To celebrate the upcoming release of Deadlock(June 25th!), my publisher has arranged a Scavenger Hunt! Follow the links at the end of each stop and collect clues along the way! At the end of the Scavenger Hunt, enter your clues to be entered to win the grand prize: a Nespresso Espresso maker and coffee goodies to keep your all-night hacking (or reading) sessions going strong. You might find a few bonus giveaways in hidden links throughout the Scavenger Hunt, too, including print copies of Deadlock!
To get you started, here is the first chapter of Deadlock! I’m so excited for you to meet Lindsey and Jace.
Chapter 1:
I’m going to kill my sister.
Lindsey Morris gritted her teeth into a smile for the photo her jolly Aunt Martha snapped, the silent threat in her head becoming more of an inevitable truth with each passing moment. God knows, it wasn’t unlike her twin sister Lena to flake out on her, but their parents’ fortieth anniversary party was something the two of them had been planning for months. All for Lena to leave Lindsey holding the bag. Again.
Relieved from picture duty at last, she left her parents and hustled in her towering heels across the banquet hall to check on the champagne, dodging cousins and uncles and aunts. She hadn’t seen some of them in years. If a certain sister hadn’t left her running this entire show, she might have had time to stop and catch up with each of them.
All of it had come together nicely, though. Her parents were beaming in front of a life-size poster of one of their wedding pictures, forty years having done nothing to dim their happiness and love for each other. Lindsey snapped a picture of her own before slipping out the door into an echoing hallway to dial Lena. As expected, her sister’s voicemail greeting chirped in her ear.
“Hello?” A long pause ensued, during which Lindsey’s blood pressure spiked. “Gotcha! Sorry, you don’t get to talk to me right now. If you want to talk to me later, better make it good.”
Lindsey waited for the tone. “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to strangle you. Dammit, Lena, where are you?”
Hours passed before she could get away to the blissful solitude of her apartment, where she hoped a glass of wine and a Simpsons marathon might make her feel a little better. But even Bart and Homer’s animated antics weren’t enough. Her anger had burned away to sad ashes, and she couldn’t get her parents’ disappointed faces out of her mind. It would serve Lena right if none of them ever spoke to her again, as drastic as it sounded, but something about Lena made one eager to trust her and believe her when she made the promises she never kept. And the anger Lindsey felt when that inevitably happened could just as easily be turned on herself for enabling her twin, for never enforcing any consequences when Lena flaked out.
But how many times had she tried? How many times had it worked?
Then her glass was empty, and she poured another, sitting alone on her couch and staring at the way the light from the TV played hypnotically through the crimson depths as she swirled the liquid in her glass. Everything she was doing to make herself feel better was having the opposite effect. The fact she had no one to vent her frustrations to made it worse. Bad-mouthing her sister to their parents wasn’t an option, especially today—they were probably on the plane for their anniversary trip to Cabo San Lucas.
Lucky them.
“I need a vacation, too,” Lindsey told her wineglass. It was the only one there to listen. Then, sighing, she set it down on her coffee table and picked up her phone, shooting ramrod straight when she saw that she had somehow missed a text from Lena twenty minutes ago. She’d probably been in the kitchen scavenging.
Sorry. Ran into some trouble. Give Mom and Dad my love. I need a favor. Go to this address and ask him for help. Please. It will all become clear.
An address followed, which Lindsey’s eyes scanned without seeing. Her brain had shorted out on the word “favor.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” she asked her phone, gripping it with a force that threatened to shatter it.
Lena in trouble was nothing new. Ever since high school, on through college, and even after, she’d been getting herself or someone else into shit she couldn’t always talk her way out of. Thinking Lindsey would simply forget about tonight and rush in to help her was simply par for the course, but Jesus, it had to stop sometime, didn’t it?
One thing was for sure. No way was she going to that address, wherever it was. To some strange place to ask someone she didn’t know for—what, even? Who was she supposed to be looking for? She wasn’t about to let Lena make her look like an idiot on top of everything.
No one else could get her off her warm cocoon on the couch to face the biting cold. She didn’t know what she might find at her sister’s apartment; she didn’t care, but she was going all the same. Lena probably wouldn’t be there, but maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to nose around and find out where she was. Then she would go find her, even if she had to hop on a plane to do it.
There were some things she desperately needed to say to Lena’s face, and it was well past time.
She rushed through her apartment, throwing on a coat and shoving her feet into boots, her pulse pounding in her ears. No one else on earth could push her buttons like this. Lindsey hadn’t trusted Lena since college, her twin’s antics during that particular time of their lives having been the final straw.
Yes, she was her sister. Yes, Lindsey still loved her as such. Gossip sessions, shopping trips, friendship…those areas had always come easily. But real trust?That ship had sailed years ago, when Lena had pulled what was probably her cruelest stunt of all—at least that Lindsey knew of. The skeletons that could lurk hidden in Lena’s closet were enough to give her cold chills. The two of them had the same face, and Lena probably had enough enemies that Lindsey should look over her own shoulder when she walked down the street.
In the back of the Uber she called because wine and rage and driving didn’t mix, she white-knuckled her purse straps all the way to her sister’s apartment, going over everything she wanted to say in her mind in case Lena was there. Confrontation ordinarily tied her tongue up in knots, and no doubt it would this time.
She had to have her words straight in her head or they would slip right out. But niggling in the back of her mind was the fact that their parents would never get over an irreparable rift between them, no matter the cause. It was enough for her to rein in on a few of the epithets she wished to hurl at Lena’s perpetually smug face. But not many.
If Lena was off having a grand adventure with plans to show up next week thinking all was well—she added the epithets back in.
Long ago, Lena had given Lindsey a key to her apartment so she could water her plants while she was away. The plants had died anyway—Lena didn’t even take care of them herself after she got home from wherever she’d been. But Lindsey had hung on to the key, and it had come in handy more than once. She stalked directly to her sister’s door, lifted her fist to beat on it, thought better of it—she might not even answer—and fit the key into the lock.
The sight that greeted her as she flipped the nearby light switch caused her heart to stutter and her breath to catch, momentarily choking her.
Her sister’s apartment was trashed.
Scavenger Hunt: Where are Lindsey’s parents going for their anniversary trip?
Next stop, Melynda Price
Deadlock releases June 25th! You can pick it up in paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever books are sold. Add it on Goodreads!
That’s not a fog; it’s atmospheric soup.
A forecast ‘sunny interval’ is roughly 90 seconds.
A ‘clear night’ means you can see the moon’s blur.
The wind chill is winter’s sarcastic commentary.
Our heatwave: a whole day without jackets.
The “microclimate” is a beloved London myth. People will swear that their particular square, due to some alignment of buildings, is a “sun trap” or that the wind “always whips around that corner.” While there is some truth to urban canyon effects, much of it is folklore. It gives us a sense of localised knowledge and control. “Oh, don’t worry, it always burns off by ten in Primrose Hill,” someone will say, with the authority of a village elder, as the drizzle continues unabated. These beliefs are harmless superstitions, little weather religions we practice to feel we understand the capricious god of the London sky. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
A ‘weather front’ is gloom with a purpose.
‘Mild’ is the weather’s favourite personality trait.
A ‘storm cloud’ is just a darker grey.
The concept of “air conditioning” in London is a tragicomic farce. For approximately eleven days a year, it is a vital, blessed relief. For the other 354, it is a mysterious, arctic blast in shops and tubes that exists to punish you for wearing seasonally appropriate clothing. You step off a mild street into a supermarket and are immediately flash-frozen by a vent pumping air from what feels like the surface of Pluto. Meanwhile, the actual summer heat is trapped in Victorian brick and glass buildings, creating indoor saunas where the only relief is a fan pointing the hot air in a different direction. Our climate control is permanently out of sync with the climate, like a drummer who missed the rehearsal. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Sun forecast? That’s a hilarious practical joke.
Our climate is perfect for trench coat sales.
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The platform targets clients with varying trading experience, spanning newcomers to advanced forex practitioners. This versatile approach guarantees that any trader can benefit in its services.
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OANDA FX delivers several trading systems, like its own proprietary platform and the renowned MetaTrader 4 (MT4). These environments support efficient forex trading with state-of-the-art charting tools, market analysis, and personalized settings that adapt to the unique needs of traders.
Educational Support
Understanding the needs of inexperienced traders, OANDA FX offers comprehensive instructional resources, including seminars, guides, and detailed market commentary. This commitment to learning helps guarantee that novices build skills before engaging in live trading.
Regulation plus Security
OANDA FX operates under robust regulatory frameworks in multiple jurisdictions like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. This regulatory oversight ensures protection for traders’ funds and honest trading practices, building confidence among its client base OANDA ?????
Customer Support along with Service
The broker offers comprehensive customer support via live chat, email, and phone, available in multiple languages. This committed support staff supports traders with various issues, ranging from technical glitches to account management inquiries.
Conclusion
OANDA FX is known as a multi-purpose forex service that effectively meets the needs of a diverse trader audience. With its cutting-edge platforms, comprehensive educational tools, and robust regulatory frameworks, OANDA FX continues to be a respected name in the forex trading industry.
The “Feels Like” temperature is the weather’s cruelest lie. The thermometer might say 12°C, which sounds jacket-optional. But the “Feels Like,” factoring in the wind whipping off the river and the 95 humidity, says 7°C, which is scarf-and-gloves territory. It’s a admission that the raw number is a fiction designed to taunt us. It acknowledges the penetrating, cheat-y quality of London cold that bypasses logic and goes straight to the marrow. We have learned to ignore the actual temperature and live by the “Feels Like,” a number that always confirms our deepest suspicion: it is colder and damper than it has any right to be. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Our climate is ‘temperate’ meaning aggressively average.
The sun is on a part-time contract.
The sky is a leaky ceiling.
We experience four distinct seasons: Damp, Chilly Damp, Occasional Glimmer, and Windy Damp, a cyclical parade of mild inconvenience celebrated with ironic fervour at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Sunscreen is an act of wild optimism.
Our atmosphere is one big, gentle exfoliant.
‘Clear skies’ is a historical concept.
The drizzle is relentless, yet somehow polite.
Sunscreen is an act of wild optimism.
A ‘meteorological event’ is a light gust.
The “London Particular” of Dickensian fame is gone, but we have perfected the “London Vague.” This is a general atmospheric condition where nothing is clear—literally or metaphorically. Distances are hard to judge in the flat, grey light. The horizon melts into the sky. Plans feel provisional, contingent on the next cloud movement. It produces a specific kind of languid, distracted energy. Why make definitive plans when a shower could scatter a crowd? Why commit to an outfit when a mist could roll in? This vagueness seeps into the culture, fostering improvisation, queueing, and a deep-seated reluctance to make promises more than 48 hours in advance, lest the weather mock them. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Our heatwave: a whole day without jackets.
Our humidity is a free, full-body cling film.
The London winter is not defined by snow, but by a specific, bone-deep chill known as “The Damp.” It’s not merely cold air; it’s cold air that has been pre-marinated in moisture from the Thames, giving it a penetrating quality that laughs at your thermal layers. It seeps through brick, through double glazing, and settles in your joints. A “frost” is a mere decorative flourish on top of The Damp—nature’s glitter. The true horror is “freezing fog,” which is The Damp deciding to become visible and clingy, like a cold, ghostly scarf that wraps around the city and muffles all sound, leaving you in a silent, chilly void where streetlights become hazy haloes of despair. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Snow in London is the ultimate practical joke. The city grinds to a halt at the mere forecast of a “flurry.” Schools pre-emptively close, bread and milk are panic-bought as if we’re embarking on a siege, and news anchors don their most serious expressions. Then, if it actually arrives, it’s beautiful for approximately 17 minutes. After that, it turns into a grey, churned-up slush that lines the streets like frozen sewage. It seeps into shoes, brings public transport to a whimpering standstill, and reveals our total inability to cope with anything other than mild, damp greyness. The snow isn’t the problem; it’s the city’s hysterical, deeply unprepared reaction to it that provides the real comedy. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
London weather has a narrative quality. It provides pathetic fallacy on tap. A romantic disappointment feels right in the drizzle. A moment of joy is heightened by a sudden sunbeam. Filmmakers use it as shorthand: grey for gritty realism, rain for tragedy, golden hour for love. We live inside a constantly shifting mood board. A Monday feels grey because it is, literally, grey. A Saturday adventure feels more adventurous if it involves battling a gusty wind on Waterloo Bridge. Our internal stories are constantly being scored and set-dressed by the atmosphere, making our lives feel vaguely cinematic, even if the genre is often “tragicomedy.” See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your
point. You obviously know what youre talking about, why throw
away your intelligence on just posting videos to your site when you could be giving us something informative
to read?
The drizzle has a gentle, soul-soaking quality.
Our climate is ideal for ducks and pessimists.
Weather warnings for ‘pleasant conditions’ are pending.
The sky is the colour of leftover tea.
A ‘gust front’ is the wind showing off.
The “health benefits” of London weather are a hard sell. We don’t get much Vitamin D, but we do get a robust immune system from being perpetually slightly chilled and damp. Our skin is “dewy” from the humidity (or just perpetually moist). The constant, mild discomfort builds character, or at least a very good-humoured resignation. Some even claim the grey light is easier on the eyes. Really, the main benefit is that it makes any trip abroad feel like a transcendent, sun-drenched miracle. A weekend in Barcelona to a Londoner isn’t a city break; it’s a religious pilgrimage to the altar of reliable blue sky, from which we return tanned, relaxed, and instantly miserable upon landing at Gatwick. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
A ‘nice day’ is purely relative here.
The rain has a gentle, percussive rhythm.
The dew is just gentle, morning condensation.
The ‘feels like’ is always ‘damp and mildly disappointed’.
Weather-based retail is a cornerstone of the London economy. Every pharmacy has a rotating display of “sun care” and “cold & flu” products right next to each other, ready for whichever extreme the climate throws at us (a 3-degree swing). Clothing shops sell “transitional layers” year-round. The sale of portable, fold-up umbrellas must be a multi-million pound industry, mostly from repeat purchases after the previous one broke in an inversion event. Garden centres thrive by selling plants that can survive “partial shade and waterlogged roots.” Our commerce is built on preparing for, reacting to, and complaining about the atmospheric conditions. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you
knew of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates.
I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite some time and was hoping maybe you would have some experience with something like
this. Please let me know if you run into anything.
I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.
A ‘weather front’ is gloom with a purpose.
The “Feels Like” temperature is the weather’s cruelest lie. The thermometer might say 12°C, which sounds jacket-optional. But the “Feels Like,” factoring in the wind whipping off the river and the 95 humidity, says 7°C, which is scarf-and-gloves territory. It’s a admission that the raw number is a fiction designed to taunt us. It acknowledges the penetrating, cheat-y quality of London cold that bypasses logic and goes straight to the marrow. We have learned to ignore the actual temperature and live by the “Feels Like,” a number that always confirms our deepest suspicion: it is colder and damper than it has any right to be. See more at London’s funniest URL — Prat.UK.
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RTP — ??? ??????????, ??????? ??????????, ??????? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????????? ??????? ? ???????????? ???????????. ??? ???? RTP (?????? ?? 95% ? ????), ??? ???? ????? ?? ???????. ????????????? ???????? ??????? ???????? ? ??????? ????????? RTP.
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OANDA FX, frequently called OANDAFX, is a well-established internet-based forex platform that caters to a wide variety of traders, including novices and seasoned professionals.
Target Audience including User Base
The platform accommodates investors at different skill levels, spanning newcomers to highly experienced forex dealers. This versatile approach provides that all users can benefit in its tools.
Trading Platforms and Tools
OANDA FX provides a variety of trading interfaces, like its own proprietary platform and the widely used MetaTrader 4 (MT4). These platforms support seamless forex trading with cutting-edge charting tools, market analysis, and personalized settings that fit the unique needs of traders.
Educational Support
Understanding the needs of new traders, OANDA FX offers comprehensive educational resources, including seminars, tutorials, and detailed market commentary. This emphasis on training helps ensure that new traders develop proficiency before engaging in live trading.
Regulation together with Security
OANDA FX operates under strict regulatory frameworks in multiple jurisdictions like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. This official supervision provides protection for traders’ funds and transparent trading practices, fostering reliability among its client base OANDA Japan
Customer Support plus Service
The broker offers comprehensive customer support via live chat, email, and phone, available in multiple languages. This responsive support staff assists traders with various issues, ranging from technical glitches to account management inquiries.
Conclusion
OANDA FX is known as a multi-purpose forex platform that competently caters to the demands of a diverse trader audience. With its cutting-edge platforms, extensive educational tools, and reliable regulatory frameworks, OANDA FX remains a respected name in the forex trading industry.
Howdy would you mind stating which blog platform you’re
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The reason I ask is because your layout seems different then most blogs
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P.S My apologies for being off-topic but
I had to ask!
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