was going to take steps to have me taken from them. I was eventually sent to live with my cousin David, and his girlfriend (later, wife) Amy. I had been spending time with David ever since I was two. He would babysit me whenever my biologicals went out (which was often). Amy was the best. She was the only one outside of my family who was allowed to pick me up. When I was really little, David started seeing this girl named Gina, before he and Amy were dating. I hated Gina. She smelled like she had soaked herself in an entire bottle of perfume, and not even a good fragrance. And, she was a bitch. To this day, I have no idea what David saw in her.

            But, Amy and David got married, and adopted me. I wasn’t sure of what to call them: Mom and Dad, or Amy and Cousin David. David went out of the country when I was younger, and left me and Amy alone for the first time. I came down with a case of pneumonia. I was a little nervous, but Amy kept it together. She was barely eighteen, and acting just like a mother. She took me to the emergency room, got my medicine, and took care of me. From that day forward, she wasn’t Amy. She was Mom.

            But, David, on the other hand, couldn’t handle the whole Dad-thing. Mom can sing and play the guitar, and she and her friends were in a band. David was jealous from the very beginning.  He started criticizing Mom and her friends, saying she needed to focus on being a wife and a mother instead of a rock star. But I was watching her juggle both with no problem! At no point did I ever feel like she was neglecting me.  I was sad when they got a divorce…I was even sadder when I had to go and live with David. We’re biologically related, so the judge gave him custody of me…asshole. Mom is a fighter, though. She went back to court, and got custody of me. So, I got to go and live with the one person in this world who truly loves me.

A little something from “Righteous”

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I’m still working on Our Lady of Righteous Rage #4: Righteous. Here’s a little sample from Chapter 62. Enjoy!

           “Think about it,” Nick said. “If it wasn’t for Our Lady, would any of us visit Kansas City or Chicago? Albuquerque or Scottsdale? Would any of us even venture out this far? We were just kids in New York, learning to play guitars and writing songs here and there. Now look at us! We’re playing gigs across the country. We’re just a little indie punk band, and people in Arizona and California and Illinois actually want to pay to hear us play! How’d that happen?”

            We were silent. It made me think about where I was, just a few years ago. Graduating from high school. Moving around with Mom. Homeless and living in a hotel room. Then, working in a bookstore. Working at Urban Collective. Making friends with rock stars. How did that happen?

            “It happened because it was meant to,” Mike said, standing up from his chair. “I don’t want to get too religious and freak anyone out, but I believe there’s a plan for everyone. Call it God, or the Divine, or the universe, or whatever, but there’s a higher power out there, that creates a purpose for all of us. I didn’t really know what my purpose was, until you asked me to be your manager. I didn’t think I could do it. But you had faith in me, so I just put my best foot forward, and did what I thought was the right thing. We’re here, because we’re supposed to be here. You feel me?”

 

Sample from “Valentine 4” (coming soon!)

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. “Interesting,” Kelly said.  “Would you like Jo to shoot her for you?”

“I could,” Jo said.

Veronica came back into the living room. “What?” she said.

“Or one of us could do it,” Mac said.

“I’d be glad to do it,” Lola said.

“Why don’t we draw straws?” Jo asked.

Val looked around at the faces of her friends, laughed. “Oh my God,” she said. “All my friends are killers. How did that happen?”