Mnevermind 3: Life is Awesome

by Jordan Castillo Price

Blurb: Daniel Schroeder wants nothing more than to repair his father’s broken memories, but it’s been a long time since he’s thought of himself as a memorysmith. Even though convincing Big Dan of their current reality is the most painful task Daniel faces every morning, somehow life manages to prevent him from finding a cure. He needs to keep their family business running. And he needs to moonlight at a competitor’s shop to keep all his employees paid. Or maybe he’s just trying to keep himself from exacerbating the situation.

A year ago, Daniel would have presumed he was clever enough to memorysmith his way out of their predicament, but nowadays he’s not so cavalier. Playing with people’s memories shouldn’t be taken lightly, and things can always get worse. Even with the help of some of the best minds in the business, Daniel still isn’t sure how to navigate his way out of the persistent false memory that’s crippled his life. Is new programming the answer? Better gear? More money? Or is time the only thing that can heal Big Dan’s memories…if they can even be fixed at all.

What Daniel needs most is some breathing room, and Elijah Crowe is eager to provide it. Since he’s smitten with Daniel, Elijah is determined to prove himself—and he’s more than qualified to clear Daniel’s schedule by taking over some duties at Adventuretech. With the support of his new boyfriend, possibilities begin to open up for Daniel, hints of things he hasn’t even realized he’d stopped hoping for: the contentment of a harmonious family, the fulfillment of his creative expression, and a chance at a relationship with a man he loves.

Available February 24th, 2015!

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An Exclusive Excerpt from Mnevermind 3: Life is Awesome

One good thing about my shifts at Recollections—they’re only four hours long. When I got home, Elijah’s car was parked in front of the house. He was early. I wondered how long he’d been there, and then I wondered if it even mattered. He and Big Dan not only got along with each other, but genuinely enjoyed spending time together. I thought back through the last few guys I’d dated. They were friendly enough to my dad, sure. But there was no real connection there. No matter how many times my ex, Joe, came around, he and Dad had never gone beyond remarking on the weather. But Elijah was different. Maybe his body language was hard to decipher, but the connection between them was obvious. I could tell how Elijah felt by the way he hung on anything Big Dan had to say.

Simple, right? Not really. Elijah being who he was, things never were entirely cut and dried. Inside, I found dinner, or several partially eaten dinners, piled at the far end of the dining room table. Four different plates of leftovers with only a bite or two taken from each had been pushed to the side, with an empty microwave dinner tray perched on top. In the table’s cleared center, legal pads, sticky notes and even graph paper were jumbled together, with the two of them hovering over the paper mishmash, deep in discussion.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Scheduling,” Elijah answered curtly, and shoved a piece of graph paper in my general direction.

So much for pleasantries.

I recognized my father’s neat handwriting interspersed with big, impulsive lettering that must’ve been Elijah’s. Between the two of them, they’d concocted a way to buy me a big chunk of free time Wednesday through Friday by having Elijah assist with the peg-ins on the morning shift, and to free my entire Mondays and Tuesdays by splitting the whole day’s worth of mnemographer duties between them. “Wow,” I said.

“Once you deal with this persistent mnem business,” my father said, “you can go back to smithing.”

What?

Elijah added, “Those four bit packets you’re running are terrible.”

I considered their words for a moment. Not the part about the four-bits—they really did suck. No, the part about what I’d do after the “persistent mnem business” was dealt with.

When had I stopped thinking there would be an after?

Since I didn’t trust myself to speak until I had a few moments to pull myself together, I just nodded and tried a bite of abandoned stew. And I realized I hadn’t eaten for the past ten hours—either my stomach had given up sending out pangs, or I’d simply learned to ignore them.

The spoon clinked loudly against the bowl as Elijah and my dad shuffled a few more papers, and I was glad for the fact that I wouldn’t be expected to make conversation since my mouth was full. The gap stretched, long and awkward, until finally Elijah announced, “I don’t know how you can eat that. It’s got cinnamon in it.”

“It’s Moroccan,” my father said. I looked up and met his eyes, and found he was quelling a smile.

Jordan Castillo Price

Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal thrillers colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” and boys in eyeliner.

Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made…one client at a time.

You can reach Jordan on her Facebook Fan Page, PsyCop Fan Page, Goodreads Fan Club, LiveJournal Blog, Twitter or sign up for her Newsletter.