We’re running a Kickstarter as of about five minutes ago. It features a brand-new crime novel that I hesitate to call historical, because part of the book is set now. I’m proud of that book, Candid Shots of the 1970s, but it also surprised me. I thought it was going to be a short story, but the characters took off with it, and told me a story that I did not expect. Yep, that’s how I spent my December holidays, listening to characters tell me about an afternoon on a Minnesota lake that turned into a massively traumatic experience by evening.

The second novel appeared under a different title. It was published in the 1990s, reprinted in the early part of this century, and got great reviews. The first editor also gave it an offensive title that I will not use here, even to tell you which novel it is. This one is a true historical, with a crime in the center. And it’s noir, so expect dark. We’re reissuing it with the original title, Consecrated Ground.

The final book in the Kickstarter is a collection of short stories, two of which are brand-new. There are some award nominees in the collection as well. I think you’ll all have a lot of fun with this one.

In addition, there’s a mix of workshops and other mystery short fiction collections. So you can find all sorts of reading.

The video above is for the Kickstarter itself, and gives you a good sampling of what’s in it.

Head on over. The Kickstarter will run until Thursday, April 16, but the sooner we hit our goal, the sooner we start on the stretch goals. Then you’ll get even more reading—and, if we get to the upper level of the Kickstarter, an online workshop that I put together last year. Here’s the link!

“Hot Water” is free on this site for one week only. If you like this crime story, you might like my other crime stories. A Kickstarter for my latest crime novel, Candid Shots of the 1970s, will run from Tuesday, April 7, until Thursday, April 16. There you can get the new novel as well as Consecrated Ground, a novel that hasn’t seen print in 15 years, and a brand-new collection of short crime stories (although this one is not included). Click here to look at the Kickstarter.

If you just want a copy of this story, download it on any e-book site or by clicking here. Enjoy!

Hot Water

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“You sure, honey?” Steve asked, hand on the brass doorknob. The foyer was dark and a bit too warm, carrying the day’s heat. “The Sandersons invited you too.”

Louisa brushed his curling hair out of his collar and straightened his suit jacket. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to keep the impatience from her voice. Steve wanted to include her, but this time she didn’t want to be included. She had been waiting for this night. “I’ve had a long week. I just want to be alone and relax.”

“All right.” He kissed her, almost missing her mouth, and pulled her close for a brief moment. “I’ll be back around midnight.”

She put her hand on top of his and pulled the oak door open. “No hurry. I’ll probably be asleep when you get here.”

He kissed her again, on the forehead this time, and walked out. She followed him onto the porch. Twilight had just settled in the valley, giving the trees a gray, shadowy edge. A cool breeze made the branches rustle. The frogs had started their evening chorus from the pond halfway down the driveway, and from overhead, a bird gave a good-bye chirp.

“Wish I were staying here with you,” Steve said. “It’s a great night.”

She smiled, but said nothing. She had been waiting for this evening alone for almost two weeks. She wanted nothing to spoil it. Steve squeezed her shoulder, then hurried down the wood stairs to the flagged path. They had only been in the house a few months, and it still needed work, but Louisa loved it.  If she strained, she could hear cars passing on the road over a mile away, but that was the only sound of civilization — except at midnight, when the distant whistle from the mill announced the arrival of third shift.

Steve hurried down the walk and opened the door on their car, a champagne-colored Porsche covered with dust from the gravel drive. He had been threatening to pave the driveway and to buy a truck, claiming that the Porsche was too expensive to suffer the nicks of tiny rocks churning beneath the wheels.

Someday he would decide the car was too expensive to drive.

The car roared to a start and made its way around the curving slope of the drive, through the trees. Louisa leaned against the wobbly wood railing and watched as the headlights grew smaller along the mile-long gravel drive.

No lights shone in the valley. The house just down the hill had been abandoned years ago. The three neighboring houses — the ones she could see sprawled on their individual twenty acres — had the clean look of a place with owners out of town. On Labor Day weekend, she could count on everyone being away.

She sighed and stretched, feeling the knots in her back pop. She couldn’t get more alone than this.

Still, she needed darkness. She slipped back inside and pulled the heavy door closed behind her. Then she shut off the porch light and the light illuminating the huge foyer.

Her hands were shaking.

The only way to conquer fear is to face it.  Her therapist’s voice echoed in her head. Roger wanted her to do this. He wanted her to take charge of her life. Now that you know why the fear exists, you can control it. It doesn’t have to control you.

Right.

She glanced at the stairs. Up there was her office, the safest place in the house. She could go there and grab a book, climb into the easy chair and while the hours away.

Or she could stay down here and face herself.

She walked to the kitchen, avoiding the bathroom and its mirror. The kitchen light was still on, illuminating the hand carved cookie jar she and Steve had bought on their honeymoon. Dishes dried in the rack, the long knife Steve had used to carve the beef resting on its side next to the plates.

Everything looked normal here. Everything was normal, except her. At least Steve had patience. He loved her. He had known even before they married that she would never take off her clothes for him, that she couldn’t stand to be naked in front of anyone. They made love in the dark with her nightgown pushed around her waist, his gentle fingers stroking her breasts through the fabric.

He loved her, but she could see in his eyes that sometimes he wanted more. Just once he wanted to see her, all of her, at the same time.

She flicked off the light switch over the phone. The fluorescent held their light for a moment, then went dark.  She walked into the breakfast nook and stared through the glass paned doors at the hot tub.

Even with the lights off, she could see it clearly, a big ungainly structure sitting in the middle of her backyard. A deck Steve had built circled it, with a rack to one side for their towels. He liked sitting nude in the water. He said it was one of the most sensual experiences in the world.

Her heart pounded in her throat. She hadn’t been this nervous since the first time she made a sales presentation nearly six years before. Roger had helped her overcome stage fright. Now he was helping her with this.

You need to face your fear, he said, each week. Next week, she wanted to go into his office and tell him she had.

She stepped back from the door and pulled her t-shirt off over her head. Her hair got caught in the neck, and for one suffocating moment, she couldn’t get free. She struggled, then pulled, willing to rip the shirt to free herself from the fabric. Finally, she was out, and she flung the shirt away from her.

It fluttered like a bird mid-flight, and landed gently on the sofa. Her body shook. She hadn’t been that trapped since (he grabbed her and threw her against the sand, the hot granules digging into her bare back. He wrapped his towel around her face and arms, pinning her in place—) No. She wouldn’t remember that. He had no place in this house. His memory, and the memory of his touch, were the things she was trying to get rid of.

She took a deep breath and made herself calm down. Then she slipped out of her shorts and panties, leaving them in a pool on the floor. She wrapped a towel around her waist, stepped into her thongs, and opened the back door.

Cool air caressed her skin, raising goose bumps. She loved the mountains. No matter how hot it was in the day, the nights were always comfortable, the breeze always fresh. She closed the door behind her and stood on the wooden back porch, letting the night woo her with its promise of secrecy.

She didn’t feel naked yet. The towel was enough protection. An owl hooted nearby, adding its voice to that of the frogs. At the base of the driveway, a car swooshed past, its sound little more than a reminder that other people lived in the world. The trees rustled around her as the wind caught the leaves.

Natural sounds. Safe sounds.

She took a deep breath and walked down the creaky wood stairs to the stone pathway Steve had built. The stones tilted to the left, down the hill, and she had to hold her arms out to maintain her balance.  The towel shifted precariously against her skin. She grabbed the top with one hand and nearly fell. Only Steve seemed able to walk across the stones without stumbling. She walked the rest of the way on the grass.

The tub made a low humming sound, so faint she only heard it when she was up close. Sometimes it clicked off, and she was left with complete silence.

Dew had formed on the tub’s plastic cover, leaving little trickles in the dust. The edge was cool to her fingers. She grabbed a side and pushed it back, not willing to take the entire cover off. She had tried to put the cover back on by herself once, and pulled a muscle in her back.

Steam rose off the surface of the water, and the biting scent of chlorine filled the air. Her heartbeat speeded up and her breath came in shallow gasps. Almost there. Almost.

The wooden stairs leading up to the deck were sturdier than the steps on the porch. Steve had built the deck out of cedar and the faint woodsy scent mingling with the chlorine made her think of him. She clung to that thought like the railing, maintaining her balance, giving her strength.

When she reached the top of the deck, she stopped, hands clutching the towel to her breasts.

The mountains across the valley were inky shadows against the dark horizon. No cars passed. Even the white glare from the mill was missing — it had shut down for the holiday. Occasional bursts of steam obscured her view like tiny clouds. Crickets had joined the frogs, and the breeze had an extra bite away from the house.

Alone. She was alone.

Carefully, she undid the knot holding the towel in place. The air kissed the sweat between her breasts and her body went rigid.

(He had smiled at first, friendly as she was, another nudist on a nude beach. The alcove didn’t seem private. Over the rocks, she could see her friends playing volleyball. But her screams mingled with the cry of seagulls, masked by their laughter, and no one found her until hours later, huddled in a small sunburned ball, nearly dehydrated from the sun.)

She had been wrong to go for heat. Heat would bring the memory back. Heat would make things worse.

Excuses. The memory was back, and would haunt her each time her skin was bare. Every morning before she got in the shower, she saw his face. She didn’t want to see his face any more.

Face it. Face your fear. Once you face it, no one will ever be able to hurt you again.

She hung the towel on the railing and immediately sat down at the edge of the tub, her feet in the water. The warmth made her toes ache, but she ignored it and slide inside, feeling covered by water, not quite as visible as she had been a moment before.

She didn’t move for a long time. Then she tilted her face toward the sky. She was doing it. She was sitting alone, under the stars, naked. Absolutely naked.

Free.

A tiny feeling of elation pushed aside her fear, and she breathed into it. Free.  She smiled and then stood. The chill tickled her heat-covered skin: she had never felt so sensual, so alive before. She ran her hands along her wet skin. He had had no right to touch her that way. Touch felt good.

It felt good.

And she was free.

***

She didn’t know how long she stood there, letting the breeze caress her in places her husband had never seen. The moon had moved across the sky, and wispy clouds appeared to the west.

Steve would be home sometime soon. And she would be waiting for him. Completely, gloriously nude.

She slipped back into the water and let its warmth relax her. Roger had been right. It had been so easy, but it had taken so long to get the courage. Even then, she knew. One false statement on Steve’s part, one wrong move, and she would have to do it all over again.

Unless she prepared herself. Unless she sat in the darkness and thought all the problems through. He would be startled, surprised to find her in the tub. He might comment on that. He might say her name softly, in a voice filled with awe. He might ask if she was okay.

A twig snapped. She stiffened, heart pounding. The sound had come from the front of the house. She swallowed, and listened closely. A faint rustle. Soft movements in the bramble.

Deer.

A week after they had bought the house, the tub was finally clean enough and warm enough to use. Steve took off his suit, looking glorious in the moonlight. She wore hers as she slipped into the water. They had held hands under water and stared at the stars for what seemed like hours before they heard something behind them.

She had tried to sit up, but Steve had held her still. “Deer,” he whispered. He put a finger to his mouth and turned carefully, without disturbing the water. Then he touched her shoulder and pointed. A doe stood just behind them, upwind, ears twitching. Finally she ignored them and began eating from the apple tree at the edge of the yard.

Deer.

Louisa made herself take a deep breath. Of course she was on edge. She would be until she got used to being without clothes again. Once she could be naked with strangers — at a nude beach, up in the hot springs, at hot tub parties when she worked in California — then it had all disappeared in the space of an afternoon, while she screamed, with hot granules of sand digging into her back.

She was safe now.

It was over.

She was free.

She leaned back in the water and rested her head on the tub’s plastic side. By the time Steve got home, her body would be shriveled and wrinkled. She smiled. Then he couldn’t judge it. Then he couldn’t decide that the woman he had married had one of the uglier bodies on the planet.

A light went on in the house.

Louisa sat up, water sloshing around her. Steve wasn’t home. She would have heard the car. She would have seenthe car, coming up the drive. No timers on the lights, because they felt no need for them. No one could see the house from the road. Sometimes they even went away and left the house unlocked.

Someone was inside.

A stranger was inside her house.

A man crossed the foyer. He was bigger than Steve and muscular. His shoulders, in shadow, looked like they could carry the world without dropping it. Another, smaller man followed him.

A light went on in the living room.

What were they doing? Waiting for her? No. The house was dark. They thought no one was home. They were looking for something. But they hadn’t brought a car, probably so that they wouldn’t caught on that circular driveway.  No car. She would have heard it. Something they could carry. Not the Dali in the living room nor the Degas in the den.

(Although they could cut the paintings out of the frame and roll them. Carrying tubes would be easy, even in the dark.)

The safe held extra money and her jewels, mostly her costume jewels. The real ones were in a safety deposit box in a bank downtown.

Except for the emerald. The antique emerald her grandmother had given her. The one the photographer for Smithsonian had photographed for the article they were doing on family heirlooms. The one that had been reproduced in papers all over the state.

It certainly wasn’t the most valuable jewel they had, but it was the most famous.

They must have been planning this for a long time. She thought she had heard a car earlier, down by the abandoned house. Steve had said she imagined it.

Steve was wrong.

Her heart pounded in her throat. They were in the living room. They didn’t know she was there. If she eased the lid back over the tub and crouched under it, she would have enough air to last for several hours.

But that might make too much noise. She was probably better if she didn’t move at all.

(Then they would find her and pull her out and hold her on the cedar boards, the wood digging into her naked back—)

No. She had to get away now. But her clothes were inside and Steve had the car.

Steve. What happened if he came home while they were in the living room. It would take them time. The safe was behind the heavy oak bookcases. They had to take the books off the cases, move the cases and figure out the combination.

(Mixed birthdays — her month, Steve’s day, the combination of their years: 6-10-56. Impossible to guess unless they knew. Unless they had a stethoscope like in the movies, a man who ran an emery board against his fingertips so that they would be sensitive—)

She was panicking, thinking nonsense instead of finding a way to save herself. The Holts lived half a mile down the drive. They rarely locked their house. She could go inside, use their phone, have the police catch the men in the act.

And she would be safe.

They didn’t know she was here. They wouldn’t know she had escaped.

Deep breath. Deep breath. Move quietly. Do not stir the water.

She moved her hand underneath the water, and braced herself against the seat.  A shadow fell across the living room window, but no one else moved in the foyer.  She brought her other hand out and grabbed the lid.

Water dripped, sending echoey pings through the yard.

Her heart rate increased, but she didn’t move. They couldn’t hear the pings. She couldn’t hear anyone in the hot tub unless the windows were open, and she kept them all closed.

She stood. The cold breeze raised goose bumps on her body —

And she froze. She couldn’t get out. They would see her. They would see all of her and —

She had to. She had to. It was the only way to save herself.

Maybe she could crawl back in. It wouldn’t take too much effort to pull the lid down and she would have enough air for hours. She would be safe there, and no one would see her. No one would notice that she was nude…

Another shadow moved across the living room window. She sank back into the hot water. In a minute, they would turn on the outside light, and see her. She wasn’t safe. Not here. Not now.

Face your fear, Roger had said.

If only he had known.

Her body was shaking so badly she was making little ripples in the water.  Out. She would only be naked for an instant. Long enough for her to grab her towel, wrap it around herself and get off the deck.

But to get to the driveway from here, she had to either go down a path beneath the living room or walk through six feet of brush. Snapping twigs and crackling branches. They would hear. They would find her.

She had to try.

She eased herself out of the water again, eyes closed, imagining Roger’s face, hearing his voice with its calm confidence. Face your fear, Louisa. That’s the only way it will disappear.

Her torso was out, breasts exposed to the night air. The breeze kissed the water droplets. Her shaking had grown.

Face your fear.

She braced her hands on the side of the tub, and pulled herself up until her buttocks rested on the lukewarm plastic. Then she slid back, feet still in the water, until the plastic turned to wood. The cedar of the deck. She reached over, grabbed the towel, and wrapped it around herself.

Then she opened her eyes.

A man stood in the kitchen, staring out the double paned doors. Staring at her.

She held back a scream, finally understanding how the doe had felt when she approached the apple tree. The man picked up a knife, and set it down, then opened the cupboards.

He hadn’t seen her.

He couldn’t see her. The kitchen light was on. He couldn’t see what was going on in the yard. In the darkness.

She pulled her legs out of the water, careful not to make a sound. With her right hand, she tied the towel in place. With her left, she grabbed her thongs and slid them on her wet feet. She glanced at the house and the path. Lights from the kitchen and the living room illuminated it. If someone looked out, he would see her, crouching by. Besides, going that way was the opposite direction. She had to go down. Away.

She climbed off the deck and paused for a moment, wondering if she should put the lid on. Too much time. And too much risk of noise. She had to get away. She had to disappear before they realized that under the towel she was —

She wouldn’t think about it.

The dry grass crunched beneath her feet. Each step sounded like a peal of thunder. She went around the large oak tree, using it for support as she slipped into the bushes.

Her towel caught on a thorn, nearly pulling it loose. She yanked, and the bush shook. She waited. Nothing changed inside the house.

She took a few more steps down. She could see the gravel, glinting in the moonlight. Up the driveway stood the carport with nothing in it. They had parked somewhere else. They had planned this.

They thought she was gone, with Steve, until midnight.

She let go of the oak tree and grabbed a blackberry bush, wincing as thorns bit into her palm. A few more feet and she would make it. A few more feet and she would run for her life.

A twig snapped beneath her thongs.

“Jesus!” a voice boomed from the house. “What was that?”

Another voice responded, and then the voices grew silent again. She huddled, knees against her chest. No doors opened. No one came down.

She was okay. As long as she didn’t step on anything else.

She made herself count to one hundred before moving again. She stayed low, letting the blackberry bushes protect her. Nothing snapped beneath her feet. She crossed the expanse of grass until she reached the gravel —

— which shuffled like an explosion against the silence of the night.

Another light went on in the house. She swallowed heavily. They would find her. They would find her and hold her —

She kicked off the thongs and ran down the side of the road, on the unmowed grass. Rocks pierced her bare feet, but she willed it not to hurt. It wasn’t going to hurt. It couldn’t hurt.

The back door opened.

” —told you I heard something.”

And the porch light went on.

“Good God. There’s someone here.”

“No. There’s no car —”

“Lid’s up. The damn tub’s steaming. And there’s footprints.”

She reached the fork in the driveway. Her bare foot landed on gravel and slid out from under her. She fell, gravel moving her forward. A grunt escaped her, and pain ran up her left side. Rocks had imbedded themselves in her legs and buttocks —

(like grains of sand)

— but she made herself stand up and keep running.

“Down there!”

The men crashed through the brambles. She ran downhill, gaining speed with each movement. One wrong step and she would fall on her face. Gravel flew behind her and her feet felt like lacerated sores.

“I’ll get the car. You see if you can spot him.”

Not the car. If they had the car, they would find her. But she had reached the bottom of the hill and the clearing. She only had a few more yards before she reached her neighbor’s house.

“Leave the damn car. It’s too far away. There’s nowhere he can go.”

Other footsteps followed her.  She rounded the corner, and vaulted the gate, losing her towel. She stopped, reached for it, but couldn’t grab it. The tall man was crashing down the road, looking even bigger in the moonlight. He saw her.

It was the towel or escape.

A whimper left her throat. She needed that towel, needed the cover, needed —

— the phone. The police. Help of some sort.

She took a deep breath and left the towel where it fell, ran up the dirt walk and onto the porch.

Please let the door be open. Please.

She grabbed the knob and yanked. The door opened, and she nearly stumbled backwards. She went inside and pulled it closed, locking it behind her.

The phone was on the kitchen counter. She had used it once before hers was installed. She grabbed it, thumbed the buttons, counted, and found 911.

It rang once.

“Nine-one-one, may I help you?”

“Yes. Men have broken into my house. They’ve chased me down to the neighbor’s. They’re coming up the walk now. I need someone out here as fast as possible.”

The doorknob rattled. She stepped back, fear making her entire body cold.

” —located at 6611 Aker Road?”

Her neighbor’s address. “Yes. He’s at the door. Can someone hurry?”

“There’s a car in your area.”

A face pressed against the glass of the sliding patio doors. Shit. She hadn’t checked the locks on any of the other doors. Even if the door was locked, all he had to do was break the glass.

“Please hurry,” she said. “Please.”

“Someone will be there as fast as possible, miss. In the meantime, stay on the line —”

She set the phone down and groped behind her. Damn. She should have paid more attention when she was down here. Knives on the sideboard? No. But she needed something. Anything.

She reached up and her hand brushed something metal above the stove. Skillets. Cast iron. Heavy. She pulled the biggest one down as he yanked the patio door open.

He held up her towel. “Forget something?”

She froze, seeing not him, but the man who had grabbed her on the beach. A big man, bigger than this one, smiling. She couldn’t see his face now, in the dark.  But he was probably smiling too.

Her breath was coming heavy, her chest heaving. She had to move. Had to. He had already seen her naked. He had already done the worst he could do. Help was on the way. All she had to do was hold him off until it arrived.

A tinny voice echoed from the phone. He came closer, shaking the towel. “Thought you were smart, didn’t you? Thought we would never find you. Wet feet leave footprints, miss.”

Her arms ached from holding the skillet. She backed up until the wood counter dug into her back. She was breathing through her mouth, the air whistling between her teeth.

“Scared, huh? You got nothing to be scared about. Not yet. Not till my partner gets here.”

He hadn’t seen the phone then. In this dark corner of the kitchen, he probably could barely see her at all. He came forward, waving the towel like a bull fighter waved a flag.

“Hope you’re pretty. I like pretty women.”

Pretty. He had said that before. On the beach. She could smell him, the sweaty oniony scent of an overweight man. He would touch her and this time, sand wouldn’t dig into her back. The counter would.

And she was naked, just like she had been the first time.

“Got you trapped,” he said. He reached out and she swung the skillet at him, catching him full on the side of the head. The metal rang. He grunted and fell against the counter. The towel landed on her feet, the soft weave tickling the skin. She kicked it aside. He moaned again, and reached for the counter to pull himself up. She brought the skillet down, harder this time, and he collapsed against the floor.

A voice was yelling, outside. A man’s voice. She held the skillet against her shoulder like a bat, and stalked to the door. The other man stood in the driveway, his body silhouetted in the moonlight. He glanced in all directions, unable to see her or his friend. He was shouting his companion’s name — a word she couldn’t quite catch.

And then she heard sirens.

He wouldn’t find her if she kept quiet. But she had to protect herself. She had to make sure the other one wouldn’t wake up. She walked back in the kitchen. He hadn’t moved. He huddled in a near-fetal position, one arm trapped under his head. She crouched over him, skillet poised, like a child about to smash a bug.

The tinny voice still spoke from the phone. Even though she couldn’t hear the words, the sound comforted her. Someone was there. Someone was listening. The sirens grew louder.  Flashing red and blue lights illuminated the kitchen. Something dark streaked the side of the counter. The man’s hair had matted against his skull. His breath was raspy, difficult, as if his nose were plugged.

The door behind her opened and a light came on. She stood and whirled at the same time, skillet clutched tightly in both hands.

A policeman stood there, hands out. “It’s okay, ma’am. I’m here to help.”

She didn’t move. He came across the carpet slowly, facing her as he walked. He knelt beside the man and touched his matted hair. His fingers came away bloody. Two other policemen came in the doorway.

“He’s breathing,” the first policeman said. “But we’ll need some help.”

One of the others went back out the door. The first policeman stood. “We caught the other man on the road. You’re safe now. That was some pretty quick thinking.”

Her arms trembled under the skillet’s weight. She didn’t want to let it go. It was her protection. He came closer, reaching for her.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“Your husband’s outside,” said the other policeman. “We met him as we were turning into the driveway. He wants to see you.”

Steve? She felt as if she were surfacing from a very deep sleep. Everything had to be okay if Steve was there. She loosened her grip on the skillet, and the policeman took it away from her as if he was afraid she would use it.

“Come on,” he said gently. “You’re safe with us. Do you have anything…?”

For a moment, she didn’t know what he meant. Then she glanced back at the man on the floor. His left hand lay flat on the towel. She shook her head.

He nodded to the other policeman who went into the bedroom. He returned carrying a pink chenille bedspread. With one hand, he extended it. She took it, and wrapped it around herself, wondering at the need for it. Would it embarrass them if she went outside naked?

“You hurt?” the first policeman asked.

She shook her head.

“Your husband’s outside,” the second one repeated.

They wanted her out of the house. Away from the man. That was good. She didn’t want to be near him anymore. She had shown him. She had finally shown him that he couldn’t hurt her, that he had no more power over her.

The night air was colder than she remembered. Five squad cars had squeezed into the small lawn, one parked on the baby pool near the swing set. Uniformed men huddled outside, talking. Steve stood with them until he saw her.

“Jesus, honey.”

He came over and put his arms around her. She realized for the first time that she was trembling. He caressed her face, then stopped when he touched the bedspread. It had slipped so that it clung to her like a cape.

“You’re not wearing anything. Did he—?”

His voice broke. She knew what he saw. More months of therapy. More months of darkness, of hesitant touch.

“No,” she said.

He took his hands off her as if he had been burned. She stepped back into his arms, and leaned her head on his strong shoulder. “I mean,” she said, “that he didn’t touch me. He didn’t touch me at all.”

His body felt good against her bare skin, the rough cloth of his suit giving her comfort she didn’t know she needed. The bedspread fell, and as he reached for it, she stopped him. He finished the hug, clutching her tight, and then bent down.

“You need this,” he said and wrapped the spread around her.

She didn’t need it. Not like he thought. Not ever again. Roger had been right. She had faced the fear and conquered it.

And no one would ever be able to hurt her again.

Copyright © by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © KrisCole/Depositphotos

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

I am still reading a very long, very dense novel that I’m loving, but it blocked my easy reads of lighter fare for most of the month. I read a few other things that aren’t worth recommending and are, in fact, quite forgettable. 

So…here’s what I liked in March.

March, 2026

Abramovich, Seth, “The History of Mel Brooks, Part One,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 29, 2026. Full disclosure: I’m not the biggest Mel Brooks fan. His humor is too broad for me. Dean has tried to make me like Blazing Saddles as long as we’ve been together, and I just don’t. I saw it when it was released, I saw it with him when we were first together, and then later, he made me watch it again. The famous fart scene? Not funny to me. This is not my kind of humor. However, I do like some of his films. Young Frankenstein is a personal favorite as is Silent Movie (which no one ever mentions), particularly the scene with Marcel Marceau. I saw The Producers on Broadway because I adore Nathan Lane. We saw the show the very first week, scoring tickets through magic. And while I found it funny, I found it funny the way I usually find Mel Brooks’ material funny: I understood the joke and wished it would make me laugh.

That said, I admire the crap out of Mel Brooks. He’s 99 now, still creating, and still moving forward. This interview is all about risk and reward, about taking chances and about staying true to your vision. The introduction says this of Brooks’ work:

Across nearly a century, Brooks has repeatedly tested the limits of taste, commerce, politics and patience. He has offended studio executives, television censors, foreign governments and polite society at large, often all at once. He also has reshaped the grammar of American comedy, leaving behind a body of work that includes The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part 1, High Anxiety and Spaceballs. Several of those films were dismissed or misunderstood on arrival, only to be adored later. Others were instant detonations. All of them bear the same unmistakable fingerprint: an artist who believes that nothing is sacred except the laugh itself.

 Read this interview. It’s amazingly wonderful.

Armstrong, Kelley, Watcher in the Woods, Minotaur Books, 2019. This is the fourth Rockton novel and it does not stand alone. It starts shortly after the previous book ends. If I could have read something this dark before bed, I would have finished this book in one of those all-night marathon sessions. As it was, I read it when I could, and finished quickly. The unique setting and strong characters make both for good thrillers and fascinating reading. Start with City of the Lost and have fun.

Carter, Ally, Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy, Little, Brown, 2016 edition of a 2007 book. I love the Gallagher Girl Books. Set in a secret school for girls who are going to grow up to be spies, these books are delightfully adventurous. This time, Carter adds some rather mysterious teenage boys to the mix and a few teachers who might or might not be what they seem. This is my bedtime reading. It doesn’t usually keep me up (although the ending of this one did), but it is memorable and the characters are grand. (Btw, Books2Read malfunctions more than not for me, so you might have to find the book on your own.)

Carter, Ally, Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, Little, Brown & Company, 2016 edition of a 2009 book. I blew through this book even though it’s my nighttime, don’t-stay-up-late read. Instead of one chapter, I probably read three or four per night, and then hurried through the ending because I just had to know. Carter introduces a Big Bad in this book that will factor into future books. (I know this because I’m deep in the next one.) I love the relationships the girls have with each other, and this school sounds like a great deal of fun. Books2Read malfunctioned again for me, so I don’t know if it’s the book or if it’s Books2Read (which seems to have gone downhill), but I was only able to get two links for you. If you prefer to shop elsewhere, you’ll have to look up the book on your own. Believe me, it’s worth the time.

Neville, Stuart, “Juror 8,” Ink and Daggers, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Titan, 2023. I’m still working my way through this volume. It’s heavily noir, which I like mostly, but occasionally the stories have left me cold. Which is why I love this Stuart Neville piece. Yes, noir. Yes, dark. But the voice is marvelous and the characters so dang real. I have several Stuart Neville books on my TBR shelf and I avoid them because he is so dark. But maybe now I’m feeling up to them…

Pirandello, Luigi, Six Characters in Search of an Author, multiple publishers, first published in 1921. Well, I’m remarkably consistent. I loathed The Seagull when I read it as a twenty-year old, and I loved Six Characters back then. I love it now. It was a fun read for my theatre history class. The other students were baffled as hell by it, but I love metafiction and this is one of the first well known pieces of metafiction. It was fascinating to learn that Pirandello was friends with Mussolini. (It was also fascinating to hear the prof, who is as liberal as they come, try to justify that friendship.) The discussion was glossed over in class, but it got me thinking about the age-old argument—do you judge the author by what they do or what they’ve written. I know with Rowling, I will not support anything of hers, because she’s doing active ongoing harm at the moment. Reading an old Pirandello play, aware of all the things Mussolini would do after the two men got to know each other…well, I just want to avert my eyes. In other words, I have no justification for recommending a play from someone who was a fascist, and yet, here I am, doing it.

Thank you so much!!!

Alien Influences

We have a plethora of covers to choose from here, and I even missed one, because mine is in storage, and I can’t find a good example of it online.

So…Alien Influences. I wrote the novel as interconnected short stories originally because at that time I did not realize I wrote out of order. The stories were published in various places, got nominated for awards, and (I knew) needed to be threaded into a full novel.

At the time, I was being published first in England, through Orion Books’ imprint Millennium. There’s a lot of backstory here, some of which I was never privy to. I do know that the company was co-founded by Anthony Cheethem, who had been in British publishing since the mid-1960s. This company, which was founded in 1991, was the third company he had founded. The first two were acquired by major publishers in the UK for sums of money that I can’t find on a quick search.

Everyone I worked with at Millennium was enthusiastic. They all had a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. That they could build bestsellers? I have no idea. That they could publish good books that sold well? Possibly.

I do know this: I was never treated as well in traditional publishing as Millennium treated me.

They published my early fantasy novels and then they took a flyer with Alien Influences. I love the cover on the British hardcover, and they did a different version (which I can’t find easily) for the mass market paperback. There was also a trade edition.

The book hit number one on the bestseller list for the Times of London, got extremely well-reviewed, and became a Topic of Conversation, at least in UK fandom.

It had also sold to Bantam in the United States as part of a bigger deal. Then in the U.S., I lost my editor at least five times. (I have blocked the exact number.) Meaning I had five different editors before my first novel from Bantam came out. Someone—and god knows who—moved Alien Influences away from the Fey publications and then buried it.

It was the only non-romance book that I know of that has the 1990s hunk (blech) Fabio on the cover. This cover often gets featured in retrospectives on Fabio covers…and then ignored.

It is a truly, truly, truly awful cover.

I got the rights back to the book because it went out of print very quickly, despite the excellent overseas sales and the good reviews—including one in The New York Times.

When we started WMG, we published it as soon as we could. We had one ugly-ass cover on it for a nanosecond because at the time, there weren’t yet art sites. I’m not even showing you that one, which was designed in PowerPoint, using historical (pre-20^th century) artwork.

I think it only showed up on Amazon for that nanosecond because there were no other markets at the time.

Then we hired locally in Lincoln City, and brought in someone who eventually proved to be a mistake.

We hurried to rebrand Alien Influences. The first cover, co-designed by Dean, has pretty good art and adequate branding.

For some unknown reason, the cover got redesigned around the time Dean and I moved to Las Vegas. I remember seeing the redesign after it was uploaded to all the sites. I do not remember being consulted on any of the redesign.

The most charitable thing I can say about the artwork itself is that it looks like a Richard Powers imitation. I loathe most of Powers’ work, so this is not a compliment.

Still, the name is more-or-less properly branded and the pull quote is good. Maybe if I liked the art, we might have made it pass muster.

But why would we do that? It doesn’t look like modern science fiction at all. I see nothing here that would get a reader in 2026 to buy it and, in fact, I see two different things that would turn the reader off.

The first is that art. Blech, yuck, icky.

The second is the award I was nominated for. Back in the 1990s, the U.K.’s Arthur C. Clarke award was prestigious as hell. Maybe it still is, because it exists. But, the man was credibly accused of pedophilia, and there is a lot that I know about him because I was close to people who ran sf conventions. After the year 2000 or so, he was never invited to a U.S. sf convention again. (That I know of.)

I don’t want the association. We took that off my book cover this time. We put the best quote on the book, the one from The New York Times, not one from PW that sounds literary. (Yes, I find it ironic that the Times was the least literary review.)

I was the one to suggest rebranding and redesigning Alien Influences right away in our quest to brand everything properly. Now we have a cover I like. I believe this cover will entice readers to take a look, much more than the previous cover.

This book has had an interesting and weird history. I’m pleased it’s getting the kind of design it hasn’t had since it was introduced in the U.K. decades ago.

And right now, remember, we’re doing a Kickstarter on this and two other books. Broken Windchimes, which is also rebranded (and which I blogged about last week), and a short story collection that I will blog about on my Patreon page on Monday or so.

]]> https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/08/business-musings-cover-art/feed/ 1 37413 https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/03/get-a-small-mountain-of-science-fiction/ https://kriswrites.com/2026/03/03/get-a-small-mountain-of-science-fiction/#respond Tue, 03 Mar 2026 20:05:32 +0000 https://kriswrites.com/?p=37389 …in the brand-new Kickstarter that just launched. It features my bestselling novel, Alien Influences, which The New York Times calls “a well conceived, well executed novel,” my award-winning novella, Broken Windchimes, and a brand-new collection of my science fiction stories, called Strange People, Stranger Places.

In addition, you can get all 28 Diving books in ebook format or more than 100 short stories in large collections. If we’re lucky enough to hit some stretch goals, you’ll get even more fiction and two workshops for writers and readers on the history of science fiction.

We have some writing workshops here as well, including my favorite—”Handwavium.” “Handwavium” is the art of making the reader believe in impossible things.

So lots of fun things and lots of reading. But hurry! The Kickstarter will disappear forever on March 12. Click here to see all the offerings.

If you want to be notified at the time of launch, click here.

I’ll have more information for you on Tuesday. Stay tuned!

You’ll note some recommended articles from On Wisconsin, the alumni magazine for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I learned something rather amazing. The University has a foundation that has existed for 100 years to manage its intellectual property. Well…hmmm…made me wonder if most universities do that. I know the bigger ones do. This one is proactive, though. I did not link to the article, but found its concept interesting.

Started a book by a well-known producer, songwriter, and DJ, the stepson of a rock star, and the child of privilege. As interested as I was in the start of his career, I couldn’t get past all the sweaty teenagers at raves in the 1990s. Clearly the book was a compilation of the stories he tells his friends. So, I donated it to the library. Maybe someone else will like to read about sweaty wealthy teenagers taking drugs and learning about music, but not me.

And then there was the science fiction novel I pulled off my TBR shelf. The novel is fifteen years old, but new to me. I like the author’s work. I’ve read some of his books before. This one started really well. It was scary and dark and intriguing…but the mystery that drew me in got resolved halfway through and suddenly we were in some kind of galactic war that wasn’t well described and read like an outline of a larger work. I actually got bored. So I won’t be recommending that, which kinda makes me sad because it started so very well.

Even though I recommended a lot of stories from the Best Mystery Stories of the Year, I’m not recommending the whole volume. I had to skip too many due to my own issues with child endangerment. Also, some of the stories I read just didn’t hold me. So, if you want to see what else I thought good in the volume, check out November’s Recommended Reading List.

I am also recommending a story from a collection that includes a story by a now-disgraced sf author. Dunno if the editor knew the accusations before buying the story; I’m guessing not. But just be cautious if you don’t want to buy anything with that man’s name on it.

Here’s what I recommend from my reading in February.

February, 2026

Armstrong, Kelley, This Fallen Prey, Minotaur Books, 2018. Yes, yes, I know, I came to this series late, but OMG, is it keeping me enthralled. The problem is that it is so dark I cannot read one book right after another. And, the deeper I go in, the more it violates a few of my personal reading rules, but I’m committed, which is a testament to Kelley Armstrong’s writing.

SPOILER ALERT for those of you who share my aversion to children/animals (cute ones, anyway) harmed in books:

an animal we care about gets injured…and some baby animals die.

END SPOILER ALERT

Note that I’m a hypocrite because I’m writing a story right now with a five-month old baby in mortal jeopardy. (It is a Nelscott story, which are often dark and noir, but still…)

Anyway…this book is amazing. I thought of trying to describe it to Dean, but I can’t because there’s so many areas where you must suspend your disbelief, starting with the town of Rockton itself. But within the world of Rockton, this story is a true thriller, filled with situations that would never happen anywhere else. And that’s a great thing. Kelley Armstrong has created a world so vivid and powerful that I believe every word she writes about them. (And I’m so happy I don’t live there.)

I really can’t say anything else without spoiling the story. Start with City of the Lost and read on. These books are that good.

Boschert, Sherry, 37 Words: Title IX And Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination, The New Press, 2022. First a note on the link: I sourced the New Press’s site because I couldn’t get any of the other places that will give me links to various ebook sites like Kobo and B&N didn’t work. I’m happy to have you all order directly from the publisher, even though they slapped an awful cover on this book. I mean truly terrible. And I only found the book while I was buying books on women’s basketball, so there wasn’t much promo either. It makes me grumpy, since this is a good book and an important topic that got buried by publisher mistakes.

The book was published in 2022 and written before that. So it does not reflect the era we’re in at all. There’s a lot more hope in this book for the future, and an assumption that the rebuilding we’d have to do was rebuilding from the previous time the orange menace was in office. Sometimes that made me sad.

But Title IX was passed in my lifetime. I did not benefit from it because it took forever for schools to implement it. I watch now with joy, tears, and a little bit of envy over the girls who get to play sports I was denied. I have no idea if I would have been good, but getting the opportunity would have been nice.

The fight for Title IX impressed me. Even though it happened in my lifetime, and I really study the time period, I had no idea what these women went through to get it passed. And as I write this, the WNBA and the players are negotiating a CBA for their next contract…and can’t agree on revenue sharing which every male professional sports league  has (even the minor sports, like bowling). This, after A’ja Wilson just won Athlete of the Year. Not Female Athlete of the Year. Best athlete in general, male or female or nonbinary.

If Title IX had passed in its original, there wouldn’t be the fights over trans kids in sports. There wouldn’t be a lot of problems that we have now. But we also have the WNBA and other great professional women’s sports now because of it. The book does show the deeply embedded misogyny in U.S. culture, which partly explains the situation we’re in with our leadership right now. (Let’s vote for a white man who failed the first time over a highly decorated and extremely competent Black woman. Sigh.)

There’s a lot of hope in this book and it’s not false hope. It’s the strength of people fighting for ground, inch by important inch. Read this, even if you think you remember or know what happened with Title IX here in the States. Understanding what happened in the past is essential to our future.

Kilkenny, Katie, “Extras! Extras! Read All About Them!” The Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2025. At the end of every issue of The Hollywood Reporter, they pull something from the history of the magazine. Usually, they’re fun things related to current events. This one was fascinating. The thug in charge uses the phrase “central casting” to describe people. The cliche has been around for 101 years, and The Hollywood Reporter explains why, and what Central Casting really was. (And, oh, yeah, it still exists.) A short, fascinating read.

Millman, Ethan, “‘I Think Everything I Write Is Going To Be A Hit,'” The Hollywood Reporter, December 3, 2025. This link is to the Songwriters Roundtable that The Hollywood Reporter runs every year. Usually, there’s a quote or two that I pull from the roundtable, but this time, most everything here was strong and good and (weirdly) not very pithy. So writers, music fans, read this one.

Schmitt, Preston, “A New Era For College Sports,” On Wisconsin, Fall 2025. Dean follows college sports more than I do. He’s been griping about some of the changes for years now, especially the transfer portal. I know he supported the changes in students being allowed to profit from their name, likeness, and image. In other words, they can earn money, which is something that he has been held against the NCAA for more than fifty years. (He was disqualified as a student athlete because he taught skiing, so he couldn’t be on his college’s ski team because he wasn’t an “amateur.”) I’ve been griping about the Big 10, calling it the Big 100—which, right now, has 18 “member institutions.” 18 is not 10, and yes, I understand why the branding hasn’t changed but…get off my lawn.

Anyway, this article explains in great and clear detail about all of the changes in college sports. From deals to laws to sports agents, it’s all here, and it finally made the era we’re in clear to me. I hope it helps out those of you who haven’t been following this as closely as Dean. And, from a contract/negotiation/intellectual property standpoint, it’s fascinating as well.

Specktor, Matthew, “After Burn,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 2, 2026. A fascinating article about Los Angeles, one year after the fires. The piece (and the sidebars) show a city divided between haves and have nots, between people who are still dealing with the fires and people who “know someone who lost their house.” Worth reading.

Stegman, Casey, “Effie’s Oasis,” Mysterious Bookshop Presents The Best Mystery Stories of The Year 2025, edited by John Grisham, Mysterious Press, 2025. As regular readers of this little blog feature know, I hate children-in-jeopardy stories. I have a system: when I hit the mention of a kid in a story/book/novel, I skip ahead to see if the kid is mentioned (and alive) at the end. If the story seems a bit too rough, I quit then and there. (I do the same with pets.) Usually, I find out that the kid’s dead or not important, and I don’t read the story.

So, when I read Stegman’s story, with its wonderful voice and great main character, I got to page four or so, when a child starts crying after being called a name, and I of course skipped to the end. Yep, the kid’s there. And the ending was so fascinating that I did something I hadn’t done outside of my editing days.

I read the story backwards. That usually means something kicked me out in the middle, but I’m intrigued enough to want to know what happened. And in this case, I had no obligation to read the story, but I did so anyway. It’s good, it’s smart, and it’s powerful. I suggest reading it forward, however.

Wenc, Christine, “Fake News!” On Wisconsin, Fall 2025. Well, I ordered a book because of the alumni magazine. I had forgotten that The Onion was founded at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and came from a particularly Madison sensibility. I had already moved away from Wisconsin when it started and hadn’t seen the early editions—which I guarantee that I would have since I never missed the free newspapers around town. I even wrote for one, Isthmus, for years before I moved.

This is a fascinating little excerpt on the actual start of The Onion. It’s worth the read to see how crazy ideas can often work, and work well.

Wignall, Kevin, “Retrospective,” Ink and Daggers, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Titan, 2023. I have to admit some disappointment with this anthology. It’s a collection of stories chosen from the short list for the British Crime Writers Association Dagger awards. It took until I got halfway through the book before something really held me. (Except for one story that might’ve worked for the Brits of the world. I had to look up all the references, which took some of the punch out of the ending.) “Retrospective” is a story of a war photographer who has given up his work for a reason that we learn later. Very powerful, and worth reading.

You can also opt for four of my books on writing as a reward.

Lots of learning here, and all at a discount. But the Kickstarter won’t last forever, so order your copies now.

In the final week of August, I started my one-per-semester class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which meant I had time to read short stories at my (middle of the afternoon) lunch. I caught up on reading the best-ofs. Honestly, I don’t remember a lot of the stories in the 2024 Penzler mystery volume. I think I skipped quite a few due to kid/pet danger. I remember being frustrated that writers and editors seem to believe that good stories put innocents in danger for suspense. (Sigh. And yes, I’m a hypocrite, because I do the same thing sometimes.)

The other news for September? I finished my McManus binge.

I did have a pile of magazines here, but I ended up blogging on my Patreon page about a lot of the articles that interested me, so I decided not to repeat them here…in the interest of finishing!

So much of what I have here I can’t say much about because I might spoil the stories for you. So just pick them up. Here’s what I recommend from my September reading.

September, 2025

Daw, Stephen, “A Force For Good,” Billboard, June 21, 2025. The cover story for one of the June Billboards is an interview with Cynthia Erivo. She’s an amazing woman with a great head on her shoulders. She has a lot to saw about being a queer Black woman in this modern world, about being an artist, and more. Read this.

Floyd, John M., “The Last Day at The Jackrabbit,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Good titles get you into a story and remind you of what you just read. “The Last Day at The Jackrabbit” is a good title for a marvelous story, filled with surprises. I won’t say much more, so that the story can surprise you. But it’s worth reading.

Gilbertson, Nils, “Lovely and Useless Things,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. There are a couple of stories set in the past in this volume. One is so far off on its history that I found it almost laughable. This is not that story. This one is a rather perfect presentation of a time and a crime gone by. 

McManus, Karen M., The Cousins, Delacorte Press, 2020. This is one of McManus’s books that end on a “gotcha!” which I blogged about in August’s list. The ending kinda works, but kinda doesn’t. I don’t know if I’d pick up more of her books if I had read this one first. Having read a bunch of the others, though, this was candy for me. Family secrets, an island, lots of hidden mysteries. Lots and lots of fun, but don’t start here.

McManus, Karen M., You’ll Be The Death of Me, Delacorte Press, 2021. And this is one of those “gotcha!” endings that works. We don’t need anything more. But what’s here, a story of close friends who walk into the scene of a murder, is wonderful. One of my favorite of the books I binged this fall.

Methos, Victor, “Kill Night,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Very creepy, very well done story. Another one, filled with surprises that I will not spoil for you. Read it.

Padura, Leonardo, “A Family Matter,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Story translated by Francis Riddle. Amazing short story that creates an entire world. Extremely well done…and again, I’ll spoil it if I say more.

Reed, Annie, “Dead Names,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. I’m the original editor on Annie Reed’s “Dead Names,” so I’m a bit biased. Annie has really hit her stride as a writer these past few years, and I’m extremely pleased that the story got picked up for the best of the year. The story deserves it, as does Annie.