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Can you help share the details about my mom's debut middle grade book Bad Fairy on your blog or Facebook? The post won't include an article but rather be a book blast consisting of the cover, blurb, links, excerpt, my mom's bio, and a giveaway. Dates June 3 - June 30.
***This is long. Feel free to skip the excerpts.***
Someone once said that Beth Kennedy (in Hurricane Crimes)
wasn’t a very adequate self-defense instructor and all because Donovan had
bested her a couple of times.
(Don’t worry…this is not me attacking a reviewer but
discussing my characters and real abuse/sexual assault.)
Let me make it clear that Donovan was never trying to hurt
Beth. In fact, she was the one attempting to hurt him. When I wrote Donovan, I
wanted him to be a good match for Beth in every way. And, for the sake of the
story, I couldn’t let Beth get away. It was intentional, not a failing on her
part.
Excerpts from Hurricane Crimes:
#1:
Beth blinked at the green needles and thick
nest of branches that completely blocked the doorway. Then, without wasting
another second, she jabbed her elbow into Donovan’s stomach. He grunted, but he
didn’t release her. She started to thrash wildly.
“Beth, stop! If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t
have saved you just now.” His arms locked around her to silence her struggles.
“You would’ve if you wanted to kill me
yourself!”
“Beth, do you realize you can’t go
anywhere?”
She had, but her survival instincts were
telling her to fight. She tried twice as hard to get free. Therefore, she bit
his hand.
“Damn it, Beth!” He rolled until he was on top
of her and pinned her down. “I am not a murderer! I have never murdered anyone
in my life!”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?” She bucked
beneath him.
“Stop!” He grabbed her shoulders. “I don’t want
to…” She flinched in pain and a whimper escaped her lips. “…hurt you.”
His gaze lowered to her left shoulder. She held
still, debating whether or not she should bite him again, as he tentatively
pulled down the collar to her shirt and looked at the ugly bruise already
blooming in purples and reds.
#2:
She heard a soft footfall directly behind her
and whirled around, wielding the heavy candlestick holder. Donovan caught her
wrist in his hand before she could bash in his head. Not missing a beat, she
thrust her knee up to ram it into his groin. He anticipated the move and cupped
the back of her knee in a tight grip that halted her attempt to cripple him.
Then in a swift movement, he swept her off her feet, flattened her back to the
bed, straddled her, and pinned her arms above her head.
“Do you really think you’re safer outside with
Hurricane Sabrina than inside with me?” Donovan demanded. She would’ve given
him an answer, but he didn’t wait for her to reply. “I am not a killer! An hour
ago, I walked in on my brother’s murder.”
Her brain had to reconfigure to understand the
words he had said. “What?!”
For years, that person’s opinion stuck with me.
In Seismic Crimes I even wrote a scene in response
to it.
~*~
Excerpt from Seismic Crimes:
“I was up against you, and you apparently had a
chance,” she said with a bite to her words.
His lips spread. “I’m a different kind of man.”
“You certainly are,” she mumbled. She picked up
a can of disinfectant to spray down the mat but paused in her chores with a
hand on her hip. “How exactly did you stop my attempts to hit you?”
“I knew what you were going to do a second
before you did.”
She glowered. “Don’t let anyone know that, or
I’d be out of a job.”
“Any other man, baby, and you definitely
would’ve crushed his nuts and beaten the crap out of him with that candlestick
holder.”
“You pinned me on the floor.”
Donovan thought back. After he yanked her into
her house, seconds before a tree crashed onto the welcome mat, he had rolled
her beneath him to stop her struggles. He nodded once. “I did.”
Her maple eyes darkened. “I know how to get out
of that hold. I teach people how to get out of that hold.”
“Beth.” He took her shoulders in his hands. “I
was prepared for you to fight me. I pushed my body weight onto your hips so you
wouldn’t be able to pivot me off you. My brother did martial arts for years and
taught me everything he knew. I knew what I was doing. Don’t think just because
you couldn’t get away from me, or hit me, makes you an inadequate self-defense
instructor. We both know that’s not true.”
Beth looked up at him. “I appreciate that.”
~*~
Self-defense instructors are human. Even with all of their
knowledge and skills, they can still be injured, outsmarted, and abused. Even
Supergirl gets beaten, wounded, and loses fights. Heck, so does Superman! And
Batman!
~*~
SPOILERS: In Seismic Crimes,
Beth tackles a man about to impale Donovan with a sharp rock and gets clobbered
in the face in return. She stays conscious long enough to call for help. In
Tsunami Crimes, she is kidnapped and attempts to get free, but she’s up against
five men who restrain her. She manages to break out of her confinement, using
her self-defense skills, and almost escapes before getting shot. However, it’s
her quick-thinking even then that gets her rescued. In Flaming Crimes, she’s
nabbed again but gets away moments later. She runs and hides in the way she
teaches her students to do. And in Frozen Crimes…well…she uses mental strength
rather than physical strength to survive.
~*~
For everything Beth does right, her opponents also do
something against her. She’s not fighting a dummy or a punching bag or in a
safe environment where everyone is wearing protection. These are actual
dangerous situations with men of equal or greater strength, who also have
weapons.
It’s a sad fact that people who know proper self-defense,
athletes, and even women who can kick a man’s butt in the boxing ring can still
be abused or sexually assaulted. This is not a failing on their part, either.
The problem lies with the abusers, with the very fact that they do these
things. When someone is attacked in this way, they can freeze up. All of their
self-defense knowledge can vanish. Their fight-or-flight instinct may not even
kick into gear. They can become paralyzed. Calling them inadequate would be
wrong.
While writing more books in the Disaster Crimes
series and especially while creating Amanda (first introduced in Flaming
Crimes), who was deeply abused in a past relationship, I did research on
sexual assault survivors. I used that information while writing Book 6, Thorn’s
story.
Check Out: Whatever Gets You Through: Twelve Survivors on
Life after Sexual Assault
Amanda is Beth’s assistant at The Fighting Chance. Not only
do the two of them teach people how to defend themselves and give them
confidence that translates to other areas of their lives, but they give
survivors (like Amanda) a much-needed outlet.
Amanda is an assistant self-defense instructor and a
domestic abuse survivor. She’s bad ass and yet fragile.
Beth is a self-defense instructor and a survivor of
kidnapping, multiple disasters, and a GSW. She’s bad ass and HUMAN.
They’re my heroines of steel not because they can’t be hurt
or fail but because, with all I throw at them, they SURVIVE.
Beth is not inadequate in any way. Not when a bad guy fills
her with fear or hurts her, not even in Hurricane Crimes when Donovan
anticipated her moves.
And Amanda isn’t inadequate, either. Not when she has panic
attacks or sets Home Alone-inspired traps up in her house, not even when her ex comes to terrorize
her.
If you’ve ever been in any sort of situation like them,
whether you know self-defense or not, whether you used those skills or not,
you’re not inadequate, and it’s not your fault.
You’re a survivor.
You’re steel.
