Slay (Storm MC #4) (29 page)

As she walked out of the bedroom, I thought about everything we’d been through over the past month. 

Layla had remained patient with me while I got my shit together concerning my father’s death.  I was still dealing with it, and I knew I would be for a long time still, but I’d moved past those initial hollow feelings.  Since then, I’d reconciled the events of that day in my mind and was okay with Marcus’s death.  My only regret was that it had affected Storm.  They were still dealing with the fallout of his death, and fuck knew how that was all going to play out.

“Donovan!”

I turned to look at Layla standing in the doorway.  “What?” I asked.

“I was calling you,” she said, clearly frustrated.

“What’s up?”

Her face softened a little.  “I changed my mind.  You can come and disturb me now.”

Fuck
.

I strode to where she stood, grabbed her hand and led her to the bathroom.  “Clothes off,” I ordered as I began peeling mine off.

The look on her face gave her thoughts away.  Layla fucking loved being bossed around, and I had no doubt she was going to fucking love being disturbed by me.

Four hours later, we collected my mother from her house on the way to Madison and J’s home.  I sensed her nerves, and Layla and I did our best to put her at ease before we got there.  As I listened to Layla talk to Mum, I realised she could talk her way into anything.  She never failed to convince me of anything, and she singlehandedly convinced my mother that she had nothing to worry about where Madison was concerned.

When Madison threw her front door open and greeted us with a warm smile, I figured things might go smoothly.  And when she reached for my mother’s hand and welcomed her into her house, I watched my mother’s worry fall away, and I knew everything was going to be okay.

My fractured family was slowly being put back together.

I watched the three most important people in my life chatting, enjoying themselves, and realised I was a fucking lucky bastard.

COMING 2015

Illusive (Storm MC #5) – Griff’s Book

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20497619-illusive

Command (Storm MC #6) – Scott’s Book

Add to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21483120-command

Acknowledgements

I suck at writing these!  I am sure to forget someone important.  Please forgive me if I do.

I always have to thank my beautiful daughter.  She gave me so much space to write this book that she must almost feel like a neglected child.  It’s a good thing I’ve raised her to be a fairly independent person.  She helped keep our home running while I locked myself away in the cave.  I love you, baby.  You’ll never know just how much.

I also must thank my family and friends who let me write.  I love you all.  Kathleen, love you long time, dude.  You’ll always be my DBFFF xx

To my beta readers – Melanie, Paula, Christina, Amanda, Lauren, Sammi, Elle, Becca and Malia.  Thank you so much for all your help on Slay.  I truly couldn’t have done it without you, and I really appreciate all your feedback and suggestions.

To my editor, Karen.  I loved working with you on Slay and look forward to working with you again.  I love that you loved Layla and Blade as much as I do.  Thank you for being so patient with me when I missed deadlines.

To my PA, Melanie Sassymum.  Baaaabbbbe.  I love you, chick.  Thank you for everything you do for me, and for your amazing support.  You are an amazing lady, and I am lucky to work with you and also to call you my friend.

To my cover designer, Louisa.  Lovely, your covers are amazing!  Thank you for making my books look so damn good!!

To all the bloggers who share and read my books.  *sigh*  I would be lost without you all!  LOST.  Thank you for your support not only on Slay, but for the last year.  It was you who got my name out there and I will always be grateful for that.  Thank you, thank you, thank you xxx

To my Stormchasers!  OHMYGOSH I love you chicks hard!!!  Did you see the part in Slay that was just for you girls??  I bet you laughed your ass off when you read it ;)  Seriously, thank you doesn’t begin to cover it. But, THANK YOU <3

To my TGNAFN girls!  I thank god for you chicks every single day.  You’re a bunch of kick ass women who I love working with!! 

Jani Kay, thank you for all your words of encouragement and support while I was writing Slay.  You’ve been so busy this year and yet you always had time for me.  I treasure our friendship and also love working with you.  You’re such an amazing woman, and I can’t wait for what 2015 will bring!

Chelle “Gandy” Bliss, I am so glad we became friends.  Your friendship means a lot to me and I am so looking forward to meeting you in person.  And I fucking love your sense of humour, woman!  LMAO.  Gandy Schmandy... you haven’t sent me a pic of our man for awhile now, babe.  I’m having withdrawals ;)

River Savage, bitch, who would have thought this time last year when we met for the first time that this is where we would be now??  FARK.  How life changes, dude!  I love seeing your face pop up in messenger, and the “Dude”, “OMG”, “Fuck”...that you always send me.  LOL!  Oh yeah, and the “BAHAHAHA”.  Seriously, you make my day some days.  You always make me laugh.  SO looking forward to 2015, babe!!  Thanks for being an amazing friend xx

Lyra Parish & Lilliana Anderson, you two are such special ladies.  They don’t make them like you very often anymore.  We worked together recently on the Owned Anthology and I got to know you both a little better, and I have to say that I am so glad Jani and I asked you both to be part of that anthology because otherwise I may never have discovered just how special you are.  Thank you for being my friend and for being so giving.  Xx

To My Readers,

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for buying and reading my books.  You’ve changed my life in ways you’ll never know and I am so grateful to you for this.  The last year has been the best year of my life.  I’ve never worked harder but I’ve never loved my work as much.  I love that you love my Storm men as much as I do.  Thank you for all your amazing emails and messages.  Some mornings, I wake up to the most amazing messages and I feel so blessed to be able to have this awesome job.  To be finally living my dream.

Nina xx

I have a request.  If you loved Blade as much as I love Blade, I would truly appreciate it if you would leave a review for Slay on the site where you bought it.  Reviews help other readers decide whether to purchase a book, which in turn helps authors continue writing.  It would mean a lot to me if you did leave a review.  It doesn’t have to be a long and detailed review – I think the minimum they require is about 20 words.  Thank you! xx

Slay Playlist

You may remember from Revive I mentioned how important music is to me when I am creating characters and stories.  The songs below inspired Slay, but I have to admit to you that I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album 1989 pretty much 98% of the time while writing this book.  Her music and lyrics actually inspire a lot of my work.  Storm was written to a lot of the songs on her Red album.

Apart from Taylor’s music, the songs Dust to Dust by The Civil Wars & Superheroes by The Script really get me in the zone for Blade.  Take a listen to the lyrics, you’ll see..

I’ll Stand by You by The Pretenders

Burning Bridges by OneRepublic

A Thousand Years by Christina Perri

21 Guns by Green Day

Dust to Dust by The Civil Wars

When I’m Gone by 3 Doors Down

Ghost by Ella Henderson

Animals by Maroon 5

Love Runs Out by OneRepublic

Far From Home by Five Finger Death Punch

Pieces by Red

Light It Up by Rev Theory

Bad by David Guetta

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) by Kelly Clarkson

No One Ever Taught Us by Jason Reeves

City In Motion by Ron Pope

Angel by Florida Georgia Line

Closer by Nine Inch Nails

Superheroes by The Script

Tell Me How You Like It by Florida Georgia Line

Hurricane by The Fray

Making Memories of Us by Keith Urban

You’re My Better Half by Keith Urban

My Heart is Open by Keith Urban

All my books have playlists here:

https://play.spotify.com/user/1299222556

Frequently Asked Questions

I do a lot of promotional work online and chat with my readers at many online events.  I always open up a thread for questions and find there are common questions, so I thought I’d answer some of them here.

Q.  Why and how did you develop the Storm MC?

A.  The original concept for Storm was a story based around Madison.  She was the daughter of an MC President and had left town, however she wasn’t originally involved with J.  He was simply supposed to be a friend of hers sent by the MC to bring her home.  It was never going to be a biker book as such and she was not going to return home with him.  However, when J turned up, he took over the whole damn book.  I’m sure you can imagine!  He truly is a dominant man.  So, I reworked the story and Storm was the result. Also, I always intended to write about alpha men and bikers just fit the bill and add that dirty to it that we all love..

Q.  Will you write a book about Serena?

A.  Hell yes!!!  I love that chick.  I aim to have her book out in 2015.

Q.  What books do you plan to write next?

A.  Next up I am working on a secret project that I aim to release very, very soon.  However, I am not going to tell you what it is in case I don’t manage to pull it off.  After that is part two to Destined Havoc, Inevitable Havoc.  Then I will write part two to All Your Reasons (yes, finally more Jett!).  After that is Illusive, which is Griff’s book, and Command, Scott & Harlow’s next book, which is also the last book in the Storm MC series.  In amongst that, I have another secret project that I know you are all going to LOVE!  Once Storm MC is finished (sob, we will miss these men!), I will write the first book in a new series – The Stone Brother Series.  The first book will be Serena’s book.  Her guy is HOT and oh, so alpha – to the extreme!!  I get freaking excited just thinking about writing that book!  Her guy is Zane Stone and his brother is Blake Stone who you might recall is Madison’s friend.  Blake will also get his own book.  I will also be writing more of Roxie and releasing it as I go.  I am also considering writing a serial of some sort but hell, I am not sure when! 

Q.  Are you scared to read the reviews about your books? 

A.  LMAO, not anymore!  My first book received so many negative reviews and I spent a lot of time reading them and working out where I needed to improve.  One day, I will rewrite that book, but I am thankful to those reviews because they showed me what work I needed to put in to write better books.  Slay is the first book I’ve written that I LOVED while writing.  Mind you, it took me many attempts to get it right.  I went through three different versions of characters for Layla to find the right Layla.  I had deleted so many words and grown so sick of looking at the computer every day, and then one afternoon I sat down and just let my mind take over and the first scene where you meet Layla in the alley with the drunks flowed onto the page.  I’d stopped plotting and planning her character and just let her evolve.  After that, it was a mad rush to get the book finished to meet deadlines.  So, in the end the majority of Slay was written in about two weeks.  They were some long ass days!  At least fifteen hours every single day.  But, I got sidetracked on the question there... no, I am not scared to read reviews anymore.  The way I look at it now is that I compare books to music.  I LOVE Macklemore but a friend of mine doesn’t.  Does that make him a bad artist?  No, it simply shows we all have different tastes.  Same with books.  We all take something different from what we read.  And I think a lot of that also comes from your experiences in life. 

Q.  Best line ever written?

A.  Okay, so it may not be my best line ever written, but it has a lot of personal meaning to me so I love it hard..  “I smiled as I tasted freedom.”  Velvet says this in Revive.  She is a strong woman but there’s that one person in her life who still makes her shrink – her ex.  And then there’s the day she stops shrinking and can move out from under his shadow.  She tastes freedom.

Q.  Do you write on schedule?

A.  The last twelve months has been a whirlwind of trying to catch my breath and catch up.  I was working full time up until just before Revive was released so my schedule was pretty much work five days a week at my job and then write all night into the early hours.  I also wrote pretty much all weekend, too.  Now that I write full time, I am trying to establish a routine of Monday to Friday during the day.  I’d love to have nights and weekends off again.  However, I struggle to take time off.  I’m kinda addicted to it all.  But, Slay is my last book I have a deadline for and I won’t be setting release dates anymore until closer to when I’ve finished writing the book.  Hopefully, I will get myself into some sort of balance between work and life.  The hard thing is trying to juggle writing with marketing.  I love both, but I do need to cut back on some of it.  When I am writing a book, I usually have a word count I try to hit everyday.  I do know how many words I am aiming for for each book so I break it down.  I tend to fall behind though so towards the end of the book, it’s not uncommon for me to be writing 10k words a day. 

Q.  What advice would you give a new author?

A.  Begin building your presence before you publish your first book.  I started to build mine two months prior to releasing Storm.  Be prepared for a lot of hours at first to get your work out there.  Hell, the hours never really let up, but at first it can feel overwhelming.  Watch successful authors in the genre you want to write in and see how they market their books.  Start some of these practices yourself.  Read The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing.  And keep reading it after you release your book.  That book tells you everything you need to know to get your name out there.  Treat your writing like a business.  Don’t get involved in petty online drama.  FARK.  AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS.  Don’t even surf your Facebook newsfeed.  Surround yourself with positive, switched on people in the industry and only read their online posts.  I set notifications for the people I adore.  Help each other!  Share their work.  Don’t whinge about negative reviews.  Nobody wants to read that.  Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion on your book.  If you aren’t ready for that, DO NOT publish a book.  You WILL need to grow a thick skin for this line of work.  Keep learning and improving your craft.  NEVER GIVE UP.