NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I hope you loved the first part of Teller’s story. The second part will be available at the end of October. I never intended for Teller’s story to be a duet. However, late into working on Beyond Reckless, I realized to do his story justice, I’d need to split it into two books. Like, after the cover reveal, almost finished with the first round of edits, late. So if you were confused about why there were two books, you didn’t miss anything, it was all me. If you care, I’ll explain why.
The original version was over 145,000 words. My crit partners, betas, and editor all had suggestions for issues that needed to be addressed before the story could be considered “complete.” Now, my loyal readers know how much I love to leave open threads for future books. However, a lot of these threads wouldn’t make sense to tie up in After Burn (Lost Kings MC #10) because it already has enough stuff going on in it (Seriously, After Burn is going to blow your fucking mind! I’m so excited!) It wouldn’t have made sense to tie them up in Zero Tolerance (Lost Kings MC #11) either. That’s Z’s book and I think we can all agree that Z would not appreciate Teller’s business encroaching on his story! The things that were left open couldn’t be solved with a few short sentences (I mean, I guess they could’ve been, but that would’ve been sucky) and I knew people might be left unsatisfied and annoyed that they weren’t resolved.
So, I agonized over what to do…for about a day. Because the answer was so obvious. I just didn’t want to admit it.
Readers hate duets.
People already bitched about the first three books being about the same couple.
Readers really, really hate cliffhangers.
What the fuck am I going to call it?
Yup, I sat frozen at my desk considering all these angles.
Then I pestered Mr. Lake, three of my betas, my editor, and my crit partners to see what they thought of the duet idea.
But I was just stalling, because I already knew in my heart to really do Teller and Charlotte’s story justice, it needed to be in two parts. My first task was to scramble to license new photos and have a cover made. Then to book promo. All while finishing edits on Beyond Reckless. After I nailed those things down (wait, have I actually nailed them all down!?), I slowly rolled out the idea on my FB page and in my reader’s group that Beyond Reckless was now “Part One.” The reaction was mixed which I understood.
I’m sure someone will complain that I split the book as some sort of “money grab.” In fact, I warned several people, the first person to say that to my face is getting punched in the throat (I kid, I kid, I’m not that hardcore, I swear. Mr. Lake will probably punch that person for me.)
Some authors write duets for the cash. That’s cool. A lot of times when I’ve read them, they seem to be incomplete stories of about 50,000 words each. Basically one book, broken in half at some random point. There’s a totally legit business strategy behind that method and I’m never going to judge someone else’s business plan. However, I assure you if I had decided to write this duet for the cash, I would have planned, scheduled, and executed it a hell of a lot neater than what ended up happening. I would have avoided all the extra pain and stress this decision cost me. Truthfully, if I had published Beyond Reckless in its original 145,000 word form, I would have had to price it higher to cover the extra costs of the larger file and you would not have had a “complete” story. That felt too much like cheating my readers and I never want to do that. I love you too much!
Part one is over 106,000 words. More than a full-size novel. Part Two looks like it will be similar in length.
Now that you’ve read my explanation for the duet, I know some of you are waiting for an explanation about something else.
Autumn, why the hell were you so tight-lipped about who Teller’s girl was?
I swear, I wasn’t keeping Charlotte under wraps just to be cheeky. Honestly, her identity only mattered to loyal readers of the series. So let me tell you my reasoning. Back when I was writing Strength From Loyalty, I planned for Charlotte and Teller to end up together. Then I thought maybe Mariella…maybe Swan…Mariella. We all know what happened to Mariella. When I was finishing up More Than Miles last summer, it hit me—hard—that he was going to end up with Charlotte. Teller needed a strong woman who could stand up to him. He’s been a caretaker his whole life and he whether he knew it or not, he needed someone who could take care of herself and be strong for him. Even more exciting, I knew exactly where the conflict would come from. A rival club. I was so frickin’ excited about this angle, I couldn’t shut up about it. Unfortunately I blabbed too much. Someone close to me at the time bitched that having Teller end up with Charlotte was too much like “recycling” Rock and Hope’s story. This person wanted to see Teller with someone else. I was crushed. And seriously pissed. Because Teller and Charlotte were nothing like Rock and Hope. Where Hope had no clue about the MC world, Charlotte knows plenty. Honestly, the best way to get me to do something is to tell me not to do it. So even though I was hurt and angry, I set that aside and dug into Teller and Charlotte’s story. But I had that comment in the back of my head the entire time and I realized if someone who should’ve known better would say that, then readers might say it too. And I didn’t want people to say “Meh, another lawyer and outlaw storyline? I don’t want to read that again.” In fact, in my reader’s group when people were guessing who Teller’s girl was a few times when Charlotte’s name came up, the responses were, “No, it can’t be Charlotte, Autumn wouldn’t have another lawyer and Lost King together.”
I evil-laughed over that. But I also fretted.
When some of my betas (who I really consider friends at this point) asked “Why are you being so weird about telling people it’s Charlotte?” and I told them the story, they assured me that was ridiculous. Charlotte and Hope were nothing alike. But I still didn’t want to reveal who it was. I’m pretty proud of myself for keeping it under wraps for so long. I figured after making such a big deal out of it, I’d be the one to blow it. Now that the book is out in the world, people will know. Hopefully they’ll still give Beyond Reckless a chance.
I hope you enjoyed briefly seeing Liam and Bree from Bullets and Bonfires. Liam will be back in Beyond Reason: Teller’s Story, Part Two. Maybe. We’ll see. Pretty much all of my early readers loved Carter. I’m not sure I have anything in mind for him in the future. But who knows?
I know there’s no epilogue here, but I’m hoping that a certain scene answered who at least one of the “mystery children” belong to.
If you really hated Charlotte at the grandmother’s funeral, I hope you grew to love her by the end. I had a funny time with that scene. All of my beta readers thought Charlotte was a mega-bitch. When Mr. Lake read it, he hated Teller. Like, seriously hated him. He vented for about an hour about what a jerk Teller was and how he hoped Charlotte wouldn’t let him near her “happy place” ever again. Good God, I should videotape him one day, because he’s really funny when he’s passionate about my characters. I told him my female readers had the exact opposite response, and he didn’t get it at all.
It’s all in the perspective, right?
I’m so in love with Teller and Charlotte at this point and I hope you are too. Poor Teller had a lot of time to make up for, so they were difficult to keep out of the bedroom. But I think some of the most important, emotional moments come from those scenes. Certainly some funny ones. I’m not sure how many there ended up being (I never set out to write a particular number of sex scenes or write them in any order, I just let the characters do their thing.) My top three? When Teller finds the vibrator and wants to play. He’s been such a grumpy jerk at times throughout the series, so that scene was a lot of fun to write. I also loved when Charlotte threatened to stick a finger in his ass and he has the perfect comeback. But most of all, I really loved when Charlotte wants him to use the belt around her neck and he tells her it has to be his hand and he has to see her face if she wants him to do that.
Breath play, I realize is one of those things that some people find squicky. I normally don’t like reading it myself. In fact there’s a pretty popular book where something similar happens and I hated it. But I hated it because the heroine didn’t like it and the hero kept doing it anyway. Here, Charlotte wanted it and initiated it. It made her happy and Teller was careful not to hurt her. I hope that made the difference for those who aren’t comfortable with choking.
Actually, I polled my reader’s group a few weeks back and choking was the #2 thing they did not like to read about in a romance. I thought to myself, “well shit.”
I realize my style of exploring the intricate details of love and relationships might not be as exciting as other MC books that are all whores, gore, and violence. But I’ve never been about that. I like loyal, loving, filthy-mouthed alpha heroes who cherish and respect their women. If there’s some easily manufactured, clichéd conflict to write about, I’m going to avoid that shit like the plague. I like the stickier, harder, more nuanced parts of love and romance. I am forever grateful for those of you who enjoy my writing style and trust me to take you on an adventure with characters you’ve come to love spending time with. Thank you.
If you preordered Beyond Reckless for the bonus scene, thank you! I’m not doing another bonus scene for preorders for Beyond Reason. At least I don’t think I am. Hmmm…Have I mentioned that I’m a terrible planner?