The First To Die - novel in progress

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One dark and stormy night I started a new manuscript with a radically different feel that my Jayne Stanford series.  I actually it was a beautiful star filled evening with a warm breeze but I couldn't resist tossing in a nibble of drama.

This is the very first draft of the words I wrote. My critique partners haven't seen this. I haven't edited it.  Regardless I thought it would be fun to post it here and get your feedback. So here goes the start of the book I'm calling The First To Die. I hope it gives you the same shivers it gave me.

For the first time I really understood. What it means to be totally alone. What it means when no one has your back. What it must have felt like for Matthew to be on the streets. No one cares. I didn’t care. It’s too late. Too late for anyone to care. Everyone who mattered is dead.

It wasn’t an important holiday, like New Year’s Eve, instead it was just another night. Not a weekend. A Tuesday, which should have been like any other. I can feel it like biscuit dough that is too dry. Hard to mix, crumbling and impossible to form into a perfect disk, stuck to my fingers, hard to wash off. That stain that I couldn’t remove, no matter how hard I scrubbed.


Sure, I tell myself I tried. Time and again, I tried. I begged and screamed but I couldn’t change the course of fate. No matter who I aspired to become, I was a killer. I am to blame for his death as much as anyone else. I admit it. I accept the blame for Matthew’s death. That is solidly on my shoulders. The others deserved what they got. 

Happy Trails,
Leslie
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