Mr. Mysterious: A Mister Standalone (The Mister Series Book 4) (37 page)
I mean why not use him again? I have already set up his character, his background, his business, his past. He was the perfect choice.
This is something you don’t get much of writing standalone books. Also, if you don’t have thirty plus books written to choose characters, or settings or leftover plots from other stories it’s kinda hard to pull off.
But I’m lucky. Have all these worlds, all these characters, all these places, all these stories to choose from. So I like use them.
I used to be a really big Stephen King reader back in the day and he does this especially well in his books. I can remember reading one of those Dark Tower books (Maybe Wizard and Glass—but don’t hold me to that) and someone from another book suddenly appeared and I was like,
Gah!!!!!!!!!! I know that guy
!
lol. I swear to God, that was me.
I’m sure there are some people who read my books because they enjoy the simplicity of my sentences, I almost never totally fuck a story up, and they usually come out the other end satisfied. Right? It’s just a good book to most people.
But then… there are the fans. People who do scream
GAH!
when Five shows up, or Oliver shows up. Or Ariel or Ford’s name. Whatever.
I try not to “write to” any one group. In other words I’m not aiming for only fans when I write a story. Or only new readers or casual readers. I try to balance it out. I like to give you a hint of a “bigger world” without overwhelming you and I do that with these cool little
Stephen-King-esque call-backs
, which is a literary device called allusion.
Allusion is when information is implied. In most cases artists, like filmmakers and authors, use allusion to redirect the watcher or reader to the world outside the story—something that exists in the world of the reader. Something big or little. Sometimes it’s nothing but intellectual minutia used to pat all the other intellectuals on the back and assure them they are smart.
But I mostly use it as a way to redirect readers to the overarching storyline of other books I’ve written where the characters or plot might cross, however briefly.
If the reader doesn’t understand the reference then my words are merely decoration. If you read Wasted Lust as a standalone (and you can, if you want. I swear, all the information you need for that story is in there) then you miss the allusion and you end up with a very different perspective of the story.
Some readers don’t like internal allusion. But fans usually dig it. So the allusion is for the fans even when I’m doing my best to write for both the reader and the fan.
This book was kinda hard to write because of the time line. Mysterious has been in all the books, but he had huge parts in Mr. Romantic and Mr. Corporate. He’s much more than a side character. So when it came time to write his story I wanted to account for all those actions.
If you picked up Mr. Mysterious first and read the series out of order you might be thinking – this is not a standalone. I sort of agree—BUT—I did give you everything you needed to know for THIS book. So I consider it a standalone. Yes, you’re missing info, but what the fuck could I do? That info is all in the other books. You get the gist of it, right? If you need details go back and read the other Mister books. Start from the beginning this time.
One cool side effect, if you will, of writing this way is that there’s almost two ways to read some of my stories.
There are lots of places to jump into the Rook and Ronin world. You could start at the beginning with Tragic and read them all in order. In that case you get all the allusion and you get it fed to you in the “standard” order. But you could also start at Dirty, Dark, and Deadly—read those three books, then go back and read Rook and Ronin and you’ve gonna have those
Gah!
moments when you realize how they connect. You can also start with the Ford books. Or Meet Me In The Dark, or Wasted Lust. Each of those books can be interpreted two ways because of the allusion.
Some people like to connect the dots… some people don’t. I try to keep it all balanced and hopefully I’m doing a good job.
I also hope people don’t get too sick of me going back and forth in time. I don’t use this “literary device” lightly. In other words I don’t do it just for the fuck of it. I only do it when it’s necessary to tell the story a certain way. Usually I’m hiding something from you—I write romantic suspense, after all.
But I remember getting a complaint about it in 321 from someone. They said the time jumping was confusing. But the only time jumping in that book was in the prologue and the last few chapters. If that is confusing I can’t help people with that. It really wasn’t hard to follow. There was almost no allusion in that book at all. It’s a straight standalone.
BUT… this book was sorta difficult. So if this time line confuses you, sorry. I try my best to keep the story as simple as possible but sometimes this is just how the shit shakes out.
Story comes first and this story required a full accounting of Paxton Vance’s actions in the other books as it relates to the plot in
his
book.
When I first envisioned Mysterious, while writing Mr. Perfect, I really didn’t know who “his girl” was. I think I told you that in the last EOBS for Mr. Corporate. That I plot the books when I’m nearing the end of the prior book. But I figured out Cindy Shrike was Mrs. Mysterious while I was writing Mr. Romantic. God, it just fit into the story so perfectly. And while I was writing the end of Mysterious I was thinking about Five. Because Five is in this world now and he’s in another world too. Even more so that Oliver and the rest of this gang because he was born at the end of the Taut book and he had his own epilogue at the end of the Guns book. And I will say this about Princess Rory—I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mention her at all. If you’ve been a fan for a while you know I’ve been promising a Five Book for two years now. More than two years, actually. And my reason for not writing it yet was because I just didn’t have the right story figured out.
But it all came together for me while writing Mr. Mysterious and that book will be out next year.
As far as Oliver Shrike goes… well, I already know who Mr. Match’s girl is and I know what kind of guy Oliver turned out to be after his whole Mr. Brown experience, so we’re good to go there. He’s a dirty motherfucker, ladies. So be prepared. His book gets epically erotic in chapter one.
Two months. That’s all you have to wait. Just two more months and all the mysteries will be solved.
Well… sorta.
;)
Sorry if I have typos is this EOBS. It’s kinda late right now. ARCs are going out tomorrow morning and I gotta get the paperback formatted before bed. So I’m not even gonna re-read this. I’m just hitting the Go Button.
(1) As I mentioned at the beginning of the EOBS… I am offering my first series, Rook & Ronin FREE (all three books in one eBook edition).
GET THE FREE EDITION HERE
.
(2) There is a very special first look sneak peek for the Turning Series. This is the next project I’m working on after Mr. Match is done. Dark erotica, bitches. I said I’d be back and I am. Sexy as fuck. Dirty as hell. Better than 321, I promise.
CHECK IT OUT HERE
.
(3) If you’re reading this during release week there’s a giveaway on my blog –
ENTER HERE
. If you’re not reading during release week and want to be notified every time I release a book so you can get in on the giveaways,
JOIN HERE
.
(4) I just made the book trailer for the Mister Series and you really (like
really
) need to check it out! (
Hot!
)
SEE IT HERE
.
If you’d like to hang out with me on Facebook I have a private fan group called
Shrike Bikes
. Just ask to join and someone will approve you as soon as they see it. I am in that group chatting with the fans every single day and we have a lot of giveaways and fun stuff going all the time. Especially around release days. I usually do a takeover and give away all kinds of stuff related to the new release, so come on by and say hi.
If you enjoyed this book please consider leaving me a review where you purchased it. I’m still indie. And the success of each and every book I put out depends on readers like you leaving their thoughts and opinions about the story in a review.
Thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I’ll see you in the next book.
Julie
JA Huss
*************
Each of the titles below will be linked to the book once it goes live or is up for pre-order. So if you’d like the next one, just click the links. If it’s not available yet, you’ll be taken to my website.
Mr. Perfect
Mr. Romantic
Mr. Corporate
Mr. Mysterious
Mr. Match
About the Author
JA Huss
is the New York Times
and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty romances. She likes stories about family, loyalty, and extraordinary characters who struggle with basic human emotions while dealing with bigger than life problems. JA loves writing heroes who make you swoon, heroines who makes you jealous, and the perfect Happily Ever After ending.
You can read her writing craft and marketing articles
at her website
and chat with her on
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, and her kick-ass romance blog,
New Adult Addiction
. If you're interested in getting your hands on an advanced release copy of her upcoming books, sneak peek teasers, or information on her upcoming personal appearances, you can join
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JA Huss lives on a dirt road in Colorado thirty minutes from the nearest post office. So if she owes you a package from a giveaway, expect it to take forever. She has a small farm with two donkeys named Paris & Nicole, a ringneck parakeet named Bird, and a pack of dogs. She also has two grown children who have never read any of her books and do not plan on ever doing so. They do, however, plan on using her credit cards forever.
JA collects guns and likes to read science fiction and books that make her think. JA Huss used to write homeschool science textbooks under the name Simple Schooling and after publishing more than 200 of those, she ran out of shit to say. She started writing the I Am Just Junco science fiction series in 2012, but has since found the meaning of life writing erotic stories about antihero men that readers love to love.
JA has an undergraduate degree in equine science and fully planned on becoming a veterinarian until she heard what kind of hours they keep, so she decided to go to grad school and got a master’s degree in Forensic Toxicology. Before she was a full-time writer she was smelling hog farms for the state of Colorado.
Even though JA is known to be testy and somewhat of a bitch, she loves her #fans dearly and if you want to talk to her, join her
Facebook fan group where she posts daily bullshit about bullshit.
If you think she’s kidding about this crazy autobiography, you don’t know her very well.