Hookers & Hangers Blogfest - Part 2: Cliffhangers

Today we continue with the Hookers and Hangers Bloghop, hosted by the ladies over at Falling For Fiction.  Here are the details:

We all know how important the first and last lines are in every chapter. This blogfest will hopefully get your HOOKERS and HANGERS polished making it impossible for readers to put down your book and leaving them begging for more!

On July 16th, post the first sentence from each chapter. CHECK

On July 18th, post the last sentence from each chapter.

Post as many as you like!

We will be judging everyone’s first three HOOKERS and first three HANGERS. We’ll each pick two winners (MOST ENTICING HOOKER and MOST IMPOSSIBLE HANGER) making a total of ten winners! Winners will receive a 10 page (double spaced) critique and a Friday Spotlight on FFF!

Keeping it brief, here are seven cliffhangers from my novel, The Mistaken:

• A shrill scream escaped from the very deepest part of me, a wail of utter desperation, of annihilating failure. I was no longer a man simply broken.  I was destroyed. 

• My breath was expelled violently from my body in a loud whoosh, and I felt myself snap from within.  Then everything went quiet, and all I could see was black. 

• With his chin tilted upward, he closed his eyes and whispered, “What have I done?”

• Despondent, and destroyed all over again, I walked out of the hospital the same way I came in, into the custody of the FBI, who—without even allowing me to bury my brother—swept me away to a new life.

• It seemed like an eternity had swallowed me up whole, but at some point, I was finally pulled from her side, and I thought that eternity was not nearly long enough.

• Then I saw Jillian on the narrow table, her blood soaked through the sheet pulled over her battered body, and the tube still stuck in her throat, and, in my alcohol-fueled rage, I steeled my resolve, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.

• I touched the hand he placed against my cheek and held it as he backed away, his arm outstretched, until he finally stepped beyond my reach.

If you’re at all intrigued by my cliffhangers, please add The Mistaken to your TBR list on Goodreads.  And look for it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble beginning October 18^th. 

And oh yeah, go to author Jennifer Hillier's blog—The Serial Killer Files

and check out her right side bar to see what she's currently reading.

How cool is THAT?!

Hookers & Hangers Blogfest

I need a serious distraction today as I wait for my dog, Jack, to get out of surgery, and it just so happens the amazing ladies over at Falling For Fiction are hosting the Hookers and Hangers Bloghop.  Here are the details:

We all know how important the first and last lines are in every chapter. This blogfest will hopefully get your HOOKERS and HANGERS polished making it impossible for readers to put down your book and leaving them begging for more!

On July 16th, post the first sentence from each chapter.

On July 18th, post the last sentence from each chapter.

Post as many as you like!

We will be judging everyone’s first three HOOKERS and first three HANGERS. We’ll each pick two winners (MOST ENTICING HOOKER and MOST IMPOSSIBLE HANGER) making a total of ten winners! Winners will receive a 10 page (double spaced) critique and a Friday Spotlight on FFF!

I only have one book, THE MISTAKEN, to be released 10/18/2012, but I thought it’d be fun to share a few first lines.  I have 50 chapters, but I’ll keep this short.  Here are eight chapter hooks:

• I don’t know how I missed it, that moment I changed, when I somehow became a different man. 

• God, I didn’t want to do this; just thinking about it had my gut tied in knots, but I was out of options.

• Five times I watched the dense summer fog march in and retreat outside the hospital window, five long days of prayers and pacing before Nick was moved out of the ICU.

• I paced the floor around me, unable—perhaps unwilling—to process the reality of what I had just done—what I almost did—the severity of the mistake I had made, and the dire consequences that now faced me, my brother, and the wounded woman cowering in fear and humiliation in the corner.

• In one moment of madness, my life had turned upside down.

• Nick and I were tossed about the van as it threaded erratically through city traffic.

• About eight hours later, the pain had eased enough that I could move around, though my head still felt as if it were split down the middle.

• The crowd quieted down as they watched me cradle the body of my dead brother in my arms.

I hope this interests you enough to add The Mistaken to your TBR list on Goodreads.