A writer’s work is never done. I’m finding this particularly true of my Tracking Jane series. Now that Waiting for Shadow is out, I can focus on editing and putting the finishing touches on Tahoe-1. By way of intro, I’ll leave you with a snippet of Chapter 1 (still in draft, so it may change!), the synopsis, and a couple of covers I’m mulling over. Feel free to let me know what you think of each of these!

Oh… and before you get too much further, sign up for our mail list so I can keep you posted on future releases!

Candidate book covers

Leave me a comment to let me know which of these you prefer.

Chapter 1 — draft preview

Out here in the California Sierras, there ain’t no such thing as doorbells. Lucky me I got me two of them. Right now they’re growling at the shadows that shift and sway beyond the reach of the camp fire’s glow.

“What is it?” Dan asks.

I raise my hand and eye my dogs. Both Shady and Tahoe sit at attention, their ears perked up straight as they’ll go. Their snouts make two arrowheads aimed at the trail we trekked to get here.

“Jane?” Dan whispers.

The fire to my left crackles and pops. A burst of its heat hits me flush on my left cheek. The dogs growl again. Around a bend in the trail, a light bobs six feet off the ground. The crunching of boots on the rocky trail comes next.

“Steh Auf,” I tell the dogs, giving them the stand command. They both stand, but Tahoe, the younger of the two is trembling, anxious to go investigate. “Steh Auf,” I repeat in a stern tone, but he takes off nonetheless.

“Whoa!” the intruder says. We can see him now in the dim orange glow that breaks into the shadows. He stops and holds up his hands. Though hard to tell from our location, it looks like he’s wearing some sort of uniform.

“Tahoe, Hierr!” I shout as I rise to my feet.

Tahoe hop-trots and circles the man twice before he comes back to me. I resist the urge to react in anger. Instead, I grab him by the collar and turn him around to face the man.

The guy flicks off his head lamp. “You Jane McMurtry?”

Dan steps up before I can reply. “Who wants to know?”

“I’m with the Forest Service,” the guy replies. He comes closer now with an extended hand. “Tom Sutter,” he says.

Dan hesitates for a moment, his demeanor showing him none too pleased to have his romantic evening interrupted. Then he steps up to shake hands.

“Dan Murphy,” he says. “What brings you here?”

The guy looks at the dogs, then at me. “So you are Jane McMurtry?”

“As seen on TV and the Internet,” I reply. “But it’s Jane Murphy now, on account of my updated marital status. Same initials, though, so that keeps all my monogrammed linens intact.”

Mr. Sutter, too modern to catch my meaning, gives me a quizzical look.

“You still haven’t told us what you want,” Dan says, his voice ringing with further notes of displeasure.

“Ain’t hard to guess,” I say. “Someone come out all the way up here in the night can only mean two things. Either someone sent word that my ranch’s burned to the ground, or they want me to do some tracking.”

“That’s right,” Sutter replies. “Tracking, I mean. Some hikers gone missing in one of those rock avalanches. You know, from those tremors we’ve been having?”

Though the ground doesn’t shake at the moment, my body feels as if one of them tremors is hitting right now.

Synopsis for Tahoe-1

Jane’s bid for the U.S. Olympic team comes up short, and instead of staying home for the summer, she, Dan Murphy, and her dogs Shady and Tahoe hike the Pacific Coast Trail. A series of earthquakes create emergency conditions, and Jane will answer the call to assist a rescue operation – until she, Dan and her dogs will themselves become stranded only to find they have become the object of someone’s twisted hunt.

Finding their way through the High Sierras, Jane, Dan and her dogs will join forces in a struggle for survival against nature and those seeking ill advantage in its mayhem. Here, with nothing but herself, her dogs, and the man that loves her, Jane will face the God of nature and men who pervert his justice. Here she will race to find answers before the ground beneath her gives way and the world around her crumbles and explodes.

Order previously released episodes of the Tracking Jane series