Rapture and Halton are LIVE! #romance #newreleases

Tristan Riley and Lillian Maddox are back in Rapture, the action-packed finale to the Teplo Trilogy! Through July 1st, you can start the series for FREE, and get the second book for .99c!

You can also now snag Halton (Vested Interest #6), NYT Bestselling Author Melanie Moreland's new release! He's growly. He's possessive. He is so freakin' hot!

Rapture Summary

All's fair in love and war…

Four months ago, DEA agent Tristan Riley nearly lost his life and the disabled ballerina who stole his heart. Now his relationship with Lillian Maddox is stronger than ever, and he wants nothing more than to put Teplo and the Vetrov case behind him. But when Elijah Noel and the deadly Vetrov drug appear in Los Angeles, Tristan is thrust right back into the middle of his worst nightmare.

In order to stop a vicious gang war and keep the drug out of Pedro Francisco's hands, the DEA agent finds himself wading into unfamiliar gang territory. The stakes are high, and the body count is even higher. Los Angeles is nothing like Seattle…and Francisco's people are a whole new level of terrifying.

When the DEA jeopardizes Lillian's safety and loses their one shot at finding the Vetrov drug, Tristan walks away from his job to save her life. With a rogue ATF agent and Michael Kincaid at his side, he will stop at nothing to bring her home safely.

Outnumbered, outgunned, and with his back against the wall, Tristan will find his resolve tested in ways he never could have imagined. Making a deal with the devil was never in his plans, but he'll do whatever it takes to save his ballerina one last time…even if he has to catapult the entire West Coast into a drug war unlike they've ever seen.

Amazon | Goodreads 

Ravished (The Teplo Trilogy #1) is FREE through 7/1/19

Amazon | Goodreads

Rhapsody (The Teplo Trilogy #2) is .99c through 7/1/19

Amazon | Goodreads

Halton Summary

When love turns to hate—that’s where I come in.

I’m Halton Andrew Smithers, attorney. Hal to my clients and friends.

Messy divorces, deadbeat dads, runaway wives, cheating partners—I handle them all.

I know the seedy side of love, and it isn’t pretty. I avoid emotional attachments—I’ve seen all too often when hot passion turns to frozen tundra.

I satisfy myself with helping people behind the scenes. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that completes my life.

Until she enters it and everything I believe is turned upside down.

She fills a void I never knew existed, and I know without her, my life will never be the same again.

For the first time, I want to try.

For her.

But am I strong enough?

Amazon | Goodreads

Rapture Excerpt

Roman strolled across the barren waiting room, headed for the desk separated from the rest of the room by bullet-proof glass. Tristan followed behind him, glancing around. Like most jails, this one wasn't anything to write home about. The chairs were bolted to the floor. A few grimy magazines were littered around, most torn and illegible from heavy use. Large signs were posted throughout the room, warning visitors of the strict rules and the consequences of violating them. Cameras were positioned high up on the cinderblock walls, capturing every angle of the room.

"Roman Gregory, ATF. And Tristan Riley, DEA. We're here to see Jesus de Silva. They should be expecting us." Using one finger, Roman lifted the chain around his neck for the visitation clerk to inspect his badge.

Her bored gaze flickered over his shield before she lifted her expectant gaze to Tristan. He held his badge up for the same disinterested inspection.

"Any weapons?"

"Nope."

"Are you taking anything in with you?"

"Just the case file and my car key." Roman tapped the file on the desk and then presented the key in question.

The clerk barely glanced at it before sliding a sign-in sheet across the desk toward him. "Sign in here. They're taking him to interview room three. Go through the sally port, take a left, and it'll be the third room on the right."

Roman scrawled their names and the time across the visitation log before sliding it back to the woman. "Thanks, Jessie."

"Mmhmm."

They walked in silence through the waiting room and then to their third set of metal detectors for the day, dropping their badges, the case file, and Roman's car key into a plastic bin. Tristan sighed loudly when the metal pins in his arm set the damn thing off and he had to explain, yet again, why the wand kept triggering on his arm.

The guard examined the surgical scar carefully, like he expected Tristan to rip it open and pull out a gun or drugs. Eventually, the man grunted wordlessly and waved him through.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered, yanking the sleeve of his shirt back down.

"Makes you wonder exactly how many ways they've seen shit brought inside, doesn't it?" Roman asked, waiting for the guard to buzz them into the sally port.

"I don't even want to know." Prisoners were nothing if not creative when it came to smuggling contraband into jails. It wouldn't surprise him if one or two had tried to pull some shit like that at some point.

Roman chuckled.

Once they were through the sally port and into the jail proper, the smell hit Tristan right in the gut. He'd never understand how jails could smell like industrial strength cleaner and stale urine at the same time, but somehow, they always managed to do exactly that. The combination was worse than the noxious cloud of perfume, body odor, and stale smoke that had permeated Teplo every night.

"Fair warning, de Silva doesn't like me much," Roman muttered as they made their way down the hall to the interview room.

"Old friends?"

"I dislocated his dick, and broke his jaw and both of his legs a few months ago." Roman shrugged, his expression completely stoic. "He's still bitter."

"Not very sporting of him," Tristan said. He'd already known that Roman and his former partner, Brady Kaplan, had kicked the shit out of de Silva and a handful of his buddies after Guerrero targeted Mila. From what Jason had told him, Roman was suspended for a while and Brady resigned after everything went down. For whatever reason, de Silva didn't pursue charges. The dick thing was new info though.

"He had it coming."

"I didn't even know you could dislocate a dick," Tristan muttered. The thought of de Silva's dick being out of commission for a while made him happy. He hoped the fucker never worked properly again.

"I didn't either at the time."

Tristan laughed loudly at the hint of quiet surprise in Roman's voice.

"Agent Gregory?" A rotund man popped his head out of the doorway, his gray eyes bouncing from Roman to Tristan and then back again. With a few strands of hair badly combed over his balding head and sweat staining his button down, he looked squirrely as fuck.

"That'd be me." Roman held up his shield.

"Tristan Riley," Tristan muttered to the man, not bothering to add the whole "agent" part. Over the years, he'd been called a lot of things, but nothing pissed him off more than someone calling him Agent Riley. It grated on his nerves for reasons he couldn't even explain to himself…perhaps because he'd never felt particularly worthy of the Riley name to begin with. Oddly, that wasn't the case any longer.

For once in his life, he actually thought his parents would have been proud of the man he'd become. That, he knew, was Lillian's doing. She made him see himself clearly…and he wasn't as bad as he'd always believed.

He still hated being called Agent Riley though.

"I'm William Black, Mr. de Silva's lawyer." The man held out his hand, only to lower it again when he realized neither Tristan nor Roman intended to shake it. He pursed his lips, his expression souring. "You understand he's here of his own volition to speak with you?"

"I'm sure the plea deal the D.A. offered him on the drug trafficking and weapons charges has nothing to do with his willingness to speak to us today," Roman shot right back at him.

Black's lips compressed into an even tighter line, his face going red.

"Frankly, I don't give a fuck if he's here because God told him to be here," Roman muttered, glaring down at the man. "We have questions. He has answers. Let's get this shit over with."

Black huffed and then stepped aside, allowing Roman to duck into the interview room. Tristan followed behind him, keeping as much distance between himself and Black as possible. The man smelled like piss and stale sweat.

The nondescript interview room didn't hold much. Paint peeled from the walls and an inch of dirt and grime was visible in the corners. The four chairs in the small space were bolted to the floor. So was the table in the center of the room. Two guards stood at the door on the opposite side of the room, pretending to look everywhere except at them.

The man handcuffed and shackled to the table had shaggy black hair and gang tattoos all over his face and hands. Unless Tristan missed his guess, Jesus de Silva was in his late twenties or early thirties. One of his front teeth was missing in action. The permanent sneer on his face and those hard brown eyes made him appear sullen. Intelligence shone in his eyes though, making it clear he wasn't just another gangbanger. He was smart enough to have made it damn near to the top of one of the most violent gangs in Los Angeles, and that counted for something.

"Puto," he muttered, his lips twisting into a sneer as he glared at Roman.

"Miss me, de Silva?" Roman asked, slapping the case file down onto the table.

"Fuck you, homie."

"We both know I'm not your type, de Silva. You prefer innocent teenagers, remember?" Hatred rolled through Roman's expression as he stared at the gangbanger. "You sick fuck."

"If that's how you're going to speak to my client–"

"Settle down, Black. I know his fucking rights." Roman rolled his eyes and dropped down into the chair across from de Silva. "Riley, this is Jesus. Jesus, this is Riley. He likes you about as well as my last partner did. You remember Brady, right?"

The gangbanger ignored him, his hard gaze flickering across Tristan's face. He schooled his expression quickly, but not quickly enough to hide the flare of recognition, followed by annoyance that flashed across his face.

When Black made his way around the table to take the seat beside his client, Roman caught Tristan's eye and arched a brow. Tristan nodded back before sliding into an empty chair, letting the ATF agent know he'd noticed it too.

Somehow, de Silva knew who he was and wasn't thrilled to see him here.

Wasn't that just fucking lovely?

RAPTURE GIVEAWAY

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Commas and Omitted Words

Happy Writer Wednesday!

Commas can be complex. We're taught these simple little rules in school...and then we get into writing and realize that those simple little rules just don't cover everything the comma encompasses. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing some tips to help you remember when you need a comma and when you can skip it.

When you're omitting a word from a compound sentence, use a comma to show that a repeated word was left out of the second clause.

You don't have to use a comma in a sentence when you're omitting the word that. This is where I struggle! I often think I need a comma to denote the missing word (as above), and then have to go through every manuscript with a fine-tooth comb to figure out where I did that. Fun times!

Don't Submit that Manuscript until You Read It Differently!

Happy Writer Wednesday!

I cannot tell you enough how important it is to read your manuscript with "fresh eyes" before you submit or publish it. We have a tendency to read things the way we INTENDED them to be written, and not the way we ACTUALLY wrote them. This is even more true if you're reading on the same device you wrote those words on!

In order to catch errors and typos, change it up! Print out your manuscript. Put it on your Kindle. Read it out loud. This will help you catch mistakes you might have otherwise overlooked.

With so many readers now using ereaders, giving your manuscript a pass or two on your ereader will allow you to see it how most readers will. Something might flow well in a Word document, but not so much so on an ereader. Those short sentences that made the scene pop on the computer may seem choppy and rudimentary. Those paragraphs that you thought were the perfect length might end up seeming incredibly long on an ereader.

I cannot count how many times I've thought something looked great in Word, only to see it on my ereader and realize the paragraph is way too long, the sentence doesn't flow well, or I have a typo. It's so much less stressful to find those errors before you send your baby out into the world than it is to have a reader point them out later!

You put your blood, sweat, and tears into writing your manuscript. Give it one more pass and help it glow!

June Racy Reads Giveaway! Claim over 150+ Steamy Romance Titles! #freebooks #giveaway

June is not my favorite month. It's hot and muggy and ugh! But June is looking up this year. In addition to Deny Me and Rapture releasing this month, I FINALLY get a vacation. After working 50-60 hour weeks since December, I cannot wait to kick back, relax, and read all the books.   Thanks to the June Racy Reads Giveaway, my Kindle will be full of the kind of hot I DO like. Over 150 titles are up for grabs in this steamy giveaway, including my book, Devour Me (Her Best Friend's Father #1).

Other Titles in the Giveaway Include: Making Ends Meet by Liza Mitchell The Trouble with Angels by Maggie Adams Homecoming by KD Black Back to You by Jennifer Hartley Virgin on Vacation by Emily Vincent No Strings Attached by Romi Hart Tamed by Him by Mia Ford The Cabin Escape by Melissa Davenport Always Mine by Victoria Snow Hard Rock Promise by Athena Wright Beholden to You by Molly Sloan The Filthy Prom King by RA Pierce Big Gun by Dani Stowe Twisted Love by Brenda Ford The Real MVP by Delaney Foster + Many More! JOIN THE GIVEAWAY NOW About Devour Me Don't get caught. Never fall in love. And steer clear of his daughter's friends. The rules were easy enough for Roman Gregory...until Mila Lawson set out to break every single one of them. When the twenty-two year old lands on the ATF agent's doorstep after a nasty breakup, he knows all too well that she's off-limits. At thirty-eight, he's almost twice her age, she's hurting, and the blonde bombshell is his daughter's best friend. Mila knows all about wanting what she can't have. For four years, she's lusted after Talia McPherson's scary hot, terminally single father from afar. After walking away from her cheating ex and what she thought was her happily-ever-after, the last thing on her mind is jumping into a new relationship. Until she find herself living with Roman in Santa Cruz... Now all she can think about is making all those dirty fantasies come to life. With nothing left to lose, she makes him an offer he can't refuse: Two weeks of no-holds-barred sex. No strings. No commitments. No messy emotions. Roman has no business agreeing to her insane proposition. He can't have her. He shouldn't even want her. But he's going to take her anyway… and he has no intentions of stopping until she's his completely. If there's one thing Roman knows for a fact, it's that he doesn't lose. Ever.

New Release: Bunker Boy by Jordan Elizabeth #ya #postapocalyptic #newrelease

BUNKER BOY

YA Post-Apocalyptic

By Jordan Elizabeth

About the Book

All Zara wanted to do was pass her Spanish final and graduate high school, but suddenly she’s waking up in an unknown hospital. The east coast is destroyed and she’s one of the few survivors. The government has assigned her to Outpost Eight, an abandoned Catskills resort converted into a fortress. Not only does Zara have to come to terms with the loss of everything she’s ever known, but the leader of Outpost Eight marries her to his son.

Cliff Andrews is too quiet and afraid of everything, especially his father. There’s much more to the situation than he’s telling Zara. Nothing feels right about Outpost Eight and Zara questions what really happened to Cliff’s first wife.

Everyone else might be willing to blindly follow the leader’s laws, but not Zara. She won’t stop until she knows the truth about Outpost Eight.

Get your book today from Amazon for 99 cents!  getbook.at/BunkerBoy

Chapter 1

            I can’t study with Metallica blaring downstairs.  The windows vibrate with the booming bass.  They might shatter, and shards will shred through me, while I sit here at my desk with my teeth clenched and my fist tight around this pen.  Don’t get me wrong – I can appreciate some Metallica.  If I’m having a bad day, there’s nothing better than enjoying heavy metal music while driving to Sylvan Beach.

            When you have your Spanish final coming up tomorrow morning, you don’t want to hear swear words ricocheting off your walls, especially with your bedroom door shut.  My head pounds; that music has been going for the last hour and a half, ever since Mom and Dad went out.

            Enough!  I stand and throw my pen down, which doesn’t help anything other than to make me more irritated when it rolls onto the floor.  I stomp into the hallway, slamming my door behind me, and storm down the stairs.

            Uncle Brad reclines on the couch while playing some video game I don’t recognize.  A girl with giant boobs and shorts so short her fake butt-cheeks hang out runs at some kind of alien monster.  She shoots him dead and then slashes through with a sword that magically replaces the dual pistols in her hands.  The sword vanishes and now she’s running down a hallway with portholes – maybe she’s on a ship – and her hands are empty.

            My uncle belches before stuffing chips into his mouth and taking a sip of beer.

            “You’re not supposed to drink beer,” I yell over the music coming from Mom’s old CD player.  Uncle Brad has it turned up as loud as it will go.  If I’m lucky, the neighbors will call the police with a noise complaint.

            Uncle Brad belches again, returning to his video game.  I glance into the kitchen, but he has yet to put the vegetable lasagna into the oven.  When Mom and Dad went to the work party, Dad handed Uncle Brad the instructions.  He said: “Make sure to put this in an hour before you want to eat.”

            It would have been great to eat at six, but whatever.  Studying came before food.  Okay, it shouldn’t, because I need the energy, but I’m supposed to give Uncle Brad responsibility.  I’m not supposed to do things for him.

            “Did you put the food in yet?”  I ask.

            Uncle Brad nods his head in time with the tune of a new song.

            “Hey!”  I walk in front of him, blocking the television screen.  “Did you start the oven yet?”

            “Move!”  He hits a key on the game controller and glares at me.  He must have paused the game.  “What’s your problem, Zara?”

            Oh, I’ve got a lot of problems, and they all started with Uncle Brad getting released from rehab.  Again.  This was his third release since he started doing meth at age fifteen.

            I could start by rattling off the list of things he lacks: a job, a car, a home.  This house that Mom and Dad pay for with their nine-to-five jobs is not his home.  It’s mine, and I need to study for the class that has given me the most trouble this year. 

            Other seniors took easy classes so they could fly through and ride off on golden horses to college.  I had to take French for grades ninth through eleventh, and then decide to be super proactive for grade twelve.  I had to sign up for Spanish 1 and 2 to look better on my applications. 

            “Dude,” he says, “move.”

            You move.  Go get a job.  You’ve been out for a month now and you just rot on our couch.

            I try to smile.  I’m supposed to smile to make Uncle Brad feel comfortable.  I don’t have to feel comfortable, but hey, I don’t matter because I’ve never touched illegal drugs.  “I was wondering if you put the lasagna in the oven yet.  It takes an hour to cook.”

            “I already ate.”  He extends his foot to push me aside. 

            “You ate chips and drank beer.”  I hope my voice sounds pleasant enough.  I’m not supposed to sound accusatory.

            So many rules, and Uncle Brad doesn’t have to do much, other than sit there and behave.  Beer is off limits, according to Mom, and he doesn’t care.

            He must know my train of thought because he sneers, “You’re not gonna tell on me, are you, Zara?”

            “No.”  Tattling won’t get anything accomplished.  Mom will sigh and invite Uncle Brad to attend church with us.  Dad will break into one of his lectures and Uncle Brad will zone out.  Dad’s fourteen years older than Uncle Brad; he treats him like a son instead of a brother.  Uncle Brad’s pointed it out so many times in the past.

            “You’re not Papa.  Don’t treat me like a kid!”

            That just triggers yet another lecture.  Dad can lecture for hours. 

            “Can you turn the music down?”  I ask.  “I can’t study with it so loud.”

            He bares his teeth.  “Once the CD finishes, sure.”

            “You have it on repeat.”  I hook my finger at the player he’s stuck on the floor.  How he found it in the cellar is anyone’s guess.  I haven’t seen the thing in years.

            He found it just to terrorize me.

            He brays out this horrible laugh that grates on my nerves.  If it wasn’t Mom’s, I’d throw the player in the trash out by the curb.

            “I need to study.  I can’t with it being so loud in here.”

            “What you got to study for?  Didn’t college end already?”

            “I’m in high school.”

            Uncle Brad narrows his eyes at me.

            “Grant’s in college.”

            Uncle Brad takes another swing of beer.

            “Grant’s my brother,” I supply, in case Uncle Brad’s too drunk to realize he has a niece and a nephew.  I glance around the room for a pile of empty bottles, but this seems to be his first of the night.  If he cares, he’ll toss it outside before Mom and Dad get home.  If he doesn’t, I’ll have to endure a screaming match.

            “Nah, you’re in college.”

            “You think a college girl would wear this?”  I point at my worn-out Hello Kitty hoodie.  My best friend would laugh and point to her Sanrio socks, but Uncle Brad just blinks at me.  He swears.  He drinks more beer.

            I draw a deep breath, steeling my nerves.  “You need to put the lasagna in the oven so we can eat.”  Uncle Brad needs to take responsibility.  I’m not helping anyone except myself if I do it for him.

            “Nah, I’m good.”  He presses the pause button and the game starts back up.

            “Uncle Brad—” Ugh, whatever.  He’s not going to keep me from acing this final, my final final.  He isn’t breaking my GPA. 

            I storm into the kitchen, then creep into the cellar.  The bare bulbs buzz in the ceiling.  I open the door to the circuit breaker, find the right switch, and flip it off. 

            The music cuts off mid-word.  Uncle Brad hollers out a swear.  The video game isn’t playing either, so that must have gone off too.  I hurry back upstairs and slide into a stool at the island just as he barrels into the room.

            “What did you do to the power?”

            I blink at him.  “What are you talking about?”  I point to the hanging lights in the kitchen, all of them bright and alive.

            “What did you freaking do?” he roars.

            I gulp, and my heart starts to pound a little bit faster.  No one has ever called Uncle Brad dangerous, but there’s something in his face that makes the saliva dry in my mouth.  His eyes have got this wild look.  It reminds me of the feral cat that slinks around the house sometimes. 

            “You are a bitch,” he growls.

            Me, the girl trying to study, the girl who has never complained aloud about him living with us.

            “Maybe check the basement?  Maybe the circuit breaker flipped.”  My voice squeaks and I cough before the sudden fear chokes me.

            He calls me a swear word that makes my cheeks hot and my mouth drop.

            Uncle Brad slams the door open and curses when he flips the light switch on.  He can’t know I did it.  Should I run upstairs and lock myself in the bathroom before he returns?

            He won’t hurt me.  He’s my uncle.

            I’ll make dinner.  He’ll eat the lasagna even if he doesn’t want it now.  All will be well as we chow down on Dad’s specialty.  Maybe we’ll watch Saturday Night Live and I’ll make us some popcorn for dessert.  Mom and Dad will come home to find us laughing like bosom buds.

            A bang sounds in my ears.  Lights flash through the kitchen’s French doors and I cringe, blinking.  Another huge bang.  Uncle Brad shouts, the words indistinct, and I sail backwards.  I hit the floor.  Pain is in my head and then…nothing.

About the Author

Jordan Elizabeth is a young adult author from Central New York.  The history of the Catskills has always fascinated her.  BUNKER BOY is her twentieth book.  

Act vs Intent and the Felony Murder Rule

Happy Writer Wednesday!

In the United States, the Criminal Justice system operates under the actus resus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea mentality in many instances. This means that an act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty.

In some instances, acts or actions are a crime regardless of whether you intended to break the law or not. For instance, if you're speeding, it doesn't matter if you meant to do so or not. The fact that you were speeding is enough to constitute a violation. This is what is known as "actus reus". In most instances, ignorance of the law isn't a justifiable defense. So if you didn't see the speed limit sign, you're still going to be paying that speeding ticket.

However, in many other instances, in order to constitute a crime, there has to be intent or a "guilty mind". You have to have intended to commit the crime in order to be charged and convicted. This is known as "mens rea". For instance, if you discharge a firearm into the air and it kills someone, you probably won't be charged with homicide because you didn't intend to kill anyone. You were just an idiot. But you can be charged with reckless discharge of a firearm because you committed that act by shooting into the air. You might also be charged with some form of manslaughter because your reckless action caused a death regardless of your intent. But because homicide requires malice aforethought (or intent), which you lacked, you can't be charged with homicide.

One glaring exception to this rule is the Felony Murder Rule. In most states and common law jurisdictions, if you commit a felony and someone dies, you can be charged with that death regardless of whether or not you intended for it to happen. If you're involved in a felony (bank robbery) and your fellow bank robber kills someone, you can be charged with homicide too. Even if you didn't pull the trigger, you're complicit because you were involved in the bank robbery.

So if your character Bob is in prison for murder in the 1st because he shot into the air and accidentally killed someone...you might want to rethink that! But if Bob is in prison for murder because he was robbing a bank and John shot a guard, you're on the right track.

Need more in-depth help? Check out JRank's article on the difference between the two. You can also use the JRank Law Library to research other CJ topics of interest!