Coming Soon

New from Morgan Q. O'Reilly

Til Death Undo Us

Book One of the Open Windows Series

She never imagined love could happen twice—until her husband returned from the dead.

Cassidy thinks she’s getting on with her life just fine after her husband’s fall to cancer. Life is quiet, which is just the way she likes it, half a continent away from her overbearing Irish family.

Niall doesn’t want to scare the fragile Irish rose, but her husband, supposedly two years in the grave, has been caught on security tapes at a secret government laboratory. Together, they unearth evidence of industrial espionage and identity theft ...and frightening connections to the Irish Mob that will put more than just their own lives at risk.

Sex, bullets, more sex, intimate body piercings and a few red roses. What more could a girl want?

Excerpt:

“I’m Cassidy Malone.”

“Niall Malone.” He didn’t offer a hand to shake. A part of me was glad, because I couldn’t have disguised my sweaty palms.

Jacob stopped at my side and I had the distinct impression he wanted to step in front of me. “Jacob Levin, senior partner here. What do you want with Mrs. Malone?”

The intense blue eyes shifted to my boss for a moment. “I’m afraid it’s personal. Mrs. Malone, is there some place we can talk?”

“I’m in the middle of a project with a deadline, if you could give me a hint of what this is about?”

“I need to ask you a few questions about your husband.”

“All right.” I folded my arms and waited.

His gaze flicked to Jacob then back to me. “Really, if we can do this in private it would be best.”

“Cassie?” Jacob took my arm and glared at Malone. “She’s been under an incredible amount of stress. I can’t imagine what you have to say will make it better.”

“Nevertheless, it’s important. Mrs. Malone, we can do this the easy way, here and now, or the hard way.”

I didn’t need him to spell that out. I’d watched too many crime dramas. “Give me the first question and I’ll decide if it’s good enough to drop what I’m doing. Otherwise we’ll have to schedule something for later.”

That didn’t go over well. A muscle in the side of his cheek twitched and his lips tightened for a moment. “All right. Just tell me how to get in touch with your husband.”

Ever had one of those moments when it seems the world stops moving? The blood stops, then draws inward, leaving the sensation of limbs filled with ice water, heavy and cold. The roaring in my ears might very well have been the rush of blood leaving my head.

Jacob plucked Malone’s card from my numb fingers and studied it as the receptionist gasped.

“That’s not funny,” I managed to whisper from a throat so dry I could barely swallow.

“I’m not joking.”

“You want to know where my husband is?”

“Yes. Please.”

“All right.” If this were some sick joke, I’d play along for a minute. Maybe the goons at lunch had been setting me up after all. I didn’t think so, but the same conversation, twice in one day, less than two hours apart, who knew?

I gave him the street and number. I drove past it every single day. Sometimes stopped and sat on the grass to pull the weeds and tend to the Forget-Me-Nots I’d planted there.

I watched as he drew the map in his head. A crease formed between his heavy black eye brows. It took a minute, but he had it.

“That’s the Oak Knoll Cemetery.”

“Precisely.”

Coming July 18, 2011 from Lyrical Press

Morgan Q. O'Reilly

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Obsessed With Numbers

So, I’m not really a numbers person…ask my best friend the math teacher. When we’re out at dinner and I’m trying to calculate a tip she says things to me like “my class is doing decimals this week…I think you should come by.” Ha. Ha. Ha.

I made it through Algebra in High School and even got a “B” in Calculus in College but after that…I was done. I’m a word person. With the exception of grammar issues, there aren’t a lot of “wrong” answers with words.

But now, I’ve become obsessed with numbers on the Internet…sales, web hits, links, etc.

There are all sorts of things you can track…how many people click the page, how did they get the link, where do they live...well, not a specific address because that would be creepy, but still, I know what country they are in.

I had a new release (A Change of Pace) come out this past week and here is what I’ve learned…I need to bump up my audience in the UK.

I had 102 hits on various links over 3 days…88% are from the US, then I had a few from Canada, Trinidad and Tobago (no really), Croatia, one from the UK (I’m going to work on that) and a couple from Australia.

Most of them connected to me through Facebook and my webpage but not all. Some got the message through email or through places I’ve never heard of, which means, I don’t know how it got there in the first place.

And sales numbers are the worst. I’ve spent hours going back and forth to the Amazon page for “A Change of Pace” just to watch the numbers…I’m #14 on the list of Erotica Books. No, now I’m number #9. Wait, I’ve dropped to #27? How did that happen?

Arrgh. It’s way too distracting. I’m going back to writing my dragon book.

Okay, let me check Amazon one more time.

Tielle St. Clare

P.S. I know there are a lot of choices out there for getting these numbers. I use Stat-Counter and bit.ly

New to Alaska

I am new to Alaska. So new, in fact, that my husband and I can still measure how long we’ve been in here in months (thirteen if you’re interested) and I’m still amazed by things like moose and 24 hour sunlight. Conversations with my friends and family down the lower-48 still include a lot of questions about the state and what it’s like actually live here. My best friend and I were on the phone the other night and she asked me how much fresh fruit costs in Alaska. We talked about the fact that goods and services are more expensive up here than they are down in New Jersey. I assured her that the fine print at the bottom of commercials that reads “prices higher in Alaska and Hawaii” doesn’t lie. Eventually, though, she asked about seafood, because, surely that was cheap, cheap, cheap. When I explained that the state is big enough that the costs of getting something from one part of the state to another automatically makes it expensive, she laughed and thanked me for bursting that bubble. She’d always assumed that, even if I was paying more for my grapefruit, I was at least getting king crab for less than the cost of chicken. The reality isn’t nearly as full of inexpensive crabby deliciousness as she would’ve liked it to be. Which is actually something authors have to be aware of whenever we write. Not crab, or the lack thereof, specifically, of course, but the differences between the realities of a situation and the assumptions we make about that situation.
Writing what we know is helpful, but still not foolproof. My first novel was based in Denver, Colorado, because that’s where I was living when I wrote it. By the time I had finished it, though, the coffee shop where my hero and heroine met had closed and the working class neighborhood where I had the best friend living had been gentrified and house prices had skyrocketed. So much for writing what you know. For my next novels, I thought I had solved the problem. I created Lambert Falls, North Carolina out of thin air. Only I still had to know how far it was to the Virginia border and how long of a drive it was to the Outer Banks. Even a fictional town required very real research.
My current work in progress takes place in New Orleans. I know nothing about New Orleans. You’d better believe, though, I will find someone who knows that city and pick their brain. I will become best friends with google maps and local librarians. I will learn about the local haunts, not just the tourist traps. Because for every reader out there who assumes certain things about New Orleans, there’s a reader who knows New Orleans. We as authors can’t get away with only writing the idealized version of a place.
So, I’ll research New Orleans and, hopefully, get it right. However, I do admit I would love to write a story with voodoo priestesses in every shadow and dark brooding men on every corner. Of course, I’d love king crab to be cheaper than chicken, too.

Pauline Trent