Northern
Light
E.J.
Russell
ISBN: 9781622662845
Genre:
M/M Romance
Book
Description:
Nothing gives art fraud
investigator Luke Morganstern a bigger rush than busting forgers, the low-life
criminals who dare victimize true artists. But when his latest job sends him to
a remote cabin in the Oregon Coast Range, he’s stunned to discover the alleged
forger is his former lover, Stefan Cobbe, the most gifted painter Luke has ever
known.
Stefan, left homeless and
destitute after the death of his wealthy partner, doesn’t exactly deny the
forgery -- he claims he doesn’t remember, an excuse Luke can’t accept.
But Luke’s elderly client
suggests Stefan may be telling the truth and presents another possibility – a
dark presence in the woods, a supernatural fury simmering for decades. Luke
must face down his fear of the uncanny – and admit his feelings for Stefan – if
either of them is to survive.
Guest
Blog
My youngest (by eight minutes)
son is a lifelong aficionado of the macabre. Nick’s favorite book in grade
school was an oversized, cheerfully illustrated book on historical disasters
(his favorite was – and still is – the Black Plague), and post-grade school, he
graduated to all-things-Stephen-King.
It’s only natural, then, that
when he was a senior at the local arts magnet high school, he and his friends
decided to make a horror movie. Their script involved a too-good-to-be-true
free vacation at a B & B that turned out to be the lair of cannibals. The
location for the creepy isolated hotel?
Our house.
I didn’t know whether to be
insulted or flattered.
True, the very remoteness of our
out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere house can be alarming. We live on a six-mile-long,
partially paved road, with no feeder streets – you can only enter from one end
or the other. Our house, screened from the road by a stand of shaggy Douglas
firs, sits at the back of a grove of ancient, gnarled walnut trees that have
almost forgotten how to leaf out, and the blackberry brambles looming on either
side of the bumpy driveway rival Sleeping Beauty’s daunting thorn hedge.
To my husband, this set-up is a
dream come true. For him, our virtual fortress on the hill is the perfect
sanctuary, a retreat where he never has to see a neighbor if he doesn’t want
to. But for our extrovert daughter, who gets freaked out by the least hint of
the weird, it’s a nightmare in the making. She avoids being home alone like
she’d avoid Nick’s favorite disaster, and if for some reason she can’t, she
turns on every light in the house. Every. Stinking. One.
Nick, pragmatic opportunist that
he is, was perfectly willing to exploit the creep factor for his film, even
though he’s just as quick to embrace the seclusion when he’s feeling
anti-social.
My two heroes in Northern Light have a similar love/hate
relationship with rural isolation.
For desperate painter Stefan, the
remote cabin in the Oregon Coast Range, off the grid and hugged by the forest,
is a refuge. There, away from the stress of his financial difficulties and the
reminders of his personal failures, he finally has a chance to reconnect with
his artistic vision and start to rebuild his shattered life.
But the solitude that Stefan finds
so comforting nearly sends Luke, my art investigator, running for…well, not the
hills. He hates those damn hills. For Luke, who once endured a disabling
traumatic event in the mountains, safety is a well-populated sea-level
community, where he can see the horizon whenever he looks out his window, and
know that he’s not trapped.
So how about you? City dweller or
country cousin? Hustle and bustle or
peace and quiet? Or are you like Nick, who’ll take which ever one suits his
mood at the moment?
Excerpt:
Luke slammed the
heel of his hand against his forehead. Shitgoddamnsonofabitch. He'd asked the
fucking question. Now he'd have to listen to an answer he could never un-know.
His chest heaved and he stared Stefan down, waiting for the words that would either
damn him as a liar or condemn him as a forger. Either one would force Luke to
choose between rebooting his career or destroying the man he’d once loved.
Stefan blinked.
Blinked again, brows drawing together in a tight vee. "What?"
For some reason,
maybe aftershocks from his Fiat-flashback or mortification that Stefan had
witnessed his resultant freak-out, the bewildered affront on Stefan's face
kicked Luke into art investigator asshole mode. "Did you think you'd get
away with the fake Arcolettis because he was a relative unknown? Because all
his pieces except one are in private hands?"
"Who the
hell is Arcoletti?"
Luke guffawed,
sounding unpleasant even to himself. "Good one."
"No. I mean
it. Who's Arcoletti?"
"Jeremiah
Arcoletti. American realist painter. Disappeared in 1945 along with all
thirteen canvases from his last collection.” Luke's eyes popped wide.
"Holy shit. That’s it, isn’t it? The lost collection." He poked
Stefan's shoulders with stiff fingers, peripherally aware arguing in the middle
of a dark mountain road was ridiculous and possibly suicidal, but he didn't
give a flying fuck. They'd finish this now. "Is that your plan? Recreate
the lost collection out here in your little studio in the big woods?"
"Stop
it." Stefan batted Luke's hand away, his gaze fixed on the ground,
avoiding the question. Pleading the artistic Fifth. Last refuge of the guilty.
"Where'd
you see his work? The museum in Amsterdam? Hell, in all those years of prancing
around with Marius, you could have seen every fricking one of the privately
held pieces. Marius had the connections for it. You could toss his name around
to get access to the Gordon letters too. Damn it." He dropped his arms,
suddenly spent. "The Stefan I knew would have cut off his hands before he'd
counterfeit another artist's work. What's happened to you?"
"What
hasn't?" Stefan's eyes were wide, his pupils huge in the combined light of
headlights and flashlight. "But I swear. I've never heard of this
Arcoletti."
"No? Then
tell me. What's coming off your easel these days? Studies in Monochrome? The
Picture of Oregon Gray?”
"I…I don't
know."
The feeble
disavowal flipped Luke's asshole switch back on. "Don't give me that shit.
You don't paint with your eyes closed."
"No. I
just…" Stefan's voice was hoarse, and he clutched his flashlight to his
belly, casting warped, inverted shadows across his face and distorting his
features into a death's-head mask. "I've been painting, but I don't
remember them. I'm not even sure how many there are."
"Artistic
amnesia? Bullshit. You must have seen them when you handed them over to
Boardman."
Stefan shook his
head and pinched his eyes closed. "Thomas always loaded them into his car.
I never looked. Not after…not when they were finished."
"Why?
Guilt?"
"No. I was
afraid…" Stefan wrapped his arms across his stomach, pointing the
flashlight into the woods, and his face was his own again, drawn and haunted.
"Afraid of
getting caught?"
"Afraid of
what I'd paint next," he whispered.
Luke’s lips
twisted. "Denial. It's what's for dinner. No wonder you're so fricking
thin."
"Why is
everything black and white for you, Luke? Let in some color, for Christ’s
sake." Stefan forked the fingers of one hand through his hair. "Even
a little gray would be a change."
Luke refused to
allow the broken edge of Stefan's voice to influence him. He’d let sentiment
sway him once before and it had cold-cocked his career. "Right or wrong,
Stef. It's not that tough a choice."
"Fine."
Stefan raised his head and met Luke's gaze, his shoulders shifting as if bracing
for a blow. "You’ve already made up your mind, as usual. Go ahead. Turn me
in to the art police."
Luke searched
Stefan's face for some flicker of remorse, some acknowledgement he accepted the
enormity of his crime. Nothing. Only the droop of his lips and a telltale
glitter in his eyes, hinting at unshed tears. "Can you give me a reason
not to?"
Stefan's breath
caught in what might have been a laugh if his face weren't so bleak.
"Guess not." He saluted Luke with a middle finger. "Enjoy your
drive."
Stefan strode
uphill, the beam of his flashlight bouncing from road to hillside, and Luke's
last trace of adrenaline drained away. He sighed, deep and exhausted.
The lousy car
sat perpendicular to the road, driver's door ajar. If he was lucky, he'd manage
to creep down the hill by midnight. He shut the damn door before the brainless
chime of the key alarm drove him nuts and leaned his forehead against the car
roof, the beaded rain icy against his heated skin.
"Shit."
About
the Author:
E.J. Russell holds a BA and an
MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial
manager, database designer and business intelligence consultant. She returned
to her childhood love of writing fiction after her twin sons learned to drive
and she no longer spent half her waking hours ferrying them to dance class.
Her daily commute now consists of
walking from one side of her office to the other — from left-brain day job to
right-brain author cave — where she’s perfected the fine art of typing with a
cat draped across her wrists and a dog attached to her hip. Her stories include
gay and straight characters because her life includes gay and straight
characters (as does everyone’s).
E.J. lives in rural Oregon with
her curmudgeonly husband, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and
indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.
Website: http://www.ejrussell.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ej_russell
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/ej_russell
12 comments:
I love the story of your kid's movie! Choosing your house is hilarious! Great excerpt, and I love the cover, too!
Love the set up to the story EJ. Love the cover. Most of all love the excerpt - drew me right in! Best of luck with your debut and future writing!
One of the "murders" was filmed outside my office. I got to hear Nick's drama teacher's last words multiple times! I make no assumptions about the number of takes the students required to do him in, and whether they took particular glee in doing so!
Thank you, Mary! Do you detect the influence of my cyber-stalking you through multiple online classes?
Thank you, Wenona, for hosting me today!
Hi E.J.
Congratulations on your book! You hooked me with the cover, but the excerpt from Northern Light reeled me in. Can't wait to read the rest!
Greetings EJ - Congratulations on your book release! I'm so happy for you - Jessie
I am really looking forward to reading the whole book. The excerpt only whetted my appetite. I am with Nick, changing my settings based on my moods. I love the picture of him.
Thanks so much for dropping by, Samanthe and Jessie. I'm pretty stoked about it too. You never forget your first, right?
Thanks, Brittany! Nick has a friend who's a photographer -- also named Nick -- in fact, he was part of the film crew and may have taken this picture. Periodically they do photo shoots for fun. I never know when I'll run into a new picture of my Nick online, or what he'll be wearing (or not) when I do!
Awesome excerpt and gorgeous cover. I am sooooo looking forward to reading Northern Light. Congratulations!
Thanks so much, Hayson! Sending cyber-hugs your way (they can make it all the way to Sydney in the blink of an eye).
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