SquawkRadio

Please enjoy an extra excerpt, especially for you, with my compliments!

Continued from the first excerpt at http://christinadodd.com/excerpt.php?excerptid=000041 :

Using every ounce of courage she possessed, Ann ran back toward the house, grabbed the door and slammed it shut.

Let Mr. Wolfman claw his way through that.

As she sprinted toward the car, she sorted through the keys. The wind-blown rain slapped her in the face, clearing her brain … what good did a clear brain do her? Everything she believed in, everything she knew as true, was vanquished by the reality of that thing in the house. That wolf. The man she loved.

Jasha.

The Miata’s lights flashed as she unlocked the door with the remote. She slid into the seat, and scraped her knee on the steering column. She knew it must hurt. She just couldn’t feel it. Not now. Not yet. She didn’t have time.

She slammed the door. Glanced at the house. Tried to get the key in the ignition. Tried again.

Her hand was shaking too hard to make the connection.

She glanced at the house again — and saw the wolf leap through the sidelight beside front door. The glorious, expensive, leaded glass sprayed outward as his sleek body arched through, head outstretched, teeth bared.

Magically, her hand steadied and the key slid into the ignition. She started the car; she’d never heard a sound as wonderful as her engine turning over. She put her foot to the floor. The car leaped forward and she whipped around the circle drive with the verve and expertise of a driver in the Grand Prix.

Rain sluiced down the windshield. She fumbled with the wipers, got them on … in the intermittent mode. As the wipers slid unhurriedly across the windshield, she cursed the new car, the unfamiliar controls, the desire that had brought her here.

She should have known better. She was an orphan, abandoned and alone, marked by evil, rejected by the Almighty. Sister Mary Margaret had urged her to accept her fate and live her life alone, but Ann had rebelled.

Now she swore she’d thank God if she lived at all — especially since she hadn’t even put on her seatbelt.

Then she glanced into the rearview mirror.

The wolf raced across the grass after the car.

To hell with the seatbelt.

He couldn’t catch her. She knew it was impossible. Wolves couldn’t move as fast as a car.

But men didn’t turn into wolves, either. Maybe Jasha was a freaking transformer. Maybe he was going to turn into a giant mechanized robot and stomp on her and her car.

She bent her attention to the road, driving faster than she ever had in her life.

The wind buffeted the tiny Miata. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked. Her hair dripped into her eyes. Her hands slipped on the steering wheel: from the rain, from fear-induced sweat. She squinted through the blurry windshield, taking the winding curves too fast, seeing the ocean cliffs flash past as she cleared the forest then, as she turned inland again, the trees loom above her. Soon she would skirt the cliffs again. She needed to concentrate, to remember the route she’d driven only once …

Without warning, the road rose, then dipped, then rose. The car was airborne. She was airborne. With a jaw-snapping impact, the wheels hit the asphalt. The airbag exploded in her face, smothering her in white for one vital moment.

As it subsided, she desperately clawed it out of the way. Then she could see. The car was headed straight — but the road curved. Curved to the left, and ahead she saw nothing but rain and clouds and the edge of the cliff.

She slammed on the brakes. The car hydroplaned, the rear wheels sliding sideways.

At last the tread caught. She was in control.

But too late. Too late. The rear wheels dropped off the precipice. Half the car hung over the cliff, over the rocks and the ocean. The undercarriage screamed as it scraped the asphalt.

I’m going to die.

The side panel smacked something. Something big. A boulder. A tree trunk. Metal crunched. The car stopped. Stopped so suddenly she slid sideways into the passenger seat. She lost her grip on the wheel. Her legs tangled with the console. She sat frozen, waiting for the car to tip, to plunge her into the ocean.

Nothing moved. The stench of hot metal and burning rubber filled her nose. She was still alive — and if she wanted to stay that way, she had to get out. Get out before the car plunged off the cliff. Get out before it burst into flame.

She put on the emergency brake, then closed her eyes. Taking care not to suddenly shift her weight, she grasped the handle and opened the door. All her care was wasted; the wind caught it and jerked it wide. She held her breath, waiting for the inevitable shift and tumble.

Nothing.

Distantly she noted that her hand was now steady. Somewhere on this wild ride, she had transcended terror.

She slid her leg out, inched her butt along the seat, then gradually stood.

The car hung there, suspended over the cliff, resting on the front tires and the frame.

She stepped away from it. Backed away, waiting for it to take the plunge.

The Miata remained still.

She stood alone on a one-lane private road. Her new car was smashed and unsalvageable, a testament to her bad driving — and a sign to Jasha that she was helpless and on foot. She was barefoot, rain lashed her and — she faced back the way she came —nothing made sense, especially not the wolf who was Jasha.

I have to hide.

On one side of the road, the ocean lashed the base of the cliff. On the other, the primeval forest loomed, dark and thick, branches lashing in the wind. She didn’t want to go in there.

Then in the distance, a wolf howled.

He was coming for her.

Ann sprinted across the road and into the forest.

Click here to order SCENT OF DARKNESS from Amazon.

To order SCENT OF DARKNESS from Barnesandnoble.com click here.

Visit Christina’s website!

Why are you back? I thought you guys were completely and totally like Pouff!

Not so, grasshopper. Squawk Radio has ceased existence as a “daily blog” but as all karmic experiences, now that we have mastered this existence, we are recreated in another.
Yeah, yeah, right. But what does that mean to ME, the Squawk Blog reader?

Well, you’ll have to go other places for a daily blog fix. The obvious choice is to trundle right on over to the Squawkers’ individual blogs. Both Teresa and Liz have their very own blogs.  Right now Teresa has simply gathered all of her Squawk blogs there but if she gets wildly inspired, she may post a couple of blogs a month.  She’ll try to alert you with her newsletter, so be sure and sign up.  And the beat goes on with Liz, who has promised to keep posting her music blogs.  I do know both women well enough to be confident that there’ll be plenty of babbl---er, writing going on.

Teresa’s blog is at:
http://www.teresamedeiros.blogspot.com
and Liz’s blog is at:
http://bevarly.blogspot.com

and forget not that Christina,too, will be recycling her blogs but she’ll be doing so on her own site at
www.christinadodd.com

and Eloisa has a smokin’ bulletin board at:
www.eloisajames.com

and I am starting to play with videoblogs and making my own trailers, so soon (like this week) for those of you who are into campy amateurism, check out:
www.conniebrockway.com

Lisa has a different approach to this whole promotional thing. She works without pause on her books. Huh.

We also like:
http://www.romancebuythebook.com
http://www.runningwithquills.com
http://www.thegoddessblogs.com
http://www.jauntyquills.com
http://www.wordwenches.com
http://fogcitydivas.typepad.com/
http://romancebytheblog.blogspot.com

Where else can I go to get my Squawk Fix?

Websites. We all have websites. And we all have made fresh commitments to creating six Fabu Multi-Media Cyberganzas for your edification and entertainment. You can visit them at:

http://www.elizabethbevarly.com
http://www.conniebrockway.com
http://www.christinadodd.com
http://www.lisakleypas.com
http://www.eloisajames.com
http://www.teresamedeiros.com

Well, that’s good news but what’s going to happen to this site?

Like I said, it will transform (and despite Terri’s pleas, it will not transform into a never-ending loop of Russell Crowe sweating it up in Gladiator.) Squawk Radio may no longer be a daily blog, but it’s going to be here. In addition, you can check out the archives at any time. Just use the search function to find a blog by author or keyword. 

That’s it?  That’s all there’ll be here? Archives?

No. Right now, the plan is to use Squawk as a sort of Squawker’s Hub--- a place to post what’s happening on our individual websites, to stick links to any new content we add on our sites and list appearances we’ll be making. And, of course, we’ll be beating the drum whenever we have a book about to be released. The major difference being that we’ve turned off the comments to avoid those nasty spammers.

If you never joined our Member List, NOW is the time because we’ll be using those mini-e-newsletters to alert you to any new content posted on Squawk. 

But no more group blogs…?

“Never say never”—just “not daily” which in Squawk-speak translates to “randomly and sporadically and possibly occasionally.” Any of the Squawkers who don’t maintain a personal blog (and those who do) can always write a blog here just for grins or when the spirit moves. In which case, the comments will be turned on for a day or so.

So fret not! We love it too much to let Squawk Radio become a black hole.

Besides, we’re paid up on the site until next April…

Dearest Friends,
During this, our last official day as Squawkers on a daily blog, we wanted to leave you with the most important information of all--a way to keep in touch!  So if you’ll scroll down, you’ll find a brief note from each of the chicks plus one last chance to win some amazing Squawk prizes!  (And just in case you’re already suffering from withdrawal the Squawk chicks will be giving one last hurrah over at Romance:By the Blog at http://romancebytheblog.blogspot.com/ on Monday.)

FROM TERESA:  When we first started SQUAWK RADIO, we thought it would be a great promotional tool for our careers.  We had no idea it would snowball into this extraordinary community that would spawn countless other author-driven blogs and make best friends of complete strangers.  The last thing I want to do is lose track of the friends I’ve made here.  I hope you’ll visit my website at http://www.teresamedeiros.com to keep up with what’s happening in my own little corner of the universe.  You can sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter on the home page or just click on the button below and leave your name and e-mail addy.  (Which I promise not to share with anybody else...not even Xtina...well, not unless she begs...)

I’ve also gathered every one of my blogs from Squawk Radio plus blogs I’ve done on other sites into my own blogsite CHARMED LIFE:  http://www.teresamedeiros.blogspot.com I have no plans to actively blog right now but if I ever get bitten by the bug again, I’ll have a place to post my meanderings.  And if you have a really lazy Sunday afternoon, you can find all of my non-fiction offerings gathered in one place for your enjoyment.  As the resident geek, I’d like to leave you with the words of Mr. Spock to Captain Kirk at the end of STAR TREK: THE WRATH OF KHAN:  “You are, and always will be, my friends.” May God bless every one of you.  See you in cyberspace!

Later this evening, Teresa will be privately contacting 2 lucky winners from our Member List who will win an autographed Teresa Medeiros book! 

FROM ELOISA: I find the idea of saying goodbye to all the Squawkettes incredibly sad.  I keep staring at this computer screen and not typing.  I guess I want to repeat what I said the other day:  friendship is never a mistake, even if it doesn’t last forever.  I truly believe that.  I also truly believe that many of you will find ways to hang out with us.  We’d love to see you at a signing or a romance conference.  We’d love to see you at our websites.  The Squawkers fully intend to be wobbling over to see each other in our walkers, a few years down the road (a leeetle earlier for Kitty maybe than for the rest of us)—so come to a booksigning with any Squawker and we’ll give you an update on the whole crew!  Plus I’ll try to drag the Squawkers over to my Bulletin Board whenever I can.

I wish I was as organized as Teresea and sent out a bi-monthly newsletter—but mine goes out at least twice a year, which is pretty good for me.  Please sign up.  I’d love to be able to tell you when I have a new book out, and what contest is happening on my site (right now there’s a lot of chocolate up for grabs!).  Plus, if you’re signed up for my website, your password will get you into my Readers’ Pages—full of extra chapters, free short stories, crossword puzzles (there’s a new one coming), and other fun things to do.  And I won’t share your address, even if Christina BEGS!

Eloisa’s Mailing List Sign-up

Finally, whenever I’m doing a signing, I post a meet-and-greet time, about an hour before, on my Bulletin Board.  New York and New Jersey this month, and then Texas in July—I’d love to see you!

FROM CHRISTINA: Yesterday I called a family friend. Lillian lived next door when I was born, she’s 92, and she never stops going. She has the best memory of any person I’ve ever met. She uses it to make people feel special — she remembers the birthdays of every person she’s ever met. At one of her family gatherings, they announced it was talent night, and she named the birthdays of everyone there. When we talked, she was fretting because this year, she didn’t manage send a birthday card to her grandkids and great-grandkids (and their spouses) and great-great-grandkids for their birthdays — and she has 19 grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren and 12 great-great-grandchildren (and 2 on the way.) A huge family? Yes, but she only had three children. It’s just that all three have been married twice, and she considers their exs and their exs’s families still part of her family. I’m part of her family. My husband and kids are part of her family. Think about it — she remembers the birthdays of every person she’s ever lived next to (she’s lived in different homes in Missouri, California and Alaska) and their children and their mates and their childrens’ children … and more important, she considers them all friends. Lillian just lost a friend of 78 years, a friend she visited every day. And once you’re Lillian’s friend, death is the only way she’ll lose track of you (temporarily, I suppose) because she always calls, always cares, always remembers.

Those are the kind of relationships we’ve formed at Squawk Radio, built from generosity, kindness, thoughtfulness, with bonds that will last 78 years. Squawk Radio’s legacy is that out of our friendships — Lisa, Connie, Liz, Terri, Eloisa and me — so many other friendships have formed.

Okay, let me toss my damp wad of Kleenex in the trash and give you the info you need so we can continue to see each other around the internet. Click here to see my new video for the DARKNESS CHOSEN series — very cool! — and while you’re there, sign up for my mailing list to receive news about my books, chats, and signings, play the games in my exclusive “Members only” section, and have the chance to watch the more book videos, including the upcoming videos for SCENT OF DARKNESS and TOUCH OF DARKNESS. Oh, and did I mention that one of our commenters today is going to receive an arc of both SCENT OF DARKNESS and TOUCH OF DARKNESS?

Dear Friends,

When my fellow Squawkers and I decided to blog together, I wasn’t altogether clear on what a blog was. But they told me it would be fun, and I believed them.

And they were right, it was definitely fun. Fun to be a chicken, and fun to engage in all the cheerful debauchery that was Squawk Radio. I sort of expected it would be like that.

What I didn’t expect was how personal this blog would become. We’ve all shared our experiences, our insights and feelings . . . and even when the subject was delicate, or potentially explosive, there was always respect and caring. Squawk Radio was something rare on the internet: a safe place to be.

So thanks for your generosity of spirit. Thanks for the gift of your friendship. And most of all . . .

Thanks for the memories.

--From Lisa, with love

FROM LIZ: Okay, appropriately, I tossed back a couple glasses of wine before writing this, so forgive me if I stray off into incoherence from time to time or start typing like Connie.  I am amazed, truly, at the adventure that was Squawk Radio. Of the six of us, I think I was most reluctant to get involved with this blogging thing, because I just didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I have to say that isn’t between the pages of a novel. I’ve been surprised by how much I enjoyed writing something from the heart that didn’t involve imaginary characters. And I have loveloveloved getting to know all of you.

It wasn’t until I started writing romance that I really started collecting women friends and enjoying the community of women.  And the community that has evolved from Squawk has been extraordinary. Frankly, I don’t want to let you go. So, like Terri, I’ve set up a blog of my own at Blogger.  But my hope is to keep actively contributing to it. Right now, I’m only going to post something new once a week, interspersed with old blogs from Squawk. Eventually--soon, I hope--I want to go back to a weekly music blog. So if you want to check in with me at my new digs, I’ll be at:  http://bevarly.blogspot.com At some point, too, I’ll be updating my web site that hasn’t been updated since...um, I really don’t want to say. But I hope to see you guys again SOON. And I thank you for making the last two years incredibly special.

FROM CONNIE: Hey. What’s wrong with typing like Connie? Connie intends to keep typing that way, and she intends to keep typing on her website at www.conniebrockway.com and when she is finally harangued into submission, she has a cool new medium to loose upon the unsuspecting cyberverse--- videoblogs! That’s right, Connie bought that MAC and now she is going ape with its fun and richly appointed video and graphic capabilities. She also promises never again to refer to herself in the third person if you are kind enough to sign up for my mailing list. However, I will not lie: if Dodd pays me enough, I will sell your name to her (and regardless of what she says, so will Terri) but only to Christina. See? Wasn’t that refreshingly above-board?  How can you resist such candor? You can’t! Why would you even want to? Please do visit. The only down side is that Kitty is taking hacking lessons and has threatened to “visit” me. Just ignore her if this happens. Finally, thank you for two years of being here. My life is the richer for it.

“> To one lucky winner, Christina is giving an arc of SCENT OF DARKNESS and TOUCH OF DARKNESS! And the winner is ... drum roll, please ... Ana Maria for her wonderful comment, “Dime con quien andes, y te diré quien eres”.  Tranlated that means - tell me who you hang out with, and I’ll tell you who you are. That being the case, it means that I’ve evolved over the past two years into someone funny, sassy, strong, smart, irreverant, poetic, sharing, caring and just plain fun.” What a lovely tribute to all of us who read and write Squawk Radio. Thank you, Ana Maria.

“> And I know I promised only one prize, but let’s face it, there are a lot of reasons to give Mike the arcs, too. We’ve never given a prize to a guy. He always buys our books. And he flattered me, which I find works sooo well. So Mike, you win another set of the arcs.

Ana Maria and Mike, send your snail mail addresses to me at and I’ll get these out to you next week. And everyone else, if you haven’t already, Click here to see my new video for the DARKNESS CHOSEN series. It’s the best I’ve ever seen. 

Get out your party hats because Kitty Kuttlestone has the frozen margarita mix in the blender for the big SQUAWK FAREWELL BASH CHAT being held tonight at 9 eastern, 8 central, 7 mountain and 6 pacific over at Writerspace.  We hope you can join Lisa, Teresa, Liz, Eloisa, Connie and Christina for one final Squawk fling! 

To join the chat, go to http://writerspace.com/chat/readers/ and register, then sign in and join the party! 

(And feel free to pop into the Comments of this invitation later tonight to give us your impressions of the party for those who couldn’t attend.  But don’t forget--what happens between you and Kitty Kuttlestone STAYS between you and Kitty Kuttlestone!)

We all know what books are, don’t we?  They’re 400 or so pages, bound together with a shiny cover on the front.  Sometimes a mass market book will last for years.  Some of my most beloved romances, the ones I keep in the attic, have pages of an odd yellow color, and an even odder smell, like a closet that got rained on.  Some of those books, if I open them too wide, spray their pages at my feet like rain itself.  These books (Laura London’s The Windflower, a whole set of Georgette Heyers, even a Barbara Cartland or two) were written by authors who might have been writing in their own attics.  They wrote without much input, except perhaps from a spouse or an editor.

My father is a poet.  All the time I was growing up, his readers wrote him snail mail, as we would call it.  Loads and loads of snail mail.  He had a bathtub full of it, and every once in a while he would pull out a letter and answer it.  In my experience of helping him answer mail (one of the primary ways I earned cash as a teen), most people who write poets are would-be poets themselves.  It isn’t an interaction with readers, even if he had tackled the whole bathtub.

Here’s my feeling:  Squawk Radio, and places like it, have changed books.  Forever.  Writers don’t sit in an attic, writing our books in isolation anymore.  We log onto the internet in the morning instead.  Readers are everywhere, telling us what they like and what they don’t like.  In my last series of books, beginning with Much Ado About You, readers changed the stories irrevokably. 

Readers liked the Earl of Mayne, from Your Wicked Ways—so I picked up a throw-away character and brought him over to a new series.  I’d never done that before!  They adored Josie, my plump littlest sister, for the challenges she faced; so I thought hard about what it meant for her to have a curvy figure in the Regency, and wove that into her story. 

Not coincidentally, Squawk Radio started while I was writing this series, and I began to feel as if the fabric of books themselves were changing.  Growing.  As I came up with blogs about writing and life, it forced me to think about what I was doing, to philosophize a character, or a story.  That was invaluable.  It helped me—forced me!—to grow as a writer.

For my last two books, The Taming of the Duke and Pleasure for Pleasure, I’ve written an extra chapter and posted it on my website —a chapter that readers wished they had seen in the book. 

If you’re reading Desperate Duchesses, stop by the bulletin board and add your idea to the question about Extra Chapters.  In about a month, I’ll post a new chapter for Desperate Duchesses on my website—a chapter that didn’t exist before readers asked for it.  Frankly, I’m hugely curious.  Will they want to see my heroine, Roberta, ten years later?  Will they want one more scene in bed?  Is there something they want explained, a character they particularly loved?

And I have a new feature on my website—beautiful little Easter Eggs.  If you click on one, it opens a “window to Eloisa’s study”—gives you a bit of background information about one of my books.  I’m going to add Easter Eggs for each new book—and guess what readers want more of in future Easter Eggs?  How many children a given character had.  Did this brother/sister/aunt ever get married—and to whom? 

See how books are changing?  I feel as if they’re porous now: more open to the wishes and dreams of their readers, more of a collaborative product.  They are not just a collection of yellowing pages, but a joint project, a collaboration.

This is my farewell blog for Squawk Radio, and it’s not one of regret, but celebration.  I think this community has had a huge effect on shaping the way we read and write books—AND THAT’S NO SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENT!!!

So for my final question… how has the way you read/write/analyse/enjoy books changed in the last five years?  Do you buy books for different reasons?  Do you read books you never would have?  What’s changed for you?

Don’t forget that you’re all invited to the SQUAWK FAREWELL BASH CHAT this Thursday, May 31st, at 9 eastern, 8 central, 7 mountain and 6 pacific over at Writerspace.  Lisa, Teresa, Liz, Eloisa, Connie and Christina will reminisce about the great times at Squawk Radio, discuss what’s up next, answer all questions except those concerning age and weight, and of course, squabble and argue even as they close up shop.

To join the chat, go to http://writerspace.com/chat/readers/ and register, then sign in and join the party! That’s tomorrow night--Thursday, May 31. Mark your calendars!