Editing this book of mine is no easy task ...

Work in progress: Renee's thriller about a girl who believes her brother's death was no accident.

Working daily on editing my thriller novel, a coming-of-age story about a girl who believes that her brother's death was no accident. I'm fine-tuning the narrative's arc, its voice, its suspenseful pacing, and the villains rising from the cracks in this earth.

To whet your appetite, here's a very brief excerpt from the story. Thanks for reading and leave a comment. Let me know if this paragraph stirs your curiosity ... (smiley-face emoji inserted here, along with a very sharp knife).

Excerpt from Renee Coloman's book in progress:

There. I see it. My cardboard house. It's through the darkness that I walk. From where my aunt left me atop the crunchy gravel leading to the front porch steps. The outside light is never on. The broken bulb never replaced. I'm used to this darkness surrounding my home. I drag myself forward, existing as a zombie. Following the path of my dead brother Zane, my beacon of light, a speck of truth amid all the lies. Never is the side door to the kitchen locked. My father keeps it open. For his midnight friends. For creatures like me. He's there. Waiting. Tick, tock, tick. A bomb on the verge of detonating. I see his fuse lit, milliseconds away from exploding. Dad holds a bottle of High Life beer in his hand. Seven empties on the kitchen counter. He's not drunk. Not yet. His words aimed at me are precise, surgical, slicing through the frustrations between us. Carving away the truth. Sculpting new lies.

"So, you've heard," he says. "Your aunt can't seem to keep her big mouth shut."

Tick, tock, tick. There's a countdown clock inside my brain. Play the game, play the game, I tell myself. But I can't let him win. Not when it comes to my memories, to what I know about my brother's death. I can't let him win. Can't let Dad gaslight me. Again and again and again.

"So, you've heard," he says. "Your aunt can't seem to keep her big mouth shut."