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Vigilante
Summer Lane
(A Collapse Story)
Publication date: December 15th 2017
Genres: New Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Thriller

I swore to protect her before I even knew her.

Now, it’s the creed I live by.

Uriah True is a dangerous man. His past is cloaked in secrecy, and he writes his future in the blood of the people he kills. After the Great Global War, he leaves the militias behind to prey on the scum that remain loyal to the cruel and tyrannical regime of the defeated enemy Omega in this dangerous and new post-apocalyptic world.

Some call him The Hunter. Some call him Death.

He calls it vengeance for what the war took from him.

Hunt, kill, repeat.

When he uncovers a plot that could bring death to the only person he’s ever loved, he’ll do anything to stop it.

Anything.

The only problem? He may already be too late.

A thrilling novel from #1 bestselling author Summer Lane, creator of the smash-hit Collapse Series, Zero Trilogy, Bravo Saga, Unbreakable Seal, and the historical romantic thriller, Running with Wolves. Vigilante is a novel

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

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EXCERPT:

The moon shone brightly above my head. I glared at it.

It reminded me of fighting, of using moonlight to snipe. Shooting targets in the dark with Cassidy, popping rounds downrange and smelling the fresh scent of hot brass and cold dirt. Good practice and good times.

“Got any gum?” Cassidy asked.

“Yeah. But it’ll cost you,” I replied.

“Seriously? You can’t let go of capitalism for even one second?”

There was amusement in her voice. I held the piece of gum between my fingers for a moment. She made a move for it, and I backed away.

“Predictable,” I said.

“Then show me how to bring a man down,” she replied.

“You already know how to do that. You’ve got a rifle.”

“I want to know how to do it without a rifle. With my bare hands.”

“That’s optimistic of you.”

She was strong—agility and speed packed into a slender body, all lean, tough muscle. She would have been a good cop, I guess. Of course, they said the same thing about me, and look what happened.

“I’ll teach you,” I agreed. “But first, the price for gum.”

Gum. It was stupid. Even gum was a precious commodity now. I was down to my last pack.

“All right. Name it,” she huffed, rolling her eyes.

A kiss. That was what I wanted. To pull her to me and hold her body against mine and feel, even for a moment, that I deserved to be loved by someone like her.

I hesitated for too long. She blinked, slowly, and I knew she could read my mind.

She always could.

“You can keep it,” she said, brushing off my solemn stare. “Whatever.”

I tossed the gum to her. She caught it, neatly. No hesitation. Pure reflex.

“Thanks, partner.”

She was relieved: I could see it in her face. She had been afraid I would try to kiss her. That wasn’t allowed. She knew it and I knew it, but the desire was there, and I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Not by a longshot. That was what scared her the most…and nobody knew her better than I did.

“Got your six,” I murmured.

Memories. They’re fatal. You can’t get away from them.

Author Interview

Why did you decide to write a story about Uriah True?

Vigilante was something that I was writing for fun, off the clock, so to speak. I’d been writing the book on my laptop on weeknights, snuggled under blankets in bed, with no intention of showing the story to anyone. I was more than halfway done with writing the first draft of the novel when I realized that a lot of people would probably enjoy reading the story. Uriah True has been consistently voted the fan favorite every time I take a survey or a poll. I thought, Why not? I told myself if the book happened to be done by November, I’d release it around Christmas. Uriah is my favorite character from the Collapse universe, so I was tickled to write this tale. He has such organic depth and character development.

How does Vigilante tie into both the Collapse Series and the upcoming Resurrection Series in January 2018?

Uriah True’s story hangs between the timelines of the two series – there is about a one-year gap between the storylines. Uriah’s novel fills in the blanks, plus it gives you some insight into his backstory that he never shared with Cassidy Hart. The nice thing about the book, too, is that it stands alone as its own adventure story. You can read it and know nothing about Collapse and still follow the story. It’s a straightforward thriller.

What is your writing method?

It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m writing something for work, my method is to set a deadline and break up my overall goal into smaller, attainable, day-by-day steps. If I’m writing something for fun, then I write after work or on weekends and write whatever comes into my brain. Of course, writing is always “for fun,” but I define the difference between work and fun as those books which have an impending publication due date and those that do not.

It’s almost Christmas! What is your favorite holiday tradition/pastime?

I love watching old Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music. Unlike a lot of people, I actually love going shopping during the holidays. I feel like a kid again, listening to the music, smelling the trees for sale in the parking lots, and slowly acquiring gifts for everyone I love. Gift-giving is so much fun. Perhaps that’s my favorite tradition.

When is your next release?

January 2018. Resurrection: Shadows of Omega will be releasing on the 26th. It will be my twentieth novel, and I plan on celebrating in a big way. ☺

Author Bio:

Summer Lane is the #1 bestselling author of 19 hit books, including the Collapse Series and hotly anticipated Resurrection Series. She owns Writing Belle Publishing and Writing Belle Magazine. She is also an experienced journalist and creative writing instructor. Summer lives in California with her husband, Scott, and their German Shepherd, Kona.

Website / Writing Belle / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

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Queen of Corona
Esterhazy
Publication date: December 15th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult

Queen of a Corona delves into the mind of a young American adult growing up in today’s multicultural society. It is a human look at contemporary existence “from the bottom of the barrel.” It tells the story of a high school senior who is running after a student protest ends in tragedy. She is ushered onto an airplane by her mother, headed back to the land of her ancestors for the first time in her life. Her journey is both a way of escaping a seemingly dead-end existence and a chance at rediscovering herself by stepping outside the confines of societal standards. Queen of Corona is a coming-of-age novel in a dangerous age, in the age of Trump and all the forces stirring with and against the American president.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

I bet you thought I was going to fold. That I wouldn’t be able to resist that fine china-white powder resting right there in the sanctuary of my pocketbook.

But it stays tucked away the entire night, I swear. I ride my bike to the river to get some air. I sit down on the concrete bank and look out at the wilderness just across the water. At the narrow beaches spotted with bushes, fluo-green against the fading sky of late summer.

Here the riverside is wild, untempered. The bars along the water light up, the music gets louder. I go to the bar. As I’m standing in the endless line I can feel someone’s eyes on me. I count to five in my mind and I look up. Oh man, I think, here we go again. And I let myself fall into it one more time because I need anything to get myself out of this emotional hole I dug for myself.

At first, I’m confused. Because the face that is looking back at me is a face I know so well. A face so familiar and unfamiliar. A face I’d seen dozens of times, but not a face I’d ever called a friend. I stared at him as I tried to place him. He smiles back at me amused. The cogs in my mind begin to click. An actor. I know his face from the movies. That series on Netflix about the homicide detective addicted to porn.

I’m not drunk enough to get up the balls to sidle up to him all sassy and shit. But I don’t need to because he comes up to me. He looks me up and down and nods like he’s approving a shipment of the latest iPhone.

“Mind if I sit down?” he says in that Hollywood voice.

“Yes. I mean no. Why not.”

He says he’s here filming an episode where he’s chasing some jewel thief around Eastern Europe. He can’t believe I’ve never heard of his show. He doesn’t waste any time pouring me doubles out of the bottle the waitress brings over. He asks me if I want to dance and I follow him out to the dance floor. He’s a terrible dancer. He’s basically grinding against my pelvis and slobbering on me. Then he’s trying to get into my panties under my dress like we’re not out in the open and all these people aren’t looking at us. At some point, he grabs my hand and leads me towards the car he’s got waiting for him. I’m not good with cars, so I can’t say what kind of car it is, just that it’s shiny and black. The driver drops us off at one of the big hotels where he’s got a suite. He opens the door like he’s a sheik opening the palace gates. As if a hotel room that looks like millions of other hotel rooms around the world is going to make me go woozy with passion.

Pretty soon he gets back to his sloppy kissing. He’s got my dress off and he says he wants to fuck me like Charles Bukowski and I don’t know who he’s talking about.

I’m probably only fucking him because he’s famous, not because I really like him. What’s there to like in an arrogant middle-aged man with a paunch and a lazy eye? And what’s in it for him, fucking a girl young enough to be his daughter.

“Can I take a picture of you?”

I shrug and he takes it as a yes. He asks me to stop covering my breasts and to spread my legs. I feel horribly shy but it’s exciting at the same time to think this famous dude is going to be looking at my pictures later and reminiscing about our time together. But what if he posts them online? I should have said no. Julita tells me I’ve got a real problem saying no. I’m too much of a yes girl. A goddang people pleaser and where’s that been getting me? Not very far, eh? says the reasonable voice in my head. The other voice, the one that just wants me to take it easy and go with the flow, tells me that it’s fine. It’s just two consenting adults having a good time. Isn’t it?

We end up trusting celebrities almost implicitly, as if their fame is guarantee that they’re harmless. We trust them to tell us what’s fashionable and what’s not, how to eat and how to vote. And sometimes we let them fuck us just because they’re famous. And sometimes we let them get away with the worst.

He goes to take a shower and I walk around the room and look at the stuff lying around his room. There’s his passport on the table. I open it up and look at the picture, which looks nothing like him, he must’ve aged a lot in the past few years. I look at the birthdate and do the math. It turns out he’s 52, not 45 like he told me last night. I pick up my stuff and go straight out the door. I feel sick, not the throwing up kind, just the sick dismay of disappointment. Sick at how they think it’s okay to treat you like an empty shell of a person and then got the nerve to lie to you. I think this might be my breaking point. At last, you say.

I’m sobbing into my sleeve as I walk through the lobby and my mascara’s running all over the fucking place, so I sit down for a minute. In a flash, hotel security is coming my way and they’re asking me to leave and if I didn’t feel like a whore before then I definitely do now.

Author Bio

Esterhazy is a journalist, writer and translator. A native New Yorker, she holds degrees in Comparative Literature from New York University and American Studies from the University of Warsaw. Queen of Corona is her debut novel.