With the third Dremen novella out of the way, I'm settling in to finish off the last of the Hell's Fire Burning trilogy, and I can't tell you how stoked I am to get these babies ready... Rite & Fire ended up carrying a lot of my YA paranormal romance love in it (think Ash from The Iron Fey series), but Hell's Fire Burning is a different beast altogether, and it's hitting my craving for introspective heroines, hard-won personal growth, and an expansive, gritty world that wears you down even as you struggle to defeat it...
Speaking of defeat, does anyone else feel like they've been struggling to claw their way back from utter exhaustion lately? I can feel some flow returning, finally, but I'm still a wee bit shocked to realize just how hard the hits have been coming. Delayed reaction, I guess. If you, too, have been feeling as though you're walking through mud, and it's making all those niggling worries resurface, here's a little reminder for you...

It's hard to look after ourselves sometimes, but you've got this.
I won't set a deadline for the Hell's Fire Burning trilogy yet, but it's still looking marvelously on track for a mid-year release, and writing all three together means it will be a rapid release without any hitches (at least, in the writing department...). Gotta say, I'm major stoked about that. I want to share so many snippets from book two with you, but I'll hold back and just say: my fave's keep switching. I feel like Keyla from The Dark Side series, hopping around between favorites every time one of the boys impresses me.
And boy, they are impressing me.
Much as I could ramble for pages about Cat and her boys, and about how excited I am that the third Dremen novella is up for pre-order, it's time to run away and lock myself in the writer's cave again. I'm just getting the hang of typing around my latest bad decision in the form of fake nails/claws, and if I leave it too long I'll find another excuse.
I'll finish with a little sneak peek from book one, which will be going off for a final round of beta reading at the end of the week, and next time I pop back I'll share some Dremen excerpts for anyone who hasn't had the chance to catch up. Stay safe 🖤
TW for the excerpt below: allusions to a brief, attempted SA (NOT from the main guys)
Dax POV
The guy flies six feet through the air before he crashes into a pile of pots, shattering them on the concrete.
“Wondered when you boys would get the memo,” Cat says, but she can’t hide the shake in her voice. “This bozo is missing a few key phrases from his vocabulary, like the word no.”
“He’ll be missing a lot more than words when we’re done with him,” Marek snarls.
I do a double-take at the sound. Even knowing what this means for Marek, how personal it is, I’ve still never seen him so involved in a fight. Is it Cat? Is she the difference? I’d noticed their arguments were changing… less venom, more bickering like a married couple. But has it changed enough?
Then I see the guy’s hand—still dazed and uncertain—reach for a familiar iron tin that must have fallen out of his pocket, and the mystery is eclipsed by bigger problems.
He might be human, but just like his predecessor, he had a little Underworld assistance in locating us.
Maybe the excuse is stock market revenge, but that’s not the real reason he’s here. The real reason isn’t even his, and it’s personal.
Even as that’s still sinking in, something else ricochets to the front of my mind. A thin, golden stream of light stretches between me and Cat, and while that’s nothing new, the two additional threads are.
One for me, one for Marek, one for Colton.
My chest tightens, not just with fury and jealousy, but with goddamn confusion.
Is this thread just her power? Because I’d be lying to myself if I said I hadn’t hoped it was something more.
But if it’s something more… why is there one for each of us?
And why has my jealousy vanished in place of a feeling I’ve never known before? Out here on this isolated rooftop, surrounded by fear and adrenaline and what is undoubtedly some kind of plot for our lives, I latch onto something I never found—not even in my brightest moments in Hell.
Peace.
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