This is release week for two of my novels. In the meantime here are a couple of excerpts from The Saint of BOYStown and SENSEI

The Saint of BOYStown

That’s not Cody lying in bed, looking for all the world like a male version of Sleeping Beauty. His muscles are nowhere to be found, because his body has shrunk, almost like he’s deflated. His breathing is so shallow that its hard to tell if he’s really taking in air on his own. Mom is already here, doing what a nurse usually would.

As I watch her washing Cody I’m ashamed at how bratty I’ve been to her. She takes his arm, wiping a wet cloth over his skin ever so tenderly. The soap suds are close to the same color he is, but even with the sterile whiteness of the bed sheets, the peach tinted lava of the soap and Cody’s fading tan, I hope he can feel the love in her touch. I pray he can hear her voice, how she sings so sweetly to him, peppering a made-up melody with lyrics like “my beautiful boy.” She encourages him and herself by bragging about how everything’s gonna be just fine. Mom gives him a run-down on all the well-wishers and prayers from the community. I wish I had her kind of quiet strength. When she notices me standing in the doorway, she smiles and motions for me to come in. I hang back, feeling like I’m intruding on this private moment between a mother and her comatose child.

“Talk to him, Nat,” she says. “I’m sure he’d like to know how you’re doing.”

I don’t want to. All I want to do is transport the three of us back to Aunt Gina’s living room, when we were laughing and hollering at LeBron James and the Cavalier’s game seven win over Golden State. See, I want to have that kind of mind-over-matter type will, a “I refuse to go down” philosophy, the same power that LeBron and his teammates had. I want to will Cody to wake up.

~~~~~End of Excerpt~~~~~

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

SENSEI

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Takeshi said. “I thought you might be thirsty.”

With a half-smile and a deep throated “thank you,” she took the bottle, giving him a quick appraisal in the process. He was decent looking. Large hands, broad shoulders, big feet . . . Oh bloody hell, he was attractive in a ruggedly handsome sort of way. But that bowl haircut was totally wrong for his face. Nyesha guessed his age to be somewhere in his mid to late thirties, and just like she was checking him out, his attention was on her face, in addition to getting an up-close view of her bare breasts.