When a fellow student is attacked and run out of town, police and the school administration in Poeticule Bay, Maine prove useless. Enraged, Molly Jergins launches a campaign of vigilante justice against the school bully.
As threats and vandalism escalate to a war ending in death, the line between right and wrong blur. Molly tries to be good, but when hunting monsters, she will be safer if she becomes a better monster.
Revenge is the best success.
Robert Chazz Chute is a former crime and science journalist for newspapers and magazines. A graduate of the University of King’s College and the Banff Publishing Workshop, Robert has won fifteen awards for his writing. He pens suspenseful crime fiction with muscle and apocalyptic tales with heart. His hidden headquarters is a blanket fort in Other London. Vengeance is Hers is his twenty-ninth book.
I added a little scene to my vigilante thriller yesterday, so I thought I’d share it. Here’s what you need to know: Molly Jergins attends Poeticule Bay Consolidated High School. After a fellow student, Barry Graves, is attacked by the school bully, Keith Faun, Molly confronts Keith. After that scene, a teacher shows up. Molly proves that, despite her young age (or perhaps because of her youth), she’s made of sterner stuff.
Oration: Scene fragment / Molly and Mrs. Simmons
Molly’s history teacher, Mrs. Abby Simmons, pushed her way through the crowd. “Hey! People! The bell has rung! Get to class! What’s going on? I’ve got an empty classroom, and I get lonely talking to myself! All of you have somewhere to be!”
Molly, sporting a wide and grateful grin, turned to her. “Sure, Mrs. Simmons!”
Keith turned and walked away, and Molly called after him, “You’re welcome!”
Some students snickered. Mrs. Simmons shushed them and waved them on. The crowd dispersed. A few of the juniors and sophomores touched Molly’s shoulder as a silent gesture of respect as they passed. She was relieved, certain that those witnesses and their phones had saved her from getting a black eye, or worse.
“What are you up to, Molly? Did you just make a bad situation worse?” Mrs. Simmons demanded.
“Me? Nah. That guy is like an ice cream headache. He’s going to get worse before he gets better. Not that anyone cares, but a lot of us don’t feel safe going to this school.”
By her eyes, Molly could tell the teacher didn’t disagree. Mrs. Simmons didn’t feel safe, either.
“You should know,” Mrs. Simmons said, “when you’re young and immature, you’ve got a lot more anger and energy. You look at the state of the world and….” She trailed off. They were alone in the corridor, but the teacher still looked around nervously to make sure no one else was within earshot.
“What is it, ma’am?” Molly prompted.
The teacher’s jaw worked for a moment as she searched for the right words. Finally, Mrs. Simmons said, “I just think you should appreciate that a lot of people around here, not just the students, are appalled by the incident between Keith and the Graves boy. But we’re also tired and just trying to get through our days. The police and the principal were informed. The ball’s in their court now. What’s best is to leave it be. Not our monkeys, not our circus anymore, right?”
Molly cocked her head to one side. “You’re tired?”
“Of this business? Surely and immeasurably.”
“If you’re tired, imagine how exhausted Barry must be. It sounds like you’ve given up, ma’am.”
“You will, too. Everybody does. When you learn the limits of what you can do, it makes sense to set your sights lower.”
“Spoken as a true educator, Mrs. Simmons! You’re an inspiration!”
The teacher shot her a sour look. “Tend to your own knitting, Molly, and get your butt to class.”
“I’ve got a free period in the library, ma’am.”
“Then get to it.”
She’d meant to curb Keith, not shame Mrs. Simmons. “Sorry,” Molly said, “maybe you’re right. I guess a lot of people do give up for whatever reason. I understand you’re trying to help me.”
But Molly couldn’t leave it at that, couldn’t stop herself. “As long as I’m still young and full of energy, though, I think I’ll keep on being angry when it’s right to be angry. Your way, powerless people stay powerless. You taught me that in your history class.”
Molly thought she had earned herself a detention, but Mrs. Simmons said nothing more. The teacher spun on her heel and strode back to her classroom.
Whatever happens, Molly cautioned herself, don’t turn into her. Don’t get so chicken of being wrong that you don’t do right.
Looks like we’ll get our first real snow here tomorrow. The malls are packed with shoppers, but people don’t go into panic-shopping mode until the weather turns and it really looks like Christmas is coming. Now that December 25 is just a few weeks away, it’s time to order your Christmas books.
I’m going to be real with you. I love Dream’s Dark Flight, but it’s one of my least-read books. It’s in the Haunting Lessons universe, but it’s a stand-alone only tangentially related to the original trilogy. I’ve tried a couple of different covers. Last night, I settled on this one. Will it suddenly take off and become a bestseller? Not without a huge push, but this cover is better. I hope the new cover encourages a few more readers to give this novel a try (because, still real with you) it’s awesome. 🙂
Have a look at my pitch below the image to see why.
At a resort hotel in Dubai, bodies are found crushed beside their beds. A village in France fills with corpses. Each night, the terror builds. As nightmares become reality, lucid dreaming may be the only way to fight the threat invading our minds.
The doctor doesn’t believe the waking nightmares. The physiotherapist just wants to go back to her normal life. The NSA agent has very little time to solve the mystery that’s killing people around the globe. The stakes are nothing less than human extinction.
From the author of This Plague of Days, AFTER Life, and Endemic comes a unique mix of science fiction and the paranormal. Leave the light on. You’ll be up all night, turning pages, afraid to sleep.
Let’s pull back the curtains and open the kimono. What goes into writing a book? I’ll just talk about inspiration and craft here. There are many more moving parts than what I could jam into one post.
My life. All fiction is autobiographical, from the knife held to my throat when I was a kid to all the other injustices for which I have an eidetic memory.
Environment. Growing up in Nova Scotia, I was in a target-rich environment for hearing interesting dialogue. My next thriller is set in Maine, and I take great delight in putting fresh spins on familiar idioms. (My dad had a hundred weird expressions. “That smell would drive a dog off a gut wagon,” for instance.)
My major was journalism, and my minor was philosophy, but I had better chances to feed my work. My first year of university was a survey course called The Foundation Year Program. A unique offering, it’s been described as the history of philosophy or the philosophy of history. FYP seemed to cover everything, from classics of literature to classical music and jazz. I read a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have read otherwise. It was a great opportunity to discover how much I didn’t know.To quote Ted Lasso, “Be curious.”
University isn’t for everybody, and a decent library would suffice. However, I’d worked for my family’s business since I was thirteen. My main goal was to stay out of the workforce for four years. (University was insanely cheap, then, lest you think me a brat. Besides, I kept up with my studies just fine.) University was best for the gift of time. I used those four years to read, and read, and read. I’d read a lot of science fiction through my teens. Most of my spare time in university went to American writers. I remember reading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in one go, only stopping briefly to nap and eat.
My obsession with reading didn’t stop. Usually, I’ve got ten books going at once, though lately, I’ve turned more to audiobooks as a time management strategy. Everything feeds my work. Astute readers will note the parallels between This Plague of Days and The Stand. William Goldman’s prose was my awakening to how I plot a story to provide delightful surprises to readers.
Movies. One of my family’s companies was a video store, so I got to watch everything.I love movies and bring that sensibility to my writing. If you think my action scenes are cinematic, that’s probably why. When you’re reading my books, I want to put a movie in your head.
Wikipedia and assorted trivia. At my last dental cleaning, I blurted some obscure fact to the dental hygienist. She said, “How do you know that?” I know lots of useless factoids. A doctor once asked me if I had medical training. I replied (putting on a Southern accent because I’m funny), “I’m an educated fool, suh! Born to high privilege and of low station, beyond the delightful and obscure, I am otherwise useless to society.” (That didn’t help the psych evaluation, I can tell you!)However, interesting factoids are woven into my narratives, and readers appreciate them.
I have help. My editor, Gari Strawn, is a gem to whom I am so very grateful. My prime beta reader,Russ, has quite an eye for detail. Last night, he messaged me about whether there are hubcaps on Lincoln Continentals. This morning, he messaged me with suggestions for alternative classic cars the villain could drive in Vengeance Is Hers.
Anger, humour, and spite. Some people who could have been mentors, more helpful, or at least kind, told me I had delusions of grandeur. Fuck ’em.
My writing space has three desks, and I feel very lucky to have this writing life.
I’ve learned most about writing fiction from reading fiction, especially that of William Goldman. More than likely, you know his screenplays, most famously The Princess Bride. His novels are sublime and are now largely ignored as people favor the film medium. That guy sure knew how to delight with unexpected yet inevitable surprises.
For influences, I also have to name-check Stephen King for his dialogue and character work and Blake Crouch for pacing.
But this post isn’t about brilliant writing.I want to hear from you.
This post is about what else readers want, what you want.
It is startling how much work a publisher and author can put into promoting their books and still fail to move the needle. Our focus is pulled in many directions. The attention economy is fragmented. Marketing gurus insist an author newsletter is paramount, but very few people seem to read them. I’ve got a bunch of old subscriptions to newsletters sitting in my inbox. I will never get to them. Their appeal feels dated now.
What can I give you besides a great story and hours and hours of inexpensive entertainment?
A revered teacher once said, “You know what people want? Everything yesterday, through the mail, for free.” That’s a high bar to meet for a micro-business, but there are free promotions. To launch the book, some readers will pick up freebies (hopefully to read, love, and review).I’ll apply for a Bookbub promotion and set up various giveaways to prime the algorithms and get reviews.
Audiobooks. That’s on my radar, and I do have a home studio. So far, I’ve only used the blanket fort for podcast interviews. However, I feel Endemic and Vengeance Is Hers need a female narrator, not my voice. It’s an expensive proposition with no guarantee of remuneration, but of course, that’s true of any enterprise. It’s a question of making the budget work while calculating the risks.
Merch. I’ve got T-shirts and bookmarks in the works. This is not usually a major factor, but I plan to sell a lot of my books in person in 2025, so extras are a sweet idea.
Special editions. Because I’m shipping from Canada and most of my readers are American, I haven’t seriously explored this before. However, with in-person selling, I see the value in making some of my books extra special. For select hardcovers, I plan to add ribbon bookmarks and painted book edges.
Social proof. When seeking validation, authors always think of reviews first, and they aren’t wrong. The more reviews a book gets, the more it pushes the online stores’ algorithms. Readers read reviews to make buying decisions. Mass mailings to Booktubers and Booktok folks can be prohibitively expensive. There’s still Bookfunnel for free review copies, but unless the reviewer can hold up your book on social media, it’s less impactful.
Awards. Some authors question their value, but it’s one more subtle way to reassure readers they are in good hands. I’ve won fifteen awards for my writing. Does that help? It doesn’t hurt to quote a third party’s enthusiasm when hyping a book. (Not all awards are created equal, but that’s a different post.)
Engagement. One of the joys of my life comes daily as I talk with readers who have become fans and friends. I post on social media, but the core group is Fans of Robert Chazz Chute on Facebook.As I worked to recover from two hip replacements last year, I got a lot of love, sympathy, and support there. That went far beyond what I could do for them as fans of my work.
Writing a novel is difficult. Finding readers is much harder.
It’s easy to overspend on marketing that goes nowhere. You can write a great book, but too often, it gets lost in the deluge. There are a hundred variables outside of the writer’s control. Hundreds of marketing companies and PR firms promise the world. Marketing gurus say they possess the special sauce or magic secret. None of them admit that luck and timing play a huge role in what ranks. My dad was successful in business, and he often said something I hated. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I hated it most because (a) I’m an introvert pretending to be an extrovert, and (b) I suspect he was right. For instance, it seems the hosts of Slate podcasts will interview authors as long as the guest is a sister, mentor, someone they went to school with, or mentee.Incessant logrolling is strong with the elite, and I’m not in that club.
Note the sincere face as I ask this.
I didn’t write this post to whine. I’m asking you, as a reader, what do you value? Endemic won multiple awards. This Plague of Days is a best-selling zombie apocalypse novel. Citizen Second Class is trenchant and relevant to our times. My crime fiction (The Hit Man Series and The Night Man) is both knuckly and funny. Besides offering compelling novels with surprising twists, heart, and action, what grabs your attention?
My team and I are working hard to make Vengeance Is Hers a great story. What else can I do to become one of your favorite authors?
My next novel, Vengeance Is Hers. is packed with ways to wreak vengeance upon your many, many enemies!May righteous vengeance be yours! But wait there’s more (and caveats)!
As previously stated (see previous blog post), I have a problem with forgive and forget. Forgiveness is nice in theory, and it’s good for you, of course. Without contrition from the offender, however, I fear this high-minded principle turns people pleasers into doormats.
As for forgetting? What? Like a lobotomy? I have an excellent memory, and I know what you did!
The novel kicks off with a disclaimer for all my well-researched mayhem: This is not an instruction manual.
All acts of vengeance detailed herein were performed by fictional trained sociopaths.
