February 4, 2024

Fun with floofs

On Saturday, January 27th, I saw a post from the local animal shelter about a little dog whose owner had to go into a nursing home. The shelter was overfull and this little guy was camping out in one of the staff offices. His first night was rough and he really needed out of there.

I called. A family was coming to meet him first - so they said to call back.

I called back. The little boy was too much for the dog to handle. I went up with 20 minutes to spare before they closed and met Jojo. He’s a little over two years old and well over 20 lbs overweight.

First night with Jojo

He spent a good part of the first afternoon-evening with his nose pressed to the window, crying and looking for his owner. He sits on the porch and stares at the driveway, checking every vehicle that comes up the drive.

Slowly, though, he’s settling in. He’s snuggling with the boys, learning the schedule of the house (No, Jojo, I do NOT wake up at 7:30am and want to play.) and figuring out where he fits in with everyone. Slow and steady, with consistent love and instruction is the way to win him over, I know. All of my pets have been rescues of one kind or another, and it can take months for them to feel safe and comfortable. For Ace? It took a year plus.

Anyway - I now have another writing buddy and Ace is happy he has someone he can play and wrestle with that he doesn’t have to worry about being so fragile (like he does with Bear).

Jojo, Ace, & Bear - porch time

Next up - Poll results: Not many of you voted - I mean, come on - the email went out to over 5k readers and I could only get 45 of you to vote? Really?
With the 45 that voted,
40% of the people that voted said they love the serializations
27% said they don’t care, they just read the email.
22% said they hate that I’m doing serializations at all.
7% said they have serious FOMO (fear of missing out)
4% said they are planning on subscribing soon.

Okay, good to know. I’m still doing the serializations and I hope more of you sign up and get excited about what’s coming. I’ll be tossing in chapters of whatever I’m working on, and I’ve got a LOT of books planned this year.

Now - here’s one for you - Check out a free book by one of my author friends!

Will she let down her guard for a knight in a flour-dusted apron?
Exclusive access to the first in the small-town steamy Pier 3 Coffee series: Mocha for Mateo by Melanie Greene
Alicia Wells never asked for a knight in flour-dusted apron to show up full of ideas for saving her surf-side cafe. She’s quite brilliant at plans, which is how she kept Pier 3 Coffee afloat through plenty of tough times already. She’ll just have to do it again.
Mateo James doesn’t want to live for his family bakery, but even more, he doesn’t want his father to die for it. So he’ll do what’s required of him, including throwing himself into community organizing. If it helps his parents, and Alicia, to thrive, he’ll sacrifice anything. Even his own chance at happiness.
As Alicia charges forward with his plans to save Pier 3, Mateo would love to slow her down long enough to show her the value of their connection. But if she won’t let him in, he’ll have no choice but to let her go.

And So It Begins - Chapter Three - Subscribers Only

And So It Begins - Chapter Three - New York, NY 1803

It was Sebastien that had become ill first. That summer in the city had been particularly warm and wet, restricting much of their usual outdoor entertainments. Sebastien managed the family’s wine imports and exports from the office on the docks in New York harbor. Their father, Etienne Arnault, Baron de St. Auban of Arnoux, had brought his family from France in 1789 to avoid the French Revolution. He’d continued in the family’s hereditary business by setting up a shipping and distribution company in New York city. His wife, Cassandra Vanderbilt, a cousin of the Vanderbilt family, used her connections to get them set up and the business prospered.

Etienne worked in the offices in the city with his son, Guillaume, while Sebastien handled the business on the docks. They were doing very well for themselves, so it was no trouble to call in a physician when Sebastien complained of a fever.

It only took days before they were all ill. Yellow fever, the doctor declared, and quarantined their manor home. The girls, Josephine, just sixteen, and Seraphine, fourteen, were educated at home, and Josephine had just had her debut that spring.

Some may consider it a blessing that Cassandra died first, so she didn’t have to watch these children die, too. They’d lost five others that never made it past two years old, and she and Etienne had considered themselves blessed to have four healthy children survive and grow into adulthood.

Sebastien went next, then Seraphine. Some of the servants left when the sickness came, so it became a struggle just to survive.

When Sebastien Arnoux arrived in the city to visit his brother, there was shock on both sides. Etienne had thought his brother had perished in the French Revolution, and Sebastien was shocked at how sickly the three remaining members had become. Etienne had named his son after his brother, and had mourned his assumed loss.

Uncle Sebastien simply rolled up his sleeves and took care of them without fear of getting ill himself, but it was to no avail. Etienne succumbed a few days after his arrival, followed by Guillaume. Only Josephine lingered, barely alive.

Unable to bear the loss of the last remaining member of his family, Uncle Sebastien risked everything for himself and Josephine, by doing for her what had been done for him. He had had a choice, but he did not give her one, as he drained her of some of her blood, then fed her some of his own.

Uncle Sebastien was barely old enough to manage the turning – his brother didn’t know, but he’d become a vampire well before the Revolution. Still, this was a risky endeavor no matter how old he was, as the process weakened him to human-like strength.

When Josephine drank from him, he encouraged her to drink more than she at first attempted. The more she could drink, the better the chance of her surviving the process. Over the next three days, he would watch her lie in a coma-like state, wake enough to feed, then pass out once more. He sat by her bedside, unless he went and charmed one of the remaining staff to let him feed some to keep up his own strength. They never remembered, and he never took more than necessary.

Finally, on the fourth day, he felt Josephine awaken and put down his book. He watched her as she slowly sat up and looked around the room. He could sense her raging hunger and sighed, remembering his own early days. It was time to help her feed and learn when to stop so she didn’t kill the donor.

Training went on for months. He never let her leave the house unescorted, nor did he leave her alone for more than a few minutes at a time. The blood lust had eased, but most fledgling vampires were no more than toddlers when it came to self-control until they were nearly into their first century.

They never made it that far.

Josephine remembered the confusion and rage that flooded her senses that first time she fully woke as a vampire. All she could feel was the hunger and the blood lust. She didn’t even process the grief at the loss of her whole family until much later – and it was about seventy years before she could finally break free of Uncle Sebastien’s hold. She did something that was considered unheard of in vampire society – she killed her sire.

Time passed and her uncle taught her how to hide in plain sight, how to move when the slow aging became noticeable, to transfer funds and manage finances so one never had to go without. Here it was, one hundred and forty years later, and she still owned Arnault Wines through a subsidiary that ran the business. She also owned the Arnault estates in France, where grapes were grown and wine made before it was shipped to the US.

Most vampires needed to be, for lack of a better word, managed until they’d existed for at least a century. Her uncle’s sire, the Marquis Jacques du Motier, had been killed when her uncle had been only thirty years turned, but he’d had another of his sire’s ‘children’ take him under her wing and train him. In Josephine’s opinion, they’d done a terrible job.

At first, Uncle Sebastien was firm, but gentle. He taught her how to manage her control, and when her gifts started to present themselves, he tried to teach her what he’d been taught – but she soon outpaced him.

This, in his mind, would never do. He became more restrictive and controlling, slowly making it so Josephine rarely left their home, or spoke to anyone other than him.

They had just settled in Boston, Massachusetts when he stepped over the line for the last time. They’d traveled around the world after leaving New York and had spent time in Europe, Asia, and the Scandinavian countries before returning to the states. She was called Johanna Marsette now, and he was her uncle, Barton. They had been in the city for almost a year when he’d come home from a gathering at his gentleman’s club, drunk on the blood he’d taken from an inebriated donor.

Jo still liked to lie down at night in her bed and rest her mind. She didn’t exactly sleep, but it was a quiet time to meditate and reflect on the day. Her appearance had progressed to where she looked closer to her mid-twenties than the nearly sixteen years she had been when she’d been turned, and she was grateful she was no longer considered a child.

Unfortunately, Uncle Sebastien no longer considered her a child, either. He came to her room that night and tried to force himself on her. She managed to fight him off and he left, battered and still drunken staggering, but the next morning, he made no mention or apology for his behavior.

That night, he tried again. Only he wasn’t drunk.

This time, Jo was ready. There were two ways to kill a vampire – beheading or fire. Jo used both. She beheaded him, packed up her things and the household’s valuables, then had one of the servants help her load up the carriage with her trunks and cases. She then charmed his brother to burn the house down with her uncle’s body inside after they drove away.

They could see the flames two miles down the road as the house burned, leaving her past – and her sire – behind.

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Read Chapter Four next week - or buy the book here and read it all now.