Excerpt from L.A. Jefferson's Upcoming Book

An excerpt from my upcoming novel, Reconciliation to Hell

A jolting noise stirred Sandra out of her sleep. Unsure of where it came from she tried to pull herself out of the bed to find out, but failed. She couldn’t move her body. And the more she tried the more it hurt. From her head to the tips of her toes. The task of opening her eyes proved to be even more of an excruciating task. Damn, Sandra thought. What the hell did I get into last night? Had she pushed herself to her partying maximum last night? She’d been hanging out like wet clothes with her party girl sister-in-law, Yvette, for the last few months but at present she couldn’t recollect anything from the previous night. All she knew was that she had a splitting headache and an eerie feeling that something was terribly wrong. Still lying down Sandra was able to lift her hands to her head where she began massaging her temples, hoping a little clarity would find her. That’s when she realized that she was naked. Naked? What the…? An eerie realization broke into her head before she could finish the thought. Sandra was not in her own bed. She was not even in her house. Fear engulfed her instantly. Through immense pain, she sprang from the bed and forced a slither of an opening of her eyes. Darkness. She managed to swing her legs off of the bed toward the floor, but within one step she lost her footing on something slippery beneath her feet and fell down.


“Owww!” she cried out, the medal frame of the bed scraping the small of her back. Moments later the pain in her back would unequivocally be the least of her worries. On the floor was the culprit of her fall. Over two dozen photos scattered all across the floor. Photos of her in very compromising positions with men other than her husband. Her and Todd. Her and Devon. Her and Richard. Her and some random guys she couldn’t even name. Who took these? Sandra desperately wanted to know! More pointedly, Who the hell had been following her and why? She was afraid to even think the question that was really plaguing question her but the answer would find her soon enough.

Headache or not, Sandra needed to get out of there quick, fast, and in a hurry! Her clothes were sprawled crazily around the room: blouse squished between the pillows on the couch, left shoe in the kitchenette, right shoe in the bathroom, pants underneath the bed. Pure insanity! Still Sandra managed to dress quickly. As fast as she could, Sandra gathered up all the photos and mashed them deep into her large designer shoulder bag, wishing she could push them into nonexistence. No such luck.

Cautiously, she peered up and down the dingy hallway of the motel. Motel! This wasn’t even her type of place. She and the company she kept had entirely too much class to be laying up in somebody’s motel. More than ever she wanted to know how she’d gotten there. She couldn’t have been that drunk last night if she’d driven herself to the motel. Did she drive herself there? That answer became clear when closed the door to her Benz and couldn’t reach the pedals. Her mind was reeling now with that piece of this puzzle solved. But who had driven her? Who had she trusted enough? Or who had taken such advantage of her? Turning the ignition, seeing that it was nearly seven A.M., Sandra knew that her priority needed to be getting home! She was a wife, a mother, a respectable family woman—at least she had been until recently. Regardless of the day of the week it was—she wasn’t sure—her children needed her.

Sandra adjusted her mirrors, put the car in reverse, then headed out of the parking lot of only God knows where she was. Her phone began vibrating beneath the clutter of her purse but it was synced to her car so she didn’t need to fumble for it to answer. “Unknown” was displayed across dashboard. Afraid, she pushed the “phone” button conveniently located on the steering wheel to answer the call.

“Hello.” Sandra said.

“Hope you slept well dear.” A heavily disguised voice said.

“Who the hell is this?” Sandra snapped, unconsciously gripping the steering wheel taking a sharp left on the corner in the direction of the expressway that would take her home.

The mystery man or woman chuckled. “If I were you”, they sneered, “I’d be more concerned about those lovely pictures of you and your friends and what could happen if they fall into the wrong hands.” More sinister laughing followed.

Ohmigod, Sandra thought. She inhaled deeply, at a momentary total loss of words. “What do you want?” she finally said, dreading the answer before the question was fully out of her mouth. She was the wife of a political candidate, a member of a wealthy and influential family. Whoever this was on the other end of the phone could demand just about anything from her and she’d have to do it in order to not bring total embarrassment and shame to herself and her family.

“That’s a good question, Mrs.- Lester - Anderson. I know you’re on your way home to play the role of dutiful wife and mother. Keep your phone close and I’ll be in touch.” Click.

Sandra could hardly see straight she was so dazed by the life threatening phone call. When she finally noticed where she was, the exit towards her home was two miles behind her. As she exited the freeway to go in the opposite direction, she fought back the tears blurring her eyes as she wondered how in God’s name she’d become the threat to the life, the marriage she couldn’t imagine being without.

What's Going On

Okay, so L.A. is no longer hosting the blogtalk radio show. Summer is over and school is back in session. So, what is L.A. doing now?

Here it is. L.A. is in the final stages of planning the official release party of Unfinished Business. The party is scheduled for Friday, October 16, tentatively at Hoots on the Ave on Michigan Ave in Detroit. It's going to be a combination birthday/book release party as L.A.'s birthday is October 15th, so it should be a good time.

A couple of writing projects are in the works: one short story under the premise of "Women Gone Wild". The expectation is for the book to be a compilation of 3 or more stories. I may even invite other authors to submit stories. Anyway, the first story is about Jasmine, a plus-sized woman who embarks on a weight loss plan to spark interest from her husband who she assumes has lost interest in her when she stumbles across his secret collection of porn videos. Ironically, as she begins to lose weight, her husband becomes angrier and more distant. One day at the gym, Jasmine is approached by one of the male members who tells her how sexy her thick body is. He invites her to his entertainment establishment, which she assumes is a night club, but when she and her friend visit, it's actually a strip club that specializes in the "thick" dancer. Jasmine is appalled that he invited her there and even more so when he suggests that she become one of his dancers! Stay tuned for what trouble Jasmine finds herself in by the time this story ends.

Project #2 is a fiction novel, loosely based on actual events. What happens when two people, who probably shouldn't have ever gotten married a first time, marry a second time for all of the wrong reasons? A Reconcilliation to Hell. This is the story of Paula. She secretly remarries her ex-husband, Chris, after years of his pressing her to reconcile. Paula foolishly believes, that although Chris was never the man of her dreams and she never believed they were compatible, and they had a decent history, shared three children together, and most importantly he'd always been in love with her, that this reconcilliation couldn't go wrong. She had long tired of the "single-mom" dating game and had had her last straw when the last man she dated physically attacked her while her children lay sleeping in their bedrooms. But, boy oh boy, does Chris have a shocker for her. Paula finds out soon after their second "I do" that Chris was nothing like he presented himself to her during their re-courtship. He had become a MAJOR player! You'll have to get the book to find out the hell Paula goes through dealing with the new Chris and becoming a new Paula!

Read the below excerpt of Reconcilliation to Hell.

“Pleeeaassee, don’t do this to me!” I cried out, desperately, falling to my knees, grasping at him in a fleeting attempt to keep the man I loved from walking out of the door. He’d just declared, heartlessly, “There is nothing left between us, Paula…” It wasn’t the first time he said it, but this time his eyes were blood red, his lips curled in a gruesome snarl, exposing brown and yellow stained fangs inside his mouth, like some kind of monster. He stared at her hard, like he was daring her to combat him any further.
Still, I cried a river of tears as he walked out the door, leaving me, the woman he claimed would always be the owner of his heart, on the floor. As soon as the door closed, my children came running from the shadows, tears spilling from their eyes.
“Mommy, he’s gone,” three-year old Nigel cried, climbing on top of me, wrapping his arms around my neck.
“Why don’t we just leave like he wants us to?” Alissa chimed in, bravely fighting back her tears. I sat there broken, bruised, and trying to accept the inevitable defeat that had been hovering over me for the past three years when the strong smell of gasoline entered my nostrils. Hurriedly, I ran to the window, peaking out, only to see Chris proudly standing outside of the house with a lit match just before he dropped it at the beginning of the trail of gasoline leading to the house.
I was stunned immobile. My children were pulling at me, trying to get me to make a move—for my life, for their lives. Just because Chris didn’t want us, didn’t mean I had to give up on everything else. While I was aware of this truth, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
The flames engulfed the house quickly, my children and I still inside. It didn’t appear to be any way out. I held my spot on the floor—the children finally gave up their losing battle of getting me to come to my senses. Instinctively, they huddled closer to me, for protection. As it got hotter and hotter, the flames coming closer and closer to us, all I thought about was how my marriage to this man for the second time had come to such a terrifying, seemingly deadly end…
It was always at this point that I awoke from this nightmare that had been haunting me for the past three months. Ever since I called myself making the decision to leave Chris, my husband of only three years. Same as always, I had to flip my pillow on the other side as the side I was sleeping on was so wet from the tears I’d been crying during my sleep as my subconscious mind honed in on the broken woman in the dream.
That woman can’t be me, I thought, unbelievingly, to myself, hugging the pillow close to my naked caramel brown body. But it was. This nightmare wasn’t something that my subconscious was dreaming up. Instead it was a pitiful reminder of what my joke of a marriage had turned me into—a groveling wife, desperate to keep her family together for the sake of her children and secretly trying to keep from looking like a damn fool for remarrying the same man she’d divorced over five years before.
I entered this second marriage a strong, confident, secure woman. There was no doubt that Chris loved me and he would never hurt me. Ironically, the only thing I did doubt was whether or not I’d be happy with him.
So how in the hell had things turned so upside down? How was it that I was the one begging him to stay with me?
That’s where Ms. Sheridan comes into the picture. She’s the therapist, by referral through my company’s Employee Assistance Program, I’ve been seeing for the last six weeks. Today marks my third session with her.