KILLING OFF CHARACTERS

Okay, I've done it before, killed off a few characters in my stories. Never an easy thing to do, especially after developing an affinity for some of these characters. I did it in Deadly Games, as well as in Deadly Affairs. Deadly Affairs was particularly difficult. After I wrote the scene, I actually felt ... sad, a little depressed, yet it had to be done.

I'm working on my latest story in my series The Pleasure of Our Company, and am there again, where I'm having to make the choice to do away with a character. Except, I'm not sure which one at this point. I know that by allowing the story to percolate a bit inside my mind, that eventually I will have an epiphany of sorts. I can either be in the shower, singing the latest Lady Gaga song, or dancing on the dance floor to the music of the Pussycat Dolls, or just taking my puppy for her daily walk.

It will come. I'm sure of it. And that is what so great about how the mind works because even as I'm typing this posting, something is going on in another part of my consciousness that will have me write the last chapters of my story titled JANINE: ALL TIED UP. This story is the fifth one actually in my series The Pleasure of Our Company.

The first is Tanya's Story

The second is Kacie's Story

Then comes Marcie's and Janine's stories.

All of these stories are up at Amazon.com.

Anyone can find them by typing in the name Collette Thomas and you'll find the listing.

Okay, back to the drawing board or in this case Chapter seven of JANINE'S STORY - ALL TIED UP!

Manic Readers Gives Deadly Secrets Four Stars

I just came across this review by Manic Readers









Rating:
Reviewer: AlexJouJou

Deirdre Clarke is running from a violent past with her ex-husband. Although he’s in prison the chains that bind her to him have been elusive and hard to break. Josh Tyler is looking for a tenant and in these economic times he cannot afford to be too picky. Josh has a law enforcement background and teaches martial arts. He is divorced and has a teenage son. Josh and Deirdre have met before but, like two ships that pass in the night, circumstances prevented them from getting together. This may be their new chance at love.

Bruce Braddock knows that his ex-wife Deirdre is meant to be with him. All he needs is to show this to her. In the meantime, he finds a playmate in Josh’s ex-wife Maureen, a vulnerable divorcee who is searching for affection. Bruce and Maureen develop a dominant/submissive relationship that is very violent—with Bruce pushing Maureen to the edge. It becomes an addiction for her, one she is powerless to resist that has deadly consequences.

As Deirdre and Josh rediscover their attraction Bruce and Maureen push all boundaries in a violent relationship that hangs by a thread. As Bruce sets up his plan to get Deirdre back will Maureen be sacrificed? Is Josh capable of protecting Deirdre and himself against a man bent on domination?

I found it a little hard to get into Deadly Secrets when I started reading. The characters were described well but there were several of them introduced together and I found myself a bit confused. There is a lot of back and forth in the plot—juxtapositions of the two stories and while they are perfect foils for each other it can be hard to make that shift all the time, particularly since they are polar opposites.

Overall, I think this is best read over several sittings—giving you time to organize your thoughts about the characters. I found Bruce and Maureen to be the more interesting couple because it is like watching an accident that you cannot stop—you know that someone is going to be hurt and you are just waiting with bated breath for it to happen all the while thinking that it won’t. This created most of the dramatic tension in the book. The Josh and Deirdre relationship was not as exciting. I spent a lot of time saying, “Move it along already,” for their parts.

With that said I still found much to like in this novel length book. There was more than adequate time for descriptions and this is very important and often over looked. The addition of Josh’s son provided a shift in perspective that was unique and added a lot to the story. Bruce is most definitely portrayed as an unsympathetic character which plays well with Josh’s much more sympathetic storyline.

This book would be a very good choice for those that like mysteries with some romance thrown in. It is drama and tension that is the strength of Deadly Secrets.

CONTEST RUNNING THROUGH JUNE 30, 2010

I'm running a contest through the end of June. All you have to do is leave a comment here and every comment will be entered into the contest as an entry.

The prize?

Both of my books DEADLY GAMES AND DEADLY AFFAIRS - The winner who lives here in the U.S. will get the actual paperback version (autographed of course.) The winner who lives outside the U.S. receives the ebook version of both stories.

So you can say there will be TWO WINNERS!

The contest is not valid where prohibited by law.

AND you don't need to buy any of my books to enter, although I do appreciate any sales I make considering I have a PeekaPoo puppy who just turned a year old yesterday and well...I love to buy her new toys!

DEADLY GAMES and DEADLY AFFAIRS are both available at DAMNATION BOOKS.

YOU WRITE WHAT KIND OF STORIES?

If someone were to come into my office and look at the small pile of reference books I now have on my desk, and read the titles they just might wonder.

Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry

The Internet Escort’s Handbook Book 1 The Foundation

In Good Company: The Escort’s Guide

Confessions of a Working Girl: A true story

and

Sex Secrets of Escorts: Tips from a Pro

Yes you got to wonder.

Then again, downstairs in my basement there must be a least a dozen boxes with stuff on police procedures, criminology, criminal investigation, forensic science, crime labs procedures, guns, not to mention the workings of a court case when the bad guy is apprehended and is finally brought to trial.

My next story (Jaden’s Story) in my series The Pleasure of Our Company will incorporate some of that knowledge as well. Tanya, Kacie, Marcie, Janine, and Jaden are escorts (there will be more.) Their stories are vignettes of their lives as they live their lives and make a living.

We writers live in a lot of different worlds...worlds that most mortals or perhaps immortals do not venture except within the pages of a book. Writers do it similarly by creating these pages. We enjoy taking our readers into worlds that might have them look back at their own worlds in a slightly different perspective.

I have never done or even witnessed an autopsy on a body. Yet, in my book Deadly Games there is a scene where my medical examiner performs one while the hero looks on.

Some have asked who do not know me personally if that’s what I do for a living. Am I then a forensic pathologist because I’ve created a few believable scenes that take place on a cutting table inside a morgue? I tell them no, and would never present myself to the extent that I felt I could talk about this subject with the authenticity of someone who does this in their profession. I read and research what usually occurs. And it is this credibility that shows through (or not) within the story.

And since my series centers itself on the members of a unique group known as “escorts” whose sole purpose is to give pleasure to others, research is required and since this will be an ongoing series that will take my mind to places I myself do not plan to go, at least physically, these books as noted above remain on my desk. There‘s no way around this because we as writers need to go into the psyches of our characters.

I’ve always found characters that live in what is conceived to the rest of us as dark worlds; complex as well as complicated, with various dimensions that may have me go deeper into that psyche only because I need to know what has brought this character to a point that they now need to do what they do.

So, yes I write erotica, erotic romance, erotic forensic thrillers; dark tales where the realism is palpable and the endings can go either way, although in erotic romances usually these stories deliver the HEA (happy ever after) ending.

Whatever ending is delivered to my readers, hopefully it is one that is compelling and most of all satisfying.

Buy Link to Anthology Pleasure of Our Company

Buy Link to Deadly Games