Writes
The Knights of Maenara Collective (6 of 10) The Crimson Blade, a Vampire Heart, and a Quiet Kiss. The war for the Collective just got personal, political, and sickeningly messy. In this explosive sixth installment of The Knights of Maenara Collective, Nicola Knight confronts the treasonous Stephen and the price of victory is steeper and far more gruesome than she… Continue reading Seduction and Politics
Welcome to The Writer’s Lab, where we take apart a piece of published fiction to see how the engine works. This post is for paid subscribers because it contains exclusive craft analysis. For this month’s deep dive, we’re dissecting Chapter 7 of Haint Party. The writing challenge here was immense: we had to confirm the presence of a ghost and… Continue reading The Writer's Lab: Dissecting the Double Reveal in Chapter 7 (Our Vampire)
The Knights of Maenara Collective #5 of 10 The Knights of Maenara Collective The Collective’s Truth, Part 1 The warehouse settled into an uneasy quiet after Victoria and Stephen’s departure, the kind of silence that pressed against your eardrums and made you hyper aware of every creak, every breath, every heartbeat. Nicola stood by the window, one hand pressed to… Continue reading The Collective's Truth, Part One
Our Vampire Dinner was delicious, as usual, and we fell into the comfortable rhythm of trying to convince Lizzie to expand her bakery menu. It was a familiar dance. We’d suggest, she’d deflect. We’d push harder, she’d change the subject. Rinse and repeat. But watching her now, I wondered if maybe Zora could break through where the rest of us… Continue reading Haint Party, Chapter 7
Story finalés, a Haint Party update, and a dark, funny, and utterly unsatisfying holiday commitment. Hello! Just a quick, non-fiction post to let you know that I am, in fact, still a real person. I know, I know…with the sheer volume of stories going up on the schedule, you might suspect I’ve been replaced by a highly efficient, short-story-generating bot.… Continue reading Urgent Update: I'm Still a Human (And Not an AI Short Story Machine)
The Knights of Maenara Collective (4 of 10) The warehouse breathed around them, old wood settling, metal groaning. Grace’s fangs were still buried in Nicola’s throat, and the world had narrowed to pulse and pressure and the wet sound of swallowing. Nicola’s knees buckled. Her vision swam. Pain threaded through her like wire pulled taut, but underneath it, something else.… Continue reading Blood Magic Awakens
The Knights of Maenara Collective (3 of 10) Grace’s hands found the stick shift like it was a foreign language she’d never studied. The car lurched, stalled, died with a cough that sounded accusatory. “Damn it,” she muttered. Nicola cracked one eye open from the passenger seat, her face half-shadow in the porch light’s sickly glow. “You’ve got to seduce… Continue reading Salt Row Sanctuary
The Knights of Maenara Collective #5 of 10 The Knights of Maenara Collective #5 The Collective’s Truth, Part Two Victoria and Grace had moved to the living room area… or what passed for a living space downstairs in the half workshop, half crab sorting area and office. Grace was curled in the armchair that had been Ellie’s, wrapped in a… Continue reading The Collective's Truth, Part Two
The Knights of Maenara Collective (2 of 10) The bedroom door at the top of the stairs was locked, the antique brass knob refusing to turn under Nicola’s hand. She knocked once, twice, then harder when there was no response. “Miss Broadchurch? Grace? I need my jacket. My phone’s in the pocket and I need to call this in.” Silence.… Continue reading Witness and Attack, Part Two
