New Release! Dance in These Hollow Walls

Hi, all! For those of you who don’t know, I wrote a dystopian romance collaboration last summer! It was written with the lovely XXX [name redacted because we republished this book and her name has been replaced by Lily I. Aspara, thereafter in this post referred to as Lily], a friend I met through the Prague Writers’ Group here in Prague 🙂 Hi, Lily! – if you’re reading, which you should be, to make sure I don’t write any fantastic craziness as I am apt to do when not watched with a stern eye…

However, I suppose I should get to it and give the gritty stuff on how the book got started.

It was, in essence, a misunderstanding.

Yes, you read right. We accidentally started writing a collaboration.

This is how it happened:

Lily and I were chatting on Facebook, and in the midst of a desultory recounting of her day, she wrote this sentence (or something extremely similar) : “Well, we almost went for a doughnut.”

At that I kind of blinked, and cocked my head, and looked at the computer screen, huffed out a little laugh, and typed back that she should totally use that for the first line of a story.

And she was like, Yeah?

I was like, Yeah.

Now here’s where things get a bit fuzzy. She somehow thought I meant we should collaborate on a story. To me it seemed like she came up with this collaboration idea herself, and I was all surprise. Oh, okay, I thought. She wants to write a collaboration. Didn’t expect that, but what the heck, could be fun to start a story about a failed doughnut excursion, right? So we veered toward discussing plots and setting and genre – where would this phantom doughnut beginning appear?

At this point, Lily was thinking short story (as she told me later). I was thinking novel.

So I banged out a first section and sent it to her.

She banged out her section and sent it back.

And it kind of escalated. We wrote our respective parts, edited the others’, discussed plot points, characters, and chatted and argued and got all dramatic and huffy, and while there weren’t tears, there were several – ‘well, you write it then’ and ‘why do you have to make such sense and ruin my brilliant idea?’

So, yeah, we did spend some time soothing down each others’ ruffled feathers, but most of the time it was just utterly and amazingly addictive – I think we were both pretty constantly thinking, What did she write this time and why the heck isn’t she on Facebook?!!!

And that’s about how it continued, with both of us on Facebook glued to the message screen as often as we could be, thinking when is (Sonya / Lily) going to write again?

I hardly slept. I ate, went to work, wrote late into the night and late into the morning.

And then – oh, my, gosh – her male character wanted (ahem) with my female character! I was like, Noooo, my poor baby! I felt like I was giving my child away for sex.

Um, yeah, that’s what it felt like. And it was the strangest freaking feeling ever! I was thinking, If I do this, what kind of mother to my character am I? I am a horrible, terrible, no-good – she needs a chastity belt! End of story.

Then I was like, Dude, just chill. The character knows what she’s doing. After all, she *is* a few weeks old; she knows what she wants.

And, well, Lily’s character definitely knew what he wanted.

Whether he got it or not, though, you shall have to read to find out – ha ha! As the Czechs say, “Tudle nudle!” (pronounced too-dluh noo-dluh – and, yes, I am thumbing my nose at you, or I would be if my fingers weren’t engaged typing)

So, anyway, on to the facts about the new release 🙂 It’s currently on Amazon and other retailers.

Here is the cover, and below that, the blurb! And after that… (drum roll) excerpts!

In a city where life is limited, love is precious.

Serycia Fade once longed to find a cure for a deadly virus that ravages her city, but ever since she was sold to a high-level man for pleasure, her dream has lain forcibly fallow.
When an act of mercy leaves her stranded and pregnant in the most lethal level of the city, she offers a fatally wounded man a month of health if he helps her escape to her research lab two levels up.
A near-impossible task when every level is strictly guarded.

Soren Lost was born a Level 1 nonentity. With only a few years left to live, he’s determined to carve out a safe haven for his young sister.
But then the square where he’s waiting with others explodes.
As he slumps dying in the gutter, a woman staggers out of the rubble, breaking into his life like a shard of sunlight shining in a squalid world. She makes him an impossible offer.
But if dealing in impossibilities buys him time to save his sister, he’s taking it.

Unfortunately, a powerful man has Serycia marked for death. She’s got city protectors on her tail. And time is a brutally ticking clock.

But in a city hollowed of hope, Soren and Serycia’s only chance is to teach hope to dance.

Aaaaand now for excerpts from each of our main characters. Soren goes first…

I hurl the grenade.

The world explodes with light: brilliant, scorching white that reflects off every steel surface, magnifying the effect a hundred times. Confused shrieks echo down, the protectors’ microphones crackling as they all shout over each other at once.

I whip away from the glare, arms tightening around the silken girl against my body. Just before I close my eyes, I see the twists of her braids. Smell something sweet that reminds me of dreams and pillows.

Then she is washed away, light rushing forth like a tide, and finally blocked out by red-tinged darkness as my lids shut tight over my eyes. I turn my face away and against the top of her head. Muffled against me, she tries to speak, her hands frantic around me, trying to tear away like a cat in water.

Blinking stars from my eyes, I clutch her arm and yank her towards the hole in the ground. “Go!”

Now for Serycia…

His words relax me, but the way his work-roughened fingers move on my arms softly, languidly, almost as if he’s entranced, pushes awareness into my mind of our isolation, of how much taller and stronger he is than I am, and of how he’s gone silent and he’s breathing in the sweet scent of my hair – of me, and I know it is sweeter and headier than anything else he’s ever smelled except for delicacies brought down from the upper levels. I think of how he could take me down under him and experience what he will never have the chance to experience again, and no one will know; no one will retaliate, because an escaped slave is less than nothing, even less than he is.

“I’m better now,” I whisper. “We should go. Thank you.”

His fingers halt their movement on my skin; his head turns as if he’s going to kiss me. Panic rises in my gut – but then he lets me go and stands up, offering me his hand.

I swallow and accept it, shivering inside at the way his callused hand curls around mine, then he lets me go and smiles at me, as if asking if I still trust him, and I smile tentatively back.

Anyway, I think the story only gets better as it goes on! Or do I know so? I hope so! We had tons of fun writing it, and I hope anyone who curls up with it one afternoon will have even more fun reading it! Of course, without the drama and ruffled feathers fluttering around and my worries about – what the heck does her character want from mine? Lilyyyyyy! Control your characters!