Mentor Release Date

It's official: Mentor (An Impossible Novella) has a release date!  Get it April 2, 2014!  Check out Mentor's Goodreads page for more info :).

Mentor (An Impossible Novella) Excerpt

Curious about Mentor (Impossible #2.5)?  Well, it is certainly my darkest work yet, and it may not be loved by everyone who has enjoyed the Impossible series so far.  Unlike my other stories, Mentor is NOT a romance.  But when trapped in the dark, the blacker shades of lust can be confused for love.

Mentor is about the man we briefly met in Knight and know only as "The Mentor."  It is set in his past, telling the story of his relationship with the first woman he ever abducted.

To give you a taste, here is the Prologue.  This is from The Mentor's point of view, but the majority of the book is from Kathleen's POV.

Prologue
The Mentor

April 20, 1978

I slinked further into the shadows, concealing myself in the darker shades of the night.  My hands trembled as I waited for my victim.  The tremor came not from apprehension or hesitancy, but from anticipation.  Soon the darkness within me would be released, the pressure siphoned off.  She would take my darkness.  I would impart it to her, inflict it upon her.

I would be able to breathe again.

Seeking to still my shaking, I immersed myself in the memory of the first and only time the enigmatic pressure within me had been released.

Screams.  Blood.  Death.

Power.  Freedom.  Absolution.

I realized now that I hadn’t really been alive before that.  The dulling film of perpetual apathy that coated my psyche had dissipated as the light left my father’s eyes, his lifeblood spilling over my hands.  The world became sharp, my senses impossibly heightened.  It was the closest thing to human emotion I had ever experienced.  The pleasure that flooded me was the nearest approximation I could imagine to what normal people called joy.

But now the memory of that hyper-awareness – that sensation of being alive – tormented me as much as it pleased me.

No sooner had I disposed of my father’s body than the sensation began to fade, and the dim monotony of my detached existence began to seep back into me.  Now that I was aware of it, the dimness built, gathering slowly into darkness.  My darkness.

It coiled within me, slithering through my veins and rendering my very pulse sluggish.  It would overcome me, would consume me from the inside out, if it didn’t find release.

Killing again wasn’t an option.  I might not have a formal education, but I wasn’t stupid.  I wasn’t going to leave a trail of bodies behind and risk being caught.

If I kept her with me, she could take my darkness regularly.  I would allow it to consume her rather than me.  I would break her, train her to like it.  Otherwise my darkness would devour her completely, and I would have to find a new toy.  I couldn’t risk drawing attention to myself by taking more than one woman.

Kathleen Marie White wasn’t special to me in any way.  No one was special to me.  I had chosen her because she was convenient and she suited my needs.

Like me, she practically lived at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame.  She had come here to study for the last four years, and even though I was a few years younger than she, I had been frequenting this place for much longer than that.  I wasn’t a student, but I had always found solace at the library.

The desire to avoid my father, coupled with my disinterest in mundane human interactions, made it an ideal place for me to hide out.  People couldn’t speak here.  The pointless tedium of social pretentiousness was muffled within those walls.

As always, she was the last to leave the library on a Saturday night.  The light of the streetlamp near the entrance caught the reddish facets of her dark hair, crowning her head with a crimson halo for the space of a moment.

My mind conjured up images of how I might draw that crimson shade from her body in other ways.  Something unfamiliar stirred low in my gut in response, and my pulse jumped past its normal tempo.

Interesting.

I had intended to use sexual torment against her.  Sex held little appeal for me; it would simply be a means to an end.  But in that moment, I understood its allure.  When used as a weapon, sex might be pleasurable.  The sudden stiffening of my cock told me as much.

I clenched my fingers into hard fists, willing their increased trembling to stop.

Control.

Control yourself.  Control the darkness.

Soon, I would control her, and the darkness would never rule me again.  I would be alive.  More than that, I would revel in the heady power I had experienced as my father’s life slipped away under my hands.  She would give that to me daily.

She turned from locking the library doors, and I caught sight of her face.  It was lovelier than I had realized.  She wasn’t perfect by conventional standards, but the hint of a contented smile that played around the corners of her mouth gave off a sense of innocence that was undeniably appealing.  Her deep green eyes were large, only further lending to that vision of purity.

When I had watched her over the last four years, her beauty had been obscured by unconscious nervous habits.  Usually, a small furrow persisted between her brows as she bent over a book, and her full lips were thinned while she chewed at a pencil.

I had chosen her for that very reason.  Drive and determination were evident in every line of her body as she studied furiously every day.  She thought she could shape her own destiny if she just worked hard enough.

But her fate was no longer hers to govern.  What she surely considered her greatest assets – her tenacity and intellect – were the very qualities which would lead to her ruination at my hands. 

There would have been no satisfaction in breaking a weak woman.  Kathleen Marie White was exactly what I needed.

No, it was more than that.  More than need.

Want.

I wanted something.  The realization was jarring, the sensation utterly new.  My lips curled upward in a semblance of a smile, and my hand was rock steady as I reached into my pocket to retrieve the ether-soaked rag.

I would take what I wanted.

***

Well, that's all for now.  I am so excited to share this story with y'all!  Expected release date in early April.

Add Mentor on Goodreads!

In the Works: Mentor (An Impossible Novella)

Who is the Mentor?

I know I left y'all hanging.  Sorry about that.  This character will continue to feature in the Impossible series, but there are a few more stories to be told first before we can deal with him properly.

Well, He wasn't very happy with that.  There's so much more to him than can be told as a sideline in someone else's romance novel.  So, he is getting his own novella in the meantime.  Mentor (Impossible #2.5) tells the story of his twisted relationship with the first woman he ever abducted.  It's not a romance.  It's a dark mindfuck.

As with all the Impossible stories, Mentor can be read as a standalone, either before or after Knight.  While it won't answer all of your questions, it will give much more insight into this character and his motivations.

I am so excited to share this story!  You can now stay updated on Mentor on Goodreads.  The estimated release date is early April 2014.

The Novel Experience Event Giveaway

There are only 12 HOURS left to enter my giveaway to win a FREE VIP ticket to The Novel Experience Event in Atlanta, March 28-30!  This includes front-of-the-line tickets to the author parties and book signing, as well as super swag.  The cost of your hotel room is also included in the prize!  Just get yourself to Atlanta, and I'll do the rest.  Enter via the rafflecopter widget on the right-hand column of this page.

HERE ------------->------------------->------------------>----------------->---------------->

There aren't many entries at the moment, so your chances of winning are VERY high!  Good luck!

Julia xxx

*Posted at 11:25 AM (EST), February 13, 2014*

Official Impossible Series Reading Order

Further to my previous post, I have resolved to make it easier to discern the Impossible series reading order.  If you already have books from the Impossible series on your ereader, this might cause some confusion.  For that, I deeply apologize.  I had to make an executive decision regarding how best to carry on with the series in a way that is easily understandable.

The original trilogy of novellas that started the series will now be known as The Impossible Trilogy.  You can find this designation on Goodreads.  Here is the reading order for the serial:

Monster (The Impossible Trilogy, Part 1)
Angel (A Companion Book to Monster) (The Impossible Trilogy, Part 1.5)
Traitor (The Impossible Trilogy, Part 2)
Avenger (The Impossible Trilogy, Part 3)

Or get Monster, Traitor, and Avenger in one bundle in Impossible: The Original Trilogy.


The Impossible Novels are a spin-off series from The Impossible Trilogy.  These stories can all be read as standalones, although the characters are connected.  The novels are now classified as the Impossible series:

Savior (Impossible #1)
Knight (Impossible #2)
Rogue (Impossible #3) (Coming Soon!)

I hope this format will keep things much clearer as the Impossible series continues.  Thank you so much to everyone who has muddled through the confusion and read the series!  I can't wait to share more of these characters and their dark stories with you :).

Much Love,
Julia xxx

Impossible Series Reading Order

*Please see the latest post on this matter for the Official Impossible Series Reading Order*


It has come to my attention that it is impossible to easily discern the Impossible series reading order.  (See what I did there?  Yeah, I never claimed to be funny.  I'll stick to angst.)  So here's the skinny:  I wrote the original Impossible trilogy as a set of three serialized novellas that told the story of Sean and Claudia's tumultuous romance.  Monster, Traitor, and Avenger were the three installments of the Impossible series.  But then one of my favorite characters (name omitted here to avoid spoilers) from the trilogy wanted his own HEA.  In fact, I loved him so much that I allowed him to survive the trilogy, which wasn't my original intention.  I'm so glad I did, because I love him and all of his crazy, damaged, kinky friends.  They, of course, then demanded their own stories.

This left me in a bit of a quandary.  Is Savior supposed to be Impossible #4?  Well, not really.  It is a complete story arc that can stand alone, not a continuation of Sean and Claudia's story.  My solution was to call Savior an Impossible novel, a spin-off that is set in the same world as the original Impossible trilogy, but that isn't directly connected to Sean and Claudia's story.

The Original Trilogy, Savior, and Knight can each be read as standalones.  The characters are connected, but the story arcs are independent of one another.  If you do want to read them in chronological order, here it is:

Impossible: The Original Trilogy (Monster, Traitor, and Avenger) (Impossible #1-3)
Savior (An Impossible Novel)
Knight (An Impossible Novel)

There you have it.  The official Impossible reading order.  Now I'm about to throw a wrench in it when I publish Rogue, which mostly chronologically takes place between Savior and Knight, but parts of it happen during both of those books.  Maybe I should make some sort of crazy overlapping timeline.

I want to tell these stories based on the immediacy of the characters rather than necessarily sticking to chronology.  Some books will span a time frame that is covered in two or three other books.  All of the characters are connected in some way, but many of them have their own shit raining down on them simultaneously.  Life is messy like that.

After Knight, there are seven more Impossible novels planned, and that number keeps growing all the time.  Generally, the timeline will progress as the books are released, but there will be quite a bit of overlap.  I will endeavor to make it as clear as possible where the books fall chronologically as they are released.

Thanks so much for your support, and for your understanding!  I know this style is a bit unconventional, but I hope that it won't affect your enjoyment of the books.  They are, after all, about each couples' story, not necessarily what's going on with everyone else in the Impossible world at any given time.

I'll keep you posted here on how my crazy brain is working and how the different stories slot into place.

Much Love,
Julia xxx

Knight $0.99 Sale!

Knight (An Impossible Novel) is currently on sale for $0.99!  If you haven't checked it out yet, now is the time to grab your copy :).

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