By Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)

Now that I’m writing my way through the final climax and denouement of my current work, I feel like it’s time to share what I’ve been working on. It’s called Five Moons Rising, and it’s my first attempt at paranormal sci-fi.

It’s been kicking around almost two years now. I actually started writing it for NaNoWriMo the year before last. I have to confess that 2013’s NaNo was an unmitigated disaster for me. Not because of the writing’s quality, but because November 2013 is when my relationship of fourteen years finally unraveled completely. So…it was a little difficult to concentrate of Five Moons. Also, I could tell things from my personal life were working their way into the draft, and not in a way that improved the story. So after about 30,000 words, I set it aside.

Life happened, like it does. My first novel finally started going through the editing process. (That was a fun experience, and I’ll have to talk about it some other time.) I started a new novel, because I can’t not have a new project going. I wrote a short story which is awaiting its third rejection. (I’ll be posting it on here if it gets passed over again, so keep your fingers crossed.) But all that time, Five Moons kept churning in my head. Finally, a few months ago, I got to the point where I had to decide whether to get back to work on it, or put aside the new novel I’d been noodling on, to the tune of 50,000 words.

So what is it, you ask? I know, I’ve been blithering on about the birth story of my story, but I haven’t told you much of anything beyond the title and that it’s paranormal in nature.

Like many paranormal stories, it takes place in a present day parallel universe where werewolves, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night are real. Unlike a number of other paranormal novels, humans are mostly unaware of the existence of these creatures. They live alongside us, but under our radar. They are the things that make the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up. Ruri Hakonsson is one of those creatures. The local werewolf pack’s Beta, she ends up suddenly and decisively on her own when a lone wolf murders her Alpha outside the traditional dominance struggle. Cast out of her former pack and alone, she struggles to survive without the family structure she’s depended on for decades.

For her part, Mary Alice “Malice” Nolan is a government-trained and modified super-soldier, created for the sole purpose of keeping the monsters in check. Her function is judge, jury, and executioner over Chicago’s paranormal community. She is sent to check on the new situation with the werewolf pack, and kills a pack member. The new Alpha takes exception and has Malice’s sister, Cassidy, attacked and put on the path to turning.

Desperate to find someone who can shepherd Cassidy through the change, Malice does what any sister with genetically-enhanced strength and senses would, and kidnaps a werewolf. Ruri, having finally started to get her life back on track is less than amused when she is forcefully dragged and held in the situation. Her life rests on Cassidy’s continued survival, but the circumstances of the attack make that very uncertain.

Complications arise when Malice’s handler calls in another super-soldier to help her get a handle on the rogue pack. Malice finds herself in a situation where she has to choose between her duty to her country, her family, and a shot at love.