Josh Aterovis

So many red herrings! Must be spawning season.

Except for the trampled undergrowth, there was little sign that the area surrounding the clearing had been crawling with cops the night before. The spirits had been uncharacteristically quiet as I walked through the eerily still woods. Believing I was alone at the site, I nearly jumped out of my skin when a figure rose suddenly from the excavation. Elyse Pike and I stared at one another with identical spooked expressions. "I didn't hear you coming," she said, her voice a little shaky.

Definitely not trying to give anyone a coronary! Hang in there...the next chapter is coming!

One never knows...

I awoke with a jolt when my cell phone began to ring on the nightstand next to my bed. I scrabbled for the damn thing while trying to focus my bleary eyes. It was only a little after seven. "'lo?" I grunted, when I managed to answer. "Killian? It's Lily." I came awake instantly at the tone of her voice. I'd never heard her sound so upset. "What's wrong?" "They just arrested Jacy." "What?" "The police showed up at the door with an arrest warrant a little while ago an

You'll get an update on Eve soon... And yes, sometimes, Killian is much too honest.

I was working at my desk later that evening, enjoying the peace and quiet, when the phone rang. I glared at it before answering somewhat resentfully. "Killian?" It was Asher. "Uh, hi." "Man, you're hard to catch up with! I called your cell, your house and the B&B. Steve suggested I try you at the office. Isn't it kind of late to be there?" I glanced at my phone and was surprised to see it was almost nine o'clock. No wonder my stomach had been growling. "Sorry. I need

Fun fact(s)...a lot of this book was inspired by one of my childhood hobbies of "collecting arrowheads" from cultivated fields. I have hundreds of them, as well as a few other tools and odds and ends. Mr. Thompson's collection is inspired by a former employee of one of my brothers' who owned a lot of farm land and his family had collected for generations. His collection was astounding. All of that sort of triggered the idea for this book, which I then spent over a year researching with local tribes, particularly a lesbian medicine woman who was an elder of her tribe. She was a huge help and even did a first read-through for me. Lovely woman. The Pomocatans are fictional, but loosely based on some real tribes in that area.

Thank you so much! If you could have more than one chapter at a time in the hopper, I'd probably post more often, but this is about all I can handle in a week between the day job, theater work, and writing. And as you can see, I was still a bit slow getting today's chapter out!

Fletcher was waiting for us at the door when we got back to the house, tension set in his lined face. One look at our expressions and he knew it hadn't gone well. "What happened?" he asked as we all trooped into the living room. "Things just went from bad to worse," Lily explained. "I was definitely the wrong person to send." "I never should've gone either," Jacy added quietly. His face was impassive, but his eyes were filled with guilt and shame. Fletcher's jaw clenched, and

While waiting for Lily, I went back to the house and chatted with Fletcher. He was still in the kitchen, pouring the completed salve into small, amber-colored glass jars. "So what's that for, anyway?" I asked. "It's an all-purpose skin salve, good for burns, rashes, itching, arthritis, shingles — you name it." I sniffed the air. "It, uh, certainly is pungent." He shrugged with a smile. "What can I say? It's made with comfrey leaves, calendula flowers, St. John's wort, chickwe

You know, these crossed my mind as I was doing the rewrite, and is almost certainly something an archaeological dig would use today, but if they existed when I wrote this book twenty years ago, they weren't on my radar. Now, they would make for a very short book. 🤣

Thank you!!

Thank you so much! That means a lot.

Thank you! It's easy for me since I wrote these books a long time ago and I just had to give them a quick update before posting. I generally try to post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, unless life gets in the way.

Don't ask! Actually, I've never had a serious accident, but I am a very absent-minded driver so I occasionally get lost in my thoughts and miss a turn or forget where I'm going. I do not enjoy driving. I went 13 years without a car when I was living downtown in the city, but that eventually got too difficult. I see cars as a necessary evil.

The archaeologist stood facing me, hands on her hips, staring me down defiantly. She had a great poker face. I couldn't figure out if she was angry, excited, curious, or indifferent. With a sigh, I decided there was no point denying who I was. I would just spill it all and hope for the best. If luck was with me, I wouldn't blow the case before I even got started. "You're right," I told her. "I'm a private investigator. I've been hired to look into the thefts from the excavation and the

The theories are coming hot and heavy (that's what he said)! Keep them coming! I love reading them...especially when y'all are way more clever than I am. 😅

I've never formally studied psychology, but I do a lot of deep dive research into responses to specific trauma when I'm writing these characters. And I have always been a very observant, empathetic person. I've been around teens and college age kids in some capacity for most of my life, and I pay attention. LOL But thank you! What a wonderful compliment.

Thank you so much for your insightful review! Very glad you're enjoying the series.

Funny you should mention pansies... In addition to writing and my day job, I also work in immersive theater, and I am currently developing a show called "The Pansy Hour" that is set during the waning days of the Pansy Craze at a speakeasy in Baltimore. The themes include how queer people create community for ourselves and find queer joy together even (especially?) in times of oppression. We hope to open this fall!

Tad has a very deep distrust of adult men at this point, so the disrespect was kind of the point. He expects all men to either reject him or want sex from him. He's trying to push to the boundaries to figure out which Adam will be before Adam can disappoint him. Tad is a total brat in this book, but I feel deeply for him. I was trying to be as realistic as possible with his character as opposed to writing a sweet fairy tale where he is perfectly well-adjusted after all he's been through. That said, you are correct on all counts. It was disrespectful and Tad is VERY lucky it was Killian who caught him!

You remember correctly. Jake is in a better place at this point in his timeline. Not fully healed, that takes time, but responding well to therapy, staying sober, and he and Killian have repaired their friendship. Most of that happened "off screen" so I'm impressed you remembered. LOL (All of this is important for what I hope will be the next book, a full-length romcom spin-off that follows Jake as he goes off to college called Breaking Masks. Dabeagle and I co-wrote it a VERY long time ago, and we are currently collaborating on a complete revamp that updates it and brings it into the current Killian Kendall timeline.) You know my policy about not spoiling theories... All I'll say is I'm not sure motherhood has come naturally or easily to Judy, and leave it at that. 🤣

You were very much on my mind when I rewrote this scene. (@Gandalf, this is new for this version, in case you're keeping score.) In the original version, Kane was just off visiting his mother, but I felt like Kane had very little "meat" in this book, so I decided to add the medical emergency. I wrote that particular line literally thinking of you! I knew you'd appreciate it.

Your thoughts and insights are welcome (and appreciated) with or without musical accompaniment. 🖤