Chase the Storm available for preorder

I'm excited, and bit nervous, to announce that Chase the Storm is now available for preorder from DreamSpinner Press. It's catagorized as western, but I would say it's a coming of age story as well.


Here is the blurb on CtS

Up until he buys an old truck, Elijah Morgan lives life according to his family’s plan, never feeling like he belongs. Desperate to find his own path, he heads out on the open road, only to end up stranded in Nebraska. Not wanting to ask for his parents’ help, he takes a job with tough, independent farmer Chase McKenzie.

Despite their age gap, the attraction between Chase and Elijah soon becomes undeniable. They give in to their desire, but that night changes everything and threatens the secret Chase guards so carefully.

As the summer heats up, so does their relationship. When autumn arrives, Elijah is due back at college, and he’ll have to choose whether to continue his education and follow in his family’s footsteps… or to stay in Nebraska with the man he loves.

I hope those who have enjoyed M&A, Winter's Night, or any of my stories, give CtS a look. I can't tell you how much I adore the characters, as much as M&A and WN, and hope you give them a chance.

Why I'm hesitant...

Particularly since it was completed, I have had many requests and encouragement to publish M&A, and I appreciate every single one more than I can say. The support that story (and Winter’s Night) have received has seriously blown me away, and I sincerely hope Chase the Storm is as well liked, as the CtS boys are as dear to me as M&A’s Jasper, Edward, Riley, and Peter or the WN boys.

As for publishing M&A, I have always said it was too huge a job. Between its length, copyright issues with WoO (and that it is a fanfic), and alternating povs, the editing alone would take me a year. However, after going through the editing process with CtS, I have revisited my thoughts on publishing M&A, and I have realized another reason I am hesitant to attempt publishing it. As CtS has come back to me with edits, mostly grammar things, (commas, extra words, some sentence structure) but also a bit on characterization, I feel with each round of edits, I lose a bit of me in the story. It’s silly to say, and I don’t mean by deleting commas or the hundred extra ‘just’s, but to me some of the reworking of sentences, some of the deletions, took a bit of them away, and I had to work extra hard to be sure the characters thoughts, actions, and most importantly, their emotions, weren’t compromised. It is with their reactions and emotions I haven’t budged, which to me is vital to telling their story, and I honestly feel I have kept Chase and Elijah true to the men I originally wrote them as. To do that, to edit M&A for the thousands of errors, delete some duplications, and some scenes that a publisher wouldn’t touch (Jasper’s memories from the Home), would take away from them. Not that it couldn’t be done, with a lot of work, it is possible, and I’m certainly not saying I would never do it. Trust me, it is tempting. But at the same time, I think part of what makes M&A the story it is, is the rawness in which Jasper’s tells his story, and the awkwardness Edward feels throughout his.

That being said, I have to admit I have considered writing The Whore and the Gentleman for publication. I feel Riley’s story is important, maybe even more than Jasper’s, as he struggles with demon’s Jasper didn’t. Jasper was taken away from his parents, Riley was rejected by his. Riley had a childhood, he had food and shelter and friends, he knows what he missed out on while Jasper doesn’t. Writing the chapters I have of Riley so far (there are 5 completed), I feel his pain is more universal. Jasper still retained his emotional innocence through the story, but Riley didn’t, and discovering what made him lose that is fascinating to me. However, even more so than M&A, W&G has some very dark moments, and while those are absolute in telling Riley’s true story, they are not scenes most publishers would accept. Thus, W&G would have to be self-published, which is something I would consider.

I’m rambling now….

All that being said, on the read through I did of CtS late last night, I found myself surprising pleased with it. I realize, and need to accept, it will never be perfect, I will always want to change words, groan when I find a mistake, and read and reread certain scenes to make sure it’s exactly the way the characters deserve it to be, because they deserve the best effort I can give them.

So many of you took a chance on M&A, some even popping their slash cherry on it, I hope you give Chase and Elijah that same chance, and love them as much as I do.

M&A outtake teaser

So I was talking with a few M&A readers on Twitter, and promised a teaser of the completed outtake. It is unedited and not ready for posting, so please excuse errors, but here is a taste. This is an alternate ending to the epilogue. For those who forgot, after the dance club, Jasper, Edward, Peter, and Riley are in the limo on their way back to Edward and Jasper's flat, and Jasper asks them to stay with him and Edward. Peter says no...but what if he had said yes?

~~

"You can stay with us," I blurted.

"Can we? Please," Riley begged, his voice instinctively dropping into a seductive tone.

It was unlikely Peter would give in to Riley’s charms, he had done so twice already, I highly doubted he would again.

"Maybe next time, I don't want to intrude,” Peter replied halfheartedly, confirming my suspicions.

There was a certain amount of satisfaction I felt from correctly predicting Peter’s response, however, as well as I thought I knew Peter, I had forgotten how convincing Riley could be.

I simply underestimated my whore’s talent.

Riley's pout quickly returned and he dipped his head while looking at Peter through his lashes and running a finger down Peter’s cheek. "But I was hoping that you and Jasper could DP me."

Peter was the first to react to Riley’s suggestion, a brief flash of consideration passing through his Pacific eyes as he imagined the scenario Riley had propositioned, before he coughed and a rare blush tinted his cheeks. I didn’t doubt it was an image he had thought about often.

"Jesus, Rile," I groaned, my cock twitching.

"What about me?" Edward said, his head resting on my shoulder.

"I'm not sure you could handle them both, Beautiful," Riley answered, "but you can watch."

Peter leaned toward Riley, putting his lips to Riley's ear, speaking quietly for Riley only. Riley's eyes closed and he shivered just as his cheeks stained pink from whatever Peter was saying. When Peter straightened and Riley's eyes opened, they were clear and bright and flirty. Peter worked his magic on Riley as much as Riley did him.

Then he surprised us all, especially me.

“He thinks Beautiful might not approve of that, but that maybe we could work something else out,” Riley explained, his voice raspy as many ideas were already forming in his mind.

I listened to Riley’s words, my mind working as fast and as kinky as his, but I felt the weight of Peter’s stare on me and my eyes drifted from Riley’s knowing smirk to Peter. Hooded eyes gazed at me, judging the surprise he knew he’d find in my own blue ones. It wasn’t that the Peter I knew wouldn’t be open to the idea of a foursome, in fact I was almost certain he had been involved in several, it was who he was agreeing to do it with.

Edward.

The man who had beaten him for my heart, who had lured me to move thousands of miles away from him, who had been the only one to separate me from Riley. It wasn’t that Peter wasn’t confident in his sexual skills, he knew exactly how good he was, but after all we’d been through, I was a little surprised he would agree to watching someone else touch me so intimately. Then again, maybe that was exactly what it was, that he would also get that chance to touch me again, as well as show off his many talents.

The tension in the car double, a sexual energy buzzing in the air around us. Edward raised his head from my shoulder, his eyes falling directly on Peter. Even though Edward was sitting in the back of a limo with his defenses lowered after being fucked against a wall of a club, he was still a formidable force. There was rarely a challenge Edward backed down from, he had power and controlling swelling through him, ready to confront those who dare step up to him. Like Peter, Edward commanded, demanded, respect in his surroundings and his work, but in the bedroom they were miles apart. While Peter still dominated in a bedroom, Edward let himself go, giving that control over to me. I felt his body thrumming, his heart racing as he too imagined the possibilities. He lifted his chin defiantly, he knew what he had, he knew how sexy and desirable he was.

He knew he had my heart.

“What did you have in mind?” he dared Peter’s offer.

If Peter was surprised by Edward’s reply he hid it well, instead, a corner of his lip turned up and without a glance at Riley, told us exactly what he had in mind. “Considering our…situation, there are limitations to respect, but I don’t think any of us would object to,” he paused, perhaps out of anticipation of his idea, “our boys giving us a show.”

~~

Hope you enjoyed it

First post

Welcome to my blog!

If I've learned nothing else over the past many years, it's that I find it difficult to talk about myself, but I'm going to give it a try. My name is Valerie, some might know me as Touchstone67, and I have written slash fan fiction since 2009, and am best known for "Mergers and Acquisitions" and "If on a Winter's Night", both of which contain a fair amount of angst. I enjoy mentally, emotionally, or physically flawed characters, and putting them into difficult situations and exploring how they react. People are not perfect, their reactions are not perfect, but that is what makes for an intersting story, and some steamy sex always helps.

I am currently in the editing process for my first published oringinal fiction called "Chase the Storm" with DreamSpinner Press, and will be posting about that process as well as excerpts from the story. While I do plan to keep writing original stories, this blog might also contain teasers from my fan fiction WIPs, thoughts on writing, as well as prevelent newsworthy posts or links.

As for my personal life, I live in New Hampshire with my husband and three children, which I am sure I will talk about more than myself. I'm a homebody, much prefer staying at home in front of the computer than going out.