INTERIM is LIVE!!!

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Genre:

YA/NA Crossover Psychological Suspense

Description:

~A lot can change in the space between devising a plan and carrying it out. That space is called the INTERIM.~

High school seniors Jeremy Stahl and Regan Walters aren’t friends. Not even close. He’s a picked-on, picked-apart loser outcast. She’s a cool kid running with the popular crowd. It’s unlikely they’d ever speak to one another. Too bad he’s madly in love with her. But what does it matter, anyway? He’s got no time for love. Only revenge.

Meticulously detailed in the pages of his battered red notebook is his master plan. He’s finally ready to answer every single taunt, jeer, and flying fist—unwarranted abuse that’s spanned six years of his lonely life. He’s justified. He’s ready. But he never readied himself for her.

Regan finds his journal. She reads it, and when he discovers her intrusion, he has to switch tactics. She’s a liability now.

Better fix that.

(WARNING: This is a New Adult standalone containing graphic language and violence, including gun violence. If school shootings are a particularly sensitive subject for you, then I urge you to refrain from reading this book. - S.)

Now after that disclaimer, I'm going to ask that you not be afraid to read this book. Good grief.

Okay. I scared the shit out of everyone. I get that. Perhaps including images of guns and bullets on my book teasers was not the best advertising strategy. So the first thing I want to say is I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for scaring you. I’ve received messages from you asking that I allay your fears. I’ve heard from bloggers who’ve received messages from readers asking if the book has a happily-ever-after. This gives me a little bit of hope: it tells me you want to read Interim, but you’re scared. You’re scared of what it might do to your heart. You’re scared of hurting that badly. You’re scared I’ll take you down into the pit and leave you there, cold and alone, frightened and desperate.

I would never do that to you.

How do I make you feel confident enough to give this book a chance without ruining the ending? I know what you want me to say. You want me to tell you it has a HEA, and I won’t do that because the ending cannot be defined so easily. How can a story about a school shooting honestly have a HEA? When I think of HEA, I think of everyone getting exactly what they want or deserve. Not everyone gets exactly what they want or deserve in this story.

Sooooo, doesn’t sound like I’m doing the best job convincing you, huh? It’s my writer spirit rising up and demanding I MAKE you buck up and take a chance on this story without me assuaging your fears because it’s literature, damnit, and it’s supposed to challenge you! Sheesh. Yeah, literature should do exactly that (you’ll never convince me otherwise), but that doesn’t mean I can’t hold your hand a little. It’s the least I can do after scaring you with all my book teasers and disclaimers.

Will you be scared at the end of this book? Yes. You are going to cry and maybe visibly shake, and you may have to take breaks. If you read Going Under, you may have had to take breaks during the rape scene. Same here. Breaks. And that’s okay. Will you ache for the characters? Yes. You will come to love some you never thought you would, so that aching is inevitable.

Will you finish this story feeling content, maybe even happy? Perhaps even smile at the last line?

YES. A thousand times yes. I can’t say it enough. You will be HAPPY at the end of this story. You may still be crying. You may still feel the ache for some of these characters, but I can say without a doubt that you will be happy. Everyone who received an ARC of this book came away feeling satisfied.

Now just maybe you will take the chance? It is not 95,000 words of utter pain and desolation. I give you many moments to breathe, laugh, swoon, sigh, wish, and hope. Because ultimately, this is a story about hope. And maybe that’s exactly what defines a happily-ever-after.

<3  

Excerpt:

His heart plummeted when their eyes met that morning. And then the anger bubbled up in his chest almost immediately. The things she must know! He knew she read it. A girl would have read it. Fucking girls. It was written all over her guilty face, her deer-in-headlights eyes. Her body language. He saw the imperceptible tightening of his words against her chest—her biceps flexing as she secured his notebook to her body. Like she owned it. Like she owned him.

The hell you do, he thought.

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INTERIM releases tomorrow!

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WARNING: Interim is a Mature YA/New Adult crossover standalone that contains graphic language and violence, including gun violence. If school shootings are an especially sensitive subject for you, then I urge you to refrain from reading this book.


"GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS"

He sank to the ground, wiping the perspiration of hard work from his forehead, listening to Peter Gabriel’s fading words about war. He adopted the song as his anthem when he first heard it played on his father’s stereo a few years ago. It was a weird night of nostalgia, and Mr. Stahl sat in the center of the living room surrounded by the music of his happier past. Gabriel was among the artists, and Jeremy hung back in the doorway to the living room working hard to decode the lyrics.

Maybe he got it wrong, but he heard a story of warring children. Mean children. Children out to harm with words, with deeds. Children out for blood in the war-ravaged hallways of Any School, USA. He fought a war there every day. He fought a war at home, too. And instantly, his idea of justice was born.

He stole the CD and put the song on repeat every night before bed so that he would never forget his mission. Those kids needed to play nicer, he thought, growing more confident in his plan, his purpose. Metal could stay a flying fist. Metal could silence an ugly word. Flesh was weak; metal strong. And he would be the boy who wielded the metal—eradicating the abuse for good.

copyright S. Walden, 2015

INTERIM Teaser #4

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INTERIM Teaser #3

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INTERIM Teaser #2

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INTERIM Cover Reveal

By the time Interim hits the digital shelves, it will have been over a year since I've published. It feels really good to get back out there, and I'm glad it's this story I'm sharing. Jeremy waited a long time, and I'm so happy I finally mustered the courage to tell his story.

WARNING: Interim is a New Adult standalone that contains graphic language and violence, including gun violence. If school shootings are an especially sensitive topic for you, then I urge you to refrain from reading this book.

(Cover by Robin Ludwig)

Release Date:

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Genre:

Mature YA/NA Crossover Suspense/Psychological Thriller with a Romance Twist

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Add to Goodreads HERE

Description:

~A lot can change in the space between devising a plan and carrying it out. That space is called the INTERIM.~

High school seniors Jeremy Stahl and Regan Walters aren’t friends. Not even close. He’s a picked-on, picked-apart loser outcast. She’s a cool kid running with the popular crowd. It’s unlikely they’d ever speak to one another. Too bad he’s madly in love with her. But what does it matter, anyway? He’s got no time for love. Only revenge.

Meticulously detailed in the pages of his battered red notebook is his master plan: April 14, 9:30 A.M., two guns, eighty rounds of ammo, backup knives, eleven victims. He’s finally ready to answer every single taunt, jeer, and flying fist—unwarranted abuse that’s spanned six years of his lonely life. He’s justified. He’s ready. But he never readied himself for her.

Regan finds his journal. She reads it, and when he discovers her intrusion, he has to switch tactics. She’s a liability now.

Better fix that.

Teaser:

Who was he? What was his purpose? He knew it once. Once, a long time ago, he decided to be a hero. He decided to avenge himself and all the other kids who were helpless against abuse. Once, a long time ago, he learned the difference between justice and mercy. He learned when justice was required. He learned when mercy was allowed. Once, a long time ago, he faced himself in the mirror and saw a stranger—a better boy than he could ever be. A boy with a mission. A boy with convictions. And he reached out to take hold of that boy, through the looking-glass, falling into a wonderland where righteousness ruled supreme and evil was destroyed with the pop pop! of a gun. The world made sense to him. Then. 

New Year. New Perspective.

I made a few promises (not resolutions) at the start of this year, and one of those promises was to be kinder to myself. I tend to set unreasonable expectations in every aspect of my life, job included. In fact, I’m probably the hardest on myself when it comes to my writing. Sometime last year, I realized that the one thing I love above everything in the world aside from my husband and dog became something I loathed. My ridiculous expectations distorted the reason I write, and it wasn’t long after that writing stopped altogether. I gave up. But a real writer doesn’t do that, does she? Isn’t it impossible for her not to open her computer and type something? Isn’t that the definition of a “true” writer?

Writers write to tell the stories in their hearts. It’s as simple as that. Or should be. But when you’re competing for space and relevancy in an ever-expanding self-publishing world, the motivations to write start changing. If you don’t meet the goals you set for a particular title, you start second guessing the story: Was this important? Did I choose the wrong point of view? Did I offend someone? (Note: you will ALWAYS offend someone with your writing. Nothing you can do about it.) You start second guessing your characters. You start second guessing your genre as you scour Amazon’s Top 100 list and discover that no one’s writing about high school shootings. You take a step back. You try to anticipate what your audience will like. You try to make your audience happy. You allow too many people to involve themselves with your work, giving you confusing feedback that turns into white noise. You say to yourself, “She doesn’t get me at all, but she’s my audience, so I need to change.” You don’t even take into consideration all the people who DO get you—who DO understand and appreciate and love your work. Distortion is scary. It’s what stands us in front of the mirror and forces the words “I’m fat” out of our mouths when we are clearly not fat. And so with each book, you move further and further away from . . . you. And then you wake up one morning to discover that you hate telling stories—that part of you that was your heartbeat. You hate it because you’re trying to please everyone instead of writing what's in your heart.

It took the better part of last year to recognize all this. One enlightening phone conversation with an industry professional helped refocus my lens and give me a clear perspective once more. It was a conversation that centered on a story I’d tucked away for over a year—a story I’d been too afraid to tell because it’s risky and controversial and ugly and all the things that, up until LoveLines, had defined my writing. Fringe writing. That’s what I’m calling it. Those stories that hang out in the margins—right on the edge of potential greatness and amazing catastrophe. The stories people are too scared to read because they don’t know if they’ll get their happily-ever-afters. The stories that reflect true reality, making them too realistic. The stories that sometimes offer no escape.

My stories aren’t pretty or safe or commercial, and they will most likely never be wide-reaching. And that’s okay because someone needs to tell Jeremy’s story. And once I committed to him, all my initial motivations for writing returned. None of them were new, but I felt like a brand new person. I remembered why I write. I write to tell what I hope are good stories. I write because it is a part of who I am. That’s the point of it all. That’s perspective. And with my old-new perspective came a joy for storytelling again—a reason to open my laptop. Sure, I realize I’m taking a huge risk, perhaps riskier than Brooke or Cadence’s stories. But hey, I gave myself a year. It’s time.

(Expected release: Spring 2015)

. . . and here's your first teaser:

Congratulations, teens. You've ruined my life.

Haha. Just kidding. They haven’t ruined my life, but they sure have complicated my writing career. Remember a really really long time ago—like the beginning of this year—when I posted about how I was just the slightest bit weary of writing about teenagers? They make for some really good stories, but they are exhausting. The angst. The drama. The melodrama. Good grief. I found myself turning into one: “Honey, what’s going on?” Aidan asked. “Get off my back! IDK!” I replied. IDK, people.

It was time for a break, and really that had to do with the fact that my closet was filled with more Love Culture clothing than normal, 34-year-old mature woman clothing. Thankfully Bailey from LoveLines spoke up and offered to give me what I thought would be a well-deserved break from high school. The only problem with that was that my fans weren’t ready for me to switch gears. They weren’t ready for Bailey. Bailey didn’t fit with Brooke or Cadence. Bailey was an adult. What the hell was I doing writing about adults?

It never once occurred to me that people stick with specific genres, not authors. I don’t know why this never occurred to me since I’m one such reader who chooses books over authors. I’m going for what interests me. I’m not picking up every single thing Diana Gabaldon writes. Haven’t touched her Lord John Grey series. Probably never will because his character and story don’t interest me. The other thing I failed to consider was that I’d already rooted myself in this weird, indefinable YA/NA crossover genre about teens and their not-quite-adult lives. Readers liked that I wrote these stories. They liked my teenagers because I gave them the best of both worlds: I let them remember adolescence (maybe fantasize a better version of those years), and I still threw in adult themes/situations.

I have a point to all this. And here it comes. I just read an insightful article on author branding, and it included advice on everything from what picture you want to use to represent your author self to how social media is vital to being noticed (I get it already. Jeez). Probably the hardest bit of advice for me to swallow was choosing a genre and sticking to it. See? Here’s the point. When I read that piece of advice, my writer self bristled—chest out and feathers ruffled like a little banter rooster. “No!” I crowed. “No no no! I will NOT be pigeon-holed! I will NOT be made to write in one genre for the rest of my writing career! I will NOT write in a prison of my own design!!!!!!!!! Or one others want to make for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

(See? Total drama because I write about teens too much.)

And then once I calmed down and thought about it rationally, I realized that choosing a genre and sticking to it was actually beneficial for me. It doesn’t pigeon-hole. I can still write whatever the hell I want to, just under a different name. Don’t you ever see those “T.L. Comma writing as Comma Sutra” bylines on books? That chick just went from clean YA to trashy erotica in the space of a single book. AND she took her audience with her. She’s damn good. She did it right. She let her audience know, “Hey, it’s still me, but I’m going a different direction with this book. I don’t wanna confuse you, so whenever you see me as ‘Comma Sutra’ now, you know it’s one of my sex books.” *sigh* If only I’d done that: “S. Walden writing as Summer Love” and my life would be completely different.

So authors, don’t be like me. Learn from my LoveLines mishap. Figure out your genre, stick to it, and write under a different name when you’re itching to tell a story that veers from your chosen path. Remember that you will have the diehard fans who will read anything you put out there—including tampon instructions, Amanda—but most readers expect a certain type of book from you. It’s your duty and privilege to give it to them. Much like voting. Voting is not a right, FYI; it’s a privilege, but that’s an entirely different subject.

Once you choose your genre, embrace it. Embrace it hard. Have lots and lots of sex with it because this is it, baby. This is your area of expertise. You own it. You love it. You expect it to take you places. And if you’re committed to it, you’ll solidify your place in the writing world—that teeny tiny space in the upper left-hand corner that’s alllllll yours. How do I know this to be true? Well, haven’t you heard? S. Walden writes the “controversial teen stuff.” ;)

xo