Lying with the Devil

Lying with the Devil was written by me a while back, and it was my first time sitting down and actually putting something together that wasn’t a short story or maybe a roleplay text. I was understandably nervous as it all came together. In the end, I had panic attacks as I was nearing the end chapters. I knew how I wanted it to end, but it was all falling into place so quickly, I wasn’t sure if I could pull the trigger or not and actually finish it all. When it was finally done, I breathed a sigh of relief and stared at it in awe and wonderment and said aloud, “I think I finished a book!”

Lying with the Devil is a story about Mary Krowely, a young student and homebody with no life of her own outside of her small apartment in the middle of New York City. She doesn’t know, really, what to do with herself outside of school; she doesn’t know what to do with her life outside of study. She’s no social butterfly and has been outcasted because of it, even by her own family, and especially her brother, Kole, who quite frankly think she’s just plain odd. Walking home one evening she’s approached by a man in a car who asks her if she needs a ride home, she denies him, and does so three more times before he finally gets frustrated and pulls a gun on her. She runs, but he easily keeps up with her in his vehicle and nearly runs her over in the street before he gets out, and finally manages to wrestle her into the car, gun pointed at her head.

It’s a white-knuckle ride in the car after that, as Mary has an idea of what’s about to happen as he keeps the gun pointed at her, but now he seems strangely calm as he drives further into the city and finally into an alley. He asks her, her name, draping his hand on her thigh. Bewildered, she tells him, and equally confused and afraid, she asks him his own. He’s never had someone ask him that before. He tells her, then moves in for the kill, but something in him snaps, and instead of killing her, after watching her shake like leaf under the barrel digging into her skull, he pulls back the gun and knocks her out. Pulling a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, he lights up, smokes then turns on the radio and begins the drive back to his own apartment, though, at the moment, he can’t quite figure out why the change of heart.

Mary awakens in the next chapter in chains, and then her story of survival begins.

Over the course of the story, you meet Steven and Carl. Arguably a set of stereotypical cops. But as you read the story you learn that they’re not so typical.

Steven is a newbie on the force, with his heart full of dreams and want, and he wants desperately to find Mary. However, his want turns to obsession, and it becomes deathly evident that it’s driving him toward the brink and affecting him such ways that his future might be bleak if things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to. His compulsive disorder only worsens as the case takes twists and turns, and the killer leaves behind only scraps of evidence for them to find, as well as trails of bodies from previous victims, though he’s not sure if they’re even connected or not.

Carl is a gruff cop that has turned jaded after countless years on the force. He’s hard headed too. He smokes, he cusses, he’s nothing like the shining example that Steven seeks out as a mentor, but he’s stuck with him. However, as the story goes on. You see Carl struggling with keeping Steven’s head above water so that he doesn’t drown; so that he doesn’t wallow in the deep waters of a sunken path. In the meanwhile, he holds his own beliefs that Mary won’t be found, but if she is found, it won’t be alive. He’s seen countless cases like these and none of them ended with the happy ending that Steven is counting on. He doesn’t want to blindly lead Steven to chaos, but he feels he has no choice but to watch him stumble there on his own, and it’s slowly killing him inside.

Mary’s Stockholm syndrome has been brought up to me countless times, and I’ve been (proudly) told that I’ve captured her psychosis well enough that some would like to use the book as a point used in study for their classes on the subject. I’m really happy about that.

Stockholm syndrome, also known as terror-bonding and trauma-bonding, is a condition that causes hostages and abuse victims to develop a psychological alliance with their captor and/or abuser while in captivity and/or while being abused.  However, roughly 8% of victims show symptoms of Stockholm syndrome according to the FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System.

It was a term coined by a criminologist and psychiatrist named Nils Bejerot in the ’70s after a famous bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973.

Stockholm syndrome is a coping mechanism that arises from the fact that the victim’s need to survive is stronger than their want to hate their captor. Women; battered women, tend to lean more toward this psychological trait. It’s only natural to look for normality, especially when spending lots of time with the captor. Adapting yourself is the only way to survive sometimes.

Mary was no exception. During her struggles and abuse at the hands of her captor, she adapted in any way she could to survive. At times she fought back in an attempt to escape, but every time he brought her back, punished her, but he always rewarded her when she did well in his eyes. 

Slowly, over time, they developed a bond, and though she knew he could kill her at any time if he wanted, she felt a need and want to please him, and eventually, though I’d rather not spoil it for you, you’ll learn what else. The ending was tricky for me, but it shows another case of the trauma caused by the syndrome and the willingness of what one would go through when put in those types of situations. Not many were expecting it, however, it at least spawned another book and it will be going to the publisher soon enough.

So good news, everyone! Keep a lookout for Lying with the Devil: Redemption.

I hope this answers some questions for you about the book, but if you have any more, feel free to send me an email. It gives me something to write about, and I love hearing from you all.

Country Girl

I’m a southern gal, through and through. I grew up in rural Lakeland, Florida, in a trailer park. I was friends with a group of kids I daily raised hell with, and I did it mostly barefoot, while haphazardly avoiding pricker bushes and fire ant mounds. We went fishing, snake hunting, lizard and chicken chasing, and stole distilled moonshine from our youngest friend’s daddy’s shed in their backyard and took turns drinking from it. It went down hot, we nearly threw up, but out of our heads we took a much-needed nap in a large tree just outside the trailer park, so nobody would know. There were about fourteen of us. We were all poor. We all looked out for each other; we all had each other’s backs, and we all loved each other immensely as any kid would do in those situations. I miss those days.  Sometimes I look back, however, and realize how incredibly stupid we were though too. Like swimming in the river behind our trailers with the gators sunbathing on the opposite bank, while some of us kept watching on the other side. Or going snake hunting with nothing but sticks, pinning them down, laughing about it, then killing the venomous thing so we could skin it, cook it up, and have something to eat for lunch that day. Or raiding duck nests, eating the eggs raw, then commenting about how the luckiest person in the bunch got the crunchy one. 

I have an old VHS player sitting on my desk, and I regularly watch my old VHS tapes of me during my childhood days. I listen to me talk in my country accent, laughing it up with my friends, watching me hug them with my dirty clothes and skinned up knees, before running off across the lawn to do a cartwheel or two as we headed down toward the river for another day of weird adventures. I never noticed how blue the sky was then, or how green the grass was. How beautiful everything seemed. Was it just the times? Or did everything suddenly turn grey as we got older?

I’ve recently thought about packing everything up, possibly, within the next two years and moving away from Nebraska. Life here seems too dull. Life here seems grey and cold. I miss the south, immensely. I miss the heated summers, and I miss lulling myself to sleep listening to the chirps and swoons of alligator babies calling to their mama’s in the middle of the night. I miss the taste of actual sweet tea! I miss the polite ways people treated each other. I miss feeling at home.

My husband is wanting to give it go. He’s originally from northern Sweden, so I’m not sure how he’ll handle the heat. My kids were born and raised in Nebraska, so it’ll be a big change for them. I’m wanting my brother to move with us, but he has stakes planted here now, and I’m not sure he’ll budge, and losing him to distance is going to be rough on my heart and soul, so I’m not sure how I’ll fair all and all, but it’s a change I feel I desperately want to make. I feel it calling me like nothing else, and I want to go home. 

Wish me luck, I guess. Life is like a roller coaster, we just hang on for the up’s and down’s; the twists and turns and pray to whatever is in charge up there that we don’t get thrown off.

Late Night Rambling

I’ve been writing a number of years. What sparked my imagination was hearing stories told by my great grandfather as I was growing up. He was from Germany and had moved to the United States shortly after World War 2 to Chicago, then eventually Florida, so he had a slew of stories to tell. Everything ranging from classic fairy tales to dark stories involving the war, to German fables that I grew to love and learned lessons from. He was my best friend growing up, and the light of my life. I was born on his birthday, and he made it known that I was the best birthday gift he had ever received. I loved him a great deal, and I was hurt a great deal when he was passed away, but he gave me the greatest gift; a gift of writing. He taught me how and gave me the spark and awe of wonderment. He let my imagination run free. He explored the worlds I wanted to create and talked to the characters I wanted to talk to and help me give them life by putting a pen in my hand and telling me, “Write, Liebling.” 

I was never classically trained. I never went to school for that sort of thing, and in some ways, I regret it. I wish I had because maybe it would’ve opened me to another world of possibilities, but at the same time, would it had made any difference in the muse that inspires me? I applaud those that have done it. I’m thankful that they had the money to achieve such a goal, but I was never lucky enough. I grew up poor, but I’m just thankful enough to be given the gifts that were given to me, regardless.

Sometimes I have fears though that I’ll never be good enough, but I guess everyone has these fears. I sometimes fear that my stories will fall flat and that my characters won’t touch people on the levels that they’ve managed to touch me, after all, Lying with the Devil was written in my younger years, and my writing has drastically improved since then. I wished, in some ways, that I had rewritten it, possibly improved it somehow, but those that had read the manuscript told me not to. One, in particular, told me this: “You know how you have a favorite movie? What if someone took that, changed it because they felt like it wasn’t good, despite millions loving it, then tried to push it as the original. You wouldn’t like it at all, would you? Now leave this story alone, or I’ll hobble you like the author in Misery.” 

That was my brother, by the way. I was threatened by my brother. My little brother, at that. 

I could see his point and I gave it to the publisher, as is, and the rest is history. People are buying it. Sites are writing articles about it. People are talking about it; loving it, giving it very heartfelt reviews, which I love, by the way. It all feels surreal. I never thought when I was five, scribbling the word ‘apple’ down on a piece of paper for my great grandpa, that I would be, later, thirty-two and writing my heart out for people. I’ve developed a thick skin from it though. I’ve come to learn that it’s art and not everyone will like it. Some will read it and say, “This is pure shit.” Some will read it and say, “Meh.” Some will read it and say, “This is an amazing book!” It’s all perspective, I guess. I can only sit back and painstakingly watch people judge it from afar and try and let my anxiety settle itself. I’ve also learned to surround myself with supportive people; loving people, that have my back and cheer me on, no matter the odds, but tell me the truth and not sugar coat it either when I need it. I was never one to enjoy people beating around the bush. I’m an anxiety-ridden hairless ape at its core and telling me things sweetly only makes it worse, people.

I’ll try and write some more when I find the time. I hope you’ve enjoyed my first post; my first ramblings in the middle of the night. There’s more to come, I can assure you.